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Conference Report: Intellectual Freedom and the Church: A Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte/Contemporary Church History Symposium, November 19-21, 2010, George Bell House, Chichester Cathedral

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2010

Conference Report: Intellectual Freedom and the Church: A Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte/Contemporary Church History Symposium, November 19-21, 2010, George Bell House, Chichester Cathedral.

By Andrew Chandler, George Bell Institute, University of Chichester

George Bell House was formally opened by the Archbishop of Canterbury in October 2008, on the fiftieth anniversary of Bell’s death. Set beside the cathedral, where Bell’s life and work is much commemorated, the house also stands outside the gate to the Bishop’s Palace, where visitors like Gandhi, Bonhoeffer, T.S. Eliot and Henry Moore came now and then across almost three decades. Today, George Bell House offers a valuable venue for small conferences. It certainly proved a very happy setting for this particular conference, held under the auspices of the journal Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte / Contemporary Church history. Speakers from a number of countries arrived on November 19 and throughout the following day they were joined by members of the University of Chichester, the cathedral, local people from Chichester itself and visitors from the breadth of the county.

The conference began with a paper on Ignaz von Döllinger, given by Dr. Charlotte Hansen, a Danish scholar now working with the George Bell Institute at the cathedral. The paper focussed attention on the confident character of Döllinger’s thought, his determination to rejuvenate Catholic theology and the response of the Vatican to what was increasingly viewed in those quarters as a challenge to its own theological authority. Yet Döllinger was a far from negligible figure: he won friends and admirers acrossEurope. Matters came to a head after the Vatican Council in 1870: from this point Döllinger’s fate was sealed. He was excommunicated, converged briefly with the Old Catholic Church, and soon retired from public life. Dr. Hansen concluded by drawing upon statements by Pope Benedict XVI and placing Döllinger’s ideas and experiences in a broader, unfolding context of Catholic theological life.

Professor Robert Ericksen of Pacific Lutheran University gave a paper on Emanuel Hirsch and “the turn towards Hitler.” Hirsch was a thinker who practiced and admired intellectual freedom in his own understanding of the Christian faith and message.  However, he also saw intellectual freedom in the modern world leading almost inevitably toward what Kierkegaard called the “all-encompassing debate about everything.” He feared this turn toward radical scepticism, both in religion and in democratic politics; so he turned toward the discipline and control promised by Hitler, accepting Hitler’s claims to represent the traditional values of the German Volk. Only an authoritarian, völkisch, unified Germany could prevent the threat of nihilism and chaos he saw threatening in the modern world, and especially in Weimar. The way was open for an accommodation with the Deutsche Christen movement and National Socialism. Professor Ericksen suggested that questions about intellectual freedom remain relevant and difficult for us in our multicultural world. They cannot easily be resolved, but at least we can recognize how disastrous Hirsch’s turn toward Hitler proved to be.

Professor Gerhard Besier of the Technische Universität Dresden examined the careers of two more German thinkers, this time drawn from the post-war period. Hans Küng is, of course, a well-known name; in the Protestant Gerd Lüdemann there was something of a counterpart. Much of the paper examined the character of their thought and the reasons why they had become controversial within their own confessions. Both had very different church authorities with which to contend, but in both cases the story was one of confrontation, a good deal of manoeuvring over academic positions, a certain amount of avoidance, censure and repudiation. Küng earned many supporters within his own church and across Protestantism too. Lüdemann ended up with a Chair in the United States, from which he continues to write freely. This paper produced an extended discussion on the place of church authorities in the selection of theological faculties in universities, and also began to point towards the distinction to be found between the perceived responsibilities of teaching ordinands on the one hand and those of teaching students from all backgrounds.

In his contribution Professor Torleiv Austad of the Norwegian School of Theology looked at these themes from a Norwegian perspective, but also as one at various times involved in them as a senior church leader and a scholar. He began with the promise to the ordaining bishop with which an ordained minister begins their career and examined the story of Helge Hognestad, ordained in 1965. Hognestad was first influenced by Marxism, but soon became drawn to ‘New Age’ ideas and also became increasingly critical of the theological traditions of his church. In 1984 he resigned from office and five years later asked to be released from his ordination promise. In 1998 he sought to be readmitted, claiming that his thought was now compatible with Evangelical-Lutheran doctrine. This provoked a new debate and deliberations of the bishop, the Doctrinal Commission of the church and, in time, the state itself. Professor Austad concluded, “Intellectual freedom is important. But it cannot be used to undermine an ordained minister’s obligations and to break his or her promises.”

In the final paper, Professor Gerhard Ringshausen of the Leuphana Universität Lüneburg presented a paper which did much to complement this, but also enhanced the discussion of the meaning and reality of “freedom” in the context of Christian theology at large. He showed how the expression of freedom involves a wide range of meanings: first, the Christian understanding of freedom, which is founded in Jesus Christ, who makes his believers free of their sins and free to love to him; second, the sense that freedom is also a basic value of political and social life; third, the problem of differentiating and connecting both these understandings of freedom. Here, for example, it had to be asked if academic freedom in the Church and in theology could be understood as part of Christian freedom or as a consequence of it. The paper proceeded to explore these ideas in the theology of Luther, Troeltsch, Harnack and, most recently, Wolfgang Huber.

The conference concluded with the evensong service at the cathedral and a brief tribute at the spot where Bell’s ashes are interred. It was the eve of the festival of Christ the King. As we left, the cathedral organist could be heard practicing Bell’s own hymn, written for that festival while he was bishop here.

 

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May 2009 Newsletter

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Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

May 2009 — Vol. XV, no. 5

 Dear Friends,

Contents:

1) Obituary: Albrecht Schoenherr
2) Book reviews:

a) Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 10
b) Söderblom, Letters
c) Spicer, Hitler’s Priests
d) Shea, A Cross Too Heavy

1) It is with regret that we learn of the death at the age of 97 of Albrecht Schoenherr, the retired Protestant bishop of Berlin-Brandenburg in Potsdam on March 9th.He was the last surviving student of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s illegal seminary at Finkenwalde, near Stettin in 1936-7, and subsequently was the leading figure in the postwar life of the church in what was then East Germany.
The present Bishop, Wolfgang Huber, described Schoenherr as an impressive witness to Jesus Christ whose steadfastness had enabled his church community in East Germany to resist the attacks of the Communist state authorities, and defended the integrity of the gospel from encroachments from political interests. He was born in 1911, and as a student attended both Tuebingen and Berlin universities where he met Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a young lecturer. After the Nazi seizure of power, and the outbreak of the Church Struggle, Schoenherr was influenced by Bonhoeffer to join the Confessing Church, the minority group which strongly opposed all attempts to introduce Nazi ideas into the church. He then joined the first course given under Bonhoeffer’s direction at the seminary at Finkenwalde, near Stettin in 1935, and subsequently stayed for a second year as Bonhoeffer’s assistant. In later years he referred to this experience as the most valuable in his career.

