Tag Archives: Helmut Bräutigam

Review of Hagen Markwardt, Fruszina Müller and Bettina Westfeld, eds., Konfession und Wohlfahrt im Nationalsozialismus. Beispiele aus Mittel- und Ostdeutschland

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 27, Number 3 (September 2021)

Review of Hagen Markwardt, Fruszina Müller and Bettina Westfeld, eds., Konfession und Wohlfahrt im Nationalsozialismus: Beispiele aus Mittel- und Ostdeutschland (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2021). 372 pages. ISBN 978-3-428-15753-2.

By Dirk Schuster, University of Vienna / Danube University Krems

Denomination and welfare under National Socialism – a topic that at first glance is not directly related to the National Socialist mass crimes. However, right at the beginning of their introduction, the editors help the reader understand the importance of welfare in the Third Reich. During the nineteenth century, there was a massive expansion of charitable institutions in Germany. With the seizure of power by the National Socialists in January 1933, a new understanding of the tasks of a health policy would develop based on the party ideology, which was fundamentally opposed to the previous ideas. Accordingly, the institutions owned by religious associations were faced with the crucial question of how to deal with the reorientation of health policy from 1933 onwards.

The focus on the regions of Central and Eastern Germany is a response to the current dearth of research on that region. Because denominational institutions were relatively autonomous at that time, such a regional delimitation makes perfect sense. Due to the denominational character of the region, then, most of the contributions deal with institutions and actors from the Protestant (evangelisch) spectrum, which is understandable. This will allow comparisons to be drawn between the various actors and institutions in different regions of Germany at a later point in time. It is regrettable that the editors did not succeed in soliciting contributions on the Thuringian region. They have focused on Silesia, however, which has also been rarely examined by research so far. A positive point to be emphasized here is the approach of the editors, acknowledging that the “relationship between the Christian-denominational institutions and the Nazi rule [are] not to [be understood] from the outset as dichotomous” (p. 11). Even if this approach should be a matter of course from this reviewer’s point of view, recent works show again and again that an ideological opposition between Christians and National Socialists is frequently assumed from the outset. Therefore, as self-evident as it may be, the editors’ basic attitude as it is formulated and implemented in the book is to be appreciated.

In the first, very well-structured article, Norbert Friedrich examines the developments within the Kaiserwerther Verband (KWV) in the ‘Third Reich.’ The KWV was the umbrella organization of the German deaconess mother houses. The head of the KVW is at the center of Friedrich’s examination. The KWV, to which around 30,000 deaconesses were subordinate in 1936, quickly introduced self-enforced conformity with National Socialist policies in 1933 without government coercion. In the same year, the national-conservative and anti-democratic executive committee accordingly abolished the democratic structures remaining from the times of the Weimar Republic, which were not popular anyway. By the end of March 1933, antisemitic propaganda from the National Socialists was also being echoed by the KWV. During the same year, the leadership of the association also clearly positioned itself in favor of German Christian Movement, which illustrates anti-democratic and antisemitic thinking. Due to the increasingly strong position of the Thuringian German Christians, the association distanced itself from the German-Christian spectrum from 1934 onwards, but this should not obscure its support for the Hitler state. Even if the state increasingly tried to restrict the deaconry in its actions, the KVW remained an important point of contact over the years.

In his contribution, Uwe Kaminsky analyzes the Expert Committee for Eugenics of the Inner Mission (“Fachausschuss für Eugenik der Inneren Mission”), which was founded in 1931. He concentrates on the Saxon representatives of the committee – those tasked by the regional church to discuss eugenics and euthanasia. That discourse was not without consequences, as Kaminsky rightly states, in reference to the approximately 25,000 Saxon victims of eugenics policies during the period from 1933 onwards. In the essay, Kaminsky presents biographical analyses of the individual Saxon representatives and concludes that many who had previously advocated voluntary sterilization went on to support the compulsory sterilization enforced by the National Socialists in 1933. Nevertheless, even though they agreed to the plans of the new authorities for mass sterilization, the representatives rejected euthanasia.

