Category Archives: News and Notes

In Remembrance: Ernst Klee (1942-2013)

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 20, Number 1 (March 2014)

In Remembrance: Ernst Klee (1942-2013)

By Manfred Gailus, Technische Universität Berlin

Ernst Klee, who died in May of last year, was a redoubtable investigative journalist and a noted non-academic historian whose publications did much to expose some of the darker side of National Socialism and its crimes. Originally he studied to be a social worker, and during the 1970s did much to support the lost and homeless inhabitants of his home town Frankfurt, particularly the mentally ill, the handicapped and those suffering from discrimination. But in the 1980s he became well known for his numerous books and newspaper articles about the scandals of the Nazi doctors, especially those involved with the so-called euthanasia programmes, as well as about the Nazi lawyers and what became of them later. He also published a number of items which revealed striking findings about the misdeeds and complicity of church officials and parishioners. The publicity he gained naturally made him enemies among these doctors, lawyers and clergymen in post-1945 Germany. But he persevered in exposing the former compromised careers of many prominent members of the Federal Republic. The number of his books is remarkable. Twenty-five of them were published by the well-known S. Fischer Publishing House. And in 1989 his sharp attack on the churches’ attitudes after 1933 appeared under the title: Jesus Christ’s Storm Troopers: The Churches under Hitler’s Thumb (Die SA Jesu Christi: Die Kirchen im Banne Hitlers). In the book’s foreword, the author was quick to note that “this is not an attack on the church, to which I myself still belong. The Church was not alone in its apostasy. But nowhere else was the hypocrisy so evident of on the one hand claiming to uphold the cause of the poor and weakest in society, while on the other hand in fact abandoning them for the sake of clinging to their own positions of power.”

Particularly notable was Klee’s wide-ranging Encyclopedia of People in the Third Reich. Who Was What Before and After 1945? (Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945?). This 750 page volume first appeared in 2003, containing the biographies of 4300 individuals from all sections of German society. In many cases this was the first time the wider public learnt about the activities of some leading figures of the Nazi era and their subsequent careers. Even today these revelations continue to surprise many people, since the individuals concerned have taken great pains to conceal their previous political sympathies or actions. Shortly before his death, Klee was able to finish his last book, published in the autumn of 2013, The Auschwitz Perpetrators and Accomplices, and What Became of Them (Auschwitz: Täter, Gehilfen, Opfer und was aus ihnen wurde: ein Personenlexikon).

It was only to be expected that Klee should have aroused much opposition by his forthright and uncompromising pursuit of truth. On the other hand he was honoured and admired for his dedication, and awarded tributes such as the Family Scholl Prize in 1997 and the Goethe Medallion given by the City of Frankfurt in 2001. Walther H. Pehle, a long-time friend and the reader for the S. Fischer Publishing House, praised him as “an outstanding journalist and significant historian of the Nazi period, whose courageous and innovative investigations were a most valuable contribution towards an adequate knowledge of those dark days.”

Book Note: Elisabeth Sifton and Fritz Stern, No Ordinary Men. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi, Resisters against Hitler in Church and State

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 20, Number 1 (March 2014)

Book Note: Elisabeth Sifton and Fritz Stern, No Ordinary Men. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi, Resisters against Hitler in Church and State (New York: New York Review Books, 2013), Pp. 157, ISBN 978-1-59017-681-3.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

The latest addition to the Bonhoeffer corpus of writings is a double-headed tribute to both Dietrich and his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi, written by Fritz Stern, a distinguished historian of Germany at Columbia University, New York, and by Elisabeth Sifton, the daughter of the noted American theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr. Their aim, in this short book, is to refresh and uphold the heroic picture of these men’s lives and tragic deaths as already formulated seventy years ago by British and American liberal churchmen, such as Bishop George Bell and Reinhold Niebuhr. According to this interpretation, their participation in the resistance movement in Germany was motivated by their high ethical ideals and by their moral revulsion against the Nazis’ aggressive and violent persecution of their opponents, particularly the Jews. Their account of the careers of both Bonhoeffer and von Dohnanyi clearly follows that given by Eberhard Bethge, since they too later got to know the surviving members of both families. In essence, however, they bring no new insights to the political or theological controversies about the resistance movement, its motives or tactics. Instead they repeat the now familiar themes of earlier biographies. They honour the inherent decency and courage of these intrepid witnesses to a “better” Germany. They deplore the readiness of other Germans, even years afterwards, to regard these men as traitors to the nation for seeking to overthrow the established government. They still regret the British government’s refusal to offer the resisters any gestures of support. They are dismayed at the leniency extended to former Nazis in post-war West Germany. In short, although well aware of the dangers of hagiography, especially in Bonhoeffer’s case–for all the wrong reasons–these authors nevertheless seek to affirm that “the Third Reich had no greater, more courageous and more admirable enemies” than these men who so steadfastly expressed their moral and political revolt against horrendous injustice and immeasurable cruelty. But they leave unexplored the many questions which historians and theologians still have about the complexities of the German resistance movement, and the historical conditions which led these men to follow the path of heroic self-sacrifice and eventual death as witnesses to their beliefs.

Curiously, in the appended footnotes, the references to the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Collected Works are all drawn from the German, rather than the now completed English edition.

Article Note: Samuel Koehne, “Reassessing The Holy Reich: Leading Nazis’ Views on Confession, Community and ‘Jewish’ Materialism”

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 20, Number 1 (March 2014)

Article Note: Samuel Koehne, “Reassessing The Holy Reich: Leading Nazis’ Views on Confession, Community and ‘Jewish’ Materialism,” Journal of Contemporary History 48 No. 3 (July 2013): 423-445.

By Kyle Jantzen, Ambrose University College

Samuel Koehne is a young Australian scholar who has been researching on the twin topics of how liberal and conservative Christians interpreted and responded to the rise of the National Socialist movement and how the Nazi movement developed its official policy on religion (see our summary of his research in Contemporary Church History Quarterly 18, no. 4 (December 2012)). In his recent article in the Journal of Contemporary History, Koehne revisits the controversy surrounding the Richard Steigmann-Gall book, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945—a controversy which featured prominently in the pages of the same journal back in early 2007. Koehne examines one of Steigmann-Gall’s key arguments in The Holy Reich, that the “positive Christianity” of Point 24 in the 1920 NSDAP Programme represented a coherent Nazi version of Christianity, which was supra-confessional (uncoupled from any Protestant or Catholic dogmatism), antisemitic (rooted in the German racial community), and socially ethical (placing common interest before private interest). In contrast, Koehne argues that “the notion of ‘positive Christianity’ as a Nazi ‘religious system’ has been largely invented” (423). Koehne makes his case by analyzing the public statements of Nazi leaders Adolf Hitler, Gottfried Feder, and Alfred Rosenberg on confession, community, and “Jewish” materialism, finding that all three ideas were “openly depicted as part of Nazi a racial-nationalist ideology,” and not portrayed as part of some kind of Nazi Christianity (424). In terms of source material, Koehne focuses on Hitler’s statements prior to the Munich Putsch and his writing in Mein Kampf, along with published explanations of the party programme by Rosenberg and Feder, from 1933 and 1934 respectively.

Koehne makes his case well. By the end of the article, there is little question that German racial purity, antisemitism, and Volksgemeinschaft were essential components of Nazi ideology, as opposed to core beliefs in a kind of Nazi Christianity. As a result, the “positive Christianity” of Point 24 remains ambiguous—social cohesion in Hitler’s Germany would not be achieved through an “’interconfessional’ religion but by a kind of salvational nationalism” (444). But if Koehne’s conclusion casts doubt on one of Richard Steigmann-Gall’s key arguments in The Holy Reich, it doesn’t clarify the questions the latter raises about individual Nazis’ attitudes towards Jesus or Christianity (444) or about the nature of National Socialist ecclesiastical policy. Amid Koehne’s examples of Hitler’s criticisms of the churches for the insufficiency of their Germanness and antisemitism are other references that suggest Christianity and the churches could play a positive role in German political life, as they had during the First World War (432-434). Nonetheless, Koehne’s article is an important reminder that religion was of minor importance to Hitler and other leading Nazis as they formulated and later implemented their antisemitic völkisch ideology, even if the their movement posed difficult challenges to Christianity and the German churches.

Article Note: Nicholas Railton, “Escaping from Sodom: A Christian Jew Encounters German Antisemitism”

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 20, Number 1 (March 2014)

Article Note: Nicholas Railton, “Escaping from Sodom: A Christian Jew Encounters German Antisemitism,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 64 (2013): 787-826.

By Kevin P. Spicer, C.S.C., Stonehill College

In his fascinating article, Nicholas Railton of the University of Ulster’s faculty of arts details the life of Maly Kagan (1897-1963), a Christian of Jewish heritage, to highlight the struggles faced by such individuals under National Socialism. The daughter of Russian immigrants who fled to Germany in the Kaiserzeit, Kagan left Orthodox Judaism in 1919, following a period of spiritual trial and personal tragedy. In 1925, her faith-journey led her to accept a position as an auxiliary nurse at the Innere Mission sponsored Tannenhof psychiatric hospital in Remscheid-Lüttringhausen in the Rhineland. Like many similar institutions in Germany, the Tannenhof hospital underwent nazification within a few months of Hitler’s assumption of power. Steps in this process included the introduction of the Hitler salute for all employees and the implementation of the July 1933 sterilization law. Tannenhof’s clerical director, Pastor Paul Ernst Werner, a devout Nazi and member of the German Christians, zealously promoted National Socialist doctrine through his leadership and bible study sessions. In particular, he was aided by Martha Rielandt, a teacher at Tannenhof and a member of the National Socialist Women’s League, who similarly promoted National Socialist ideology, especially in her classes for trainee deaconesses. Such changes in the institution did not go smoothly, especially after the German Christian Berlin Sportspalast November 1933 fiasco in which Reinhold Krause called for the removal of the Old Testament from the biblical canon. Though evidence is conflicting, it appears that Hildegard von Bülow, Mother Superior of Tannenhof’s deaconesses, challenged Werner and Rielandt on the content of their teaching. Both Werner and Rielandt were eventually removed from their positions. Kagan was also dismissed at the same time. It is unclear if the departures were linked, though Railton surmises that Kagan “became the sacrificial lamb that was meant to limit the influence and impact of Nazi ideology on the establishment” (p. 801).