Like most of his contemporaries, Schoenherr was conscripted for the army during the war, and served in Belgium and Italy. He was there taken captive, and then became chaplain to two German POW camps until his release in 1946. On returning to East Germany he established a similar seminary for Brandenburg and led this for seventeen years. In 1963 he became General Superintendent for Berlin-Brandenburg, during the period of severe repression by the Communist government of what had become the German Democratic Republic. One of the most serious contentions arose over the continuing links between the Evangelical Church there and its partners in West Germany. Otto Dibelius, for example, who was Bishop of Berlin and Brandenburg, but resided in West Berlin, was forbidden to exercise his functions in East Germany, and militantly attacked the Communist regime in the eastern part of his diocese. Schoenherr had then the unenviable task of trying to cope with the political and pastoral problems which ensued. He recognised that the political divisions of the country were too strong for the church to overcome, and hence sought to persuade his following in East Germany to declare their independence from their western partners for the sake of their better witness to the new political reality. This came to be called “The Church in Socialism” but remained a controversial step, since it appeared to welcome the idea of collaboration with the Communist regime. In fact Schoenherr’s steadfastness was a staunch defence against any such capitulation. In 1969 he was elected founding president of the Federation of Protestant Churches in the German Democratic Republic, and in 1972 was elected to be Bishop of (East) Berlin and Brandenburg after the diocese was split. He vigorously defended his churches’ interests, and in so doing earned the respect of the political regime. In 1978, he negotiated an agreement with the then leader of the East German government, Erich Honecker, which brought the church major alleviations, and official recognition of its situation. This included permission to make religious broadcasts on radio and television, pastoral visits to prisons, and other advantages. These undoubtedly prepared the way for the church in East Germany to play such an active role in the turbulent events of 1989.

But Schoenherr retired from these church responsibilities in 1981, though he continued for twenty years to travel widely lecturing on Bonhoeffer’s legacy and teaching courses for the laity called Conversations on Faith. He was naturally active in the International Bonhoeffer Society and was a co-editor for the comprehensive German edition of Bonhoeffer’s collected works. He himself wrote his autobiography in German “But the time was not lost”.

He married twice, had six children, 20 grandchildren and 29 great-grandchildren. He will be remembered as a stalwart upholder of Protestant church orthodoxy during times of great political tensions, and a leader who set a standard of uncompromising faithfulness to the gospel of Christ.

2a) ed. C. Green (English edition), Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Barcelona, Berlin, New York 1928-1931. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 10) Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2008. 764 pp. ISBN -13-978-0-8006-8330-6.

The English translation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s collected works proceeds apace. The latest to appear is volume 10, which introduces us to the young Bonhoeffer, covering the period from his twenty-second birthday until he is twenty-five, i.e. from 1928 to 1931. During these years he spent two extensive periods abroad, first in Barcelona, as assistant to the Chaplain of the German Protestant community, and second, as a post-doctoral student at Union Theological Seminary in New York. In 1928, Bonhoeffer had just completed his PhD thesis for the theological faculty of the University of Berlin, and was faced with the decision whether to seek his vocation as a pastor in the German Evangelical Church, or to turn to an academic career in theology. It was in part to test this choice that he accepted the posting to Barcelona. He was in any case too young to be ordained, and a certain prompting to see beyond Germany’s borders led him to accept. His subsequent visit to the United States was far more purposeful. It arose from his agreement with his mentors’ view that any future German theologian should be aware of the theological currents in the New World.

During both of these absences from home, Bonhoeffer maintained a lively correspondence with his family and friends, almost all of which has been astonishingly preserved. Together with various surviving papers containing the texts of addresses and sermons he delivered, along with lecture notes taken in New York, this volume brings together a remarkable corpus of over 600 pages. This material has all been carefully edited by Bonhoeffer’s friend Eberhard Bethge, and is now most skilfully translated into a fluent and comprehensible English. Clifford Green adds a valuable introduction to the English edition. The volume serves to show us an interesting stage in the development of this talented, even precocious young man.

Life in the German expatriate community in Barcelona, consisting of businessmen and merchants, offered little or no stimulus to Bonhoeffer’s theological development. He commented wickedly on his Pastor’s never reading any theological book, and on the disastrous tone of his sermons. By contrast Bonhoeffer preached lengthy and dense sermons, mainly reflecting the teachings of Karl Barth. He did however make himself popular through his work with the community’s children. His lack of Spanish, of course, was a barrier to assessing conditions in Spain. But his letters contain no explicit comments on the political or social conditions he found there. It was not until he returned to Berlin a year later that he could resume work on his post-doctoral thesis, needed to qualify for an academic position in his own department of systematic theology.

His sojourn in America eighteen months later was far more productive, both personally and theologically. At first he was shocked to find how undogmatic and indeed superficial was the kind of preaching offered in most of the main-stream churches in New York. An optimistic immanentism, coupled with a pragmatic desire to build up their congregations, seemed to be the main preoccupation of the Protestant clergy. He was equally shocked by the absence of dogmatic teaching at Union Seminary. It was only when he was introduced by a fellow student of Afro-American descent to the black churches in Harlem, especially the Abyssinian Baptist Church, that his enthusiasm was aroused. Here, he said, “one could really still hear someone talk in a Christian sense about sin and grace and the love of God. The black Christ is preached with captivating passion and vividness”. This experience of the religious fervour among an oppressed people deeply affected his personal beliefs. So too he learnt much from the insights of his fellow student, the Frenchman Jean Lasserre, who confronted him with the claims of Jesus, especially those recorded in the Sermon on the Mount, which was to become so central in Bonhoeffer’s own thinking. It was the beginning of an inspiring but costly discipleship.

Bonhoeffer’s disdain for the weaknesses of American religiosity, and his condescension about the teaching of theology at Union, can be attributed to the widespread feelings of superiority held by the European elite about American life and customs. Bonhoeffer himself came from an elite academic family, he had studied at Germany’s foremost university, under Adolf von Harnack, generally acknowledged as Europe’s most notable scholar.

His theological cogitations, especially on the philosophy of religion, were highly esoteric, abstract and demanding of great intellectual comprehension. He was unlikely to find any counterpart on the other side of the Atlantic. Some of his fellow students were undoubtedly put off by his aloofness, his conservatism and his German origin. But that is what he was. His class-based political sympathies can be seen in the notes he left for an address on the subject of “Germany” given to a mass rally of schoolchildren shortly after his arrival. In this talk he rehearsed the well-worn litany of complaints by German conservatives, beginning with Germany’s disastrous loss of the war, the cruel imposition of a hunger blockade by the Allies, the scandal of the Versailles Treaty, the loss of German territory and colonies, the harshness of the burden of reparations, the economic hardships of the inflation and then of the depression, and above all the humiliation of the so-called War Guilt Clause, blaming Germany for the origins of the war. He made no mention of the sweeping German aggressions, or of the innumerable victims and sufferings these actions had caused, especially in France and Belgium. It is probable that at the time Bonhoeffer was not aware how far these views were being exploited by the Nazis.

