Tag Archives: Uwe Kaminsky

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

Leave a reply

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.’

Share

Review of Norbert Friedrich, Uwe Kaminsky, and Roland Löffler, eds., The Social Dimension of Christian Missions in the Middle East. Historical studies of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Leave a reply

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 18, Number 4 (December 2012)

Review of Norbert Friedrich, Uwe Kaminsky, and Roland Löffler, eds., The Social Dimension of Christian Missions in the Middle East.  Historical studies of the 19th and 20th Centuries (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010), 252 Pp., ISBN 9783515096560.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

The Middle East was the birthplace of three of the world’s great religions. The aura of their sacred traditions is lovingly maintained in holy sites throughout the region, which have been for centuries the sources of pilgrimages, but also of conflicts between the rival faiths. In the nineteenth century, the region became the object of ambitious attraction for numerous western European powers, for political, economic and military as well as religious reasons. One result as the establishment of new Christian missions, both Catholic and Protestant, home-based in England, Scotland, Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain and even the United States. Each sought to transplant their own concept of Christian mission to the local inhabitants, as well as catering for the ever-increasing number of tourist/pilgrims who expected to find support for their own pious endeavours in their own language. These large-scale enterprises are the subject of this valuable collection of essays, written by an international and ecumenical cast of contributors. Originating from an international conference in Germany, and largely devoted to German missions, these papers have been excellently translated into English.

Roland Loeffler’s introductory essay makes the point that the remarkable proliferation in the region of European missionary projects in the nineteenth century led to a crisis both on the ground and at home. Their original aim was to convert the Jews who lived there, especially in Palestine. They were almost all unsuccessful. But the fervent expectations of their home boards and the need to keep alive the interest of their supporters propelled them into areas of social work, such as schools and hospitals, whose results would be more promising. Thus the Syrian Orphanage was originally founded by Swabian Pietists, and the Jerusalem Verein by Prussian Calvinists. The Anglican bishop, Gobat, founded his school in Jerusalem for Arab children after his attempts to convert Jews had failed. The reports sent home about such activities stirred up the revival of biblical piety, and later on encouraged the growth of Holy Land tours. But the original ambitions for conversions were largely abandoned.

Recent scholarship agrees that it is crucial to take the missionary presence into account when analyzing the political developments and imperial dynamics of the nineteenth century Middle East. Several articles describe the often conflicting views of the missionaries and their rival forms of geopiety. But the relative lack of success in gaining converts is reflected in the comparative scarcity of accounts by the recipients rather than by the missionaries themselves. This is in contrast to the numerous studies in other mission fields. Despite their disappointing record of conversions, most missionaries in the Middle East still regarded their social work as part of the progressive and emancipatory impact of colonial rule and Christian influence thereon. But in the twentieth century, this was to be challenged and eventually overthrown by two factors: the local populations’ demands for freedom from imperial control, and, in Palestine, by the much more forceful introduction of Zionism. In his article, for instance, Michael Marten describes the experiences of the Scottish Missionary Hospital in Tiberias, which was fated to be replaced by the Israeli health service after 1948. But such displacements also marked the end of the specific expectations of those Christians who had hoped that the restoration of the Jews to their original homeland would be a precursor for their conversion to Christ, which in turn would itself be a precursor for Christ’s eschatological return to earth.

In the post-colonial era of the later twentieth century, when white missionaries from Europe and North America were no longer desired, both the missionary societies and missionary history had to undergo challenging, even painful, readjustments. The result was a rapid diminution of ordained ministers being sent abroad and the dissolution of many of the colleges which had trained missionaries for service overseas. They were often replaced by secular aid workers, such as teachers or doctors, in the same social institutions, whose buildings stood, and still stand, all over the Middle East. But it was impressed on such recruits that they had to avoid the kind of paternalistic superiority feelings so often expressed by their missionary predecessors.

Particularly in the case of one sending country, Germany, and one recipient area, Palestine, these changes were very far-reaching, as described in several articles in this collection. On the one hand, many Germans after 1945 were obliged to come to terms with their nations horrendous crimes against the Jewish people, and shortly thereafter with the establishment of the State of Israel. These developments gave rise to highly ambivalent reactions. One group of Protestants, well aware of German guilt, saw the need for repentance towards the Jews and the renunciation of all ideas of conversion or missions. Some regarded the return of Jews to their ancient homeland as fulfillment of biblical promises which Christians should welcome. In 1980, for example, a statement made by the Rhineland Synod of the German Evangelical Church declared that the establishment of the State of Israel was a sign of God’s faithfulness towards his people, and called for a new beginning in Christian-Jewish relations with a commitment to reconciliation and healing. Another practical result was the establishment, under this groups auspices, of the Aktion Suehnezeichen, a kind of German Peace Corps, to undertake reconstruction work in Israel for Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.

Other Protestants however took a more traditional line, seeing the establishment of the new state as adding an unwelcome political complication to Christian-Jewish relations, or as a threat to their carefully-created communities in the Middle East. Certainly many of those engaged in medical or social work institutions now found themselves made redundant or limited solely to their Arab supporters. Such developments in turn led some of the younger church members to adopt a strong preference for the Palestinians displaced or evicted by Israeli policies. The resulting clash between the pro-Jewish, or philo-semitic older generation whose memories of the Holocaust were still very relevant, and the younger opponents of what they perceive as Zionist oppression and aggrandizement, is still unresolved.

Very similar ambivalent considerations are to be found in Catholic ranks. The striking changes in Catholic doctrine adopted at the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s called for the abandonment of hostility towards the Jews who were now to be regarded as the Christians elder brothers in faith. These views were strongly supported over the following fifty years by such Popes as John Paul II, and had a notable effect on Catholic missionary institutions in the Middle East. For example, the highly-regarded Sisters of Zion, which had been founded a hundred years earlier by French priests for the conversion of the Jews in Jerusalem, now made a radical renunciation of any such intentions, much to the confusion of their mainly Arab congregations. It is only regrettable that none of the essays in this book touches on these later developments in Catholic missions.

We can be grateful to the contributors for their varied insights into the history of Christian missions in the Middle East. They will undoubtedly help us to understand the links between past and present, to see the theological impetus which undergirded these missions’ endeavours, and to envisage the potential future that might have been and may yet be.

Share