After finding refugee at the Malche Bible House in Freienwalde an der Oder, upon recommendation of a director there, Kagan made her way to Berlin to begin work with the Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel (HCTI), a missionary society designed to “bear witness for Christ to the Jewish people in all its lands of their dispersion” (p. 804). There she worked with Heinrich Poms, also a Christian of Jewish heritage, who shared a background similar to Kagan. Following Kristallnacht, Poms and his family fled Germany with Kagan’s assistance. Kagan herself remained behind and assumed the running of the HCTI. Amazingly, she avoided deportation three times and continued in her administrative position. During this time, Kagan was even able to have surgery to correct a degenerate eye condition. She also became involved with relief efforts in connection with Pastor Heinrich Grüber’s Office, the Kirchliche Hilfsstelle für evangelische Nichatarier. This perilous work eventually brought her to hide both Jews and Christians of Jewish heritage in the HCTI building. At some point, the situation became too dangerous for Kagan to remain in public view and she went into hiding until the war ended.

In post-war Germany, the situation for Christians of Jewish heritage within the German Lutheran Church did not change. Railton attributes this to the Church’s unwillingness to address its National Socialist past directly and honestly. He writes: “It was a strange time when silence veiled a multitude of sins committed during the dark night of National Socialism: sins of commission and even more sins of omission” (p. 813). Despite this situation, Kagan resumed her missionary efforts and promoted the healing of wounds between Christians and Jews. To this end, she encouraged her former colleague, Heinrich Poms, to return to Germany to assist her in her efforts. Poms accepted her invitation and inaugurated a series of lectures that addressed the “‘demonic origin of antisemitism’ and the need to repent of all forms of such prejudice” (p. 816). After seven years of toiling with reconciliation work and finding little support from the Lutheran Church, Kagan had had enough. Family members in Israel had already been encouraging her to move there. Giving up on Germany, she accepted their invitation and moved to Israel just outside of Haifa. After her move, she continued to minister to the small Messianic Jewish community there until her sudden death in May 1963, the result of being hit by a motorbike.

Railton’s article informatively relates the horrendous impact of antisemitism on Christians of Jewish heritage. As Railton notes, this is a topic that deserves more scholarly attention. The article is well researched as Railton has thoroughly scoured the existing archives to tell Kagan’s story. Yet, there are some areas where the reader desires more information or greater clarification. For example, this reader would like to know more about the trials Poms and Kagan faced together. Similarly, one learns little about Kagan’s experience in hiding in the last years of the war. More specific examples might also have been offered to illustrate the prolongation of antisemitism in post-war German Lutheranism. These points aside, Railton’s article provides us with a unique insight into the life of one woman who courageously resisted the Nazis by living out her faith conviction. Hopefully, Railton’s work will inspire fellow historians to investigate this under-studied area further.

Memorial Speech: Dr. Margot Kaessmann on the 120th Anniversary of the Birth of Dr. Elisabeth Schmitz

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 20, Number 1 (March 2014)

Memorial Speech: Dr. Margot Kaessmann on the 120th Anniversary of the Birth of Dr. Elisabeth Schmitz

By Margot Kaessmann

On 17 December 2013, the City of Berlin and the Evangelical Church in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia honoured the historian Dr. Elisabeth Schmitz with a prestigious memorial service on the occasion of the 120^th anniversary of her birth. The memorial speech was given by the former Bishop of Hannover, Dr. Margot Kaessmann, who is currently representative of the Council of the EKD for the Reformation Jubilee of 2017. We are pleased to publish excerpts from her speech and thank Dr. John S. Conway for his translation of the text.

Margot Kaessmann: Memorial speech on Elisabeth Schmitz (1893-1977)

Elisabeth Schmitz was born on 23 August 1893. I am grateful that 120years later André Schmitz and Manfred Gailus have taken the initiative to honour her this evening in Berlin, and also that the present Bishop of Berlin-Brandenburg Markus Droege is here with us. She lived here in Berlin from 1915 to 1943, and from 1933 onwards she saw at close range how damaging the Nazi ideology truly was, which led her to recognize the dangers and to protest, quietly but unmistakably. It is now 75 years since the notorious Crystal Night pogrom in 1938, but Elisabeth Schmitz had already foreseen such disasters. As a result she felt obliged to resign her duties as a teacher, fearing that her integrity would be compromised.

Today’s commemoration must be seen as an exceptional event. This “protesting Protestant”, as Manfred Gailus calls her in his biography, has hardly been known, and much too little recognized. But as he says: “Protestantism in Germany in the 21st century will want to accord this woman a high place, and even sooner or later to put her in the category of Protestant saints.” Of course Protestants have a problem with saints, since they believe that only God deserves to be worshipped, not men or women. For people in the Reformation tradition, the communion of saints is reserved for those whose life and death was totally committed to God, as is recognized in Article 21 of the Augsburg Confession of 1530.

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But Manfred Gailus is quite right to assert that we can learn from the example set by Elisabeth Schmitz’ faithful witness and her self-sacrificing commitment to others. It is high time that we acknowledge what she achieved. When people talk about the Resistance Movement in the Third Reich, we all know about such names as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Alfred Delp, or Hans von Dohnanyi. But women’s names are mentioned only as supportive wives. But of course there were women active in this resistance, and not only in the “White Rose” circle, such as Sophie Scholl, or in the Red Chapel network. One of them was Elisabeth Schmitz. She was originally from Hanau, but worked here in Berlin, but finally went back to Hanau where she died at the age of 84 in 1977. Only seven people attended her funeral.

Why are we commemorating her now? One of her pupils was Dietgard Meyer, who later became a pastor in Hessen. I myself was ordained in 1985 in Hessen and so learnt to know Dietgard Meyer. She told me about Dr. Katharina Staritz, who was provisionally ordained in Breslau as a “city vicar” in 1938, and who was arrested because of her engagement in the resistance, but whose status was not recognized after the war. Only in the last few years did I learn about Elisabeth Schmitz, but I was quickly appreciative of her early and clear recognition of the unbearable violations of human dignity and rights by the Nazis. From Manfred Gailus’ biography I learnt how well established Elisabeth Schmitz was in her circle of well-educated women, such as Dr. Carola Barth, who taught religion, and also Dr. Elisabet von Harnack, or particularly later with Dr. Martha Kassel, a medical doctor, who was a Protestant of Jewish origin. She had good contacts with Professor Elisabeth Schiemann, and also with such colleagues as Dr. Elisabeth Abegg and Margarete Behrens. These were among the first generation of women to be particularly well educated, and took advantage of this fact to express their views with vigor. This gave them a capacity for a critical approach to affairs, and their freedom and independence therefore made them skeptical towards the allurements of the National Socialist ideology.

Already in 1933 Elisabeth Schmitz had expressed her outrage about the injustice and cruelties inflicted upon those of Jewish origin. This was a time when many in the church thought that matters would improve after the Nazis took power. But Elisabeth Schmitz was more sanguine. As Gailus noted: “She was deeply involved and offended by the daily humiliations inflicted on her ‘non-aryan’ friends Martha Kassel, and her brother the lawyer Heinrich Kassel, as well as on other friends and acquaintances. She was also influenced by belonging to a circle of Jewish intellectuals around Julius Bab, by her reading of the writings of Karl Barth and by her extended correspondence with this Swiss theologian from April 1933 onwards.” These were the factors which affected her after that date, and brought her to join the circle led by Pastor Gerhard Jacobi in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial parish. In 1934 she took the step of signing the “Red Card” indicating her willingness to join the Confessing Church group in this parish.

In 1935 already she wrote a memorandum urging her church to stand up against the discrimination being inflicted on the Jews. She wrote: “For the past two and a half years a severe persecution has been inflicted on a portion of our people because of their racial origin, including a portion of our own parish membership. The victims of this persecution have suffered dreadful distress both outwardly and inwardly but this is not widely known, which makes the guilt of the German people all the more reprehensible.”

Elisabeth Schmitz had studied history, German, and theology in order to teach in a secondary high school. She graduated in 1920 as a pupil of Friedrich Meinecke in Berlin, which was an unusual achievement for a woman at that time. She was then granted her teaching certificate, and from April 1929 she was promoted to be a senior teacher in the Berlin school system. One of her pupils described her as being “quietly reserved, concentrating on the lesson materials, but both positive and demanding in her requirements from us. Her dress was very modest, her hair parted in the middle and held up with a comb. All of which gave her a slightly old-fashioned look, which didn’t inspire us. Nevertheless she succeeded in gaining our respect. Her quiet authority made us speechless.”

These pupils didn’t know anything about what she did outside the school. But in fact she was a member of Helmut Gollwitzer’s “Dogmatic Study Circle.” Between 1933 and 1936 she conducted an extensive correspondence with Karl Barth in the hopes of getting him to adopt a public stance on the subject of the situation of the Jews in Germany. In these early years she received two answers. From her standpoint, this persecution of the Jews and the silence of the Church in response was a vital matter, but Barth at that time regarded this only as a side-issue. This seems to me to denote a vital difference among the active members of the Confessing Church who were trying to live out their Christian convictions. Was this really an issue about the true nature of the Church? Or was it merely a matter of standing up for the rights of the persecuted Jews? Or was the Church failing in its most essential obligation when it did not oppose vehemently enough the oppression, the betrayal of values, and the disrespect for human beings?