It was only after he returned from America that he was forced to see how readily his fellow middle-class Germans were letting themselves be seduced. But his own national sympathies remained. When, eight years later in 1939 he returned to New York, and was offered a chance to escape from Nazi tyranny, he famously replied: “I shall have no right to take part in the restoration of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the tribulations of this time with my people”. Exile or emigration was not a real option. He remained rooted in his German and Christian heritage.

This volume ends when Bonhoeffer returned to Berlin in mid-1931. He was immediately caught up in new and challenging engagements in the ecumenical movement, in social work projects in the Berlin slums, and in his teaching responsibilities at the Berlin University. All made him aware of the growing crisis in Germany, which was to culminate with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power on January 30th, 1933. While it is tempting to believe that Bonhoeffer’s stay in America influenced his political stance thereafter, this would not seem to be borne out by the evidence. But this volume depicts a highly thoughtful young professional enlarging his horizons in a number of different directions, such as his newly found interest in pacifism, which later on were to have a significant impact on his subsequent career.

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2b) Dietz Lange (ed.) Nathan Söderblom: Brev – Lettres – Briefe – Letters. A selection from his correspondence, 528 pp. incl. frontispiece, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006, ISBN 13:978-3-525-60005-4; ISBN 10:3-525-60005-4

This stout volume certainly does something to maintain the presence of its illustrious subject in the modern academic catalogues. Söderblom, the prophetic guiding spirit of early twentieth-century ecumenism and the guiding spirit behind the 1925 Stockholm conference, was deeply admired in Britain and the United States. At least one official photograph of Bishop Bell of Chichester places him purposefully beside a portrait of his Swedish hero. If this long shadow has since receded, it reflects a good deal upon a decline in our interest in themes which once excited both the idealist and the scholar. It is surely time that we retrieved them.

Dietz Lange, a German scholar, here edits a great variety of materials with authority. This is a valuable compendium, designed to reveal the richness of Söderblom’s fascinations and the diversity of his friends and allies. It is, as its title pronounces, an international collection for which the committed reader will need English and German. The admirable introduction is in English; the Swedish letters are duly presented in the original and translated into English.

Lange finds his Söderblom at large in three guises: the pastor, the professor and the archbishop. In all respects, an editor has his work cut out for him: Söderblom, Lange remarks patiently, was ‘a tireless letter writer’, who would busily dictate letters even as he walked along the street (p. 9). The shelves of Uppsala University Library now stagger under the weight of no less than 38,000 letters, dairies and notes. And yet what accumulates here is not merely official and dry, but lively and rich. For Söderblom enjoyed people and he inhabited many distinct dimensions with apparent ease. Church historians might note his conviction – in contradiction to Harnack – that the history of religion belonged not solely in the history department, but in the theological faculty.

The great bulk of this collection lies, very naturally and properly, with the Söderblom’s years as archbishop of Uppsala. Although his appointment came as a shock to the politicos of his church, it was a public role for which he was brilliantly qualified. A convinced internationalist, his public work now coincided with the outbreak of the First World War and, subsequently, a new, bustling age of conferences and movements. It was in this landscape that those from the English-speaking world encountered him. In this collection, it is no surprise to find him in eager dialogue with the assorted giants of German Protestantism: Otto Dibelius, Adolf von Harnack, Rudolf Otto and Frierich Heiler (quite a collection in itself). But here, too, are the Scandinavians, Gustaf Aulén, Eivind Berggrav and Birger Forell, the American, Henry Atkinson, the Scot David Cairns and Archbishop Davidson.

Altogether, this is a valuable volume which deserves the international readership for which it is so clearly designed. Both the tenacious editor and his committed publishers have every right to our gratitude.

Andrew Chandler, George Bell Institute at the University of Chichester

2c) Kevin P. Spicer, Hitler’s Priests. Catholic Clergy and National Socialism. De Kalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 2008. 369 Pp. ISBN978-0-87580-380-5 (published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).
(This review appeared first in the Catholic Historical Review, April 2009)

In 1933 the majority of Germans enthusiastically welcomed Hitler’s takeover of power. Amongst the Catholic population, there was a small number of priests who had already demonstrated their support of the man whom they believed would lead Germany into a new era of national greatness. Kevin Spicer has now provided us with a commendable account of the ideas and careers of 138 such men, who he designates as “brown priests”. His diligent and perceptive research in both the ecclesiastical and government archives in Germany examines these men’s motives, describes their advocacy of Nazi ideas and assesses the influence of their political activism.

Needless to say, Spicer, with all the advantages of hindsight, is highly critical of these priests, but also makes clear that, for the most part, so were their bishops at the time. Many were disciplined by their ecclesiastical superiors, not so much for their political zealotry, but for their failure to obtain the appropriate approval. Spicer gives numerous examples to show how these priests refused to give up their pro-Nazi political agitation, even when ordered to do so. And he draws attention to the difficulties such well-publicized activities caused to their bishops.

Most of these brown priests were convinced that their advocacy for the Nazi Party was fully compatible with their personal Catholic faith. And they had little difficulty in backing the Nazis’ antisemitism and racism, making use of the church’s traditional hostility towards Judaism, and their own prejudices against the alleged malevolence of German Jewry.

It is notable that over a third of these priests had doctorates in philosophy or theology, which they used to advance their mixture of German Catholicism and National Socialism. The more prominent of these promoters of the Nazi cause, such as the former Abbot Alban Schachleiter, have already appeared in earlier histories of the German Church Struggle. But Spicer gives us the fullest account in English of these individuals’ waywardness. Schachleiter, for instance, made much of his personal acquaintance with Hitler, championed an extreme German nationalism which had led to his expulsion from his abbey in Prague in 1918, was frequently the main speaker at Nazi rallies, and used his contacts to evade the restrictions placed on him by his superiors. When he died in June 1937, Hitler ordered that he should be given a state funeral, and sent his deputy, Hess, to attend.

Equally notorious were those brown priests who believed that their Nazi sympathies had thwarted their careers in the church and denied them their due recognition. Some even left the church and became ideological crusaders against their former colleagues. Albert Hartl, for example, whom Spicer scarcely mentions, held a high position in Himmler’s security intelligence service, and in 1941 was busy preparing plans for eradicating church influence in Germany once victory was achieved. (More information on Hartl’s nefarious activities can be found in the authoritative German companion volume by Wofgang Dierker, Himmlers Glaubenskrieger,Paderborn 2003).