The Regional Association of Saxony of the Inner Mission is the focus of Bettina Westfeld’s contribution. Particularly shocking is the fact that in 1931 three of five clergymen in this regional association were members of the NSDAP. It is therefore not surprising that, immediately after Hitler came to power, the Inner Mission made declarations of loyalty to the new regime throughout Germany. Even before 1933, there was an endorsement of sterilization measures in the Regional Association of Saxony, citing as the reason for such measures the cost of care for mentally and physically handicapped people. In the years that followed, the Regional Association found itself in a field of tension within the divided Saxon regional church, which certainly did not make it easier for them to act. Westfeld’s contribution is shocking in some places, as she repeatedly refers to the number of victims and the individual fates of victims of the Nazi terror. She also addresses the attempt by individual deaconesses to hide patients to prevent them from being transported to killing centers like Pirna-Sonnenstein. However, these were individual actions and not measures by the regional church and the Inner Mission, which were hardly able to act anyway. The positive attitude towards sterilization measures also weakened the arguments of the Inner Mission to act against further measures aimed at “racial hygiene.” In the end, there was the terrifying number of 432 deaths from the homes of the Inner Mission, as well as a still unknown number of deaths of people over whom the Inner Mission held guardianship.

Christoph Hanzig examines another important aspect of this history, namely, that most of the facilities for the care of handicapped people in Saxony were not church-owned, but state-sponsored. Accordingly, Hanzig offers biographical information about the Protestant pastors in those state care facilities, in which pastors functioned as state officials. None of the pastors portrayed in detail belonged to a democratic party before 1933, but some were members of the NSDAP. So, it is hardly surprising that from 1933 almost all those pastors were actively involved in the Nazi state, supporting Nazi health policy.

The six contributions by Jan Brademann, Annett Büttner, Fruzsina Müller, Helmut Bräutigam, Manja Krausche and Elena Marie Elisabeth Kiesel all deal with empirical studies on one or more deaconess houses in Saxony or Saxony-Anhalt. For example, Kiesel examines the internal correspondence between headmasters and the sisterhood, using the case of the houses in Halberstadt, Magdeburg, and Halle/S and focusing on the “Schwesternbriefe” as a primary source. These were private in nature, which is why they offer an exclusive insight into the actual correspondence between the various staffing levels. As can be seen in the other contributions, the superiors of the houses examined by Kiesel also endorsed the appointment of Hitler as Reich Chancellor and called on the sisterhood to participate in “building up the Volksgemeinschaft.” Despite the increasing pressure from the National Socialist People’s Welfare (NSV), loyalty to the state was never in question. In 1940, an antisemitic appeal was issued to fight the Jews on the home front as well. The persecution of the Jews and the practice of euthanasia were almost never mentioned. Only in 1943 does a change in the content of the letters become visible, in which the previously loyal position to the regime was given up in favor of a stronger orientation toward peace.

Maik Schmerbauch provides a study on nursing and welfare for the poor in Breslau, while Jürgen Nitsche and Hagen Markwardt examine Jewish care facilities. Nitsche’s contribution illustrates the pressure that Jewish communities faced beginning in 1933. Increasingly deprived of infrastructure and government grants, they had to try on their own to organize care for older and handicapped community members. Accordingly, the Jewish community in Chemnitz, which serves as an empirical example, was forced to build a rest home.

Even though the regional focus is on Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, the knowledge gained through the anthology is expansive. The respective contributions impress with their empirical depth, so that the reader gets an insight into the connection between welfare and church denomination during the time of National Socialism, from the level of regional associations down to the very local level. However, the anthology deserves a summarizing conclusion. The individual contributions are highly informative and contain many new findings. A summary by the editors would have made it possible to systematically analyze the empirical contributions again, articulate special features and point out new research perspectives. Unfortunately, the editors missed this opportunity to broaden the perspective. Nevertheless, the anthology generates a multitude of new findings regarding the role of welfare institutions under religious sponsorship during the period of the ‘Third Reich.’

Conference Report: “Protestant Institutions in Central Germany under National Socialist Rule”

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 23, Number 4 (December 2017)

Conference Report: “Protestant Institutions in Central Germany under National Socialist Rule,” Cecilienstift Halberstadt, September 28, 2017.