I was particularly struck by finding a very similar protest being made by Edith Stein, who was a Catholic convert from Judaism, writing to Pope Pius XI in April 1933. But she, like Elisabeth Schmitz, got no answer. But Schmitz carried on her commitment by writing an extensive memorandum about the situation of the Jews in Nazi Germany, and presenting this to the Synod of the Confessing Church which was held in Berlin in September 1935. But she got no reply. It is still not clear just who actually received this document. It would seem that its contents were talked about, but that it was never officially presented to the synod.

An interesting fact is that for a long while the authorship of this document was ascribed not to Elisabeth Schmitz, but to another member of the Confessing Church, Marga Meusel. Not until 1999 was Elisabeth Schmitz’ authorship recognized, and then only by chance when a large number of documents were discovered left behind in Hanau after her death. But the question still remains: why did she herself not take more trouble to have its contents better known even after the Nazi regime was overthrown?

This memorandum is an impressive document. Its author was an alert observer of the damages inflicted by the Nazi regime. For example, in describing the fate of children, she wrote: “Children ought to have the first claim on our sympathy. But now? In many large cities, Jewish children are sent to Jewish schools. Or their parents send them to Catholic schools, since in their view they will be better protected than in Protestant schools. And what about the converted Protestant children? And what happens to Jewish children in smaller communities where there is no Jewish school, or in the countryside? In at least one small town I have heard that the exercise books of Jewish children are torn up, and that their breakfast snacks are thrown in the gutter. Christian children are doing this, while Christian parents, teachers and pastors allow this to happen.” And to think that all this was written three years before Crystal Night!

Why did this protest fail to gain any support? Was it because the Confessing Church was more concerned about safeguarding its own existence than in saving the Jews? Or was it because the author was a woman and not a properly ordained pastor?

Elisabeth Schmitz was denounced because she had given hospitality to Martha Kassel, a Christian of Jewish origin. From 1935 on, she had increasing problems at her Lankwitz school because she couldn’t agree to “educate the children in the spirit of National Socialism”. So after the Crystal Night she asked to be allowed to retire. She was evacuated from Berlin in 1943 and returned to her parents’ home in Hanau. But from 1946 to 1958, she was once again teaching as before. She evidently had close contacts with her friends and former students, but never raised the subject of her memorandum.

I am concerned about this story. For one thing, it shows how early the injustices of Nazi policy were recognized. Everyone could have known what was happening. Look at the questions she posed so frankly in 1935: “Why do the ‘non-aryan’ Christians feel so deserted by the Church both locally and at the international level? Why does the Church do nothing? Why do they allow these palpable injustices to be perpetrated?”

Of course this raises the question about the nature of the Church. For her, it wasn’t just a question of the Church’s freedom to witness, as Karl Barth assumed, or about the fate of the baptized Jews, which so concerned Marga Meusel. She was much more concerned about the fate of the Church as Church if it was not prepared to stand up for the rights of those being maltreated. This was happening in front of these churchmen’s own eyes, or even with their participation. On the other hand, it is unforgivable that this memorandum was not honored after 1945. The church leaders were surely guilty of a collective amnesia, when only a few heroes were selected to be remembered, but their own failures were pushed out of sight and forgotten.

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But today we should really celebrate Elisabeth Schmitz and be thankful for her stalwart witness. And we should be encouraged to follow her example in the life of our churches today. Her story is one which needs to be resurrected from the archives and kept alive in the day-to-day practice of our community. In this way Elisabeth Schmitz can truly be described as a Protestant saint, whose life and witness will remain of vital importance for us today and for the future.

New Research on Nazism and Christianity: William Skiles

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 20, Number 1 (March 2014)

New Research on Nazism: William Skiles

By William Skiles, University of California, San Diego

William Skiles is a Ph.D Candidate in the History Department at the University of California, San Diego. Here is a brief description of his dissertation research. Mr. Skiles can be reached at wskiles@ucsd.edu.

Historians of the Church Struggle in Nazi Germany have closely examined the establishment of the oppositional Confessing Church (die Bekennende Kirche) in 1934, as well as the institutional conflicts between factions and figures within the movement and also with the regime and its supporters. Yet the approach of most historians has focused on the institution, its leaders, and its persecution by the Nazi regime, leaving essentially unexamined the most elemental task of the pastor – that is, preaching. My research explores the Confessing Church through the sermons its pastors preached Sunday after Sunday, for holidays and weddings and funerals, and even in the dark corners of concentration camps.

I am concerned with finding answers to a few key questions. First, do the sermons of the Confessing Church reveal expressions of condemnation or support for National Socialism or Adolf Hitler? In other words, did the pastors enter into a public debate about the Nazi regime from their position of influence behind the pulpit? Second, how do these sermons express views either in support or antagonistic towards Jews and Judaism? How often do we see cases of anti-Judaism or anti-Semitism preached, or conversely, how often do we see the Jews encouraged or esteemed as religious cousins in Nazi Germany? And lastly, just how often do we see Confessing Church sermons offer dissent, opposition, or even resistance to the Nazi regime. Given their unique role in Nazi Germany as professionals who had the opportunity to speak to the German population about Jews and their tradition, what did they say and how did they say it? And in answering these questions, I aim to understand how these sermons may have contributed to the social and religious milieu of the Protestant Church and, in a wider scope, Nazi Germany.

Of course, one of the most difficult problems is determining what constitutes opposition or resistance. I have examined over 900 sermons to find any expressions about Nazism or Hitler, and also about Jews and Judaism. Categorizing comments about Adolf Hitler and National Socialism is much more straight-forward, as political comments in a sermons stand out as unusual and purposeful in a sermon. For example, a pastor might condemn National Socialism as a false ideology or an ideology in direct opposition to Christianity; or a pastor would criticize Hitler as a false messiah or leader, or condemn other Nazi leaders for their persecution of the German churches.

On the other hand, analyzing comments about Jews and Judaism is more complicated. Naturally, we expect Christian pastors to preach on the Old Testament, to tell the stories contained in this book. Often the pastors’ presentations of these stories is without implication for the support or prejudice of Jews in Nazi Germany, they are simply re-iterations of old stories for a new audience. Therefore, I pay particular attention to comments that reflect views of Jews and Judaism relevant to the current situation in Nazi Germany. I did not catalogue more mundane examples of pastors discussing the traditions of the Jewish people, such as reiterations of the story of Jonah and the whale, for example. Nevertheless, the fact that these Confessing Church pastors preached on the Old Testament and held up Hebrew and Jewish figures as heroes or moral and spiritual examples demonstrates not only their appreciation of the Old Testament as a sacred text, but differentiates them from the pro-Nazi Protestant German Christian movement (Glaubensbewegung “Deutsche Christen”).

This research is an original contribution to the historiography because for the first time we will have an in-depth analysis of a variety of messages delivered by Confessing Church pastors in their sermons to their communities of faith. This will give us greater insight into the nature and the degree of dissent, opposition, and resistance in the everyday ministry of the church, and also provide some insight about public opinion expressed from the pulpit from week to week, whether explicitly or cryptically. In addition, I am interested in how the Nazi regime perceived these sermons and dealt with pastors who were deemed too vocal – the Gestapo repots are superb documents in this regard. Lastly, my research will advance our understanding of the social world of Germans in the Nazi dictatorship, particularly the values and priorities of their communities of faith, and how sermons may have informed political, social, and theological perspectives. In the end, we may better be able to answer to what extent Confessing Church pastors spoke out for the Jews or against the Nazi regime, or as was too often the case, simply kept silent.

Call for Papers: 2014 Annual Karl Barth Conference

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 19, Number 4 (December 2013)

Call for Papers: 2014 Annual Karl Barth Conference

The 2014 Annual Karl Barth Conference will be held on June 15^th-18^th, 2014 at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, NJ. The theme of the conference is “Barth, Jews, and Judaism” and the plenary speakers include Victoria Barnett (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum), Eberhard Busch (Georg-August-Universität-Göttingen), Ellen Charry (Princeton Theological Seminary), George Hunsinger (Princeton Theological Seminary), Mark Lindsay (MCD University of Divinity), David Novak (University of Toronto), and Peter Ochs (University of Virginia).

Those currently enrolled in a doctoral program or with completed doctorates are invited to submit paper proposals on this year’s theme. The focus of this year’s conference is the relationship between Judaism and Karl Barth’s theology both historically and constructively.

Abstracts not exceeding 250 words should be sent to Barth.center@ptsem.edu no later than March 1^st, 2014. Papers should be no more than 3,500 words in order to be delivered in 30 minutes and allow 15-20 minutes for Q&A. Please include your current academic standing with submissions.

Seminar Announcement: Moral Dilemmas and Moral Choice in the Holocaust

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 19, Number 4 (December 2013)

Seminar Announcement: Moral Dilemmas and Moral Choice in the Holocaust

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies

Program on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust

2013 Annual Seminar for Seminary and Religious Studies Faculty

Moral Dilemmas and Moral Choice in the Holocaust: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Pius XII as Case Studies in Religious Leadership

June 23-27, 2014

The Program on Ethics, Religions, and the Holocaust of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is pleased to announce its annual seminar for faculty from all disciplines but particularly for professors of theology, ethics, and religion at theological schools and other institutions of advanced education. The seminar is scheduled for June 23-27, 2014.