Spicer also provides information about lesser-known figures,. many of whom were sent to obscure rural parishes, where they eagerly enough supported the Nazi Party in their pastoral ministry and parish activities for many years. Particularly difficult to assess is the extent to which these men’s fervent attachment to Nazi ideas was affected by the Nazis’ own anti-Catholic extremism. Spicer is not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and thus perhaps exaggerates their single-minded determination to conflate Nazism and Catholicism. At any rate, as he shows, in the aftermath, many brown priests were exculpated by denazification courts, and almost all eventually made their way back into public ministry.

Writing for an English-speaking audience about events on another continent which took place seventy or more years ago presents real difficulties, all the more since Spicer clearly has no sympathy at all for his subjects. But his purpose is clear: to draw attention to the folly and danger of allowing political fervour to distort the orthodox heritage of the church, or to sanction the fanaticism which only encouraged the Nazis in their radical campaigns, especially against the Jews. Such a theological mindset, he claims, closely paralleled the designs and actions of the Holocaust’s perpetrators. He also criticizes the bishops for focusing solely on the survival of the church and its sacramental mission, and for their failure to take a stronger stand against the antisemitic tirades of these brown priests. Even though their number was small, and by no means representative, and even though their influence clearly remained marginal, Spicer’s well-argued warnings against this trahison des clercs are indeed apposite in this sad chapter of German Catholicism’s history.

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2d) Paul O’Shea, A Cross too heavy. Eugenio Pacelli. Politics and the Jews of Europe, 1917-1943. (Kenthurst, NSW, Australia: Rosenberg Publishing. 2008 Pp 392 ISBN 978-1877-058714).

Dietmar Paeschel, Vatikan und Shoa (Friedenauer Schriftenreihe. Reihe A: Theologie, Band 9) (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 2007 Pp 150. ISBN 978-3-631-56828-6).

(This review appeared first in the Catholic Historical Review, April 2009)

The flood of books about Pope Pius XII continues unabated. But since no new documentation has appeared in the last ten years, and a major indispensable source, the papers of the Vatican Secretariat of State, are still secreted in the Vatican archive and are not yet released for public scrutiny, it is clear that many of these new books are not the result of new historical analysis or research. Instead, the character and policies of Pius XII are used as part of an on-going controversy about the authority and governance of the Roman Catholic Church. The participants seek to prove either the urgent need for reform of an outdated authoritarian institution, or regard Pius as an example of prudent leadership at a time of great political and military danger. With regard to his stance towards the Nazis` persecution and mass murder of the Jews, many vocal critics have turned Pius into a scapegoat. A less silent pope, with more active engagement, they believe, could and should have prevented, or at least mitigated the Nazi Holocaust. But is there historical evidence to substantiate such far-reaching claims, or is this purely the product of wishful thinking? On the other hand, are those seeking to defend Pius doing so in order to exonerate the institution at whatever cost to historical candor?. Both books under review attempt to answer these questions.

Paul O`Shea is a young Australian scholar who rejects as superficial those widespread accusations which have depicted Pius as Hitler`s Pope, too lenient towards the Germans, an antisemitic bigot, insensitive to the fate of Hitler`s victims, or motivated only by a calculating political opportunism. Instead, O`Shea concentrates on seeing Pacelli as the inheritor of a long theological tradition, enshrined in the Vatican`s centuries-old stance, whereby the Jews were seen as a renegade people, deserving of conversion but remaining a witness to God`s eternal mercy. O`Shea`s main contention is that centuries of Christian Judeophobia and antisemitism culminated in the papal silence during the Holocaust. On the other hand, O`Shea notes, Pius cannot be dismissed as a bystander. He agonized over every word he uttered on the fate of the Jews, and his discreet actions on behalf of individuals saved many lives. But the widely-held perception that the Papal moral influence would be resolutely and loudly deployed was disappointed. And the burden of O`Shea`s critique is that he shares this disappointment. He is therefore critical of Pius for not protesting more forcefully, since `there is a moral duty to speak out in the face of evil, regardless of the consequence` (p. 28).

O`Shea is hardly the first to advance such an opinion, but he fails to point out one all-important factor. For any far-reaching, let alone successful, measures to assist the Jews in war-torn Europe, the Catholic magisterium would have had to undertake a major reversal of its theological position, to abandon its historic anti-Judaic stance, and to embrace the theology first adumbrated in 1965. But no such alteration took place. Nor is there any evidence that Pius XII would have supported such a major theological revision. This process only began after his death. O`Shea`s contribution is to show how the Vatican`s mind-set, its entrenched conservatism, and Pacelli`s own theological training, all combined to reinforce a consistent, if now regrettable, attitude of regarding Jews as second-class citizens or the victims of history. The result was a theological rather than a moral failure.

Dietmar Päschel`s short account of the relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people during the course of the twentieth century, is clearly designed for German students. It includes a useful German translation of some of the important documents, as well as a German bibliography. Dominated by the horrifying events of the Shoah, his narrative divides into two separate halves. The first seeks to explain the failure of the Vatican and the German Catholic hierarchy to prevent, or at least alleviate, the Nazis` ferocity against the Jews, while the second outlines the steps taken to draw up a new and more sympathetic stance by the Catholic authorities, beginning with the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

In Päschel`s view, the Nazis` radical hostility to both Jews and Catholics put the latter on the defensive. The Vatican`s attempt to obtain safeguards through the 1933 Concordat was largely a failure, and led German Catholics to concentrate on defending their own autonomy. Because of the deeply-rooted antisemitism in Catholic ranks, there was little sympathy for their fellow victims, the Jews. This reluctance was a contributing factor for the Vatican`s equal lack of strong protest against the Nazi atrocities. Those Catholic voices raised on behalf of the Jews, such as Edith Stein or Provost Lichtenberg, were too few to be effective. The Holy See maintained its silence, regarding the persecution of the Jews as a secular matter beyond its mandate. The readiness of the German Catholic hierarchy to support Hitler`s nationalist goals showed their capacity for complicit compromise. Despite the Vatican`s attempt to mobilize opposition to the errors of Nazi ideology, through its 1937 Encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, the result was poor. And the events of 1938 culminating in the November pogrom, demonstrated not only the Nazis` political mastery, but the failure of Catholics to take a stand, either through the Vatican or locally. Like O`Shea, Päschel deplores Pius` failure to protest, and is equally critical of the German Catholics` cowardice. Neither, he says, earned a halo.

In the second half of the book, the tone is warmer. Päschel presents the various stages of the far-reaching, if belated, change in Catholic attitudes, brought about by the impact of the Shoah,and also by the encouragement of Pope John XXIII. He gives an excellent summary of the debates in the Vatican Council, from which there finally emerged in October 1965, the significant document Nostra Aetate. The revolutionary achievement of this text, he rightly observes, was to remove any Catholic foundation for anti-Judaism. The ancient slander that Jews were responsible for Christ`s crucifixion was repudiated. Jews remain chosen by God. It was, Päschel argues, a unique and unprecedented paradigm change in Catholic theology.

