Hitler and Christianity

1. Violence

2. Unclean language

3. Hostility to science and reason

4. Luther’s responsibility for later events in German history

5. Luther and German nationalism

    a. Some misconceptions

    b. Luther’s worldview

    c. Modern nationalism

6. Luther’s anti-Semitism

    a. David and Bathsheba

    b. Luther’s biblical understanding of the Jews

    c. What Luther did not believe about the Jews

    d. Why Luther was angry at the Jews

    e. Advocacy of violence against the Jews

7. Luther and the Nazis

7. Luther and the Nazis (contd.)

Steigmann-Gall (and many others too, of course) are fond of pointing to churchmen, both Protestant and Catholic, bishops, pastors, and priests, who supported Hitler, even praised him, and use this as further proof of the strong Christian element in National Socialism. What the Bible actually teaches is not part of Steigmann-Gall’s analysis. He sees infant baptism and partaking of communion as sufficient proofs of Christianity – as if Jesus had ever said, “Blessed are cruel murderers and evildoers who were baptized as infants and take communion.” Hitler’s occasional comments about religion are taken at face value, as if he were an honest man.

Christians who consider such attacks and crude distortions to be too far-fetched to merit a response are not aware of the extent to which this is sweet music to the ears of those who are both hostile to Christianity and ignorant of it. The Holy Reich was widely read and praised. To my knowledge there has been almost no Christian response to these dishonest attacks (though writing rebuttals to The DaVinci Code seemed quite popular).

Those who try to read a lot of significance into Christians who supported Hitler should be mindful of the extent to which people were motivated by fear. Many secularists and Darwinists, including well-known scientists, supported Hitler as well. None of us, theists and atheists alike, want to be thrown into a concentration camp or beaten by a gang of thugs. We should also be more mindful of the extent to which many people were in the beginning completely deceived by Hitler. No one like him had even been seen before, and in the last couple of years of the Weimar Republic, when Hitler was seeking votes, he tried to present himself as more moderate than he really was.

Thirdly, they should be mindful of the extent to which the Protestant churches had been undermined in the preceding century by theological liberalism, and represented a version of Christianity which Luther would not have recognized. Theological liberals like Friedrich Schleiermacher (a “Protestant” “theologian” who speculated that Jesus had not really died on the cross, but was placed in the tomb in a swoon and then revived); like Wellhausen and Harnack, who believe that the Bible was not historically accurate but full of errors; pastors, theologians, bishops who denied all of the most essential teachings of Christianity – these people had poisoned the church from within and left a mighty edifice of seminaries and churches that was hollow within, thoroughly conformed to the world, and ready for collapse.

These liberalizing tendencies reached their apogee in the “Protestant” Rudolf Bultmann, an enemy of Jesus Christ disguised as a Lutheran who openly dismissed essential biblical teachings as mythology, and viewed Christ’s death on the cross not as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, but as a call to an existentially authentic existence. Such people destroyed biblical Christianity in Germany. Their house was built not on the rock of biblical truth, but on the shifting sands of human wisdom and philosophy; on the wisdom of Hegel, Kant, Schopenhauer, Plato, and not on the wisdom of Jesus Christ.

Finally, those who point to Christian support for Naziism need to consider the few, Catholics and Protestants, who did speak out, who did not go along. We need to remember Lutheran pastor Paul Schneider, who refused to obey the Gestapo when they denied him the ability to pastor in his church, and was taken away. He died in Buchenwald. Another Luther pastor, whose last name was Kloetzel, denounced Naziism publicly from the pulpit in 1935, and died shortly thereafter in a concentration camp.

Lutheran pastor Julius von Jan spoke from the pulpit and denounced the Crystal Night pogrom of 1938. A few days later he was taken from a Bible study, attacked by a mob, and thrown into prison. Yet another pastor, Karl Friedrich Stellbrink was beheaded in 1942 after he stated (again in public, in the pulpit) that a recent air raid was the result of God’s anger and judgment on Germany’s wickedness. In his book Berlin Diary, American correspondent William L. Shirer spoke of five Protestant pastors who had just been arrested.

Nor should we forget the Catholics. Bishop Galen of Muenster was the boldest and most outspoken opponent of Hitler’s euthanasia program (others could be named, such as Lutheran Bishop Theophil Wurm and Cardinal Adolf Bertram). In the infamous Blood Purge of 1934 a number of prominent Catholics were murdered (such as Fritz Gerlach, Adalbert Probst, and Erich Klausner). Another Catholic, Provost Lichtenberg, openly expressed concern for the Jews, was arrested, and died in captivity.

The purpose of this is not to present a false picture of a bold church heroically opposing Hitler. Most churches and most Christians kept silent and went along. It is to correct the dishonest rewriting of history by those like Steigmann-Gall who have an agenda, and only present information that seems to support their agenda, however fragilely or tangentially, while neglecting or deliberately covering up plain and obvious facts that contradict their pet theses. Where are the Christian apologists here?

Incidentally, if America goes through enough hardship, as may well happen, most Americans too will, I believe, also accept a dictator who can bring them stability and security. They too will look the other way and say nothing when innocent people suffer. Even many of those who are most proud of their liberalism, or of their conservative American independence, will hail the saviour and follow him blindly. And how many others who still have some sense of right and wrong will just go along to stay out of trouble?