Holocaust history provides complex, often troubling examples of the responses of religious groups, theologians, and leaders from across Europe. As two of the most studied religious figures of this era, German Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Catholic pontiff Pope Pius XII offer significant insights into the larger theological, ecclesial, and political issues that shaped Christian reactions to National Socialism and the Holocaust. Bonhoeffer, a young Confessing Church pastor and theologian, eventually became involved in the conspiracy to overthrow the Nazi regime and was executed by the Nazis in 1945. Eugenio Pacelli was the Vatican’s secretary of state until he became Pope Pius XII in 1939. Both men have their defenders and critics, particularly with respect to their responses to the persecution of the Jews. This seminar will explore the historical and theological complexities of their respective roles, as well as their legacies in shaping Christian understandings of the Holocaust after 1945.

The seminar will be co-taught by Victoria Barnett and Robert Ventresca. Robert Ventresca is associate professor of history at King’s University College at Western University in London, Ontario (Canada), and the author of Soldier of Christ: The Life of Pope Pius XII (2013). He is also the author of From Fascism to Democracy: Culture and Politics in the Italian Election of 1948 (2004) which received an honorable mention for the Canadian Historical Association’s Wallace K. Ferguson Prize. Professor Ventresca was a founding member and inaugural Co-Chair of the former Center for Catholic-Jewish Learning at King’s University College at Western University. Victoria Barnett directs the Museum’s Programs on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust. She is also one of the general editors of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition, the translation of the complete 16-volume writings of Bonhoeffer being published by Fortress Press. She is also the author of Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity during the Holocaust (1999) and For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest against Hitler (1992).

Participants will also have the opportunity to learn more about Museum resources for their teaching and to consult and interact with Museum staff and visiting scholars. More information about the Museum’s programs on the history of the churches during the Holocaust can be found at www.ushmm.org/research/center/church/.

Candidates must be faculty members at accredited, degree-awarding institutions in North America. Applications must include: (1) a curriculum vitae; (2) a statement of the candidate’s specific interest and purpose for attending the seminar; and (3) a supporting letter from a departmental chair or dean addressing the candidate’s qualifications and the institution’s potential interest in having Holocaust-related courses taught.

Admission will be decided without regard to age, gender, race, creed, or national origin. A maximum of twenty applicants will be accepted. For non-local participants, the Center will (1) reimburse the cost of direct travel to and from the participant’s home institution and Washington, DC, up to but not exceeding the amount of $500; and (2) defray the cost of lodging for the duration of the course. Incidental, meal, and book expenses must be defrayed by the candidates or their respective institutions. All participants must attend the entire seminar.

Applications must be postmarked, emailed, or faxed no later than Monday, February 24, 2014, and sent to: Victoria Barnett, University Programs, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW, Washington, DC 20024-2150 (Email: vbarnett@ushmm.org; Fax: 202-479-9726). For questions, contact Victoria Barnett at 202-488-0469 or vbarnett@ushmm.org. All applicants will be notified of the results of the selection process by Monday, March 24, 2014.

This seminar is made possible by the Hoffberger Family Fund and by Joseph A. and Janeal Cannon and Family.

Conference Report: Reassessing Contemporary Church History, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, July 25-27, 2013

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 19, Number 3 (September 2013)

Conference Report: Reassessing Contemporary Church History, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, July 25-27, 2013

By Mark Edward Ruff, St. Louis University

This three-day conference brought twenty scholars from Canada, the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany to the campus of the University of British Columbia on the shores of Vancouver Bay to take stock of the current state of German church history in the 20^th century, plot out the future direction for the new electronic journal, Contemporary Church History Quarterly and to honor the eighty-three year old Anglo-Canadian scholar and pioneer in the field, John Conway.

The keynote address from Thursday evening, “The Future of World Christianity” was delivered by Mark Noll, Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. In his hour-long presentation, Noll contrasted the situation of Christianity in the Western and non-Western worlds for the years 1910 and 2010. Christianity has exploded numerically in Africa, Asia and Latin America, eclipsing its presence in what had at just a century earlier had been its European heartland. Noll began by highlighting the dramatic scope of recent changes. In 1970, there had been no legally open churches in China in 1970; China may now have more active believers attending church regularly than does Europe. Noll argued that it was raw life-and-death struggles of poverty, disease, tribal warfare, social dislocation, and economic transformation that help explain this surge in religiosity outside of the western world. He urged historians of Christianity to learn more about the work of African prophet-evangelists of the early 20^th century like William Wadé Harris and Simon Kimbangu instead of focusing exclusively on better-known western theologians and churchmen.

Friday’s proceedings were divided into three distinct panels. The first, “The Changing Historiography of the Church Struggle, 1945 – 2013” highlighted the changing hermeneutics, value-systems, theological categories and historical methodologies that have been employed to instill meaning into the struggles of the churches against the National Socialist state. Mark Edward Ruff’s paper, “The Reception of John Conway’s, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches” analyzed why Conway’s pioneering work evoked profoundly different reactions in the English-speaking world and in the Federal Republic of Germany. In the Anglo-American world, it garnered praise; in Germany, it was largely met with criticism or indifference. Ruff argued that the very factors that ensured its mostly positive appraisals in the United States guaranteed its harvest of criticism and silence in Germany from those professional historians or churchmen charged with compiling the history of the churches under Nazi rule. Three dynamics contributed to the divided response to the work of a practicing Anglican – a confessional divide, a national divide and a methodological divide. Reflecting ongoing confessional fissures, non-Catholic politicians, churchmen, journalists, playwrights and scholars had shown a consistent willingness to enter into or launch public discussions about the Catholic past in the Third Reich, while their Roman Catholic counterparts in the press, ecclesia, intelligensia and academy rarely, if ever, spoke out openly about the Protestant past. Negative reviews in Germany, moreover, reflected a heightened sensitivity to criticism not just from non-Catholics but from the Anglo-Saxon world, from where the majority of the non-German critical accounts of the recent past had come. And finally, Conway’s German critics assailed him for what they regarded as deficient methodologies, and in particular, his unwillingness to show the necessary empathy for his subjects and to employ what can be described as a Quellenpositivismus and refrain from making larger moral and historical judgments not born directly out of the sources he used.

Ruff’s account of the confessional dynamics in the German historical profession of the 1960s set the stage for Robert Ericksen’s paper, “Church Historians, “Profane” Historians, and our Odyssey Since Wilhelm Niemöller.” Wilhelm Niemöller was the younger brother to Martin Niemöller, an important leader of the Confessing Church during the Nazi era and a widely known prisoner of the regime after his arrest in 1937. Martin went on to serve in various church leadership positions after 1945, while Wilhelm emerged as the most important historian of the Protestant Kirchenkampf, or “Church Struggle,” in the first postwar decades. He quite consciously styled himself a “church historian,” separating himself from those historians designated “profane” in the German usage. In the 1960s he wrote, “It almost seems as if one could be satisfied with the rather shortsighted conclusion that church history and ‘profane’ history do not differ from one another.” Ericksen argued that Wilhelm Niemöller, in his effort to bring his faith to the task of writing history, distorted the history of the German Protestant Church under Hitler. He described the history of the Confessing Church, representing approximately 20% of Protestants, as if it were the history of the entire church. He also ignored those within the Confessing Church who supported Adolf Hitler and those who shared the antisemitic prejudices of the regime. Finally, Wilhelm Niemöller ignored the fact that both he and Martin had voted for the Nazi Party, and that he had joined the Party as early as 1923. Ericksen concluded by insisting that historians of churches must work as “profane” or secular historians, if they are to create a more usable and reliable history.

Manfred Gailus’ paper, “Ist die “Aufarbeitung” der NS-Zeit beendet? Anmerkungen zur kirchlichen Erinnerungskultur seit der Wende von 1989/90,” examined how the Protestant church dealt with its own past from the Third Reich. Focusing on the state church of Berlin-Brandenburg-schlesische-Oberlausitz (EKBO), Gailus focused on how Bishop Wolfgang Huber, one of the leaders of the Protestant church, practiced a politics of the past that can be regarded as representative for the Protestant church as a whole. In November 2002, Huber delivered a committed and self-critical sermon for the annual „day of repentance,“ a sermon which he dedicated to the memory of those Christians of Jewish heritage who had suffered and died in the Third Reich. This sermon can be regarded as a sign of Huber’s committed engagement with the past, one comparable with his efforts to compensate church slave laborers from the Second World War. But his subsequent efforts to come to terms with the past began to flag almost immediately thereafter. In 2005, he chose to take up the theme of the „church and the new social movements of the 1960s and 1970s“ – and not the church struggle of the 1930s – as the major theme for the fiftieth anniversary of the „Evangelische Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte.“ He also stayed out of the longstanding debates about the future of the Martin-Luther-Memorial- Church in Berlin-Mariendorf, a church that had been built during the Third Reich, decorated with sundry Nazi symbols and now enjoyed the protective status as a „historical landmark.“ The church under Huber, Gailus concluded, has certainly come a long way forward in its approach to the Nazi past but still lags behind the standards set not only by professional historians but by the larger public. It remains in urgent need of powerful initiatives to kick-start its reassessment of the past.

The second panel, „Theology, Theological Changes and the Ecumenical Movement“ brought to the table the fruits of recent research. Victoria Barnett’s paper, “Track Two Diplomacy, 1933-1939: International Responses from Catholics, Jews, and Ecumenical Protestants to Events in Nazi Germany,” showed how events that unfolded in Nazi Germany and Europe between 1933 – 1939 sparked a number of significant and ongoing initiatives among international religious leaders. This was particularly true of religious bodies whose scope was international and touched on ecumenical or interfaith issues; such bodies included the Holy See in Rome, ecumenical offices in Geneva and New York, and the conferences of Christians and Jews in the UK and the United States. Such initiatives were also driven by individual Protestants, Catholics, and Jews who were committed to fighting against National Socialism and helping its victims. Many of these individuals, Barnett pointed out, became involved early in refugee-related issues. Other issues of common concern included the ideological and political pressures on both Protestant and Catholic churches in Germany and the desire to prevent another European war. After the war began, many of these same circles had contacts with different German resistance circles, and some of these leaders wrote “think pieces” on the necessary moral foundations for a postwar peace. Although the Catholics and Protestants involved in these activities represented a distinct minority within their respective churches, an examination of their interactions, including their contacts with representatives of Jewish organizations, offers a much fuller picture of the international religious responses to Nazism and show the extent of interreligious communication even before 1939 as an attempt at “track two diplomacy.”

