Religion, Politics and Ideology in the Third Reich: Selected Essays (Cass Series--Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions)

RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH TOTALITARIAN MOVEMENTS AND POLITICAL RELIGIONS SERIES EDITORS: MICH...

Author: Uriel Tal

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RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH

TOTALITARIAN MOVEMENTS AND POLITICAL RELIGIONS SERIES EDITORS: MICHAEL BURLEIGH, WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY, VIRGINIA AND ROBERT MALLETT, UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM. ‘There has scarcely been another scholar who was as keenly aware of what German National Socialism owed to a combination of bowdlerised Christianity and corrupted science, a view [Tal] argued for with great cogency and formidable scholarship. […] The cultural depth, clarity of exposition and scholarly richness of Tal’s essays will establish formidable standards for future volumes in the series.’ From the Series Editor’s Preface by Michael Burleigh ‘Uriel Tal’s most striking personality trait was his passionate seriousness. It is an increasingly rare characteristic and one not easy to define. Although he was an impeccable and brilliant scholar, Uri’s path did not lead him towards matters of mere scholarly interests; his quest – and it should be defined as such – was intertwined throughout with issues of basic moral significance, particularly with the moral dimension of religious faith.’ Saul Friedländer

Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions Series Editors: Michael Burleigh, Washington and Lee University, Virginia and Robert Mallett, University of Birmingham This innovative new book series will scrutinise all attempts to totally refashion mankind and society, whether these hailed from the Left or the Right, which, unusually, will receive equal consideration. Although its primary focus will be on the authoritarian and totalitarian politics of the twentieth century, the series will also provide a forum for the wider discussion of the politics of faith and salvation in general, together with an examination of their inexorably catastrophic consequences. There are no chronological or geographical limitations to the books that may be included, and the series will include reprints of classic works and translations, as well as monographs and collections of essays. International Fascism, 1919–45 Edited by Gert Sørenson, University of Copenhagen and Robert Mallet, University of Birmingham Totalitarian Democracy and After International Colloquium in Memory of Jacob Talmon Edited by Yehoshua Arieli and Nathan Rotenstreich Religion, Politics and Ideology in the Third Reich Selected Essays Uriel Tal, with In Memoriam by Saul Friedländer The Seizure of Power Fascism in Italy 1919–1929 Adrian Lyttleton The French and Italian Communist Parties Comrades and Culture Cyrille Guiat, Herriott-Watt University, Edinburgh Foreword by David Bell The Lesser Evil Moral Approaches to Genocide Practices Edited by Helmut Dubiel and Gabriel Motzkin Fascism as a Totalitarian Movement Roger Griffin The Italian Road to Totalitarianism Emilio Gentile Translated by Robert Mallett Totalitarianism and Political Religions, Volume 1 Concepts for the Comparison of Dictatorships Edited by Hans Maier Stalinism at the Turn of the Millennium Russian and Western Views John Keep and Alter Litvin

RELIGION, POLITICS AND

IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH Selected Essays

URIEL TAL In Memoriam by Saul Friedländer

First published 2004 by Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 2004 Miriam Tal All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Tal, Uriel. Religion, Politics and Ideology in the Third Reich: selected essays/Uriel Tal. p. cm. – (Cass series–totalitarian movements and political religions, ISSN 1477-058X) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7146-5185-0 (cloth) – ISBN 0-7146-8190-3 (paper) 1. Germany–History–1933–1945. 2. Germany–Politics and government–1933–1945. 3. National socialism and philosophy. 4. National socialism and religion. 5. Jews–Germany–History–1933–1945. 6. Antisemitism–Germany–History–20th century 7. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945) 8. Germany–Ethnic relations. I. Title. II. Series. DD256.5.T238 2003 943.086–dc21 2003043989

ISBN 0-203-01092-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-714-65185-0 (hb) ISBN 0-714-68190-3 (pb)

Contents

In Memoriam by Saul Friedländer

vii

Series Editor’s Preface

ix

Acknowledgements

xi

1. Violence and the Jew in Nazi Ideology

1

2. ‘Political Faith’ of Nazism Prior to the Holocaust

16

3. On the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide

55

4. Structures of German ‘Political Theology’ in the Nazi Era

87

5. Law and Theology: On the Status of German Jewry at the Outset of the Third Reich (1933/34)

130

6. Religious and Anti-religious Roots of Modern Anti-Semitism

171

7. On Modern Lutheranism and the Jews

191

8. Jewish and Universal Social Ethics in the Life and Thought of Albert Einstein

204

Index

223

Uriel Tal: In Memoriam

Uriel Tal’s most striking personality trait was his passionate seriousness. It is an increasingly rare characteristic and one not easy to define. Although he was an impeccable and brilliant scholar, Uri’s path did not lead him towards matters of mere scholarly interests; his quest – and it should be defined as such – was intertwined throughout with issues of basic moral significance, particularly with the moral dimension of religious faith. Tal’s early scholarly work dealt with Christian–Jewish relations in Germany during the second half of the nineteenth century. His later essays and articles aimed mainly at uncovering the nature of modern political religions, the dynamics of the sacralization of politics, on the one hand, and of the politicization of religion, on the other. Most of Uriel Tal’s work in this domain dealt with the German scene: with the fatal symbiosis between a quasi-religious faith, its myths and rituals within Nazi ideology, and also with the contamination of Christian thinking by Nazi ideology. From the 1970s on, Tal was increasingly drawn to write and speak up about what he perceived as the disastrous convergence of religion and nationalist politics within certain factions in contemporary Israel. He was one of the first Israeli intellectuals to draw attention to the fundamental link between the political messianism that arose following the Six Day War and certain trends in Jewish religious thought. How would Uriel Tal, a man deeply fond of and committed to the Jewish tradition, have responded to the concerns preoccupying contemporary Israel, is a challenge left unanswered; it will remain indelibly attached to his memory. Saul Friedländer December 2002

vii

Series Editor’s Preface

Like the new journal TMPR, the Cass book series Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions aims to bring to the notice of an English readership not only earlier work of enduring, or classic, significance, such as this important inaugural collection of essays and public lectures by the distinguished Israeli historian Uriel Tal, but also the writings of major contemporary scholars and younger authors whose approaches reflect the core intellectual concerns of the journal and series shared title. Hence the series reflects a dynamic tradition, represented by such scholars as James Billington, Philippe Burrin, Emilio Gentile, Arthur Klinghoffer, Hans Maier, Arthur Mendel and Saul Friedländer, and one which we hope to perpetuate by enabling younger scholars to publish their first work in our series. Neither of the terms used in our title is uncontroversial, as anyone familiar with the controversies surrounding the recent work of, for example François Furet, Stephane Courtois, or indeed Arno Meyer, will appreciate. Hopefully, future books in the series will make some of the ensuing international debates, for example on Courtois’s Black Book of Communism accessible to an Anglophone audience. Contrary to the misleading view propagated in some historiographical manuals on Nazi Germany or the former Soviet Union, work which uses the paradigm of totalitarianism to convey these regimes’ distinctive, but similarly, beastly aspirations and policies is not an intellectual relic of the Cold War, but very much alive and well in several European countries, including France, Italy and Germany, if not Great Britain, although even there, things may be changing. The Italian nationalist Giuseppe Garibaldi was responsible for a fighting version of the Lord’s Prayer which included the immortal line: ‘Give us today our daily cartridges’. The journal and series will consistently include work which uses such terms as civil, secular and political religion as a way of explaining a variety of regimes and polities in the past and present. Again, the main emphasis will be upon how and why what amounted to secularised redemptive heresies re-emerged in a modern ideological guise, although the series will also deal with the liturgical, ix


rhetorical and spatial aspects of the political religions, in line with the outstanding work of, for example George L. Mosse or Mona Ozouf. There will be no chronological or geographical limits; it being a major part of our ambition to resist the insistent contemporaneity of so much current historical writing, in favour of the influence of the much deeper historical past on ostensibly modern phenomena. Here, one of our guiding lights is Norman Cohn, who in many books, notably The Pursuit of the Millennium, did so much to explain what the ideological prophets of the twentieth century owed to their medieval predecessors. Although our primary focus will be on Italian Fascism, German National Socialism, and Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist Communism in China, eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, together with the multifarious authoritarian and Fascist regimes of the inter-war period, the editors hope to attract work devoted to much earlier societies, as well as to manifestations and presentiments of totalitarianism in the present. There are no chronological or geographical limits, and we would like to include in the series studies by scholars representing several disciplines. The second book in the series, appropriately enough, is a representative selection of the essays – many of them difficult to find – of the late Uriel Tal. There has scarcely been another scholar who was as keenly aware of what German National Socialism owed to a combination of bowdlerised Christianity and corrupted science, a view he argued for with great cogency and formidable scholarship. We are also very privileged to include in this volume a personal memoir of Uriel Tal by Saul Friedländer, a distinguished historian who himself has done so much to treat Nazism in its fullest metaphysical context, something that is all the more necessary now that so much of the scholarship on that subject seems to be driven by quasi-forensic considerations. The cultural depth, clarity of exposition and scholarly richness of Tal’s essays will establish formidable standards for the future volumes in the series. Michael Burleigh Series Co-Editor

x

Acknowledgements

Essay 1, ‘Violence and the Jew in Nazi Ideology’, was originally published in Salo W. Baron and George S. Wise (eds), Violence and Defence in the Jewish Experience, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1977. Essay 2, ‘“Political Faith” of Nazism Prior to the Holocaust’, was originally published as the First Annual Lecture of the Jacob M. and Shoshana Schreiber Chair of Contemporary Jewish History, Tel Aviv University Faculty of Humanities and Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, 1978. Essay 3, ‘On the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide’, was originally published in Yad Vashem Studies XIII, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 1979. Essay 4, ‘Structures of German “Political Theology” in the Nazi Era’, was originally published as the Second Annual Lecture of the Jacob M. and Shoshana Schreiber Chair of Contemporary Jewish History, Tel Aviv University Faculty of Humanities and Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, 1979. Essay 5, ‘Law and Theology: On the Status of German Jewry at the Outset of the Third Reich (1933/4)’, was originally published as the Third Annual Lecture of the Jacob M. and Shoshana Schreiber Chair of Contemporary Jewish History, Tel Aviv University Faculty of Humanities and Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, 1982. Essay 6, ‘Religious and Anti-religious Roots of Modern Anti-Semitism’, was originally published as the Leo Baeck Memorial Lecture No. 14, Leo Baeck Institute, New York, 1971. Essay 7, ‘On Modern Lutheranism and the Jews’, was originally published posthumously in Leo Baeck Year Book XXX, Leo Baeck Institute, London, 1985. xi


Essay 8, ‘Jewish and Universal Social Ethics in the Life and Thought of Albert Einstein’, was originally published in Gerald Holton and Yehuda Elkana (eds), Albert Einstein: Historical and Cultural Perspectives, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1982. The publishers express their thanks for permissions received to reprint the essays.