This initiative in Catholic-Jewish relations was taken further by the decisive leadership of Pope John Paul II. During his long reign, he made dramatic visits to Israel, Auschwitz and the Roman synagogue. On each occasion he stressed the change in Catholic attitudes. But a 1998 document entitled We remember. A reflection on the Shoah seems to Päschel to be more of a Vatican bureaucratic defence than an acknowledgement of Catholic guilt. He justly criticizes the tendency to distort the lamentable record of Catholic prejudice for apologetic reasons. Much, he believes, still remains to be done. The historic guilt of the institution, rather than of individual Catholics, still remains to be acknowledged. Yet the reversal of the age-long anti-Judaic doctrines must be regarded as epochal, and hopefully irreversible. New theological impulses by the Vatican are, in Päschel`s opinion, indispensable to maintain the momentum, for improved Catholic-Jewish relations.

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May I remind you once again that I am very glad to have any comments you may like to share. Please send them to my own address, as below, and do NOT press the Reply button, unless you wish to reach all the 500 subscribers to the Newsletter.

With every best wish,
John Conway

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February 2009 Newsletter

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Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

February 2009 — Vol. XV, no. 2

 Dear Friends,

It is fitting that this month’s Newsletter should pay tribute to two great Christians, both having the same birthday, February 4th, Bishop George Bell of Chichester, England and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As was made clear in my review of the Bonhoeffer letters and paper from 1933-1935 (see December 2008), these men were closely connected from the beginning of the Nazi era, and highly esteemed each other. It is therefore a particular pleasure to have Dr Schulten’s review of Professor Tödt’s penetrating and thoughtful study of Bonhoeffer’s ethics, as well as a review of the small but valuable study of Bishop Bell, written by Andrew Chandler, the Director of the George Bell Institute, now moved to Chichester University.

It seems also appropriate this month to reprint a review of the new film, Valkyrie, whose hero Count Stauffenberg shared most of Bonhoeffer’s values, and like him paid the ultimate penalty in his attempt to rid the world of Nazi tyranny.
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Contents:

1. Book reviews:

a) Chandler, Piety and Provocation. A study of George Bell
b) Tödt, Authentic Faith. Bonhoeffer’s Theological Ethics
c) Howard, Protestant theology and German universities

2) W. Doino on Valkyrie.

1a) Andrew Chandler, Piety and Provocation. A Study of George Bell, Bishop of Chichester. Chichester,The George Bell Institute: Humanitas Subsidia Series 2008. 96 Pp. ISBN 10-0-9550-558-1-4 £7.50.

During the first half of the twentieth century, the two most eminent bishops of the Church of England were William Temple and George Bell, whose combined witness did much to assist both church and nation to come to terms with the disasters of two world wars and the turbulent social upheavals of that era. Both men came from clerical families, both had been Oxford dons, both rose rapidly through the ecclesiastical ranks and held episcopal office for many years. Temple indeed achieved the highest office in the Church, becoming Archbishop of Canterbury, if only briefly before dying in office suddenly in October 1944. George Bell spent nearly thirty years as Bishop of Chichester, one of England’s oldest dioceses, in the well-endowed county of Sussex on England’s south coast. Fifty years after his death in 1958, several commemorative events were held in recent months in both Chichester and London. And Andrew Chandler, the current director of the George Bell Institute, now fittingly based in the newly-established University of Chichester, has written this short but elegant assessment.

Chandler’s work was made all the easier by his access to and knowledge of the vast array of papers which Bell had meticulously collected during his life-time, and which are now housed in the Lambeth Palace Library in London. Forty years ago, Canon Ronald Jasper wrote a full biography but used these papers only sparingly. Since then fresh viewpoints have arisen about which Bell’s papers shed much new light. So this concise update is much to be welcomed.

George Bell grew up in the latter days of Queen Victoria’s reign, when the prevalent climate, both politically and theologically, was liberal and optimistic. As a student, he was captivated by the idealism of the newly-formed Student Christian Movement with its appeal to all the churches to unite in undertaking the task of “the Evangelization of the World in this Generation”. But this was more than the pursuit of personal piety. The SCM always had a strong commitment to Christian service and witness in the political and international affairs of the day. Bell’s lifelong dedication to the cause of Christian unity also included these dimensions.

These were the qualities which led him to be selected in 1914 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall Davidson, to be his domestic chaplain. He began work on the day war was declared, and was immediately engaged in confronting the moral as well as the practical challenges brought on by the outbreak of hostilities. Despite his idealism, Bell was no pacifist. He agreed with the majority of his countrymen that the German aggression against Belgium was sufficient reason to fight a just war. But he also followed his Archbishop in declaring the Church’s duty to insist that a just war must be fought by just means. At the same time, he was and remained steadfast in upholding the cause of Christian solidarity across all national lines. Thus he resisted the temptation to equate British patriotism with the cause of Christ, and was distressed when leading members of the Church of England failed to make this distinction. He upheld the ideal of Christian reconciliation, despite depressing signs of the lack of any reciprocal willingness on the German side. But for this reason, Bell became a staunch promoter of the League of Nations. He also protested against any proposals for a vindictive peace settlement, and deplored those sections of the Versailles Peace Treaty which appeared to have these characteristics.

So it was natural that Bell became a champion of European reconstruction on Christian lines. He warmly welcomed the initiative taken by the renowned Archbishop of Uppsala, Nathan Söderblom, calling on the churches to witness to justice and reconciliation in the traumatic post-war years. This ecumenical endeavour resulted in the great Stockholm conference of 1925, and led to the founding of the Life and Work Movement of the Churches, which subsequently became an integral part of the World Council of Churches. Bell was an active leader in this endeavour, recognizing the need for Christians to be united across both denominational and national boundaries. In this he differed markedly from the majority of his British colleagues, but was appreciated all the more for his courage and wisdom by the leaders of the continental churches. Together they worked for the establishment of a world-wide organization witnessing to the cause of Christian unity. The creation of the World Council of Churches can in large part be said to be due to Bell’s devoted championship of this cause.

In 1924 Bell was promoted to be Dean of Canterbury Cathedral. Here he found opportunity to encourage the wider participation of artists, musicians and writers in the cathedral’s life, and drew in such notable contributors as T.S.Eliot, Dorothy Sayers, John Masefield, Charles Williams and in the musical field, Gustav Holst. Such activities had to compete, however, with Bell’s increasing involvement in international work. Chandler does not mention the fact that Bell was often unfairly criticized, especially among the well-to-do gentry, for dashing off to meetings in Switzerland or Germany, instead of concentrating on his pastoral duties such as baptisms and confirmations amongst his flock at home.