Matthew Hockenos’ paper “‘Blessed are the Peacemakers, for They Shall be called Sons of God’: Martin Niemöller’s Embrace of Pacifism, 1945-55” focused on the theological transformations in the decade from 1945 to 1955 for the former Confessing Church leader and hero, Martin Niemöller. Niemöller, Hockenos showed, jettisoned the Zwei–Reiche–Lehre (Doctrine of Two Kingdoms) and championed a political role for the Church. He abandoned German nationalism and became a leader of the ecumenical movement. He denounced war and the remilitarization of Germany and gradually came to adopt pacifism. Hockenos, however, made clear that Niemöller’s embrace of pacifism did not occur over night, as Niemöller had implied in his own account of his meeting with the German scientist Dr. Otto Hahn. It was a gradual process that one can trace from the time of his liberation to 1955. It appears to have been the result of a number of factors and events. These included including his own reflection on the destructiveness of WWII and the imminent danger that the Cold War posed to Germany, the outbreak of the Korean War, contact with ecumenical-minded church leaders abroad, and the deliberate efforts of pacifists in the United States and in Europe to convince Niemöller that the only position a true Christian could take on war was to be against because it was inimical to the message of Christ. From 1954 on Niemöller made it his primary goal to expand the circle of pacifists person by person through education and example. Just as his pacifist colleagues had slowly reeled him in through conversations and dialogue, he traveled the globe, frequently visiting Communist nations, preaching the way of non-violence and extolling the teachings and example of Mahatma Gandhi.

Wilhelm Damberg’s paper, „Vergangenheitsbewältigung und Theologie nach dem Konzil: J.B. Metz, die politische Theologie und die Würzburger Synode (1971-1975),” drew the attention of conference participants to a major theological paradigm shift in how the Roman Catholic Church in Germany came to terms with its past under National Socialism. Ironically, Damberg noted, this seismic shift has largely remained unknown to historians. It took place during the Würzburg Synod of 1971 to 1975, which was charged with implementing the resolutions and decrees of the Second Vatican Council in Germany. The central document for these changes was one bearing the name „Our Hope: A Commitment to Faith in our time.“ It prepared by the renowned German theologian, Johann Baptist Metz, and bore the hallmarks of Metz’s own so-called „Political Theology.“ This document met with the overwhelming approval of the synod. Metz shaped its content around the concept of a collective „examination of conscience,“ which confessed the guilt and failure of „a sinful church“ particularly towards the Jews of the Third Reich. In the formal debates about this document, disagreements broke out about the appropriate way to understand history. Metz defended himself against criticism of his historical judgments by insisting that historical consciousness and actual reconstructions of the past remained two separate things. For the church of the present, it was the former that matter. Metz, Damberg argued, was deconstructing historical narratives that Metz himself saw as being in direct opposition to the epochal theological change of „theology after Auschwitz.“

The third panel on Friday, “Expanding the Borders: Inter and Intra-National, Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Narratives” pointed out new directions for historical research. Thomas Großbölting led off with his paper„‚Kirchenkampf gibt es immer‘: Memory Politics as a Point of Reference for an inner-ecclesiastical Counter-culture.” Großbölting made his focus those moments in the 1960s and 1970s when special groups within the churches and individual Christians referred to the Nazi past. How, he asked, did they draw connections between themselves and the church struggle from the 1930s? He argued that the silence of the 1950s regarding the Nazi past was replaced in the second half of the 1960s by greater openness – and even bluntness. For the new social movements and special interest groups within the churches, in particular, the politics of remembrance became a major point of orientation and mobilization. Organizations as disparate as Una voce, Unum et semper, the confessional movement “No other gospel”, the German branch of Opus Dei and “Christians for socialism” all sought to find new ways of living the personal faith and to radicalize the Christian Gospel. For conservatives, radicalization meant bring the Christian Gospel back to its roots; for left-wingers, it meant rediscovering the communist ideals of the early church. Großbölting, in turn, showed how such groups like Catholic student parishes and Protestant confessional movements referred to the Nazi-past in general and to the Church struggle, in particular, as a way to realize these aims. In spite of the enormous attention they found from the media at the end of the 1960s, the impact of these movements remained limited. The Protestant counter-movement took up the battle cry, “Kirche muss Kirche bleiben” –Church must remain the Church.” But even these stirring words, Großbölting concluded, never found much resonance among the ordinary members of the Protestant and the Catholic Church.

In his paper, “Conflict and Post-Conflict Representations: Autobiographical Writings of German Theologians after 1945,” Björn Krondorfer showed how the questions of gender, and male gender in particular, and of retrospective historical representatives, are central to our analyses of the postwar church. Krondorfer argued that gendered roles and identifications allowed German men in institutions like the church to adjust to a new environment after 1945. His paper critically analyzed the autobiographies of two Protestant German male theologians published after 1945, and in particular, those of Walter Künneth ( Lebensführungen: Der Wahrheit verpflichtet; 1979) and Helmut Thielicke (Zu Gast auf einem schönen Stern; 1984.) Realizing that their autobiographical act of remembering placed them into a morally and politically charged historical context, these two theologians carefully crafted their memoirs, employing apologetic and eluding strategies when accounting for their lives during the 1930s and 1940s. The theme of “German suffering” often looms largely in these memoirs, while Jews are mostly absent; hence, the boundaries between victim and perpetrator are constantly blurred. As “helpless victims,” these men might run the risk of being effeminized, as “acting subjects” they might run the risk of being accused of moral failure. Versions of this mental split, Krondorfer argued, are to be found in almost all post-1945 autobiographies of German male theologians.

Suzanne Brown-Fleming’s paper, “Real-Time Narrative Responses to Nazism: March/ April 1933 in Germany and Rome” focused on the Catholic diplomatic response to the earliest antisemitic measures of the Nazis. On April 1, the Nazis ordered a boycott of Jewish businesses, department stores, lawyers and physicians on April 1, 1933, the first centrally directed action by the National Socialists against Jews after the Seizure of Power. The Civil Service Law of 7 April was the first to contain the so-called “Aryan Paragraph,” stipulating that only those of Aryan descent could be employed in public service. Brown-Fleming Using drew upon the recently-released records of the Vatican nunciature in Munich and Berlin during the tenure of Pope Pius XI. She discussed the exchanges between Pope Pius XI, then-Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII, 1939-1958), his diplomat in Germany, Cesare Orsenigo, German bishops, and ordinary Catholics and Jews. The elections of March 5, 1933, she argued, revealed a dissonance between the Nazi party, Catholic Center Party voters, and Catholics who hoped to find some way to be both true to their bishops and to Hitler. That dissonance, she concluded, affected the response of the Vatican Secretariat of State and German bishops to the first anti-Jewish laws in April 1933 in ways that still need to be further explored.

The third day of the conference was devoted to a discussion of the future direction of the electronic journal, Contemporary Church History Quarterly. This journal had its origins in the electronic brainchild of John Conway, what he upon his retirement from the University of British Columbia in 1995, modestly called “The Newsletter.” This was an eclectic mixture of book reviews and notices about events dealing with contemporary international and ecumenical church history. A recipient of a Humboldt Research fellowship in 1963-4 and a founding member of the Scholars’ Conference on the German Church and the Holocaust in 1970, Conway was best known for his masterwork from 1968, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933-1945, the first extensive history in English of the National Socialists’ campaign against the German churches and the responses of both the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. He developed this free monthly electronic newsletter to provide a speedier flow of information on new publications on the history of the churches in the 20th century. Traditional quarterly journals were far too slow in informing readers of new publications and works in progress. In addition, they tended to reach only specialized academic audiences – and not the lay and religious audiences just as keenly interested in the highly charged topic of the churches’ conduct during the Nazi era such as the conduct of Pope Pius XII and the responses of the churches to the Holocaust. Sent out by email to a list-serve of subscribers, Conway’s newsletter went by the name of the Association of Contemporary Church Historians (ACCH), or Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler.

In 2009, Conway turned over the helm of the Newsletter to an editorial board, which now includes sixteen theologians and historians based in Germany, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. The editorial board members, almost all of whom were gathered in Vancouver, discussed future directions for the journal, and in particular, how to further transatlantic cooperation. Kyle Jantzen, who almost single-handedly engineered the journal’s technical transformation from a newsletter sent out by an email list-serve to a web-based presence, gave an overview of the journal’s new features and the number of hits recent issues and articles have been receiving. Members also discussed the possibility of developing a continuously updated on-line data base that will compile the new publications in the field – journal articles, articles in edited volumes, edited volumes and monograph – from both sides of the Atlantic.

Last and most significantly, the concluding evening of the conference honored the pioneering work of John Conway, who has distinguished himself not only through his scholarly work but in his tireless efforts to bring together scholars from multiple disciplines and nations. Doris Bergen, Robert Ericksen, Steven Schroeder, Kyle Jantzen, and Gerhard Besier offered formal tributes in the course of Saturday evening.