xii

1 Violence and the Jew in Nazi Ideology

There can be no discussion of violence in Central and Western Europe in the modern era without reference to the Holocaust. While this paper does not discuss the violence of the Holocaust per se, its focus is the conceptual framework that was created by Nazism and consequently helped to prepare the ground for the Holocaust.1 The semantic and ideational meaning of the concept of ‘violence’ has been defined by some of the leading ideologists of Nazism,2 such as Carl Schmitt, Ernst Forsthoff, Ernst Rudolf Huber, Ernst Krieck, and Ernst Jünger. According to Jünger, ‘violence’ (Gewalt) is ‘the transformation of strength into that political power (Macht) that motivates history …’.3 By ‘strength’ Nazi ideologists meant the internal power to resist external impact, influence, stress, pressure, or force. Strength was understood in terms of a personal inner power often articulated in terms derived from pietistic language. We see this in Krieck – ‘… innere Kraft die sich in dem innersten unserer Seele regt [inner strength that stirs us at the core of our soul]’ – or even more so in Ernst Jünger – ‘… ein Machtwort erginge in meinem Innwendigen an mich [a mighty message befell me in my inwardness] … und meine Seele entflammte [and my soul took fire] … in Kämpfes Ungestüm [in the violence of struggle] …’.4 Strength was understood as a form of one’s individual solidity, a kind of power stemming or emerging from one’s individual faith, conviction, or integrity; it was a certain kind of firmness, a form of moral or intellectual courage. Violence, or might, on the other hand, was considered the result of the transmission of strength from the individual to society, from man to the citizen, from society to the state, from the nation to the race, from the state to the Reich, and from the Reich through the party to its embodiment, to its highest, purest realization, its incarnation in the Führer.5 Therefore, violence did not necessarily or exclusively mean simply the use of brute force. Of course, it goes without saying that this kind of explicit, overt force, mainly in terms of ‘political might’, was one of the main manifestations of Nazi violence from its very beginnings. Carl J. Friedrich made this clear by enumerating some of the main characteristic 1


features of totalitarian regimes: the predominance of an official ideology covering all vital aspects of man’s existence; the rule of a single political party passionately and unquestioningly dedicated to the ruling ideology; a technologically conditioned almost total monopoly of the control of all means of power, including mass communication or education; and a system of terroristic police control often methodically exploiting scientific psychology or sociology.6 However, violence as an integral part of the Nazi ideology and regime as a whole was meant to be applied rather indirectly. From its very beginnings, among the Free Corps and the Schutz und Trutz Bund during the first years of the Weimar Republic,7 as well as among its first student organizations,8 and more so later with the establishment of the Third Reich,9 Nazism intended to develop, groom, educate, and mold a new type of man, a man who did not need the power of the police or any other kind of Anwendung von Zwang (‘application of coercion’) to make him conform to the norms of the state or of society. The type of person Nazism tried to create was one who would demand of himself to act, think, feel, and believe according to what the regime expected of him, or according to what he expected the regime might expect from him. The entire complex of ideological and normative expectations applying to a member of the Aryan race was to be internalized and acted upon by the individual as a matter of course, lest he lose his peace of mind. In the long run, instead of exercising violent power by means of police coercion, Nazism intended to indoctrinate its youth so that no external violence would be needed in order to ensure the faithfulness of the German, or, more precisely, his total identification with the state, the race, the Reich, and their culmination and essence: the Führer.10 This complete identification with the totality of the Reich indicates the deeper meaning of violence in the Nazi era. Ernst Krieck emphasized that instead of the use of police power, the political philosophy of Adam Müller was to be ‘… imprinted on the mind of our youth, for according to Müller the state means: “… die Totalität der menschlichen Angelegenheiten, ihre Verbindung zu einem lebendigen Ganzen [the totality of human affairs, their binding into one living whole] …”’.11 Similarly, Ernst Forsthoff ’s definition of the Totalität des Politischen was accepted by many Nazi youth leaders as ‘… the essence of the inner strength … typical of the new Germanic man’.12 FREEDOM THROUGH TOTALITARIANISM Against this background let us now concentrate on analyzing a number of Ernst Krieck’s lectures, some of which are as yet unpublished.13 While in the final years of the Third Reich the authorities and party were critical 2

VIOLENCE AND THE JEW IN NAZI IDEOLOGY

Krieck,14

of in the 1920s and when the Third Reich was established he was a recognized guide for young intellectuals, mainly products of the Nazi student unions of the Weimar Republic, and also for teachers, educators, and SS Leaders. In one of his most important lectures, apparently delivered in 1932 at a meeting organized by SS Obersturmführer Johann von Leers, who was once ‘Schulungsleiter in der NSDSt.B. Reichsleitung’,15 Krieck explained that the concept of violence–might signified ‘freedom’. In style and content this resembles the first part of his book Völkisch-politische Anthropologie, Part I ‘Die Wirklichkeit’ (‘The Reality’), especially the section entitled ‘Das völkisch-politische Bild vom Menschen’ (‘The Folk-Political Image of Man’) (Leipzig, 1936, pp. 42–119). Thus, according to this philosophy, the totalitarian regime that a dictatorship controls does not lead to a negation of human freedom but to its realization. Political totalitarianism is the guarantee of freedom, for in a system in which politics encompasses all of life the individual man is free of society from various points of view: a) According to the Carl Schmitt school, said Krieck, social life is composed of dichotomies and antitheses – friend–foe, war–peace, resolution– argument, healthy naturalism–degenerate religion, strength–weakness, bravery–cowardice16 – but the power of a dictatorship protects man from stumbling into such bipolarities and protects him from the fear and dread with which constant confrontation of choices burdens him; in particular, dictatorship releases man from the negative extreme of the antitheses, from foe, weakness, cowardice, isolation, individuality, and degeneracy. Political totalitarianism is therefore a redeeming force, saving man from the constant fear of forces that are his opposite, that are foreign to him or endanger his existence. b) Society is composed of masses and consequently of violent forces which dominate and oppress the individual; in a political regime based on dictatorial power, however, the individual attains his freedom on the one hand by being released from the mass and on the other by identifying with the political elite headed by the Führer. In a democratic order man is subject to ‘… Die Macht der Öffentlichkeit [the power of the public] … im totalen Staat befreit der Führer den Menschen von den Massen, von der bedrückenden Öffentlichkeit, von der degenerierenden Intellektualisierung des wahren Lebens, vom Parlamentarismus [in the total state the Führer frees man from the masses, from the repressive public, from the degenerating intellectualization of true life, from parliamentarism] …’.17 c) Society confronts the state and enslaves the individual in this struggle against the state, as exemplified by liberal society, which binds the individual to a parliament–party struggle and thus deprives him of responsibility for himself; responsibility is given to the parties and the parliament, which are no more than a sort of conglomeration of egotistical 3


amorphous forces, narrow-minded and lacking public responsibility – a sort of sum total of the mass, which is faceless, characterless, unrealistic, and aimless. The power of a dictatorship, however, protects the individual from the Leviathan nature of this society, primarily by creating an identity between society and state by means of a process known as totale politisierung aller Sozialprozesse (‘total politicization of all social life’). d) Society places man in a situation of ‘orphanhood’ from any authority, while the power of a dictatorship provides man with authority, bestows authority upon him, spreads the wings of authority over him, and thus releases him from orphanhood, from isolation, and, to a great extent, from license as well. e) In Western democratic society man is abandoned to economic forces which for him as an individual are arbitrary since as an individual he has no control over them. The power of a dictatorial regime, however, controls the economy as well, and thus man’s very identification with that power and his surrender to its authority makes him a party also to the economic factors operating in the state. On this point, Krieck no longer sang paeans of praise to the Gottfried Feder school, as expressed mainly in Feder’s Der deutsche Staat auf nationaler und sozialer Grundlage (‘The German State on National and Social Foundation’) (Munich, 1931, 5th edn), as he had done earlier. Now that the Feder school was no longer acceptable to the regime, Krieck praised the economic laws aimed at strengthening the position of capitalists and heavy industry, among them the ‘Gesetz über Betriebsvertretungen und über wirtschaftliche Vereinigungen’ (‘law concerning business representation and economic associations’), passed early in 1933,18 and the ‘Gesetz über die Einziehung volks und staats-feindlichen Vermögens’ (‘law concerning the confiscation of property which is hostile to the state’), passed at the end of that year.19 Here too Krieck stressed that the essence of these laws, dealing with labor relations and production, was the liberation of the working man from the particularist interests of what he called ‘miserly social pressure groups’, bestowing upon him real freedom by the identification of his particularistic interests with universal interests of the state, the race, the party, the Reich, and the Führer: ‘Freedom means the liberation of man from himself through total identification with the general will, which is embodied in the Führer …’ 20 This ideology, the main point of which is the attainment of individual liberty through identification with the general will personified by the Führer, still had several diverse trends in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Ernst Jünger represented the individualistic, or perhaps rather aristocratic, position in that he stressed that the citizen should refrain from completely annulling his individual will before the general will embodied in the Führer. If he does so, Jünger said, he will be incapable of blending 4


with the general will, through his own decision and desire. Just as there is some modicum of willing devotion or conscious self-sacrifice epitomized in the battlefield, in war, or, as Kurt Ziesel said, ‘in creative war’ (vom schöpferischen Kriege), it is desirable to have room for it in the political regime of a totalitarian state. The ideal totalitarian regime is one which allows the individual his individuality so that it can combine with the general will. This is true, claimed Jünger, in regard to the concept of the omnipotence of the state, for if the state chokes off all individual will, it will also choke off the individual’s will to surrender himself to that Omnipotenz. On the other hand, Ernst Forsthoff as well as E.R. Huber contended that ‘die totale Inpflichtnahme jedes Einzelnen verpflichtet zu der Aufhebung des privaten Charakter der Einzelexistenz [the total dutifulness of each individual requires the abrogation of the private nature of individual existence] …’ 21 The central part of Professor Ernst Krieck’s address on ‘Die Intellektuellen und das Dritte Reich’, apparently delivered in 1938, is published here for the first time. Attached to this English translation of the original are detailed notes and source materials contributing to a deeper understanding of this important text. The manuscript, as it appears in the Goebbels Collection in the YIVO archives (New York),22 is not annotated, and all the bibliographic and historiographic data cited below, attached to the body of the text, have been prepared and inserted for this translation. One of the chief difficulties confronting a totalitarian state (der totale Staat), and by this I mean Carl Schmitt’s political-ideological system of past years and not the one he favors today, is the absorption of intellectuals in the political regime.23 In 1933, after we overcame un-German literature (undeutsches Schrifttum),24 and again in 1934 with the publication of the loyalty declarations (Bekenntnisse) of scientists and scholars, such as the members of the Teachers Union (N.S. Lehrerbund),25 we were still convinced that intellectuals would be guides and mentors for the nation and lead to an ideological renaissance (weltanschauliche Erneuerung), to the reawakening of the Germanic spirit and thereby to the revival of the racial culture. The ideological foundations of this culture were laid by Eugen Dühring, who was Friedrich Engels’ rival, by H.S. Chamberlain, who was the Comte de Gobineau’s successor and rival, by Möller van den Bruck, who minted and revived the term ‘Third Reich’ but remained imprisoned in the dreams of a conservative revolutionary, and by Dietrich Eckart, the Führer’s close friend. In practice, however, this culture was constructed by the Führer himself and by Alfred Rosenberg, who is in 5


charge of all aspects of National-Socialist ideology, and also by Walter Darré, one of the fathers of the movement for German colonization and expansion in Eastern Europe.26 We believed that the intellectuals would take a lesson from the Führer’s ideological teachings, from his profound understanding of spiritual creativity and even of profound reading, as he clearly indicated in Mein Kampf and carried out together with Hermann Esser, his friend from the days of the revolutionary struggle.27 For real spiritual life does not exist in a vacuum, nor in a professor’s study, nor through ignoring natural reality, but precisely through what Thomas Mann in his destructive work called the Politisierung des Geistes …28 Only the conquest of the spirit by the force of the regime, of policy, and also by physical force will set the spirit in its real place, which is in civilizations and not in spiritual abstract culture. The purpose of the spirit is to serve the race, the state, and, as Alfred Bäumler said, the spirit is to be encompassed in the totality of racialism (Arteigenheit, Artgleichheit).29 Unfortunately only part of the intelligentsia chose that path, and many are having difficulties in finding their place in the totale Führerstaat. Since the great day of 1 August 1934 30 when the positions of party leader, head of state, and commander-in-chief were combined in the Führer, the traditionally liberal intelligentsia has begun to feel alien to our national homogeneity. One of the illuminating examples of the dilemma which intellectuals, ideologists, and even fathers of the National-Socialist revolution find themselves in is that of Gottfried Benn. In his book The New State and Intellectuals 31 he still discerned very well that our national revolution (Die Revolution vom Nationalen her) was from the outset opposed to the individualistic approach characteristic of the intelligentsia. A few of these educated men were charmed by historical materialism, which is nothing but a ‘devilish Jewish invention’, and the rest remained bound by the shackles of rationalism and by the Kantian tradition of the critique of pure reason, a tradition in which man is inveigled into sterile speculation and into criticism of the a priori conditions of knowledge to the point that the a posteriori confrontation with the object of knowledge and experience is completely denied to him, and this too is a typically talmudic Jewish invention. The intellectuals in the Weimar generation who are prepared to entrust their egos to a political-racial totality, or to the Führer, are few. The general will, as Ernst Forsthoff showed,32 is realized in the Führer, and it is thus that the Aryan leadership realizes the essence of the German, and there is no room for other essential qualities like those of the Enlightenment, rationalism, liberalism, communism, or Judaism. 6