By Dirk Schuster, Universität Potsdam

This public workshop was jointly organized by the Chair of Modern History of the University of Magdeburg, the Cecilienstift Halberstadt, the Landeszentrale für politische Bildung (state center for political education) Saxony-Anhalt and the Historical Commission for Saxony-Anhalt. In her welcoming speech, Pastor Hannah Becker drew attention to the need to engage in a public discussion to engage in a public discussion on the central topic of this conference. In her bachelor thesis (2016), Elena Kiesel examined the history of the Cecilienstift in Halberstadt during the “Third Reich” and carried out pioneering research in this area.[1] This work initially sparked the idea of researching Protestant institutions during the period of National Socialism. However, ‘institution’ should not be understood as a rigid concept, as was also specifically pointed out by the organizer David Schmiedel at the end. This term rather includes a range of organizational units in its scope.

The second reason mentioned by Hannah Becker in her opening speech for such a workshop is the necessity of keeping the memory concerning the crimes that took place under the National Socialists alive. How very up-to-date this historical awareness should remain was shown in the elections to the national parliament in Germany this year. It was considered a given beforehand that the right-wing party “Alternative for Germany” would join the German Bundestag in the September general elections. Before the election, the staff at the local home for the disabled in Halberstadt were repeatedly asked by a resident whether conditions for the disabled in Germany would now revert back to what they were like under the Nazis.

After the welcoming address by Silke Satiukov, a research overview of the processing of Protestantism for the time of the Third Reich was given by Manfred Gailus. He argued in his remarks that it would only be possible to eventually provide an overview of heterogeneous Protestantism at that time after profound regional studies had taken place. Exemplary of such a successful regional study referred to by Gailus is the double volume on the Protestant Church in the Palatinate (Pfalz) published in 2016.[2]

In the presentations that followed, the diaconal institutions formed the main focus of the workshop. Helmut Bräutigam exemplified the Paul-Gerhard-Stift and its deaconess house in Wittenberg. He pointed out in his speech that the board of directors of the hospital and monastery was initially strongly oriented towards the German Christians, but this attitude changed as early as 1934 towards a more neutral course of thought. Even though the hospital suffered enormously from the lack of skilled staff, the leadership refused to hire Protestants of Jewish origin in the mid-1930s. Likewise, the hospital’s willing involvement in around 300 forced sterilizations of men shows that the monastery and deaconess house became compliant helpers of Nazi ideology. In the subsequent discussion, the question of internal debates or even refusals among employees regarding forced sterilization came up. Bräutigam had not found any indication for these and therefore believes that doctors and deaconesses actively participated but did not speak about it.

In her presentation, Elena Kiesel summarized the results of her bachelor thesis. The Cecilienstift in Halberstadt actually welcomed the takeover of power by the National Socialists. After the “godless” years of the Weimar Republic, the monastery hoped to be able to bring more children into the church. In the following years, however, the first areas of conflict began to emerge. The National Socialist People’s Welfare (NSV) continuously increased their influence on the children’s education of the monastery. Moreover, they obtained complete control over the child care of the Cecilienstift, as it was eventually transferred entirely to the NSV. Even though those responsible protested against the closing of the educator training of the monastery, Kiesel does not see this as “resistance” in the classical sense. Incidentally, letters written in 1943 by pastor Hanse (one of the key protagonists of the monastery) have been found, in which he signed off with the reference “God bless the leader.” This example reveals the broad gap between resistance and consent, as was made clear in the discussion. It did not come to a general rejection of National Socialism, but some did oppose specific abuses on the grounds which could often be found in the attitude, “If only our Führer knew about this.”

Fruzsina Müller came up with similar results. She dealt with the deaconess house in Leipzig. Partly out of conviction, partly for reasons of economic motivation, the house in Leipzig adapted to the new balance of power. The whole ambivalence is shown in the fact that one could hide a “Jewish Christian” deaconess from the Nazis until the end of war, while, at the same time, doctors of the hospital participated in systematic crimes such as sterilization and so on. Blanket statements about attitudes of deaconess houses are impossible. Ultimately, what took place were the (non-)actions of individuals and not the attitudes of institutions and their religious worldview.