Reflections on the Indian Residential Schools and the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 19, Number 3 (September 2013)

Reflections on the Indian Residential Schools and the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

By Steven Schroeder, University of the Fraser Valley

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) will convene in Vancouver, British Columbia for one week this month (18-21 September 2013) to hear survivors tell of their experiences in the Indian Residential Schools, and to encourage reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada.^{^[1]} The work of the TRC has exposed weighty historical problems for all Canadians, but it has also provided Canadians opportunities to re-examine their country’s colonial policies, processes of nation-building and national identity formation, and its human rights record. For Christians, this work has evoked reason for critical reflection concerning mission work, evangelism, the role of the church in society, church-state relations, and how to best atone for past misdeeds.

For over a hundred years (1880s-1996), the Canadian government partnered with the mainline churches — Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, and United (and unofficially with Mennonite and Baptist organizations) – in running the Indian Residential School system. The 140 schools that comprised the system were found in every province and territory, even the northernmost regions of the Canadian arctic. The Indian Act, which mandated that Aboriginal children attend the schools, and court injunctions that threatened parents with arrest if they did not comply, ensured school enrollments.^{^[2]} In all, over 150,000 Aboriginal children – beginning at the age of six – were forcibly removed from their homes to attend state-sponsored, church-run schools. Hundreds of lawsuits stemming from abuses in the schools have led to numerous actions, including the establishment of the TRC. The first task of the TRC was to establish and disseminate the facts regarding the school system. The 2012 book They Came for the Children: Canada, Aboriginal Peoples, and Residential Schools is a product of the commission’s work.

TRC-Report The book explains how the churches in Canada began their missionary work of converting Aboriginals to Christianity and to western cultural practices long before confederation. This foundation proved useful to Canadian government officials who found accord with the church leaders’ intent “to civilize and Christianize” Aboriginal children.^{^[3]} Together, the government and the churches expanded the existing church education infrastructure to all of Canada with the intent to, as government officials put it, “kill the Indian in the child.” The campaign to eliminate Canada’s “Indian problem” was to be achieved through assimilation, extinguishing Aboriginal culture, and eliminating Aboriginal interest in land claims. Although Canada’s population would be multi-racial, the success of the assimilation campaign would ensure that all Canadians were sufficiently “civilized” (i.e., westernized and Christian), thereby reducing the government’s treaty obligations considerably.^{^[4]}

The horrible accounts in the book reveal terrible abuses that the vast majority of these students experienced in the dysfunctional, ill-planned, and under-funded school system. Students were abused emotionally, physically, and sexually, and they were punished for using their language.^{^[5]} Tuberculosis and other serious illnesses were rampant, and the death rate was very high (at school, and after release). For instance, during the first decade of operations at the residential school at Qu’Appelle, 174 of 344 students died from a variety of illnesses.^{^[6]} Funding was woefully inadequate, leaving students undernourished and tasked with all sorts of labour jobs, thus sidelining school work. The utter failure of the residential school system was obvious to all by the early 1900s, and many people – even some government officials – supported closing the schools decades prior to their actual closure.^{^[7]}

The history of the residential schools has only partly been realized by the Aboriginal community, and has been almost entirely unknown to the non-Indigenous population in Canada. It seems that the churches and the government intended for the abuses of the failed campaign to fade away with the schools themselves. However, the Canadian Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples’ 1996 report documented the suffering of the students in the residential schools, which gave rise to hundreds of legal claims aimed at the churches and the federal government. The resulting 2007 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement totaled $1.9 billion, $60 million of which was designated for the establishment and activities of the TRC.

The mandate of the TRC – to find facts and foster reconciliation – has been frustrated from the outset of its mission due to the Canadian government’s refusal to open its archives to the commission’s researchers (They Came for the Children is based mostly on published materials).^{^[8]} Even though Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave a formal apology on behalf of the Canadian government in 2008, one has to wonder about what the apology actually addressed, and what remains overlooked. Withholding the documents has added to past indignities, deepened the distrust between Canadians and their government, and limited the scope of reconciliatory work. In response, Aboriginal writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson recently called on the Canadian government to: “Honour the apology. Release the documents. Be on the right side of history on this one. It’s the very, very least you can do.”^{^[9]}

The government’s resistance to full cooperation with the TRC has not kept other researchers from finding new information on human rights violations in the residential schools. Recent research by food historian Ian Mosby has revealed that Canadian nutritionists partnered with government agencies and church personnel in conducting nutritional and pharmaceutical experiments on malnourished Aboriginal children in six residential schools.^{^[10]} Food rations were kept low intentionally, and any useful findings were to benefit non-Indigenous Canadians (which they did). One wonders about what other accounts exist in the archival documents that have remained under lock and key, but it appears that we may soon find out. An Ontario court injunction of January 2013 forced the hand of the government, and in August 2013 the first researchers from the TRC gained access to the federal government’s records of the residential schools. The research team now finds itself on a tight schedule, as the TRC’s mandate expires in mid-2014.

The residential school system is truly Canada’s national shame. At stake is the integrity of the government, the churches, and the very fabric of Canadian society. The government’s lack of cooperation in the fact-finding stage of the TRC’s work has impeded reconciliation. How can Canadians address their past appropriately, when they don’t know the facts? Without the facts, how can all Canadians work together toward a better future? Head of the TRC, Chief Wilton Littlechild, has rightly claimed: “People just don’t know the history [of the residential schools], and once they know the history, they’ll make the connection as to why there is such a high rate of addiction, and why there is such a high rate of suicide and unemployment [in some Aboriginal communities].”^{^[11]} Also at stake is the integrity of the churches. Some Christian pacifists in Canada who claimed Conscientious Objector status during the Second World War, satisfied their alternative service requirement by joining the teaching staff in the racist, abusive residential schools. This, and related accounts of Christian reasoning for complicity in the school system brings into question aspects of Christian pacifism, Christian missions, evangelism, the role of the church in society and nation building, and the relationship between church and state. Some Christians have begun to address these issues positively, and in new ways. During 1991-1998, all of the churches involved in the schools issued formal apologies for their respective roles in the schools, and the churches have continued to work toward reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.^{^[12]} These efforts will be encouraged at the TRC events in Vancouver, where one will find church tents for conversation, healing, and reconciliation.

Even if Aboriginal survivors of the residential school system were left to initiate the processes of reconciliation through airing grievances, lawsuits, and court injunctions, the results of these actions have been promising. With the TRC publicly revealing these facts and raising awareness among Canadians, Canadians now have the opportunity to respond, and to act in keeping with their long, proud history of being “peacekeepers.” There is plenty of peacebuilding work to be done within their own communities, between peoples of diverse backgrounds, cultures, and worldviews. To date, the response in Canadian cities to the work of the TRC has been mostly positive, evident in thousands of people attending the TRC events, including walks for reconciliation. It would appear that the public is on board.^{^[13]} Sustaining and growing this interest among Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada is crucial to moving forward the reconciliatory work that is already underway.

Notes:

^{^[1]} For information on the Vancouver Truth and Reconciliation Commission events in September 2013, see: http://www.myrobust.com/websites/vancouver/index.php?p=719#. For events at universities in the Vancouver area, see: University of the Fraser Valley: http://www.ufv.ca/indigenous/day-of-learning/ University of British Columbia: http://irsi.aboriginal.ubc.ca/ Simon Fraser University: http://www.sfu.ca/reconciliation.html

^{^[2]} Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, They Came for the Children: Canada, Aboriginal Peoples, and Residential Schools. (Winnipeg: TRC, 2012), 18.

^{^[3]} TRC, They Came for the Children, 10.

^{^[4]} TRC, They Came for the Children, 6.

^{^[5]} TRC, They Came for the Children, 1,2,10,37-45

^{^[6]} TRC, They Came for the Children, 17

^{^[7]} TRC, They Came for the Children, 17, 19.

^{^[8]} Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Interim Report (Winnipeg: TRC, 2012), 15-16.

^{^[9]} Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, “Honour the Apology,” blog entry (23 July 2013): http://leannesimpson.ca/2013/07/23/honour-the-apology/#more-866 (p.3)

^{^[10]} See Ian Mosby, “Administering Colonial Science: Nutrition Research and Human Biomedical Experimentation in Aboriginal Communities and Residential Schools, 1942-1952,” Food Deprivation and Aboriginals,” Histoire sociale/Social History, vol. XLVI, 91 (Mai/May 2013): 145-172

^{^[11]} Jamie Ross, “Littlechild: Commission will uncover the truth – Residential schools: Head of commission says system tore apart families,” May 30th, 2011 http://media.knet.ca/node/11250

^{^[12]} See TRC, They Came for the Children, 81. Official apologies regarding the Residential Schools were as follows: Roman Catholic Oblate (1991), Anglican Church of Canada (1993), Presbyterian Church of Canada (1994), and United Church of Canada (1998). For publications and websites, see: The United Church of Canada, Justice and Reconciliation: The Legacy of Indian Residential Schools and the Journey Toward Reconciliation. (United Church: 2001); Jeremy Bergen, Ecclesial Repentance: The Churches Confront their Sinful Pasts. (Continuum: 2011); Mennonite websites: http://bc.mcc.org/whatwedo/TRC; http://mcbc.ca/trc-2013/ ; Anglican website: http://www.anglican.ca/relationships/trc ; Presbyterian website: http://presbyterian.ca/healing/more/; Roman Catholic website: http://www.cccb.ca/site/eng/media-room/archives/media-releases/2008/2590-launching-of-truth-and-reconciliation-commission-an-opportunity-for-healing-and-hope

^{^[13]} Environics Research Group, 2008 National Benchmark Survey, Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada

and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2008. This survey revealed that “Fully two-thirds (67%) of Canadians believe that individual Canadians have a role to play in efforts to bring about reconciliation in response to the legacy of the Indian residential schools system, even if they had no experience with Indian residential schools.” (29)

Book Note: Vera K. Fast, ed., Companions of the Peace Diaries and Letters of Monica Storrs, 1931-1939

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 19, Number 3 (September 2013)

Book Note: Vera K. Fast, ed., Companions of the Peace Diaries and Letters of Monica Storrs, 1931-1939 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), ISBN 0-8020-8254-8, 246 Pp.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

In November 1938, one of the more remarkable responses to Hitler’s brutal pogrom against the German Jews—the Kristallnacht—came from a remote Anglican parish in distant northern British Columbia.
Monca Storrs, the parish worker at St Martin’s Church, Fort St. John, in the newly settled Peace River District, was so outraged that she spontaneously contacted George Bell, the Bishop of Chichester and chairman of the Church of England Committee for non-Aryan Christians, and offered to sponsor and act as guardian to two young victims, if the bishop could arrange for them to be brought to England, and if they were willing to come out and live in what she described as “the very western edge of the British Empire”.