However, Gottfried Benn himself was a victim of the narcissistic urge of liberal intellectuals, and after the revolution was completely realized, he remained a revolutionary, a romantic, a dreamer, a prophet and a seer, and he was therefore correctly forbidden any literary-public activity. Gottfried Benn erred as regards racism as well. Formerly he enthusiastically supported the idea of biological cultivation (biologischen Züchtungsgedanken), and was strict with himself when he had to examine his own racial purity, this examination having an element of moral self-criticism or even expiation and inner purification of a man who knows he is standing before the seat of judgment of nation, race, and blood. And despite all this, to this day he has not been able to understand what Friedrich Georg Jünger stated as early as 1926,33 that the time for humanism and liberalism has passed and that nowadays blood and race are the place upon which man attains a consciousness of himself and thus freedom. Race and blood are unavoidable primeval forces with primeval power (Urzwang), and in accepting the yoke of these forces man is liberated from enslavement to reason, logic, and other sterile forms of the human spirit. Many of the intellectuals who did not grow up in the NationalSocialist revolution have not learned how to free themselves from a position on the sidelines, from the contemplative, reflective approach, nor how to invest their whole might and strength in what Jünger called the intoxicating thing (das Berauschende) contained in racial nationalism. Diametrically opposed as it is to Marxism, which seeks to justify itself with the help of science, and to theology, which seeks to justify itself with the help of metaphysics,34 NationalSocialism requires no justification (Rechtfertigung) from any ideological system at all. Might (Macht) and honor (Würde), race and blood, these are total facts, that is a kind of reality whose authority derives from itself. Jünger further stated that a ‘community of blood’ (Blutgemeinschaft) does not need to justify itself, for it is an existential fact whose authority derives from itself, it is here (sie ist da), and thus any moral grounding is superfluous. Jünger, however, like revolutionary, visionary philosophers endowed with romantic yearning – and let us not forget Edgar J. Jung 35 – followed the path of Gottfried Benn and likewise failed to discern that with the establishment of the Third Reich the period of revolution came to an end and that of realization began, a period during which Germanic man is called upon to entrust his will to the Führer so that his private will is identified with the Führer’s. What then should we demand of the intelligentsia in the Third Reich? 7


a) Our first demand is that the members of that social group should free themselves from the heritage of cultural pessimism36 which originated in the second half of the nineteenth century. This despair of culture, of the purpose of mankind’s existence, of the future of the human spirit which was sown in the German soul by Schopenhauer, Gobineau, Nietzsche, and in our day also by Spengler, penetrated the consciousness of contemporary intellectuals, actually because of the supposed kinship, I stress ‘supposed’, of this pessimism to the National-Socialist outlook. It is true that from the historical, developmental point of view, we owe much to cultural pessimism. This view brought home to us the fact that rationalism cuts man from living, nonderivative contact with cosmic reality, with nature, in other words with the womb from which Germanic man emerged and in which his great vitality was formed – in other words his essence (sein Wesen). This detachment made Germanic man so decadent that most of the pessimists prophesied physical annihilation (Ausmerzung)37 for us and thus also the spiritual decline of our cultural heritage. However, the idea of detachment is only another form of the principle of Marxist self-alienation (Selbstentfremdung),38 which itself is only a continuation of the Judeo-Christian tenet according to which man is destined to be an alien, a stranger, an exile, a pilgrim in this world, until he is redeemed through the force of divine charisma. About those who believe in this destructive pessimism which deprives Germanic man of consciousness of his strength and of the hereditary natural power with which he was blessed, thanks to his Nordic ancestors,39 the Führer said not long ago that if we did not need intellectuals, who knows, it would perhaps be possible to destroy them (‘… so könnte man sie ja, ich weiss nicht, ausrotten oder so was …’).40 We must therefore demand of our intellectuals that they change from melancholy pessimists to optimists who have faith in the Führer and, by virtue of that faith, in themselves as well. b) Another demand is liberation from the bonds of individualism and adherence to the concept of race. Many intellectuals continue to laud the value of the individual as if individual life, and not the victory of the Aryan race, were the most important thing. Hence the historian Walter Frank questioned whether in our age, when great rulers and powers enter and exit from the stage of history when nations are fighting for existence and nonexistence, for power and honor, the people who concentrate on themselves, on their own individuality, deserve to live (des Lebens würdig). Similarly, Hanns Johst, one of the leaders of National-Socialist culture, stated that the 8


whole and not the individual, the race and not the man, are the important essentials. The individual does not have immanent value; he is only one cell in the organic tissue called race; he lives thanks to it and for its sake. The scientific system of Eugen Fischer,41 according to which hereditary characteristics should be considered the motive force of history, is the key to understanding the value of the individual. And there are scientists in the world rising to disagree with the possibility of proving the existence of race scientifically. However we have learned from Chamberlain’s and especially from the Führer’s teachings that the verification of the existence of race, and perhaps of existence in general, does not require artificial scientific tools. The fact of the existence of race is not doubtful, because man carries it in his heart, his spirit, his soul, or because man wants race to become a fact. And precisely this attitude, which moves the source of objectivity to the subject, is accepted even by outstanding scientists such as Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer. The best of our writers as well, in their important controversy against the decadence of Romain Rolland,42 testified that the source of scientific truth is in feeling – not in critical reason, as stipulated by Kant,43 and not in empirical findings, as stipulated by the English empiricists. History is the arena for the struggle between the lofty, noble, pure racial type and what E. Jaensch described as the ‘antitype’ (Gegentyp),44 that is between good and bad, between Aryans and Jews (Germanentum and Judentum), between blood and metaphysics, between light and darkness, between primeval forces (Urgewalten) and the weak-mindedness of the rationalists.45 We must therefore demand of the intellectuals that they accept without compromise or hesitation the Führer’s statement that the days of ‘personality principle’ (Persönlichkeitsprinzip) are indeed over.46 POSTSCRIPT Salo Baron, in the first chapter of his monumental work A Social and Religious History of the Jews, analyzed the Jewish people’s historic approach to power and concluded that in the course of history the Jews developed ‘… the refusal to recognize the powers of the day. Power itself often became the cause of suspicion and resentment rather than of admiration and acquiescence … The religious and ethnic power of perseverance, rather than the political power of expansion and conquest, became the cornerstone of Jewish belief and practice. Such “power” was naturally 9


defensive and passive and mutual non-aggression was one of its major safeguards …’ This concept has its source as far back as the very beginning of the history of Israel, when we find ‘… early recognizing [of] the ultimate futility of even the greatest human power …’ And since the very existence of Israel symbolized the negation of power and the priority of the spirit, Baron sums up as follows: ‘It was scarcely surprising that Nazism’s concentrated fury hit the people whose entire career had longer and more persistently than any other embodied … historic fundamentals …’ such as ‘… messianic humanitarianism and internationalism … There have been many German thinkers who, glorifying power as do the spokesmen of no other nation … reiterated that humanitarianism is a ruse of the weak, invented by the weak (especially the Jews) … The Jewish people … felt … that it possessed powers other than political, which were their full equivalent …’ Primary and archival sources cited above bear witness to the fact that Baron’s system is applicable to the Nazi period as well. From the beginning of modern anti-Semitism and racism in the last third of the nineteenth century, up to and including the Holocaust,47 Judaism served as a symbol of nonsurrender to policies seeking to suppress individuality, intellectual freedom, and spiritual autonomy, substituting for the individual’s inner strength violence in its complex sense – that is, total conformism, the extinction of individual will by the will of the Reich and the Führer.

NOTES 1. Cf. my review of Josef Ackermann’s Himmler als Ideologe (Zurich/Frankfurt, 1970) in Freiburger Rundbrief (Freiburg i/Br., 1975–1976), pp. 14–22; see also the stimulating essay by Yehuda Bauer on ‘Implications of the Study of the Holocaust on our Historical Consciousness’, The Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University, Study Circle on Diaspora Jewry in the Home of the President of Israel, Fifth Series, no. 5 (Jerusalem, 1972). 2. Some of the Nazi ideologists, such as Möller van den Bruck, Oswald Spengler, Carl Schmitt, Ernst Krieck, Ernst Jünger (and their teachings) became controversial during the Third Reich, in particular at the beginning of World War II, but this does not necessarily diminish their historical impact. Moreover, in many cases the ideologists were apparently criticized precisely because of their farreaching influence. It seems that Krieck’s case is especially symptomatic; cf. the extensive material in the files of the ‘Beauftragter des Führers für die Uberwachung der gesamten geistigen und weltanschaulichen Schulung der NSDAP’, Institut für Zeitgeschichte Archiv, Munich (henceforth cited IZGA), microfilms MA-611, pp. 59055–201, especially ‘Gutachten Bäumler on Krieck’s Lebensphilosophie’; also ibid., pp. 59286–543, 59583–641, 59650–93. Anton Hoch, Chief Archivist, and his staff were exceedingly kind in allowing me to utilize the archival materials of the IZGA and in giving me the benefit of their professional advice.

10


3.

4.

5.

6. 7.

The relationship of Carl Schmitt to Nazi ideology, policy, and anti-Semitism has been thoroughly investigated by George Schwab against the background of Schmitt’s entire political thought on German statehood. Accordingly, Schmitt continued to oppose Nazism until 1933, arguing ‘that only those parties not intent on subverting the state be granted the right to compete for parliamentary and governmental power’. Referring to Schmitt’s Legalität und Legitimität (Munich, 1932; Berlin, 1968), Schwab correctly concludes that ‘this obviously meant driving the extremists on both sides of the political spectrum from the open arena’; cf. The Concept of the Political by Carl Schmitt, translation, introduction, and notes by George Schwab with comments by Leo Strauss (New Brunswick, N.J., 1976), p. 14. Schwab has shed new light on the rather controversial part Schmitt played both in the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich and was right in pointing out that Carl Schmitt was not simply one of those who directly ‘paved the way for the Führerstaat’. See also G. Schwab, The Challenge of the Exception: An Introduction to the Political Ideas of Carl Schmitt between 1921 and 1936 (Berlin, 1970), Chs. 3, 5–9, and Conclusion. Additional archival source material on Nazi criticism of Carl Schmitt after 1936 is to be found among the ‘classified’ propaganda booklets published by the governmental department of Alfred Rosenberg: Mitteilungen zur Weltanschaulichen Lage. Vol. III, No. 1 (8 Jan. 1937), 1–15, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, N.S.D. 16/38. I am indebted to Heinz Boberach, Chief Archivist at the Federal Archives, Koblenz, Germany, for his advice and permission to quote these sources. Ernst Krieck, ‘Die Intellektuellen und das Dritte Reich’ (1938?). This paper, called ‘Vortragsmanuskript’, parts of which are published herein for the first time, was found among various additional typewritten and as yet unpublished manuscripts in the Goebbels Collection of Clippings and Offprints, parcel no. 4, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York. The paper was generously put at my disposal by Ezekiel Lipschutz, Archivist at YIVO. The contribution of the historian Jacob L. Talmon to the study of violence is well known. In addition to his Hebrew work In the Era of Violence (Tel Aviv, 2nd edn, 1975), the following definition is extremely significant for our study: ‘Everyone talks of rights but everywhere violence triumphs. Rights are won by force alone, and every act of violence is committed in the name of rights … the right to employ violence has been given the dignity of a dogma …’ (Talmon, The Unique and the Universal: Some Historical Reflections [New York, 1965], p. 165; see also pp. 119–64 on the universal significance of modern anti-Semitism). Krieck, p. 2. On the historical form and impact of pietistic language, cf. August Langen, Der Wortschatz des deutschen Pietismus (Tübingen, 1968), p. 390 ff. Also cf. Peter von Polenz, ‘Sprach purismus und Nationalsozialismus’, in Eberhard Lämmert et al., Germanistik eine deutsche Wissenschaft (Frankfurt am Main, 1967), p. 111 ff. See also Koppel S. Pinson, Pietism as a Factor in the Rise of German Nationalism (New York, 1968 [1934]), pp. 153–79. Krieck, pp. 2–4. On the political, legal, and ideological background, cf. one of the essential sources, Ernst Rudolf Huber, Verfassungsrecht des Grossdeutschen Reiches (Hamburg, 1937–39), p. 213. Cf. also the excellent chapter, ‘Der totale Führerstaat’, in Eleonore Sterling, Der Unvollkommene Staat-Studien über Diktatur und Demokratie (Frankfurt am Main, 1965), p. 281 ff. Carl J. Friedrich, ‘The Unique Character of Totalitarian Society’, in Totalitarianism, ed. by Carl J. Friedrich (New York, 1954, 1964), pp. 52–3. Robert G.L. Waite, Vanguard of Nazism: The Free Corps Movement in Postwar Germany (1918–1923) (Cambridge, MA, 1970 [1952]), Ch. 8, p. 183 ff.; Uwe

11


8. 9. 10.

11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21.

22. 23.

24.