Such a conclusion can also be drawn in accordance with the research presented by Hagen Markwardt. The example of the Saxon state institution Großhennersdorf, a state-owned institution since its founding, shows that it was individual motives that led to the transfer of the institute to the Inner Mission (Innere Mission) at the end of 1933. The Inner Mission and the National Socialists pursued parallel interests, according to contemporary thought of the time: While National Socialism was to take care of “high-performance people,” the Inner Mission should look out for the physical and mental “cripples,” as it was said at that time. In 1933, the institute director of Großhennersdorf since 1911, Ewald Melzer, who had a very close connection to the Inner Mission, was in charge of the transfer of the institution to the Inner Mission. From its perspective, the Nazi state was able to pursue its “duty” while at the same time the Inner Mission benefited, also financially, from the new task of administering the institution. As Markwardt noted, National Socialism and the Church did not contradict each other, but rather created a consensus that ultimately benefited both sides.

Rather than analyzing the attitude of individual diaconal institutions during the period of the Third Reich, Norbert Friedrich decided to examine the Kaiserwerther Verband. This was the umbrella organization of the individual deaconess mother-houses. Like a large fraction of German Protestantism, the association initially hoped that National Socialism would support a rechristianisation of German society. The association conformed early on and could thus ensure a continuity of personnel. In the church struggle, the association tried, on the other hand, to keep to a neutral course, thereby leaving it up to individual houses of how they wanted to position themselves concerning the German Christians and the Confessing Church. During the resulting discussion, the question was raised as to how the Kaiserwerther Verband behaved towards euthanasia. In the attitude of the association to euthanasia, Friedrich sees a reflection of the whole attitude of the Kaiserwerther Verband: it did not comment on it, but handed over the responsibility to the individual houses. One did not want to attract attention and, accordingly, behaved calmly.

Through the presentations by Benedikt Brunner on the semantic framework of “Volkskirche” in the Central German region, by Karsten Krampitz on the life of the pastor Wolfgang Staemmler, and by Dirk Schuster on the importance of the Eisenach “Entjudungsinstitut” (Institute for De-Judaization), the workshop received a broader thematic setting than the mere consideration of diaconal organizations and institutions. Such a broad view is necessary, as was reiterated in the closing words of David Schmiedel, speaking on behalf of the organizers. As opposed to the existence of one Protestantism, a variety of Protestantisms (28 regional churches, Lutherans, Reformed, United, German Christians, Confessing Church, middle, etc.) existed. Similarly, a wide variety of individuals with different motivations were behind the respective institutions. And in addition to theological arguments for or against motives for cooperation with representatives of the Third Reich, it was often profane reasons that played a crucial role for the respective attitude.

At the end of the workshop, the (recurring) debate concerning the distinction between theological anti-Judaism and racial anti-Semitism came up again. One contribution to the discussion put the finger on the problem when, in an ironic question, someone asked about the meaningfulness of such a distinction: Is a theological hatred of Jews better than a racially argued hatred of the Jews? From the perspective of the author of these lines, representatives of such a distinction often forget a crucial point. It was secondary to the social marginalization of Jews whether this was based on racial and/or theological arguments. Crucial was the stigmatization of the Jews, which made it possible for German society to endorse the persecution and deprivation of these people. As a supplement to the research outlook sketched by Manfred Gailus, the direct impact of anti-Semitic statements and actions of local church representatives should be more in the focus of future research. The presentations of this workshop have provided an important impetus.

[1] The paper was subsequently published as an article. Elena Kiesel, “Kinderpflege im göttlichen Auftrag. Das Diakonissen-Mutterhaus Cecilienstift in Halberstadt und sein Verhältnis zur Nationalsozialistischen Volkswohlfahrt (NSV),” in Sachsen und Anhalt. Jahrbuch der Historischen Kommission für Sachsen-Anhalt 29 (2017): 257–292.

[2] Christoph Picker, Gabriele Stüber, et. al. (eds.), Protestanten ohne Protest. Die evangelische Kirche der Pfalz im Nationalsozialismus, vol. 1+2 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2016).