This dilemma became all the more acute when in 1929 Bell was made bishop of Chichester, where the atmosphere was genteel and conservative. But faced with the growing crises in Europe, first economic then political, Bell’s primary witness was to uphold the cause of Christian solidarity. Especially as political and racial violence, as promoted by the Nazi Party, took over power in Germany, this situation became one of Bell’s chief concerns. He refused to believe that Hitler represented the true destiny of Germany, and consequently did all he could to support those sections of the German churches which opposed the Nazis’ totalitarian goals. He gained a close friend and supporter in the young Lutheran clergyman, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who ministered to the German churches in London from 1933 to 1935. Together they forged an alliance which kept the ecumenical movement safely in the anti-Nazi camp. Bell paid regular visits to Germany between 1933 and 1939, and even tried to influence the Nazi hierarchy through Rudolf Hess. His efforts were tireless to make the German Church Struggle better known, since he was resolutely convinced of the Church’s duty to confront the relentless barbarism of totalitarianism, and to take practical steps to assist its victims. He devised plans to offer sanctuary to refugees fleeing from Germany, and went to particular pains to find places for those German pastors evicted from their parishes, mainly because of their part-Jewish origins. Some were even offered ordination and parishes in the Church of England.

It was hardly surprising that Bell should become fervently committed to the proposition that there existed in Germany a movement of resistance, largely silenced by the Nazi oppressors, but nonetheless representing the “better Germany” from the Christian past. He was all the more persuaded after a visit he paid to Sweden in May 1942, when he was surprised to be able to renew his friendship with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer had come directly from Germany to give his friend secret details about the opposition to Hitler, and to urge him to get some promise from the British Government that they would be prepared to make a compromise peace with those seeking Hitler’s overthrow, On his return to Britain, Bell lobbied the Cabinet to offer such recognition. But despite his well-founded information, his efforts were repulsed. The Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, dismissed him as a “turbulent priest”, and poured scorn on a churchman venturing into the secret and dangerous world of international politics. Bell never forgave the British Government and understandably felt that its rejection of this opportunity contributed to the disastrous failure of the July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. But he remained convinced that, once military victory over the Nazis was achieved, then the surviving members of the resistance would deserve to be supported in the rebuilding of a new Germany on Christian lines. And this was the task to which he and his colleagues in the World Council of Churches gave devoted energy in the immediate post-1945 years.

Much of Bell’s work of advocacy and intervention had necessarily to be done behind the scenes. His temperament was eirenical not theatrical or charismatic. His public personality lacked vivid qualities. He was, as Chandler only hints, an uninspiring orator and disliked large meetings where he was not a good chairman. His favourite venue was the Athenaeum Club in central London, where the elite of Britain’s scholars and clerics met to settle their business in comfortable armchairs, and where confidential discussions could be conducted in prvate. These gave Bell the information he needed to take action, as his papers voluminously attest.

His one public forum was the House of Lords. of which he became, by seniority, a member in 1938. He used this platform to give expression to his deeply-felt moral concerns, which often seemed to be provocative, particularly in their criticisms of government policy. For example, in June 1940, Bell attacked in the House of Lords what he considered was the scandalous internment of German refugees, especially of those who had fled to England to escape from Hitler`s prisons. And even more provocatively he spoke against the Royal Air Force’s policy of indiscriminate bombing of German cities in February 1944. Such views made him highly unpopular with those who believed in the guilt of all Germans and the necessity of unrestricted warfare. But Bell`s essential moral position was based on his belief that attacking civilians by such carpet-bombing raids was unjustifiable by any Christian standards.

Chandler rightly discounts the myth that Bell was denied the promotion to the Archbishopric of Canterbury after Temple`s sudden death because of these provocative speeches. In fact, his talent lay rather in being an inspirational leader upholding the ideals of Christian civilization, and calling for the churches` resources to be mobilized in the great task of reconstruction after the overthrow of totalitarianism. As he told an audience in Edinburgh in December 1941:

“We meet here to declare that the Church is larger and greater than any national Church, or denominational Church – a Church which includes men and women of all countries and races, of all classes and cultures, a Church that is suffering in the battle, a Church that can reconcile enemy with enemy through the Cross of Jesus Christ and a Church with a mission to mankind.”

His major contribution was to be found in the international ecumenical movement, resolutely facing the continuing challenge of Communism, but again distinguishing between the Soviet state and the Russian people. In all he preserved his prophetic stance, his untiring devotion to his ethical principles and his unflagging energy in writing books, pamphlets, sermons and innumerable letters, which now form his most impressive legacy.

He will be remembered as the bishop who most outspokenly opposed Nazism, not because it was a German heresy, but because it inflicted so much harm on men and women for whom he cared. Indeed his time-consuming consistency in helping those in need and his immense compassion for the victims of tyranny continue to ensure that Bell’s reputation is that of a church leader who did what he could to remedy the evils of his contemporary world.

Inevitably such a task of bringing the Church`s conscience to bear on current problems was not to be achieved by one individual or in one life-time. Thus Chandler sees his legacy as a costly failure. The cause of peaceful internationalism in the world`s political affairs is no nearer today than in Bell`s time. The Christian churches still remain divided and unreconciled. The theological witness of the Universal Church of Christ still remains marginal, at best. But Bell`s generosity and humanity are still remembered as setting a standard to be emulated. It is therefore good that we have this timely reminder, calling us to follow his example of a challenging and demanding discipleship of witness and service in the world of today.

JSC

1b) Heinz Eduard Tödt. Authentic Faith: Bonhoeffer’s Theological Ethics in Context. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2007. 291 pages.
(This review appeared first in The Bomhoefferian, November 28th, 2008, and is reproduced by kind permission of the author)

If the ideas articulated and life lived by Dietrich Bonhoeffer have captivated your thinking and challenged your soul, then you would do well to take the time to read thoughtfully and reflectively this collection of Professor Tödt’s essays on Bonhoeffer’s theology, ethics and resistance. First published fifteen years ago in his original German, this compilation of Tödt’s insightful scholarship spans the latter half of his academic career as professor of systematic theology, ethics and social ethics at the University of Heidelberg and as the chairman of the editorial board of the German edition of The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works. Tödt’s student, Glen Harold Strassen, captured the tenor of his writings when he stated: “Tödt’s publications have an analytical sharpness, an ethical incisiveness and a genuine truthfulness that is rare even among the best.” Strassen served as the editor of the English edition of Tödt’s essays on Bonhoeffer published here in the United States in 2007. It is this new edition that is the subject of this review.

This collection of essays by Tödt makes a significant contribution to the ever-growing corpus of Bonhoeffer scholarship. Unlike that of many who have come before and after him, though, Tödt’s analysis expounds the major dimensions of Bonhoeffer’s ethics by examining the political, ecclesiastical and family context in which Bonhoeffer wrote. His essays, however, reach an even deeper level of profundity as Tödt subjects himself to scrutiny of Bonhoeffer’s ideas by transparently wrestling with issues of guilt and forgiveness about his own experience of the German context during the Third Reich when he served as a soldier at the front during the Second World War and then was subjected to detention as a prisoner-of-war in a Russian camp for five years. Above all, in his engagement with Bonhoeffer, Tödt sought an ethic that can provide wise guidance in the face of contemporary schemes to manipulate faith for ideological ends.