Lohalm, Völkischer Radikalismus: die Geschichte des Deutschvolkischen Schutz und Trutz Bundes, 1919–1923 (Hamburg, 1970), VI, parts 2 and 4. Anselm Faust, Der Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund – Studenten und Nationalsozialismus in der Weimarer Republik (Düsseldorf, 1973), Vol. I, pp. 128–40. One of the important primary sources is Rudolf Benze, Gesamtleiter des Deutschen Zentralinstituts für Erziehung und Unterricht, Erziehung im Grossdeutschen Reich (Frankfurt am Main, 1943), 3rd edn, p. 14 ff. Baldur Schirach, Die Hitler-Jugend, Idee und Gestalt (Berlin, 1934); cf. ‘Rede des Reichsjugendführer Baldur von Schirach auf dem Empfangsabend des Aussenpolitischen Amtes der NSDAP an 12. Mai 1935 über “Wesen und Aufbau der Hitler-Jugend”’, in Dokumente der deutschen Politik, Vol. 3 (Berlin, 3rd edn, 1938), pp. 262–73, reprinted in Hans Jochen Gamm, Führung und Verführung Pädagogik des Nationalsozialismus (Munich, 1964), Dokument 58, p. 315 ff. Krieck, p. 8. At this point the far-reaching impact of Othmar Spann’s Der wahre Staat (Leipzig, 1921) on Krieck’s ideology seems obvious; cf. Krieck’s Völkischpolitische Anthropologie (Leipzig, 1936) (henceforth Anthropologie), p. 97 ff. Spann is another example of a prominent early proponent of Nazism whose teachings became highly controversial after Nazism was transformed from an ideology into a political regime. On his influence on E.G. Jung’s messianic interpretation of the Reich, see Hans-Joachim Schwierskott, Arthur Möller wan den Bruck und der revolutionäre Nationalismus in der Weimarer Republik (Berlin, Frankfurt, 1962), p. 110. Krieck, p. 8. See above, n. 3. IZGA. MA-611, pp. 59163–424. Krieck, p. 42 ff. Cf. Kurt Lenk, ‘Schmitt’s Dezisionismus’, in Volk und Staat strukturwandel politischer Ideologien in 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart/Berlin/Cologne/ Mainz, 1971), pp. 120–31. Krieck, p. 40. Reichstagsblatt, I, no. 31 (5 April 1933), 161. Ibid., no. 55 (27 May 1933), 293; no. 81 (15 July 1933), 479. Krieck, p. 38. Cf. Kurt Sontheimer, Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik (Munich, 1968) p. 171; cf. the rather biased essay by Martin Greiffenhagen, ‘Der Totalitarismusbegriff in der Regimenlehre’, in M. Greiffenhagen et al., Totalitarismus Zur Problematik eines politischen Begriffs (Munich, 1972), p. 23 ff. As to the socioeconomic background of David Schoenbaum, see ‘The Third Reich and Business’, in Hitler’s Social Revolution: Class and Status in Nazi Germany, 1933–1939 (New York, 1967), pp. 113–51. Cited by Krieck, p. 35. This dilemma between the individual and society has historical roots in German pietism; cf. K. S. Pinson’s book on pietism (op. cit., n. 4), Ch. 2, ‘Individuality and Individualism’, pp. 63–75, and Ch. 3, ‘The One and the Many’, pp. 76–101. Ibid., n. 3. Heinrich Muth, ‘Carl Schmitt in der deutschen Innenpolitik des Sommers 1932’, in Historische Zeitschrift (Munich, 1971), pp. 75–147. Cf. Sterling, op. cit., p. 283 ff. See also George L. Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich (New York, 1971 [1964]), p. 237 ff. Richard Drews and Alfred Kantorowicz, Verboten und Verbrannt: Deutsche Literatur 12 Jahre unterdruckt (Berlin, 1947); Joseph Wulf, Literatur und

12


25.

26.

27. 28. 29.

30.

31.

Dichtung im Dritten Reich: eine Dokumentation (Gutersloh, 1963) (henceforth Deutsche Literatur), pp. 41, 44–67. This collection of sources, like some others by Joseph Wulf, shows evidence of prejudiced editing and does not present a sufficiently balanced or objective picture. At the same time, a considerable number of the documents included in these collections are definitely of scientific value, and we utilize them in this paper when the material stands the test of objective historiography. See also ‘Die “Unbildung” der Schriftstellerorganisationen’, and ‘Die Bücherverbrennung’, in Dietrich Strothmann, Nationalsozialistische Literaturpolitik: ein Beitrag zur Publizistik im Dritten Reich, Abhandlungen zur Kunst, Musik, un Literaturwissenschaft, no. 13 (Bonn, 3rd edn, 1968), pp. 67–80. ‘Bekenntnisse der Professoren und Studenten’, in Léon Poliakov and Joseph Wulf, Das Dritte Reich und seine Denker-Dokumente (Berlin, Grunewald, 1959) (henceforth Denker), pp. 104–16. On the attitudes of Martin Heidegger, cf. the somewhat biased essay by Paul Hühnerfield, ‘Wissensdienst für Hitler’, in In Sachen Heidegger: Versuch über ein deutsches Genie (Munich, 1961), p. 96 ff. This opinion of Krieck’s on the principle forerunners of the racist Nazi ideology has been confirmed by contemporary historiography: see Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961), part III, p. 183 ff.; Uriel Tal, Christians and Jews in the Second Reich, 1870–1914 (Jerusalem, 1969) (Hebrew), pp. 175–234; Werner Jochmann, ‘Die Ausbreitung des Antisemitismus’, in Mosse E. Werner, ed., Deutsches Judentum in Krieg und Revolution, 1916–1923 (Tübingen, 1971), pp. 409–510; Karl Schwedhelm, ed., Propheten des Nationalismus (Munich, 1969), pp. 36–55, 105–23, 139–58, 159–75. See also Reinhard Bollmus, Das Amt Rosenberg und seine Gegner – zum Machtkampf im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem, Studien zur Zeitgeschichte, hrsg. vom IZG (Stuttgart, 1970), pp. 27–60, 153–250. Werner Maser, Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf: eine kritische Analyse (Munich, 1969), pp. 60–61; cf. A. Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 496–73 Auflage, Volksausgabe 1939, p. 36 ff. Thomas Mann, Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen (Berlin, 1920, 15th–18th edn), pp. xxiii–xxxix. A. Bäumler, Nachschrift von U. Coede: ‘Vorlesungen über Geschichtsphilosophie, 1939’, YIVO Archives, Hauptamt Wissenschaft, 236, MK-3. On Alfred Bäumler’s approach to the secularization of theological patterns of thought and articulation, see Uriel Tal, ‘Forms of Pseudo-Religion in the German Kulturbereich Prior to the Holocaust’, in Immanuel: A Semi-Annual Bulletin of Religious Thought and Research in Israel, no. 3 (Jerusalem, 1973–74), pp. 68–73. Krieck is referring to the regulation of 1/8/1934 which merged the top state function (Staatsoberhaupt) with the top government function (Reichskanzler) in the person of the dictator, or, as the source has it, the Führer (R.G.B.I. 1934, part I, p. 747); cf. Ernst Rudolf Huber, Verfassungsrecht des Grossdeutschen Reiches (Hamburg, 1937–39), p. 213; cf. Peter Diehl Thiele, Partei und Staat im Dritten Reich: Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis von NSDAP und allgemeiner innerer Staatsverwaltung (Munich, 2nd edn, 1971), pp. 1–32. Gottfried Benn, Der neue Staat und die Intellektuellen (Stuttgart/Berlin, 1933), p. 9: ‘… Der neue Staat ist gegen die Intellektuellen entstanden’. Cf. Eykman Christoph, ‘Spiel, Peristaltik und Mutation: Gottfried Benns Verhältnis zur Geschichte’, in Geschichtspessimismus in der deutschen Literatur des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts (Bern/Munich, 1970), pp. 95–111. Also see Gottfried Benn’s

13


32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40.

41. 42. 43.

44. 45. 46. 47.

description of the forms of thought, emotion, and articulation in Stefan George’s influential work ‘Das neue Reich’ (1919): ‘… Es ist das Formgefühl, dass die grosse Transzendenz der neuen Epoche sein wird, die Fuge des zweiten Zeitalters, das erste schuf Gott nach seinen Bilde, das zweite der Mensch nach seinen Formen, das Zweischenreich des Nihilismus ist zu Ende …,’ quoted in Ernst Loewy, Literatur unterm Hakenkreuz, Das Dritte Reich und seine Dichtung, eine Dokumentation (Frankfurt am Main, 1969 [1966]), pp. 85–6. See also the extensive documentation on the ‘Stefan George Kreis’ and on George’s ideological and aesthetic influence, Hauptamt Wissenschaft 236 MK-5, YIVO Archives. See also George L. Mosse, ‘Caesarism, Circuses and Monuments’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. VI, no. 2 (1971), 179–82. Ernst Forsthoff, Der totale Staat (Hamburg, 1933), pp. 29–43. Friedrich Georg Jünger, Aufmarsch des Nationalismus (Berlin, 1926), p. 65 ff., also quoted in Loewy, pp. 81–82. Ernst Krieck, Völkische-politische Anthropologie, part I (Leipzig, 1936), pp. 57– 69. Cf. Bernhard Jenschke, Zur Kritik der konservativ-revolutionären Ideologie in der Weimarer Republik: Weltanschauung und Politik bei Edgar Julius Jung (Munich, 1971), Chs. 3, 4, and 6. See studies by Fritz Stern and Uriel Tal, cited above, n. 26. See also n. 31 in Christoph Eykman’s Geschichtspessimismus und Geschichtsphilosophie, pp. 7– 41. On the origin of this symptomatic term, cf. Cornelia Berning, Vom ‘Abstammungsnachweis’ zum ‘Zuchtwart’ – Vokabular des Nationalsocialismus (Berlin, 1964), pp. 31–2. Cf. Hubert Kiesewetter, ‘Der Rechtshegelianismus und das Dritte Reich’, in Von Hegel zu Hitler: eine Analyse der Hegelschen Machtstaatsideologie und der politischen Wirkungsgeschichte des Rechtshegelianismus (Hamburg, 1974), p. 233 ff. Cf. Hans Jürgen Lutzhöft, Der Nordische Gedanke in Deutschland, 1920–1940, Kieler Historische Studien, Vol. 14 (Stuttgart, 1971), pp. 111–84. Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (Munich, 1958), Heft 2, p. 195 ff.; cf. the outstanding analysis of Hitler’s rhetoric in Detlev Grieswelle, Propaganda der Friedlosigkeit: eine Studie zu Hitlers Rhetorik, 1920–1933 (Stuttgart, 1972), p. 148 ff. Otmar Freiherr von Verscheur, ‘Die Aufgaben des Instituts für Erbbiologie und Rassenforschung’; cf. ‘Erblinien machen die Geschichte’ in Der völkische Staat biologisch gesehen (Berlin, 1933), pp. 17–19, quoted in Denker, pp. 416–17. R.G. Binding, etc., ‘Sechs Bekenntnisse zum neuen Deutschland’, in Deutsche Literatur, p. 88 ff.; cf. Loewy, pp. 75–6. Cf. Kurt Sontheimer, Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik: die politischen Ideen des deutschen Nationalismus zwischen 1918 and 1933 (Munich, 1968), p. 109: ‘… Die Idee des Krieges als einer Fügung des Schicksals, der man sich zu stellen habe, war in Deutschland trotz Kant viel vertrauter als die Idee des Ewigen Friendens, die man gern verachtlich als Humanitätsduselei abtat …’. Erich Jaensch, Der Gegentypus: psychologisch-anthropologische Grundlagen deutscher Kulturphilosophie (Leipzig, 1938). Cf. Ernst Krieck, Das nationalsozialistische Deutschland und die Wissenschaft (Hamburg, 1936), 35 pp. A. Hitler, Mein Kampf, 469–73 Auflage Volksausgabe 1939, p. 500 ff. Cf. the penetrating study by Saul Friedländer, ‘Some Aspects of the Historical

14

VIOLENCE AND THE JEW IN NAZI IDEOLOGY Significance of the Holocaust’, in the Jerusalem Quarterly, vol. I, no. 1 (1976), 36–59. The essay is a major contribution to both Jewish and universal aspects in the study of mass movements and genocide. The text is an expansion of the Second Philip M. Klutznick International Lecture on Contemporary Jewish Life and Institutions, delivered at the International Scholars’ Conference on ‘The Holocaust – a Generation After’, held in New York City, 3–6 March 1975, under the auspices of the Hebrew University Institute of Contemporary Jewry’s International Committee.