It has been said that Luther and Hitler were both “characteristically German” – as if being a brilliant scholar and Bible teacher who never harmed anyone in his life has anything to do with being a vicious, brutal, conquering warlord – and as if either of these two are somehow characteristic of all Germans. That such a stupid comparison is completely meaningless can be seen from the following example: “Abraham Lincoln and Elvis Presley were both ‘characteristically American.’ ”

1. Violence

2. Unclean language

3. Hostility to science and reason

4. Luther’s responsibility for later events in German history

5. Luther and German nationalism

    a. Some misconceptions

    b. Luther’s worldview

    c. Modern nationalism

6. Luther’s anti-Semitism

    a. David and Bathsheba

    b. Luther’s biblical understanding of the Jews

    c. What Luther did not believe about the Jews

    d. Why Luther was angry at the Jews

    e. Advocacy of violence against the Jews

7. Luther and the Nazis 

e. Advocacy of violence against the Jews

Luther’s anger led him to make some harsh statements in his tract. For example, there is a passage from On the Jews and Their Lies in which Luther advocates such repressive measures as burning synagogues, forcing Jews to do manual labor, depriving them of their sacred books, denying them their right to worship, and other things (not slaughter or systematic extermination). This is constantly pointed to, and used to link Luther to the Nazis. It is unfortunate that so few have studied his tract carefully enough to note that he changes his mind, admits such repressive measures would accomplish nothing, and in the end advocates expulsion instead. Here are Luther’s words: 

“But what will happen even if we do burn down the Jews’ synagogues and forbid them publicly to praise God, to pray, to teach, to utter God’s name? They will still keep doing it in secret … So let us beware. In my opinion the problem must be resolved thus: If we wish to wash our hands of the Jews’ blasphemy and not share their guilt, we have to part company with them. They must be driven from our country. Let them think of their fatherland … This is the most natural and the best course of action, which will safeguard the interest of both parties” (Part XII). 

People who want to attack Luther should at least be aware of what they are attacking. Luther’s desire to expel the Jews was unnecessary, unbiblical, unChristian, hurtful, and wrong, but it is significantly less than what he is constantly accused of. This was the traditional anti-Semitism that had led to expulsions fromEngland,France, andSpain, but which never led to death camps or a Holocaust. Who knows, if the Jews had been expelled from Germanyas Luther advised, how different Jewish and German history would have been? The Holocaust might have been prevented.

Unfortunately, more comments from Luther’s tract require discussion in this context. One states that the rulers should deal with the Jews like surgeons who remove gangrenous flesh “without mercy” – but this could refer to expulsion without exceptions. In this passage Luther also refers to Moses slaying rebellious Jews in the wilderness – but Christians and Jews commonly refer to Moses for examples without at the same time feeling we have his unique power and authority. In dealing with some people, the worst possible meanings can be attributed to their words. In Luther’s case, more understanding and insight are called for.

There is another quote that should be dealt with: 

“So we are even at fault in not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and of the Christians which they shed for three hundred years after the destruction ofJerusalem, and the blood of the children which they have shed since then (which still shines forth from their eyes and from their skin). We are at fault in not slaying them. Rather we allow them to live freely in our midst . . .” 

There is no defence for this type of language, and Luther deviated sadly from the biblical teaching which says “The servant of God must not strive, but must be gentle to all….” It is not our duty to avenge the blood of Christ, and Luther had never taught otherwise (I daresay) in all of his voluminous previous writings. All that can be said is that Luther was saying in anger and sarcasm what he never at any time attempted to do or have others do in his many years of vast influence.

Over-eagerness to discredit Luther or to see something innately sinister in all Germans makes it easier to magnify these statements far out of all historical proportion. When Luther speaks of 1500 years of Jewish expulsion from their homeland, without prophets and without a temple, and says rhetorically to the Jews that such a proof of God’s disfavour “strikes you to the ground like a thunderclap,” this or other statements about “lying on the ground” cannot be reasonably linked (as someone tried to do) to dead Jews lying on the ground in World War II. 

7. Luther and the Nazis

On the 450th anniversary of Luther’s birth, in 1933, the Nazi government held celebrations to commemorate this event. This was an occasion to glorify not salvation by faith in Christ; not belief in the Bible (written by Jews) as the word of God; not the necessity of living for Christ and following his teachings; not the reality of a world to come, a day of judgment followed by heaven or hell. No, such essential doctrines of the Reformation were of no interest to the Nazis. They emphasized the glory of the German people, German culture, Germany’s awakening to a bright new dawn under Hitler. And, of course, there were attacks on the Jews, fortified with some cut-and-paste quotes from a Luther of a different world entirely.

Richard Steigmann-Gall, in his book The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945 (a book which can be viewed as a subtle attack on Christianity cleverly disguised as scholarship), saw this event as proof of a profound connection between Protestantism and Naziism. In fact, it was an obvious propaganda show put on by the Nazis when Hitler had not yet consolidated his power, and was still mindful of the political influence of the churches (which he proceeded to break over time with great subtlety and political skill).