Fast-Companions Monica was a cultured English gentlewoman who had volunteered in 1931 to come out to western Canada to help build up the Anglican Church amongst the isolated and often impoverished homesteaders of the Peace Dictrict. Luckily, at the end of 1938, Monica was taking a home leave, so she was able to meet the two German boys when they arrived in England on one of the “Kindertransporte” which rescued several thousand children in the few short months before the outbreak of war.
Horst, later Hugh, Schramm and Arwed, later David, Lewinski had been selected through the Society of Friends office in Berlin, where Bishop Bell’s sister-in Law, Laura Livingstone, took care of the transport and the paperwork involved. The children had to say goodbye to their parents on the Berlin railway station platform, not knowing when or if they would ever meet again. In Hugh’s case, his father was killed fighting in Russia, but his mother managed to escape to Shanghai. She and her son were later reunited when she migrated to the United States after the war was over. In David’s case, both his parents were deported to Auschwitz, where his mother died but his father survived. In 1953 David was at last able to fly over to Germany to meet his father again, after fourteen cruel years of separation.
Monica had hoped to bring the boys back with her to Canada when she returned in 1939, but bureaucracy intervened. The Canadian government was still reluctant to admit Jewish refugees, even Christian ones. On her way home, she stopped off in Ottawa to intervene personally with the immigration officials and even secured an interview with the Governor-General, Lord Tweedsmuir, to ask for his help. But it took a year before permission was granted for the boys to accompany a group of English children being evacuated to Canada. Eventually they arrived in British Columbia to be greeted most warmly by Monica and her colleagues in the community she had established as the Companions of the Peace.

This generous response undoubtedly saved the lives of these two refugee boys. But for years this international and humanitarian gesture remained unknown. This book shows us this inspiring example of one woman’s resolute service and outreach from furthest western Canada to help alleviate the terrible crimes of the Holocaust.

Research Note: New Works on German Roman Catholicism Published within 2012-2013

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 19, Number 3 (September 2013)

Research Note: New Works on German Roman Catholicism Published within 2012-2013

By Kevin P. Spicer, C.S.C., Stonehill College

Keeping up with the ever-expanding literature on recent German church history remains a daunting challenge. We hope this list of newer publications on the Roman Catholic Church in Germany serves to aid CCHQ readers who research or teach in this area.

Anderson, Margaret Lavinia. “Anatomy of an Election: Anti-Catholicism, Antisemitism, and Social Conflict in the Era of Reichsgründung and Kulturkampf.” In Von Freiheit, Solidarität und Subsidiarität – Staat und Gesellschaft der Moderne in Theorie und Praxis. Festschrift für Karsten Ruppert zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by Markus Raasch and Tobias Hirschmüller. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2013: 39-95.

Bankier, David, Dan Michman, and Iael Nidam-Orvieto, eds. Pius XII and the Holocaust: Current State of Research. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2012.

Bennette, Rebecca Ayako. Fighting for the Soul of Germany: The Catholic Struggle for Inclusion after Unification. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.

Bergen, Doris L. “Speak of the Devil: Hubert Wolf on Pope Pius XI and the Vatican Archives” (Review Essay). Harvard Theological Review 105 (2012): 115-121.

Beschet, Paul, SJ. Mission in Thuringia in the Time of Nazism. Translated by Theodore P. Fraser. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2012.

Burkard, Dominik. Johannes Baptista Sproll: Bischof im Widerstand. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2013.

Cieslak, Stanislaw. “Auf der Suche nach Versöhnung. Kardinal Adam Kozlowieckis Erinnerungen an seine Zeit im KZ Dachau.” Stimmen der Zeit 230 (2012): 397-408.

Connelly, John. From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews 1933-1965. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.

Coppa, Frank J. The Life & Pontificate of Pope Pius XII. Between History & Controversy. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2013.

Dahlke, Benjamin. “Zwischen Gegnerschaft und Kollaboration. Zur Geschichte der Philosoph-Theologischen Akademie Paderborn während des Nationalsozialismus.” Jahrbuch für mitteldeutsche Kirchen- und Ordensgeschichte 8 (2012): 49-82.

Deschner, Karlheinz. Mit Gott und den Faschisten: Der Vatikan im Bunde mit Mussolini, Franco, Hitler und Pavelic. Reprint (new press). Freiburg: Ahriman, 2012.

Ehret, Ulrike. Church, Nation and Race: Catholics and Antisemitism in Germany and England, 1918-45. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012.

Eisner, Peter. The Pope’s Last Crusade: How and American Jesuit Helped Pope Pius XI’s Campaign to Stop Hitler. NY: William Morrow, 2013.

Ericksen, Robert P. Complicity in the Holocaust. Churches and Universities in Nazi Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Feldmann, Christian. Einen Eid auf Hitler? Nie. Franz Reinisch: Ein Leben für die Menschenwürde. Vallendar: Patris, 2012.

Fibich, Jan Kanty. Die Caritas im Bistum Limburg in der Zeit des „Dritten Reiches“ (1929-1946). Mainz: Gesellschaft für Mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte, 2012.

Flammer, Thomas. Nationalsozialismus und katholische Kirche im Freistaat Braunschweig 1931-1945. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2013.

Gerber, Stefan. “Vom Barnabasbrief zum ‘Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts’: Philipp Haeuser (1876-1960).” In Von Freiheit, Solidarität und Subsidiarität – Staat und Gesellschaft der Moderne in Theorie und Praxis. Festschrift für Karsten Ruppert zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by Markus Raasch and Tobias Hirschmüller. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2013: 427-448.

Goldstein, Phyllis. A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism. Brookline, MA: Facing History and Ourselves, 2012.

Helbach, Ulrich, ed. Akten deutscher Bischöfe seit 1945. Westliche Besatzungszonen 1945-1947. 2 Volumes. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2012.

Hesemann, Michael. Hitlers Religion. Reprint (new press). Augsburg: Sankt Ulrich, 2012.

Holzbauer, Matthias. Der unselige Papst. Pius XII. und seine Verstrickung in die Verbrechen des 20. Jahrhunderts … und weshalb der Vatikan ihn seligsprechen will. Marktheidenfeld: Das Weisse Pferd, 2012.

Houlihan, Patrick J. “Local Catholicism as Transnational War Experience: Everyday Religious Practice in Occupied Northern France, 1914-1918.” Central European History 45 (2012): 233-267.

Hürten, Heinz. “50 Jahre Kommission für Zeitgeschichte: Überlegungen zu Problemen der Katholizismusforschung.” In Von Freiheit, Solidarität und Subsidiarität – Staat und Gesellschaft der Moderne in Theorie und Praxis. Festschrift für Karsten Ruppert zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by Markus Raasch and Tobias Hirschmüller. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2013: 753-760.

Käßmann, Margot, ed. Gott will Taten sehen. Christlicher Widerstand gegen Hitler. Ein Lesebuch. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2013. Kidder, Annemarie S., ed. Ultimate Price: Testimonies of Christian who Resisted the Third Reich. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012.

Kitzmüller, Stefan. “Der österreichische Franziskaner P. Zyrill Fischer (1892-1945). Früher Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus.” Wissenschaft und Weisheit. 75 (2012): 80-101.

Lapomarda, Vincent A. The Catholic Bishops of Europe and the Nazi Persections of Catholics and Jews. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellon Press, 2012.

Lawler, Justus George. Were the Popes Against the Jews? Tracking the Myths, Confronting the Ideologues. Grand Rapids, MI: William M. Eerdmans, 2012.

Legge, Jerome S., Jr. “Resisting a War Crimes Trial: The Malmedy Massacre, the German Churches, and the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 26 (2012): 229-260.

Loth, Wilfried. “Der Katholizismus und die Durchsetzung der modernen Demokratie.” In Von Freiheit, Solidarität und Subsidiarität – Staat und Gesellschaft der Moderne in Theorie und Praxis. Festschrift für Karsten Ruppert zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by Markus Raasch and Tobias Hirschmüller. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2013: 737-751.

Malak, Henryk Maria. Shavelings in Death Camps. A Polish Priest’s Memoir of Imprisonment by the Nazis, 1939-1945. Translated by Bozenna J. Tucker and Thomas R. Tucker. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland, 2012.

Nagel, Anne C. Hitlers Bildungsreformer. Das Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung 1934-1945. Frankfurt: Fischer, 2012.

Nirenberg, David. Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition. NY: W.W. Norton, 2013.

Pfister, Peter, ed. Eugenio Pacelli – Pius XII (1876-1958): In View of Scholarship. Translated by Christof Morrissey. Regensburg: Scnhell und Steiner, 2012.

Porter-Szűcs, Brian. Faith and Fatherland: Catholicism, Modernity, and Poland. NY: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Recker, Klemens-August. „Unter Preußenadler und Hakenkreuz“: Katholisches Milieu zwischen Selbstbehauptung und Auflösung. Münster: Aschendorff, 2012.

Sciolino, Athony J. The Holocaust, the Church, and the Law of Unintended Consequences: How Christian Anti-Judaism Spawned Nazi Anti-Semitism. A Judge’s Vedict. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2012.