15

2 ‘Political Faith’ of Nazism Prior to the Holocaust

A. CONCEPTUAL AND SEMANTIC DEFINITION OF ‘POLITICAL FAITH’ While Nazism was still in the process of gaining a foothold as a movement and as a party, a few contemporaries realized that Nazism was structured in terms of what was called ‘political Messianism’. These included, among the Catholics, Eberhard Schlund; among the Protestants, Richard Kahlwert; among the Liberals, Theodor Heuss; and, of the Jewish spokesmen, Robert Weltsch, who warned against a political power led by a sacred and sanctified authority, a sort of ‘German Messiah’.1 In his second volume of Mein Kampf, Hitler defined his political path in terms borrowed from religion. He noted that just as Marx, espousing the view ‘of a prophet’, moulded communism into the form of a ‘political confessed creed’ (politisches Glaubensbekenntnis), so should Nazism be built by means of politischen Glauben.2 Nazism, Hitler continued, must also learn from the Church, for … Christianity too, could not rest content solely to build its own altar. It was forced to proceed towards the destruction of pagan altars. It was only as a result of this fanatic intolerance that absolute faith could have been established. Moreover, this spirit of intolerance is its unquestioned pre-supposition …3 Then, in his address to the ‘representatives of the Bavarian economy’ (Vertreter der bayerischen Wirtschaft), in Munich, October 12, 1932, von Papen gave one of his most significant interpretations of Nazism: … When this cabinet of the Reich was established by the President of the Reich, I [had] proclaimed (verkündet) the principle of an entirely new state leadership. We were aware [of the fact] that the 16

‘POLITICAL FAITH’ OF NAZISM PRIOR TO THE HOLOCAUST

Reich and the states will recover only if it is possible to give a new and better expression to the political will of the nation (Volk) than what Weimar was capable of bringing about. I then said that conservative state-politics are politics out of faith. What is essential about every conservative worldview is its being anchored in the divine order of things. This, however, is also its radical difference compared with the doctrine embraced by the NSDAP. What gives it the nature of political religion (Konfession) is its axiom of the ‘exclusiveness’ of the political ‘all or nothing’ [and] its mystical Messiah-faith in the ‘word-mighty’ (wortgewaltigen) Führer as the only one summoned to control destiny. And indeed it is here where I see the unreconciliable difference between Conservative Politics rooted in Faith and a National Socialist Faith rooted in Politics …4 It is against this background that the term Glaube acquired its functional role, which complements the widely used term of Weltanschauung.5 The Weltanschauung serves as the ideological framework for all aspects as well as for all phenomena of life. It is a normative and binding theory. For this theory to become a reality, inner conviction, a readiness for sacrifices, absolute devotion and discipline are needed. This is where faith comes in. Hitler acknowledged Schönerer as one of the notable leaders of political anti-Semitism who preceded him and who understood the importance of the Weltanschauung, but then Schönerer did not grasp, Hitler added, that since ‘the holders of these religious convictions’ are masses, a faith, or a fanatische Weltanschauung are absolutely necessary.6 The official interpretations of the political faith of a Nazi, also called ‘… faith in its mundane meaning …’, emphasized the merits of its irrational or even anti-rational character. Nazism depends ‘… on experience, relies on feeling more than on intellect and abstract knowledge …’. Its essence is not ‘… knowing about isolated individual problems … but an inward attitude based on experience …’.7 Furthermore, according to the journal S.A. Mann, man’s great accomplishments have their origins not ‘… in conscious calculation but in unconscious introspection and illumination … a fact known to anyone who has ever experienced the over-powerful, the arcane, and the beyond …’.8 This frequently expressed conception, which sees the root of Nazi faith not in rational understanding but in feeling, has its origin in the racial theories and in racial anti-semitism of the last three decades of the nineteenth century.9 What distinguishes it during the Nazi era is not its basic content, but the fact that it played a central, forceful role in political reality, in society and state. It is from this instance that the term ‘politischer Glaube’ appears in Nazism coupled with the terms discipline and obedience, as may be seen in the party’s official organ, the Völkischer Beobachter: ‘… Faith in the Führer and his deeds 17


determines the extent of the responsibility of each individual. Also faith is being transformed into obedience …’10 The second term that often appears together with politischer Glaube is ‘deed’ as, for example, in the official publication of the SS, Das Schwarze Korps, in a programmatic article, ‘Kult und Glaube’, published after Hitler’s official speech at the Reichsparteitag, Nürnberg, 1938. … True and vigorous faith cannot exist in the abstract, it reaches its fulfillment only in the deed. The deed is the only true witness to faith …; faith-movement-action … these are the three terms that determine for us the natural path of human piety …11 In a similar vein, it was taught by the S.A., the Hitler Youth, in schools, universities, and adult-education classes that the fundamental principal of ‘faith’ is to be understood not in terms of ‘belief that’ but rather ‘belief in’, such as ‘belief in the Führer’, or ‘having confidence in him’. Only by means of this faith may one acquire a reaffirmation of one’s confidence in the fatherland, in the Reich, and even in oneself.12 Once again, words that have a religious structure yet a secular meaning stand out. The journal of the S.A. calls to its readers: … Comrades, do you now understand the meaning of faith in Germany, the eternal? Something eternal is revealed in our Germany and its history; a divine being, not just terrestrial and mortal … Reality has regained the lustre of the hallowed, of the wondrous. How often has the Führer given expression to this experience of his! That which happened before our very eyes was an absolute marvel. That which happened through us – a miracle. The miracle of faith wrought the miracle of reality … Our political faith, in life, in the here and now, is a faith in the eternal and divine. It is also a faith that has flowered as an offshoot of a Weltanschauung. Three forceful words encompass the content of the National-Socialist Weltanschauung: honor, struggle, and loyalty. A trinominal faith shines in them like the eternal light …13 This system, which borrows associations and forms of articulation from religious vocabulary – such as ‘eternal’, ‘miracle’, ‘piety’, ‘trinity’, and ‘revelation’, not to mention ‘God’ – appears in a twofold structure: in the sacralization of politics and in the secularization of religion.14 At this point in the conceptual and semantic definition of ‘faith’, the adjective ‘political’, both in Nazi ideology and policy, becomes significant. This transference may be seen already in the first volume of Mein Kampf, as well as in such ‘anthropological’ and ‘philosophical’ interpretations as those of Prof. Ernst Krieck,15 or Prof. Karl Richard Ganzer of the 18


Reichsinstitut für Geschichte des neuen Deutschlands.16 Accordingly, it is a combination or pairing of Glaube and politisch that have the potential for great historical events and deeds. Each of these alone is not a powerful historical factor by itself. Neither faith without politics, nor politics without faith – the magic that inflames the masses – would be useful to Nazism. Hitler’s policy, as was laid down already in Mein Kampf, is based on this very interrelationship. At first sight, it would appear that there is a clear and simple case of ideology, of rationalization, whose function is to justify vested interests. Obviously, these interests were economic, as in heavy industry and armament production, or more socio-political, which in turn spells out the Nazi striving for power and authority. There is no doubt that this explanation, according to the widely accepted method of the Ideologienverdacht, is helpful. It is impossible, as well as unnecessary, to do without it. However, in the very special case before us the critical criterion of Überbau, rationalization, or of manifest versus latent motivations, explains only a part of the concept of ‘political faith’ in Nazism.17 The uniqueness of this concept expressed itself in the conscious, explicit, interlacing of the two components of the Ideologienverdacht, i.e., vested interests and their justification. The occupation and subjugation of Europe; the rise to power of the ‘pure’ Aryan race; the removal of Jews from Germany and later from occupied countries and finally their destruction – all these became at one and the same time both means and ends. The very idea of ‘political’ became absolutized; hence politics served as both ideal and reality, sacred and profane, divine and terrestrial. Not unlike most of what shaped Nazism, the sacralization of politics too had its origins in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Those circles that were molding the ideational conception of the term ‘political’ for Nazism identified politics with the struggle for existence, and raised this struggle to supreme sacral heights. Amongst the leaders of this movement must be mentioned Social Darwinists such as Ludwig Woltmann and disciples of Ernst Haeckel such as Prof. Ernst Lehman, and also those in the materialistic branch of Social Darwinism, such as Eugen Dühring and his disciples. For them, the survival of the fittest, including the so-called Auslese, the selection of the ‘choicest’, became a supreme article of faith. Here is one of the origins of Hitler’s definitions of politics in terms of the ‘… execution of a nation’s struggle for survival …’ upon which the sanctity of ‘a divine commandment’ has been bestowed.18 The conceptual and semantic meaning of the term ‘political faith’ was recapitulated by Prof. Ernst Krieck in one of his addresses to students immediately after the seizure of power, in 1933, in terms that explicitly transformed theology into political indoctrination and raised politics to the level of the sacred: 19


… The purpose of our political faith is the salvation of the German by leading him to his victory over the inferior races exemplified by the Jew, through reconciliation to the Führer …; this is not an intellectual submission to doctrines; we have to educate our youth so that they may be able to maintain notitia and assensus reflected or culminating in full, complete fiducia, that is confidence in oneself through trust in the Führer …19 B. THE GROWTH OF POLITICAL FAITH From the outset of Nazism and even more so after the Putsch of November 1923 and with the reorganization in February 1925, ‘political faith’ developed in light of the contemporary social events and ideational needs – in short, in the light of the crises of Weimar. The defeat suffered by Germany in 1918; the peace treaty imposed on it at Versailles; the war experience and re-absorption difficulties of war veterans; the economic crises, including those before 1929/30; and, of course, inflation and unemployment which constantly rose prior to the Nazi regime – all these may be claimed as part of the concrete background to the development of Nazi ‘political faith’. More needs to be taken into account: the feebleness of the parliamentary regime; public bitterness and disenchantment with what was called ‘party bossism’ (Bonzenwirtschaft) or the unpersönliche Bürokratie; the serious reservations toward democracy; and fear of communism – these too belong to the background against which Nazism attempted to attract the masses.20 In its drive toward power, Nazi propaganda became more and more geared to those who favored a return to centralized government, to an aggressive national leadership which would stand firm in the face of economic and international pressures. Nazism also strove to return to Germany its erstwhile lustre and brilliance as an organic historical people.21 Organizational efforts and propagandist outpourings were directed at various circles. Some of these belonged to the banking establishment and to heavy industry which, even as late as in the Brüning era, supported Nazism only to a certain extent (for example, Fritz Thyssen, Emil Kirdof, etc.). It was under economists’ impact that social-reformist slogans that were often heard among some of the founders of the NSDAP, such as Gottfried Feder or Gregor Strasser, were eliminated. Workers, the unemployed, the lower middle classes, shopkeepers, artisans, clerks, small merchants, uprooted immigrants from rural areas – from amongst all these there were many who favored Nazism. At the same time, the Nazi Party did succeed in attracting teachers, scientists, philosophers, theologians, artists, poets, and men of letters; towards the late 1920s the majority of 20


the organized student body and, in 1931/32, the majority of the members of non-confessional and Protestant youth movements could be counted in as well.22 First and foremost, however, and perhaps even somewhat against Hitler’s political interests, the political faith of Nazism was consolidated and firmed up in the völkisch movements, whose members were among faithful devotees of Nazism. The first of these movements was born in the last decades of the nineteenth century, and others emerged after World War I. The influence of Houston Stuart Chamberlain, Eugen Dühring, Ernst Haeckel, Theodor Fritsch, and later thinkers such as Oswald Spengler who were then rejected by their own disciples, was strongly felt in these movements. To these must be added a string of ideologists, agitators, and publicists. Already in the 1920s, some contemporaries were quite aware that the völkisch movements were nurtured by a vulgarized version of Germany’s serious spiritual crisis. The problem of moral relativism, of skepticism, the despair of rationalism and humanism as taught by Schopenhauer, Eduard von Hartmann, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Paul de Lagarde, encouraged an escape into political mythology. It projected a new superior race to rise out of fallen Germany, one that will know how to overcome national humility, poverty, social inequality, socioeconomic instability and insecurity, and personal feelings of inadequacy or frustration in an industrialized world. In a pamphlet, issued by Goebbels’s propaganda department, in spring 1937, and widely distributed among students and party leaders in the Berlin area, it was made clear that ‘… political faith needs an anti-hero …’, a scapegoat, a devil. Indeed it was the Jew who ‘… having been a degraded sufferer for ages …’ was supposed to make the myth somewhat tangible and acceptable. Through the ‘… universal conspiracy of the Jew …’ as well as the ‘… defilement of his blood …’ the Jew brings about ‘… the systematic decomposition of the Aryan race and the Germanic Folk …’.23 All these motifs were absorbed and adapted in a popularized way by the leaders of the völkisch movements. This effort at popularizing was also undertaken by such scholars as Max Wundt, Ernst Krieck and Alfred Baeumler. Many echoes can be found of Wundt’s urgings to work for a renewal of national unity by discarding destructive western influences. Rationalism and intellectualism, incarnated in the Jews, poisoned the soul of the nation. It would be able to renew its youthfulness, and vitality, however, if it were able to return to, as Wundt said, the: ‘… unconscious powers of nature which embrace us in the soil of our fatherland … speaking to us in the voice of our blood.’ 24 This is the atmosphere in which a network of sociopolitical organizations known as ‘patriotic associations’ (vaterländische Verbände) were active. They also formed the fertile ground for the growth of the political faith of Nazism. Amongst 21