Fourteen of Tödt’s essays are presented. The earliest essay dates from the 1970’s, and the latest to one year before his death in 1991. A deepening of both insight into the underlying essence of Bonhoeffer’s thoughts as well as an appreciation for the authenticity of his faith-inspired actions is evident. The first eleven essays analyze themes in Bonhoeffer’s theology and ethics. For example, Tödt tackles the ever-perplexing notion of “religion-less Christianity” that marks Bonhoeffer’s later letters to Eberhard Bethge from his Tegel prison cell. In contrast with those progressive theologians who have latched on to Bonhoeffer’s language only to fill it with a self-conceived meaning inconsistent with the whole of Bonhoeffer’s thought and life, Tödt finds that Bonhoeffer was here conceiving a Christianity not confined to ideals for merely private life or to the gaps where we cannot solve problems, but rather a Christian faith that gives concrete guidance in the center of life.

In other essays, Tödt focuses attention on an important question that has not been examined by other scholars of Bonhoeffer. He asks what was about Bonhoeffer’s ethics that enabled him to discern so clearly and speak out for the Jews and against war more decisively than other theologians and church leaders even from the very onset of Hitler’s chancellorship. In his exploration of this question, Tödt demonstrates Bonhoeffer’s insights in naming the sources of evil and self-deception as well as warning against the ways and means by which the leader becomes the misleader. Tödt also clarifies Bonhoeffer’s articulation of the vocation of the churches in speaking concretely and the vocation of groups in acting concretely as an assertion of checks and balances against authoritarianism not only in the context of Nazi Germany but also with application for responsible action in the midst of contemporary expressions of authoritarianism. Tödt’s extensive analysis of the social, theological, and ethical characteristics of the resistance movement, in which Bonhoeffer and family members played integral roles, provides both information and insights that go well beyond what can be found in other scholarship to date. This comprehensiveness in his treatment of Bonhoeffer’s resistance is the product of thoroughgoing research project that Tödt led at the University of Heidelberg.

The final three essays in this collection address contemporary history, in which Tödt examines, with an authenticity born out of Bonhoeffer’s ethics, the guilt and responsibility of Christendom in Germany. What particularly marks Tödt’s approach and the insights he offers is his resolve not to be devoted to merely an interpretation of past positions, but instead to find in Bonhoeffer avenues that advance both the present tasks of theology in the church and a better understanding of our own way of life. In 1985, Tödt himself expressed the force of Bonhoeffer’s life and words upon him in this way:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer has come nearer and nearer and become more and more important for me – not merely with one single flash of light – but in a continuing process over twenty years. Of his many remarkable character traits and abilities, the concentration with which he exposed his faith in Christ to the tests that life brought, all the way to the extreme situations of resistance, and then thought through theologically what happened him and those involved, occupies me most of all. I perceive this theology as deeply authentic and as showing the way for me as a theological teacher . . . . Bonhoeffer is not right in all things, but from no theologian am I now learning so much as from him, and, to be sure, with my intellect and with my heart.

Tödt, though, was greatly distressed by those self-proclaimed scholars and would-be theologians who did not follow the whole way through Bonhoeffer but would rather “tear out individual elements of life and thought and [either] progressively instrumentalize them or conservatively distort them,” and then advocate that the guilt for the deficits in the modern churches lies in Bonhoeffer’s guidance. In an effort to expose and counter these misuses and abuses, Tödt presents a thoroughly studied and attentively perceived exposition of Bonhoeffer’s theological ethics both in the context of his life experiences and for application in our own.

Although some portions in the English translation occasionally render the complexity of Tödt’s German syntax in stilted and strained constructions, the substance of the insights and analyses of Bonhoeffer offered by Tödt make any extra time required to slow down and re-read such passages abundantly rewarding. No other book has more opened my eyes or deepened my appreciation for Bonhoeffer’s guidance in living responsibly in the concrete realities of life than Tödt’s.

Cordell P. Schulten, M.A., J.D. <cschulten@fontbonne.edu>Lecturer, Contemporary Studies Fontbonne University Saint Louis, Missouri

1c) Thomas A. Howard, Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006; Pp.xiii + 468.

(This review appeared first in the Journal of Religious History, October 2008)

Ever since the advent of the Third Reich, Anglo-Saxon scholars have been intrigued by the question how the highly respected universities of Germany reacted to the blatant obscurantism and unprecedented barbarism of National Socialism. As is well known all disciplines allowed themselves to be “co-ordinated” (gleichgeschaltet) into the Nazi ideology of “blood and soil”. Such a large scale betrayal of the principles of rational scientific enquiry and apparent unquestioning acceptance, indeed endorsement, of state-authorised violence against helpless minorities demanded to be explained. Not surprisingly, in response to this grotesque situation a series of mostly excellent studies, chiefly by Anglo-Saxon scholars, focusing on the individual academic disciplines has appeared over recent years. What they all have in common is the aim to determine what it was in the German academic tradition that could so easily have led to this wide scale trahison des clercs. The natural sciences, the law, medicine, philosophy, history and especially theology all became fatally compromised.

Thomas Howard’s detailed study of the growth of Protestant theology from being a marginalized university discipline in imperial Germany to become a highly influential political-pedagogic force provides essential background on how this discipline fought to be taken seriously in an age of religious scepticism, and by the time of the First World War had become arguably (alongside History) the most ardent advocate of German expansionism. The patriotic motto of the time, Gott mit uns, was strenuously justified by Germany’s leading university theologians who had over the previous decades evolved a theology which identified the state/nation as the agency of the divine will for the world, indeed to be in fact the “Hammer of God” on earth. The indebtedness to Hegelianism was manifest.

The aim of the present wide-ranging study is to demonstrate how Protestant theology developed from “an apologetic, praxis-oriented, confessional enterprise in the post Reformation period to one increasingly ‘liberal’, expressive of the ethos of modern critical knowledge, or Wissenschaft (p.7). This is crucially important for our understanding of the ‘peculiarities’ of German history (Blackbourn & Eley). As indicated, much has been written about the ‘German mind’ and how it differed from the ‘Western mind’. And here the word ‘liberal’ to describe the dominant school of German theologians is highly significant. ‘Liberal’ for them meant something quite specific, viz. the approach to theology as the discipline which could account for the course of world history, and in nineteenth century Germany that meant recognizing that Almighty God was working out His purposes for humankind via the actions of the Machtstaat, the power state. The essential function of ‘liberal’ theology was to explain this. Expressed another way, the history of the power state was integral to the history of salvation (Heilsgeschichte).