Seeger, Hans-Karl and Herman Hösken. Dechant Josef Lodde – Coesfelds Fels in der braunen Flut. Christliche Zivilcourage zur Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Berlin: LIT, 2012.

Tec, Nechama. Resistance: Jews and Christians Who Defied the Nazi Terror. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Thomas, Gordon. The Pope’s Jews: The Vatican’s Secret Plan to Save Jews from the Nazis. NY: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2012.

Tomberg, Friedrich. Das Christentum in Hitlers Weltanschauung. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2012.

Ventresca, Robert A. Soldier of Christ: The Life of Pope Pius XII. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.

Verhofstadt, Dirk. Pius XII. und die Vernichtung der Juden. Translated by Rudy Mondelaers. Aschaffenburg: Alibri, 2013.

Wolf, Hubert, ed. Eugenio Pacelli als Nuntius in Deutschland. Forschungsperspektiven und Ansätze zu einem internationalen Vergleich. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2012.

——. “Reichskonkordat für Ermächtigungsgesetz? Zur Historisierung der Scholder-Repgen-Kontroverse über das Verhältnis des Vatikans zum Nationalsozialismus.” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 60 (2012): 169-200.

Zedler, Jörg. Bayern und der Vatikan. Eine politische Biographie des letzten bayerischen Gesandten am Heiligen Stuhl Otto von Ritter (1909-1934). Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2013.

Zuccotti, Susan. Pére Marie-Benoît and Jewish Rescue: How a French Priest Together with Jewish Friends Saved Thousands during the Holocaust. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2013.

Book Note: Annemarie S. Kidder, ed., Ultimate Price. Testimonies of Christians Who Resisted the Third Reich

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 19, Number 2 (June 2013)

Book Note: Annemarie S. Kidder, ed., Ultimate Price. Testimonies of Christians Who Resisted the Third Reich (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012), 177 Pp., ISBN 9781570759550.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

kidder-ultimate This short selection of texts written by seven notable Germans who resisted the Nazi onslaught against their Christian faith will be a helpful introduction for beginners in this field. While the testimonies of Dietrich Bonhoeffer have been known in English translation for many years, it is good to have these brief and excellently translated extracts from the writings of lesser known figures, such as Sophie Scholl, the Munich student executed for her protests against Nazi totalitarianism, or of Jochen Klepper, the well-known novelist, who committed suicide with his Jewish wife in 1942. On the Catholic side, the Jesuit Father Alfred Delp was also executed for his involvement with the July 1944 plot to overthrow Hitler. His prison letters are, like Bonhoeffer’s, an inspiring witness to his enduring faith. Less known to English-speaking readers will be the testimony of Franz Jägerstätter, the Austrian farmer, executed for his refusal to serve in Hitler’s army, or the courageous stand of the Berlin Cathedral Provost, Bernhard Lichtenberg, who prayed publicly for the persecuted Jews and for the prisoners in concentration camps, for which he was arrested and sent to prison. The only survivor, the Jesuit Father Rupert Mayer, was already arrested in 1937 for his provocative sermons critical of the regime. His refusal to be silenced led to his being imprisoned again in 1938, and then to being placed under house arrest in a distant monastery in 1940. The common theme of all these witnesses was their determination to protest against the injustices of the Nazi regime, even though their motives for doing so varied widely. They were all well aware of their isolation in adopting such views, but were resolved to defend the integrity of their Christian beliefs. Their readiness to challenge the majority’s obeisance, gullibility or fearfulness is what makes these testimonies so compelling. This little book will undoubtedly help to uphold their memory among a wider public, in the hope that their sacrifices will resonate far beyond their own times or their original homeland.

Article Note: Benjamin Pearson, “The Pluralization of Protestant Politics: Public Responsibility, Rearmament, and Division at the 1950s Kirchentage”

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 19, Number 2 (June 2013)

Article Note: Benjamin Pearson, “The Pluralization of Protestant Politics: Public Responsibility, Rearmament, and Division at the 1950s Kirchentage” Central European History 43 (2010), 270-300.

By Matthew D. Hockenos, Skidmore College

Kirchentag 1954 in Leipzig. Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-25414-0111 / CC-BY-SA

After WWII and twelve years of Nazi rule Catholic and Protestant church leaders in Germany agreed that at the center of Germany’s reconstruction needed to be a renewal of Christian values. They urged church members to take active, personal responsibility for political life. This was an especially strong sentiment among members of the former Confessing Church. The churches participated in the establishment of the Christian Democratic Union so that Christian values could have a more influential role in the political sphere and Reinhold von Thadden-Trieglaff founded the Kirchentag in 1949 to strengthen the faith and public responsibility of Protestant laity. Although Catholics and Protestants co-existed in the CDU it was in the late 1940s and early 1950s an uncomfortable co-existence because they differed on several issues, such as division, rearmament, and confessional schools. Adenauer’s policies challenged Christian unity. He won over Catholics and many conservative Protestants but lost the Protestant Left associated with Karl Barth, Gustav Heinemann, and Martin Niemöller. Pearson traces the manifestations of this split in the political debates that took place in the 1950s Kirchentage. The debates in the early 1950s were so caustic that “rather than promoting public responsibility and Christian unity for the transformation of German society, the churches were instead tearing themselves apart.” Eventually, however, the split among Protestants, he argues, forced the Protestant Church “to accept-even embrace-the liberal democratic value of political pluralism.” Protestants from both sides came to see political disagreement and debate as a positive sign of a working democracy.

Conference Announcement: Reassessing Contemporary Church History

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 19, Number 2 (June 2013)

Conference Announcement: Reassessing Contemporary Church History, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, July 25-27, 2013

By Steven Schroeder, University of the Fraser Valley

Members of the editorial board of Contemporary Church History Quarterly are pleased to announce a conference entitled “Reassessing Contemporary Church History,” to be held at the University of British Columbia from July 25-27, 2013. The conference will serve three purposes: it will bring together members of the editorial board and a number of prominent scholars from Germany, the United States, and Canada to discuss how to expand the scope and functions of the Quarterly; it will provide a forum for the leading scholars in the field to present cutting-edge research and broaden the discipline; and it will provide an ideal setting for these scholars to honor the pioneering work of Professor John Conway, who has distinguished himself not only through his scholarly work but in his tireless efforts to bring together scholars from multiple disciplines and nations.

The conference will begin at Regent College on Thursday, July 25, with the keynote address by Professor Mark Noll, titled: “The future of World Christianity.” This lecture is open for all to attend. After two days of presentations, panel discussions, and board meetings, the conference will conclude on Saturday, July 27, with a tribute dinner to Professor John Conway, and an outing to view the magnificent fireworks display – the annual “Celebration of Light” – in the Vancouver harbor.

The conference program is as follows:

Thursday, July 25
Location: Regent College, 5800 University Boulevard, Vancouver

7:00 Keynote Address: Mark Noll, “The Future of World Christianity”

Friday, July 26
Location: Buchanan Tower, UBC (11th Floor Seminar Room)

9:00-10:45 The Changing Historiography of the “Church Struggle”, 1945 – 2013
Chair: Lauren Faulkner (University of Notre Dame, USA)
Commentator: Gerhard Besier (Technische Universität, Dresden)

1. Mark Edward Ruff (Saint Louis University, USA)- “Historiographical Battles in the 1960s after Hochhuth and the Reception of John Conway’s The Nazi Persecution of the Churches in Germany”
2. Robert Ericksen (Pacific Lutheran University, USA) – “Church Historians, Profane Historians and our Odyssey since Wilhelm Niemoeller”
3. Manfred Gailus (Technische Universität Berlin) – „Ist die “Aufarbeitung” der NS-Zeit beendet? Anmerkungen zur kirchlichen Erinnerungskultur seit der Wende von 1989/90”

11:15-1:00 Theology, Theological Changes and the Ecumenical Movement
Chair: Steven Schroeder (University of the Fraser Valley, Canada)
Commentator: Kevin Spicer (Stonehill College, USA)

1. Victoria Barnett (United States Memorial Holocaust Museum) – “Boundary Crossings: Conversations between the Ecumenical Movement and Catholic and Jewish Representatives, 1932 – 1948”
2. Matthew Hockenos (Skidmore College) – “From Nationalist to Ecumenist: The Transformation of Martin Niemöller´s Theology”
3. Wilhelm Damberg (Ruhr-Universität-Bochum) – „Vergangenheitsbewältigung und Theologie nach dem Konzil: J.B. Metz, die politische Theologie und die Wuerzburger Synode (1971-1975)“

2:00 – 4:15 Expanding the borders: Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Narratives
Chair: Beth-Griech Polelle (Bowling Green State University, USA)

1. Thomas Großbölting (Westfälische-Wilhelms-Universität Münster): “Kirchenkampf gibt es immer: Erinnerungspolitik in innerkirchlichen Konflikten”
2. Kyle Jantzen (Ambrose University College, Canada) : “Other Church Struggles? Church-State Relations in Hitler’s Germany and Mobutu’s Zaire”
3. Suzanne Brown-Fleming (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum): “Catholics in the International Tracing Service: Research Opportunities”
4. Bjorn Krondorfer (Northern Arizona University): “Gender and Post-Conflict Representations: Autobiographical Writings of German Theologians after 1945”

6:00 – 9:00 Dinner Cruise: Vancouver Harbor

Saturday, July 27
Location: Regent College, (Basement, Rooms 11 &14)

9:00- 10:30 Expanding the profile of the Contemporary Church History Quarterly

11:00- 1:00 Creating a Transatlantic Database

6:00 – 9:00 Dinner and Tribute to Professor John Conway

10:00 – 11:00 Vancouver Harbor Fireworks (Celebration of Light)