these the Freikorpse, Wehrverbände, and Soldatenvereine were of particular importance. Some of the secret associations (Geheimbünde), such as the ‘Organization Consul’, were involved in the attempts on the lives of political leaders, including Matthias Erzberger (March 26, 1921) and Walter Rathenau (June 26, 1922). In this connection, the Thule Gesellschaft, formed in 1917 in Munich by Graf Sebottendorf cannot be left out. It looked upon itself as a Germanenorden whose destiny it was to nurture and cultivate a national elite and political leadership based on racial and blood purity. Another important organization was the Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutz Bund – the movement for popular German defense and offense under Alfred Roth’s leadership. Then there was the quasi-military organization, Stahlhelm, which merged in 1922 with the Jungorden; in addition, there was the racial youth movement, the Artamanen, and others 25 – they all contributed to the emergence of political myth and symbolism in Nazi ideology and policy. Some of the early Nazi leaders responsible for the consolidation of the politischer Glaube, including its dimension of political anti-semitism, had bonds that tied them to these movements and organizations. Alfred Rosenberg, later in charge of ideological action and supervision was one; Walter Darré, who was to take command of the settlement of occupied countries in eastern Europe by what was known as members of the nordic race and of pure German blood was another; Rudolf Höss and Heinrich Himmler, members of the Artamanen – the movement for the revitalization of the Germanic heritage – likewise make their appearance early. It is from these movements that they received much of their ideological ballast. Under the influence of the völkisch movements, the Nazi Weltanschauung grew to a politischer Glaube. This faith was described by Helmuth Krausnick, ‘… an absolutization of the biological factor in all spheres of life …’26 Influenced by Alexander Tille, of the extreme social Darwinists in the second half of the nineteenth century, as well as other later social Darwinists, such as Willibald Hentschel and Theodor Fritsch, there emerged the image of a new man, a revitalized nation, and a race that was to rise with the Nazi revolution. A new era with a new mission was about to be created, an era termed Weltwende. Light would then be ruling over darkness; the strong would prevail over the weak; the pure over the defiled; the Lebenstüchtige – those capable and fit in life – over the Untüchtige, the misfits; nordic or Germanic man – descendants of a primordial Germanic race would ascend over racial mixtures of impaired and lesser worth; Germanic health would succeed the morbidity of the West; natural feeling, healthy intuition, and the instincts would be supreme over distorted rationalism and degenerated intellectualism. The Reich would rule over society, unity over individuality, and uniformity over multiplicity. 22


Ever since the initiative of Dietrich Eckart, populist writer and mentor of Hitler, the Jew served as a focal point around which these ideals were spun. The Jew exemplified everything that appeared as abstract or imaginative. At the same time, he was everything which tended to appear as too physical or as too materialistic. Through the mythical German’s confrontation with his opposite, the Gegenrasse, the misbegotten antirace, the Jew, these rather incomprehensible ideas seemed to become somewhat more concrete, real, acceptable, and thus became part of the leading doctrine of the SS. There, in Himmler’s units it was given a visionary reality; there it turned out to be efficient and useful, strengthening the morale and the sense of mission. Quite early in the history of Nazism, the Völkischer Beobachter stated: … As for the final goal and mission of the Germanic völkische movement, as far as the Jews were concerned … it is to wipe out the east European and vermin Jew with an iron broom. A perfect job needs to be done. East European Jews without exception must be made to go. Against all other Jews one must at once proceed with relentless measures …27 This close connection to the völkisch organizations and movements, whilst supportive of the first steps of Nazism, turned out to be an obstacle as well, for it did hinder the Nazis from attracting many other social and political groups. Similarly, the Germanic faith movements striving for a new Germanic religion, while Nazism partially was supportive of them, also barred the way to those wide strata of society which were more sophisticated, more solid. Conforming to the well-known Article 24 in the party’s program, Hitler warned in 1923 against the danger of too strongly identifying with pseudo-religious movements or anti-church sentiments, and pushed for a greater degree of neutrality, at least toward the outside: ‘… We don’t want any other Deity, except Germany … fanaticism and faith, hope and love for Germany are needed …’ 28 Particularly while busy on the first volume of Mein Kampf, and immediately afterwards, during the reorganization in 1925, Hitler displayed more political discretion and caution. He took care not to exclusively identify himself and the party in a compromising way with the völkische movements. Those were indeed times of political and social fermentation extremely critical of the Weimar republic. Opposition to the social-democrats and communists became stronger, and conservative movements were growing, with conservative sentiment often forceful and even revolutionary. The political challenge that presented itself to the Nazi party was clear: to strike roots in this public. The conservatives and nationalists strove 23


towards what was called a society of orderly professional ranks instead of a free, but brutally egotistic economy; stability, protection, and decency were promoted against the destructive forces of liberalism, parliamentarism, and Marxism, all of which were symbolized and embodied in the Jew. In place of the disintegrating class struggle, the so-called erstwhile cohesion of the entire nation was to be reinstated. The Nazi movement had to be particularly mindful of the ideological fermentation amongst those who came from youth movements, from circles such as the Juniklub, the journal Tat, and those who shared the desire for a new faith and a new and ideal society, represented by such authors as: E. Günther Gründel, Broder Christiansen, Edgar J. Jung, Frank Matzke, Leopold Dingräve (Ernst Wilhelm Eschman), Ernst von Salomon, and Ernst Jünger. A new and different public other than that which surrounded the Nazi leadership in its early years emerged. This public was put off by what they saw to be the aggressive and boisterous style of the Nazis, and especially their S.A. units.29 An impassioned cry was heard for a national, spiritual, and moral rejuvenescence, a cry for a renewed identity – an identity of heroism, courage, energy, and upswing. There was also a sense and a consciousness of mission, of a readiness for self-sacrifice, for a renewed spiritual Reich realized in a political framework. The Reich was to be at one and the same time in, yet also beyond, politics; it was to be a supra-politics amidst, yet also beyond, society; it was the sphere within which redemption might come for the German nation which had been humiliated, depressed, and laid low. This Reich was to have a Biblical sanctity about it, as well as a historical continuity crystallized in actual politics and in a healthy economy. The Reich was an expression of an Erlösungsbedürfniss – the need for redemption – which existed side by side in an admixture of Messianic longing and great yearning for a strong statehood rooted in primordial Germanic tradition. At the same time, the Reich ideologies included a hope for economic recovery in a modern, industrial society, whilst conservative values and traditions were to be preserved or even revived.30 It was from these national-conservative circles that Nazism derived more and more support. Ironically, afterwards, once their support was not needed any more, some of their spokesmen were ignored, isolated, suppressed, persecuted, or as for example, happened with the influential J. Edgar Jung, simply murdered. Another case was Wilhelm Stapel, a Lutheran with great influence on the Deutsche Christen movement as well as on Conservative Nationalism. ‘The Reich’, Stapel taught, … is a primordial political reality of metaphysical mixture … When Israel turned away from Jahwe, God punished Israel, as may be seen in the Old Testament. If we turn away from the Reich, God punishes us. This is the German Testament …31 24


Roughly at the time of Nazism’s rise to power, E. Günther Gründel, one of the popular thinkers close to J. Edgar Jung, defined the mood and state of mind amongst the young Germans in the following terms: … Vehement renunciation of the party styled democracy and its plutocracy without scruples, as well as (renunciation of) the cursed rule of money and the entire materialistic Weltanschauung of our capitalistic times … they committed themselves to the heroism of the courageous … by rejecting submission … and the masses. They represented the idea of the organic folkstate …32 These conservative-revolutionary circles expressed something termed Lebensgefühl, a sort of longing, of yearning for a total rejuvenation through the revival of ancient morals and forms of society. As Kurt Sontheimer and recently Wolfgang Horn have shown, it was this movement which voiced the demand for a strong leadership, for a Führer or even a dictator, one who would have the power to nurse back to health German society, German economy, and the soul of the Germanic folk. The time had come to establish a regime wherein every German would find his freedom. Such liberty, however, was to come about by means of total identification of every individual with the will of the folk, with the Gesamtwille der Nation, another trend of the Zeitgeist carefully and systematically utilized by Nazi strategy. For, according to Ernst Krieck but also according to the daily propaganda, it was the Führer who served as the symbol, or rather the embodiment of the volonté generale, so that by totally identifying with the Führer, the new German was about to reach his true liberation.33 According to Gründel and Christiansen, there is not only a new and different generation, but also different age groups in this generation, each of which expected a political revolution to come. One group, that of fighters belonging to the 1890–1900 age group and called junge Frontgeneration – the young front generation – was still under the influence of the idealistic and romantic youth movements of the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Then there was the age group of the first decade of this century, which has been called the Kriegsjugendgeneration – the young of the war generation. A third group was made up of young people, the Nachkriegsgeneration – the post-war children. This complex generation described its identity as ‘… confused … unable to resist … uprooted … nipped in the bud … roused and stirred up to the very core …’.34 There was also a sense of frustration of parliamentary democracy which, in the parlance of the conservatives, was nothing but the levelling rule of the masses, the mob. And there was the additional feeling that the culture of the parental generation had completely gone 25


bankrupt and was left standing, revealing its nakedness and emptiness; this generation, Gründel added, felt that: ‘… everything was seriously questioned … where were the limits? … where the commitments? …’ 35 Yet there was another side to all this. At one and the same time with these emotions there was also a drive and a longing for action, a strong push towards activism. In the words of many conservative revolutionaries we hear the claim that there is no point in only expressing pessimism or in only airing protests and denials, in throwing one’s hands up. The then fashionable prophecies of wrath and ruin, under the impact of Oswald Spengler, were criticized and termed Untergangssnobismus – snobbery of annihilation and ruin. Spengler’s influence was seen as destructive and as weakening. His conception of periodicity of histories was termed defeatist and dangerous. Accordingly, it is as if fate dominates and determines history, proclaims which cultures shall rise and which fall. This idea was viewed as a renunciation of man’s reason and initiative. Moreover, it was not enough to bewail industrial society’s egalitarian power or the artificiality of middle-class society, or to decry barren, cold rationalism, intellectualism, or scientific objectivism.36 The time had come, the youth movement, students, and conservative revolutionaries claimed, to translate the longing for nature into daring and heroic deeds. The time had come to change the Empfindungswelt, stirrings, yearnings and feelings from personal experience into a great, political act, to go forth into a constructive battle against the dominance of technology, against mechanization, against commercialization. All this was to be done, however, without relinquishing the services so essential for building a modern society and for national regeneration. In contrast to the older age groups among the youth, with their romanticism, the younger generation did not want to sink into reverie, and certainly did not want to waste its energies in sterile parliamentary debates and petty political intrigues. Gründel, on behalf of his disciples, declared: ‘… We want “Sachlichkeit”, practicality, rational methods …’ We are striving for ‘… tight organization following a lucid blueprint …’ We are ready for ‘… tremendous discipline both in thinking and acting …’ The historical consciousness which was stirring in the hearts of people in these circles, was summarized by E. Günther Gründel as follows: ‘… With us a new era is about to begin … We have been put at the turning point of world history … a completely new position of man, and a fundamental new structuring of things …’37 is about to emerge. It is at this point that the movement was halted. It did not get to the point of establishing concrete goals, practical political action, or a firm political leadership. In 1920, at the beginning of this process, one of the journals characteristic of the movement, Deutschlands Erneuerung, gave expression to the need for total leadership, saying: 26