Howard’s painstaking investigation could be summed up as very successful account of how Protestant theology at the German universities became the pre-eminent instrument for imperial apologetics. It thereby won for itself the highest academic respectability and remained largely unchallenged in this enterprise until the beginning of the Great War when the Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, vigorously and successfully refuted the ‘statist’ assumptions of his German ‘liberal’ mentors, in particular Adolf von Harnack. Barth certainly demonstrated most convincingly in a celebrated post-war confrontation with von Harnack how the great German ‘liberal’ scholars .through their arrogance, led their countrymen astray in claiming that Germany was fighting for a divine cause. In recounting how all this happened, the young American scholar has rendered a major service of the discipline. His work will be obligatory reading for all historians of modern Germany wishing to understand how the so-called Geisteswissenschaften i.e. the humanities, theology in particular, came to perceive themselves preeminently as ‘statist’ enterprises, and how theology progressed (or declined) from being the study of Heilsgeschichte to becoming the foremost advocate of Weltpolitik.

An added bonus in Howard’s research is his documentation, with far greater precision than hitherto, of the rise to international pre-eminence of the German university theological faculties and how they came to exert such influence abroad. Theological students from all over the world, not just North America and Britain, were drawn to study at the feet of German ‘super’ professors. Finally, there is much to be learned from Howard’s work that has relevance far beyond the international community of theologians. In the end it is a most instructive study about what constitutes ‘scientific theology’ and as such a major contribution to modern German intellectual history.
John A.Moses, Canberra.

2) Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise

(This review, somewhat abridged, appeared first on First Things online, Jan. 6th 2009
(<HTTP://www.firstthings.com>HTTP://www.firstthings.com) and is reprinted by kind permission of the author)

Edmund Burke once said that he did not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people, but in the case of Germany, that claim has been sorely tested. Ever since the horrors of the death camps were exposed, the world has been asking how such barbarism could have taken place in a supposedly civilized country. The answer, more often than not, has been to point an accusing finger at the German people, and to mock the Good Germans – those ordinary citizens who, though not murderers themselves, made Hitler’s crimes possible because of cowardice and passivity.

This tendency to ascribe mass accountability, however, has obscured an important fact: There really were good Germans, incredibly brave men and women who risked their lives, and even gave them, to save their country from cataclysmic ruin. There were far too few, to be sure, but its these people who represented Germany at its best, and should not be forgotten.

Among the noblest was Claus, Count von Stauffenberg, a Colonel who led a daring conspiracy to overthrow Hitler, and came very close to succeeding. Stauffenberg came from an aristocratic Catholic family whose love of God, Germany, and European culture led him to break with the Third Reich, after initially serving it. In fact, Stauffenberg who lost an eye, half an arm, and two fingers fighting in North Africa was actually slow to join the resisters. But when he did, he went further than any of them, placing himself, literally, on the frontlines. Stauffenberg’s attempt to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944, the last of over a dozen such efforts is now the stuff of legend:

Stauffenberg has gotten surprisingly little attention in America, despite our nation’s fascination with heroes. Hollywood has practically ignored him: except for one now-forgotten cable movie, The Plot to Kill Hitler (1990), His legacy has been largely confined to an occasional reference on the History Channel.

[But see the authoritative and definitive biography by the Canadian scholar, Peter Hoffmann of McGill University, Stauffenberg: A Family History, 1905-1944, Cambridge University Press, 1995]

This situation has now changed with the appearance of the new film Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise. According to Peter Hoffmann, the leading authority in English on the German Resistance, this film is to be praised for its historical accuracy (ranking it higher than an acclaimed 2004 German production). Valkyrie opens with a voice-over from Cruise, in German, describing the horrors of the Third Reich, before segueing into English. Its 1943, and Stauffenberg (Cruise) is in Tunisia, where he suffers his traumatic injuries from an Allied air attack. After he returns home to recuperate, he meets up with other disillusioned officers, and begins measuring the level of their opposition (some had already plotted or tried to kill Hitler, unsuccessfully). Stauffenberg eventually joins an elite underground group, and becomes the catalyst to propel a new plot forward. The emerging conspiracy comes close to being discovered several times, but breathlessly advances, along a knifes edge, with everything at stake.

The challenge in this film was to sustain suspense, even with our knowledge of the conspiracy’s failure. The very fact that we know the ultimate fate of the plot gives Valkyrie a sense of tragic foreboding, and makes us empathize with the resisters all the more. Artistically, the film is striking. The script is crisp and intelligent; the production design, outstanding; and the music, engaging. Filmed on location at many historic sites in Germany, Valkyrie strives for authenticity, and is immeasurably helped by a cast of top-notch (mostly British) actors who shine in supporting roles. The film grows stronger as it goes along, and the improbable Cruise eventually blends in and manages to hold his own amongst his impressive peers. The climax and ending of the film are powerful, and viewers may find themselves unexpectedly moved.

Valkyrie is not without flaws, however. Unless one is familiar with this complex history, it is easy to get lost among the historical figures, and the reasons for their revolt. Historians still debate their motivations. Did the conspirators betray Hitler because they feared he would lose the War, or did they act out of genuine moral passion and conscience? The movie, concentrating on the suspense and action sequences, really doesn’t explore these aspects.. Had it done so, they could have utilized the latest research showing that outrage against the Holocaust was a key factor in moving them. Because Valkyrie doesn’t delve into the psychology, or moral development, of its lead characters, it misses a chance to really understand them.

Ultimately, therefore, this film lacks greatness. But to say that Valkyrie is not a great film is not to say it isn’t worthwhile. On its own terms, it is an engrossing thriller, far better than the usual Hollywood fare. Moreover, apart from its artistic and entertainment value, the film has educational and moral elements, and gratefully avoids political correctness. Certain academics have an unappealing habit of dismissing the 20 July plotters as reactionaries, while earnestly extolling the self-sacrifices of the underprivileged Communists, to quote historian Michael Burleigh. But there are no heroic Communists in Valkyrie, The film’s interpretation is clearly orthodox. The honourable Resistance, ranging from social democrats to conservative aristocrats, is correctly depicted as fighting to rescue and preserve Western civilization.

Finally, and this is a pleasant surprise, one senses something Christian about this film. The messages are subtle, but they are there: a cross around Stauffenberg’s neck; a scene in a Church, with a statue of Christ looking on; references to Scripture and the Almighty (Only God can judge us now); and an image of Nina von Stauffenberg clutching her abdomen as she realizes she might be seeing her husband for the last time: She was pregnant with the couple’s fifth child.

In a recent interview, Cruise admitted that he had no idea, until recently, about the German Resistance, and regretted that most people in the world have never even heard of Stauffenberg. Thankfully, as a result of this film, that will no longer be true. The Good Germans, at last, have finally gotten their due.

William Doino Jr. writes for <http://www.insidethevatican.com/>Inside the Vatican.

With every best wish
John Conway

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