In our misery we long for the Führer. He should point out to us the path and the deed. This desire comes from our innermost depths. The Führer is responsible, that is to say, he does the will of God, which he personifies and embodies in himself …38 Confronting this mood, Nazi leadership showed much flexibility, political skill, and alertness. While for some of the founders this kind of nationalistic conservatism was far from being radical enough, Hitler tried to attract and absorb this growing potential. As so many issues, this policy too was reflected in the Jewish question. For the sake of public opinion abroad, as well as for those conservatives who did not fully agree with racial anti-semitism, Hitler declared on 15 October 1930: ‘We have nothing against decent Jews; however, as soon as they conspire (unite) with Bolshevism we look upon them as an enemy …’ To this, Gründel, reflecting the reaction of national conservatism, added: ‘This seems to be an acceptable foundation …’ for handling the Jewish question.39 Bracher was right when he said: ‘The Führerideology was skillful in relating the pseudo-religious needs of the masses for a faith and for deliverance to the newly styled party as well as in knowing how to anchor them in the unconditional cult of the Führer …’ 40 The first condition for ensuring a successful policy was to find a comfortable common denominator, a focal point for the diverse trends that opposed the Republic. Already in his major public address on 13 September 1920, Hitler succeeded in turning the Jewish question into a unifying focus: ‘… Our concern must be to arouse, to whip up, to stir up the instinctual in our people until they will reach the decision of joining the movement …’41 Indeed, the Jewish question remained one of the few, if not the only, unchanging factors in Nazi ideology and policy, right from the beginning until Hitler’s suicide in 1945. It was against this background that Nazism assumed forms of a political mythology.42 As early as 1923, Prof. Karl Alexander von Müller, whose disciples were among the leading historians in the Third Reich, testified that at these meetings at which Hitler appeared in person, it seemed as if a ‘scorching breath of hypnotic mass excitement’ passed over his face.43 Rauschning, in his conversations, attests to the fact that Hitler carefully planned these aspects of his public appearances: … I have mesmerized the masses so as to shape them into a tool for my politics … When I approach the masses with reasonable considerations they don’t understand me. But whenever I offer them appropriate sentiments they follow the simple patchworks given by me … 27


Hitler goes on to say that the function of the ‘cultic symbols and rites’ is to rouse the emotions of the masses and to prevent critical thought and consciousness. The politischer Glaube demands only ‘fanatische Hingabe’ – fanatical devotion instead of, or at the expense of, autonomic rational thought.44 In 1927, Hitler further explained his method in greater detail; relying on his practical experience, he said: … Be assured, we too put Glauben (faith) in the first place and not cognition. One has to be able to believe in a cause. Only Glauben creates a state. What motivates people to go and to battle and die for religious ideas? Not cognition, but blind faith …45 Detlev Grieswelle is justified in stating that Hitler, correctly assessing the masses’ needs for faith and salvation, preached his faith in a style that ranged into the sacralized domains. As a good example of that political sermon, Grieswelle analyses Hitler’s speech delivered at a Christmas celebration in Dingolfing, Niederbayern, which was then published in the party’s paper, the Völkische Beobachter, in 1925. Hitler drew an analogy between the event and the historical circumstances celebrated in Christmas and his times and deeds: … Then too, [there existed] a materialistic world, contaminated by Jews. Then too, victory did not come from state’s power, but by means of salvific doctrine whose herald was born under the most wretched circumstances … We, too, have again created today a poisonous period in which the state’s power is completely incompetent … Christ rose in a rotten world, preached the faith, was at first scorned, and yet out of this faith a great world movement has been made. We wish to bring about the same in the political sphere …46 Indeed, this analogy between salvific religion and salvific politics became institutionalized even before the seizure of power by Nazism. In 1928, Goebbels declared: ‘… When Hitler speaks, the magical effect of his words breaks through all resistance … What diligence, knowledge, and book learning cannot solve, God manifests through the lips of those He has chosen …’47 The educational material of the SS units dwelled upon the idea of chosenness on many occasions and in different ways. Shortly before the beginning of World War II, and quoting Goebbels’s declaration of 1928, it was summarized in the following words: … A special grace, new energies, are now bestowed through the Führer upon the Aryan race … charisma by which the election, once 28


stolen by the sons of Jacob, those Shylocks with the red pottage, rests on our shoulders … only by getting rid [vom Hals schaffen] of the Jews, by radically ridding ourselves [radikal loswerden] of those parasites can our election manifest itself …48

C. THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE POLITICAL FAITH With the Nazis’ rise to power in the spring of 1933, steps were taken to establish the politischer Glaube and to mould it into tools useful for a dictatorial regime. The official yearbook of the party opens with Hitler’s words, taken from his speech in March 1935, at the Rathausplatz in Saarbrücken: ‘… Have faith in freedom, have faith in the grandeur and the eternal of our people. Faith can move mountains. Faith can liberate nations. Faith can strengthen nations and raise them up again, no matter how humiliated they had been …’49 In fact, in the established political reality, the Führer was the central focus of Nazi faith. In the first of the commandments that, theoretically though every party member was obliged to observe, it was stated that ‘… The Führer’s will is the supreme law of the party …’50 This status was then transferred to the domain of the Reich. One sees it first on 13 July 1934, when at a Reichstag meeting Hitler declared that, due to grave dangers faced by the Reich and the National Socialist regime, he would arrogate unto himself the authority of oberster Gerichtsherr, the supreme judge. This step was taken in connection with the murder of some of the leaders of the movement carried out by the regime itself during the days of 30 June to 2 July 1934. Then on 3 July the assassinations were officially approved and legalized. This, in turn, gave Hitler’s leadership something of an überirdisches Machtbefugnis – a nearby supraterrestrial competency of power. On 1 August of that same year, the positions of president and chancellor were united, which brought about a joining of the leadership of party and state. Thus an attempt was made at linking politics and statesmanship, party and state, man and citizen. In official language: ‘… The NSDAP represents the political conception, the political conscience, and the political will of the nation …’ 51 By Hitler’s special request, this development received its official approval in a plebiscite held on 19 August 1934. Concerning this vote of popular confidence, Heinrich Himmler wrote that the purpose was not to let the people determine if indeed the Führer should unite the positions of president and chancellor. Rather, the plebiscite had far greater meaning, said Himmler: 29


… For centuries the nations of the world have given their churches temporal powers and authority by mutual accord and consenting prayers and declarations of faith; in the same way the German people will, on August 19, take a stand … in order to express to the Führer … their unswerving faith …52 To complement this sacral significance, Prof. Ernst Rudolf Huber stated that there was no intention to give the people permission to determine the nature of the regime, for after all, it is unlikely ‘… that the people should determine on their own …’ their political regime. Rather, the intention was to give a seal of confidence and approval by putting the will of the people into the hands of the Führer: ‘That the people [might] confess its confidence in the Führer’s decisions … Even if the voting nation would turn against him, it is he who manifests the objective mission of the people …’53 This entire development, however, was still rather legal, artificial, and imposed from above. Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Robert Ley, Baldur von Schirach, and others, knew very well that the regime as yet was far from being acceptable to the entire society. Faith was needed, though it was not to be abstract, independent, or spontaneous. A political faith – concrete, tangible and well organized – was what was needed. On the eve of his rise to power, on 4 January 1933, in an election speech at Detmold, Hitler declared that: … What has brought into being the National Socialist movement is the yearning for a true communion of the German people … This movement offers us something that cannot be expressed in words, but only felt … Fate has set before us a great task, to remove the root of the German people’s misery: inner strife … When we struggle for the German person … we reeducate …54 Continuing with these motifs, Hitler addressed the masses in a speech on 1 May 1935: … On this day … renew your creed … my will – which must be the confessed creed of each one of us – is your faith … The greatest thing that God has given and entrusted to me on this earth is my people … Let this be our sacred communal creed …55 In his speech in Hamburg on 20 March 1936, Hitler called to the people to completely trust him: ‘… I have grown up with the people, I have stayed with the people, and to the people I shall return …’56 Here we have a typical instance of Hitler’s nearly constant use of sacral 30


structures, patterned after religious forms. Accordingly, faith is supposed to be so strong, so absolute, that it can hardly be articulated in words. Faith has its roots in longings and yearnings for wholeness, for togetherness, for friendship, for security, and for stability. The Führer who comes as a savior is fate’s or providence’s emissary. He is a man of the people, with a simple, humble past, warm and close to the hearts of those who have faith in him. Faith in the savior is Glaube in the sense of confidence, trust, belief, and persuasion – not Erkenntnis, i.e. cognition – but Bekenntnis, or ‘confession’. The structure of this faith was that of political eschatology: from suffering to delivery, from misery to glory, from diversiveness to unity and union. It is at this point that the messianic-political structure of Nazism branched out into several directions. Hitler made possible and encouraged the development of different, sometimes even opposing, interpretations of this structure. In doing so, his goal was twofold. He adapted Nazism to diversified expectations, interests, and traditions while at the same time he strengthened his own position as hierarchically above all; a policy of ‘divide and conquer’. For example, Alfred Rosenberg’s conception of myth, as well as that of Alfred Baeumler and Matthias Ziegler which was a pseudo-religious one, differed from the myth of von Schirach, which was political-educational. Both differed again from the organizationpropaganda type of political activity of Robert Ley. Rosenberg’s myth was directed at the war waged against the Church, and by so doing gave Hitler the opportunity to appear as someone who shields the institutional integrity of the Church and dissociates himself from the völkische Religion while, at the same time, enjoying its useful function. The rift between Rosenberg and the Church enabled Hitler, among others, to demand from Catholics and Protestants full support of Nazism in order to ‘… together utterly destroy the arch-fiend, the Jew …’.57 Hitler’s speech at the Kulturtagung on 6 October 1938 was delivered in similar terms. While Rosenberg in his position as supervisor of all ideological activities, inculcation of the Weltanschauung, control of scholars, etc., received much backing, Hitler criticized the anti-Christian character of Rosenberg’s political mythology.58 This dissociation on Hitler’s part stemmed of course – yet by no means exclusively – from pragmatic considerations, such as public opinion or political relations with the Church; yet this dissociation was also the result of the very structure of the politischer Glaube. Political faith, as we have seen, is structured in two ways, involving the secularization of religious terms, including ‘Deity’, ‘salvation’, or ‘providence’ on the one hand, and, on the other, the sacralization of politics, elevating to supreme prominence ‘state’, ‘nation’, and ‘Führer’. In this way, an ideology which endows the by now sacralized political regime with mythical vindication beyond 31


politics might become autonomous, independent of the Führer as the sole source of sacrality, and therefore, in danger of apostasy or heresy. Rosenberg’s myth was typical of this dilemma, because race, blood, and soil acquired absolute connotations, anchored not in the regime itself, or in the Führer, but in mythological spheres of the Germanic primordial history. Since these spheres were absolutist, they themselves were likely to develop into an absolutized political religion, which takes prior place to the Führer, endowing him with its charismatic authority instead of designating the Führertum as the only source of all authority and obedience.59 There was, however, one area in which Nazi political faith would have been able to develop to its fullest degree of authenticity while remaining still completely faithful to its political dependence on the Führer. Moreover, it could do so with the minimum of fears of dissociation on part of the wider public. This area was that of the SS and its branches – the very unit which was responsible for actually carrying out the Holocaust.60 The SS served as an experimental laboratory for the development of the final goals of Nazism. It was to prepare for the era that was to come with the conquest of Europe. Such scholars as Eugen Kogon, Hans Buchheim, and Martin Broszat correctly pointed out that the SS functioned as a state unto itself; it was the prototype of the ideal Nazi state and the final and complete realization of Nazism. John Conway, in his excellent paper ‘The Place of the Jewish Holocaust in the Nazi Revolution’, clearly showed that the persecution of the Jews and then their planned annihilation in the Final Solution served as ‘… a touchstone for the attack upon the established and traditional order of society …’ 61 Indeed, the studies and the rich primary sources concerning Heinrich Himmler, which are at our disposal today, bear witness to the fact that Himmler shaped and moulded the SS to be what he called ideational troops (weltanschauliche Truppe), where one might concretize in a tangible way the ‘total revaluation of all values’, a goal that was proclaimed right from the beginning.62 In order to attain this goal Himmler let Rosenberg participate in some of the educational activities of the SS. The essence of the political faith of the SS was defined in the Leitwort für Sturmappelle, ‘leading words for Stormtroopers roll-calls’, at the end of 1936 in this way: … SS member, have you carefully considered whether your religion serves the maintenance of our people; whether first and foremost it adheres to the divinely given racial laws; whether it serves to protect German blood from mixture with blood that is congenitally diseased, racially alien, in particular with Jewish blood; and whether it [serves] to promote [our] precious blood? …63 32


The SS political faith was defined in what was termed ‘the confessional creed of the SS’ (Glaubensbekenntnis): ‘… We believe in the God of the universe and in the mission of our German blood, which thrives eternally from the soil. We believe in the people, in the bearer of the blood and in the Führer, whom God has ordained for us …’64 These proclamations were not formulated in a void, but for the purpose of actually strengthening the SS, so that this unit might be capable of carrying out the mission of Nazism. That mission was to mould ‘… this Reich … into … a holy Myth …’65 This political faith was clearly defined: … On a binding form called ‘return’ … we return to the past in order to build once and for all a new future … We return to our roots, to the roots of the Germanic man, to the roots that shape our destiny and that therefore are our God, our Reich. We are called to bring about an eternal unity, a unity of blood and soil, soil and nation, nation and race, race and God that is our Reich … It is the Jew and Judaized Europe with its incurable diseases such as weakening Christianity, corrupt Marxism, that are the contradiction per se [‘der Gegensatz an und für sich’]; therefore the Jew is the main obstacle for the fulfillment [‘Vollendung’] of our global and historical mission …66 This mystique of union, as Himmler put it, was actually anchored in real nature and not in metaphysics; it was also formulated in the S.A. Mann, in a series of articles entitled ‘What does having faith actually mean?’. The S.A. authorities emphasize that Nazism believes in what Hitler called Diesseitigkeit, ‘thisworldliness’. This notion and its values were directly opposed to Christianity, not to mention Judaism, which severs man from his dominion over nature: ‘… When the creed, this creed of the unity of all life, is sharply and clearly confessed, then the foundation for faith in the present, for faith in National-Socialism, for faith in thisworldliness will be achieved …’ 67 From these dogmatic principles, Himmler and the SS units developed a clearly defined historical consciousness. The primordial values of this political faith were blood, soil, and race; being primordial their sources were not to be found in the period when Christianity reigned in Germany, but rather in the pre-Christian era, that is to say, in the tribal era, in the period preceding Charlemagne. The curriculum each SS man was taught included: … The doctrine of our faith states that the historical consciousness of the Nazi reaches back to the pre-Judaized era, that is to the times preceding the brutal and forceful imposition of Christianity on 33


the Aryan race … The purification of our Folksoul can be attained only by curing our sick mind and body from the diseases caused by Jewish contamination … one of which is the self-alienation of the German from his Germanic history … Only by regaining our Germanic self-identity shall we emerge as victors out of the struggle for survival …68 In the light of this functional use of an historical consciousness, the Christianizing of the ancient Germanic tribes was perceived as a violent coercion of religion, culture, mentality, and ways of life alien to the German. Accordingly, Himmler attempted to foster scientific projects in the fields of archeology and historiography whose purpose was to unearth and to reveal the sources for a Germanic self-identification, proving how the Aryan or Nordic race has been damaged by the influence of Judaic Christianity on it. Then there were attempts at so-called scientific experiments in ‘genealogical research’, their legacy, and heritage. There were also attempts to create a cult and ritual worship services, some of them at consecrated historical sites, as well as literary undertakings for the disclosure of the Germanic heritage. In reality, however, these efforts did not bring about the expected results. Even before the war the struggle against the Church, a struggle in which Rosenberg and Himmler were engaged in different ways, had to be restrained because of public opinion in Germany and abroad. Indeed, pressures by the Church constituted a significant factor, as is evidenced by the abolition of the euthanasia program and the sometimes outspoken criticism of Church leaders.69 Also the ideology that wanted to see in preChristian history the authentic roots of German identity was not accepted by many. Even the official organ of the SS, Das Schwarze Korps, criticized aspects of what was called a romantic nostalgia. The reason was political, for fear it might antagonize the public, traditionalists and liberals as well. Similarly, the SS leadership did not fully succeed in imbuing its members with instructions to create a cult of Germanic and pre-Christian customs. So-called genetic research and programs for the improved breeding of man, with a view to creating a racially pure elitist specimen, of course, did not succeed either. As late as 1942, at the height of the war, Himmler complained that he did not receive enough backing, financial or otherwise, for these projects. Then Himmler’s attempts to create a science unique to the SS did not bring about the hoped for results either. This was to have been a science where empirical methods would have been joined by mythological faith. This included the so-called medical experimentation, conducted under the aegis of the SS. Then, together with Walter Darré, there were unsuccessful efforts to settle conquered areas in eastern Europe with Germans of pure Aryan blood, who were there to subjugate 34


the slavic nations so as to carry out the program of Eindeutschung – Germanization of the East. According to the various programs of the SS, culminating in those of 1941–42, it was explicitly stated that the Poles and Russians, and in fact most of the nations in eastern Europe, were to be considered as Untermenschen, lower beings, or ‘sub-humans’. This rather unreal term, like so many components of Nazi political faith, had to be specified, exemplified, and realized. Again, it was the Jew who was chosen to fulfill this function, one that was indispensable to the regime. The Jew became the prototype of what was called ‘the underworld of the things and lower beings’. This role for which the Jew had been chosen makes one of the differences between his fate and that of other sub-humans (Untermenschen). Russian commissars, as is well known, were also annihilated and experimental programs were also carried out on Soviet prisoners and others, leading towards plans of mass sterilization.70 As for the population in the occupied eastern European countries, such as Poland, programs and instructions for a regime of slavery, serfdom, and bondage were prepared, using the term Arbeitssklaven, slave-laborers. With an eye towards the future, the SS planned the destruction of the intelligentsia or other types of leadership in Poland, aiming at the imposition of what was coined Kulturlosigkeit, deprivation of civilization, and Analphabetentum, illiteracy.71 As to the Jew, however, his fate had an entirely different meaning. He was not just an enemy to be faced in a war, but rather the prototype of the foe. He was not simply sub-human, but rather the incarnation of subhumanity, embodying all other lower races. As Walter Buch, one of the founders of the NSDAP and chief judge of the party, proclaimed: ‘… The National-Socialist has recognized: the Jew is not a human being …’ 72 Hence, the victory over the Jew, the only complete victory possible, became in an explicit mythological form, the representation, the embodiment, the incarnation of all Nazi victories not to be attained.73 If Europe could only cleanse itself of Jews, the German mission would have been realized. As Himmler made a point of saying on 24 October 1943, when the Holocaust already was quite advanced: ‘… This Reich is on the verge of becoming a sacred myth, the good-order-enforcer (Ordnungsmacht) of Europe …’ 74 It is not surprising, therefore, that Friedrich Schmidt, in an official publication of the SS, was able to decree that the German who was actively involved in the racial mission was to be considered a partner of God in the fulfillment and perfecting of the world.75 Thus in reality it became clear that, in all that political faith might set out to achieve, only one goal could be completely accomplished, the persecution of the Jew, his expulsion, and later, starting in Spring 1941, 35


his annihilation. It was the only deed through which the political faith of Nazism, with all the structural components discussed so far, could have been fulfilled. These components were: the salvific power of the Führer; total revaluation of all values; the apocalyptic condition according to which catastrophe must precede redemption; the struggle between the forces of light and those of darkness, between the Aryan and the Jew; ritual purification from defiled blood; personal cleansing of the new Germanic man from contamination by the anti-German, the Jew; social and economic deliverance from parasites; unmasking of all evil; the eradication of corruption; the imposition and enforcement of superior man and the master race over inferior man and lower races, again as embodied by the Jew. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS BA

– Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, Germany.

ER

– Erwerbungen, Archival Collection of the Library of the ‘Kommission für Zeitgeschichte bei der katholischen Akademie in Bayern’, located in Bonn, Germany.

IZG

– Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München (Archives), Germany. D. printed source material. M. microfilm. Z. periodicals.

YIVO – YIVO Archives, New York, USA. BC. Berlin Collection (Itzhak Giterman Collection of Nazi Documents); NFI. Source materials pertaining to the ‘Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage’; ‘Hauptamt Wissenschaft’. We are greatly indebted to the directors and the staff of the following archives for their valuable assistance and for kindly permitting us to publish their documents in this paper: – Archival Collection of the Library of the ‘Kommission für Zeitgeschichte bei der Katholischen Akademie in Bayern’, Bonn, Germany. – Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, Germany. – Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York, USA. – Stadtarchiv Frankfurt a/M, Germany. – YIVO Archives, New York, USA.

NOTES 1. P. Eberhard Schlund, O.F.M., Neugermanisches Heidentum im heutigen Deutschland, Franz A. Pfeiffer & Co. Verlagsgesellschaft, 2nd edition, München: 1924 (henceforth: Schlund I), p. 76. Another significant source from among the

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‘POLITICAL FAITH’ OF NAZISM PRIOR TO THE HOLOCAUST Catholics, pointing out the mystique of the Nazi Glaube, is: Hermann Sacher, ‘Das Schrifttum des Nationalsozialismus’ in: Literarischer Handweiser – Kritische Monatsschrift, ed. by Gustav Keckeis, Freiburg i. Br., Vol. 67, 1930/31, No. 6, March: 1931 (henceforth : Sacher): ‘… the understatement of Nationalsocialism would be a fatal error. Hidden in it there is something mysterious, some kind of national mystery … like the spirit of the sectarians this national separatist movement has a fanatic faith …’ column 329. Richard Karwehl, ‘Politisches Messiastum’ in: Zwischen den Zeiten, 1931, pp. 519 ff. Cf. Eberhard Kluegel, Die lutherische Landeskirche Hannovers und ihre Botschaft 1933–1945, Berlin and Hamburg: 1964, pp. 12/13. Pastor Karwehl, a disciple of Karl Barth and a member of the Confessing Church, was among those protesting priests who signed the declaration in support of the ‘Barmen Bekenntnissynode’: Erklärung des Osnabrücker Kreises, 28.XI.1935, as well as the protest called: ‘Schreiben des Osnabrücker Kreises’ of 13.III.1936; both documents are reprinted in Eberhard Kluegel, ibid., Dokumente, Berlin & Hamburg: 1965, pp. 94, 133/4. Theodor Heuss, Hitlers Weg (written in 1932, edited by Eberhard Jaeckel), Rainer Wunderlich Verlag, Theodor Heuss Archiv, Tübingen: 1968, pp. 105 ff. Robert Weltsch (signed: W.), ‘Christentum und Völkische Bewegung’ in: Jüdische Rundschau, Vol. 37, No. 6, p. 28; 22.I.1932, cf. also, in the same newspaper, the article ‘Umschau’, Vol. 38, No. 32, 21.IV.1933. As to other sources on a Führer as a political Messiah from among the Conservatives, cf. Kurt Sontheimer, Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik – die politischen Ideen des deutschen Nationalismus zwischen 1918 und 1933, Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, München: 1962 (henceforth: Sontheimer), pp. 268–80. For the sociopolitical framework of the emergence of this kind of leadership see: Wolfgang Horn, Führerideologie und Parteiorganisation in der NSDAP (1919–1933), Geschichtliche Studien zu Politik und Gesellschaft, Vol. 3, München: 1972 (henceforth: Horn), especially Chs. IV, V. In the early years a rather intense debate among Zionists and non-Zionists about the dangers of political nationalism took place. It was said that all enlightened, first and foremost Zionists, should learn from Nazism how a nationalistic movement can grow into a fanatic, antidemocratic and unethical power. Cf. David Schlossberg, ‘Zum Problem des neudeutschen Nationalismus’ and Gustav Krojanker: ‘Die unangenehme Parallele’ in: Der jüdische Student, Vol. 29, No. 5, June 1932, pp. 134 ff. – Hans Klee, ‘Zur Reichtagswahl’, ibid., No. 6/7, July/August: 1932; Ephraim Szmuelewicz, ‘Zur geistigen Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus’, ibid., No. 11, Dec. 1932, pp. 308–11. – A. Hirschberg, ‘Politische Ideologie oder Politik für Menschen’, in Der Morgen, Vol. VIII, February, 1933, pp. 487–96; also, ‘Presseschau – ein neuer Glaube’, ibid., Vol. IX, January– February: 1934, pp. 475–7. 2. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Franz Eher, Nachf., München: 1942 (737–41 ed.), p. 418. 3. Ibid., p. 506. As to additional expressions concerning ‘political faith’ by Hitler, see Hans Buchheim, ‘Der politische Glaube’ in: Glaubenskrise im Dritten Reich – Drei Kapitel Nationalsozialistischer Religionspolitik, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart: 1953 (henceforth: Hans Buchheim), pp. 9–39. 4. B.A., R 43 1/2196, pp. 262/3; cf. Letter of Secretary of State Planck to Ludwig Pechthold, Leipzig, 3.XI.1932 (Copy). – Further official definitions of the term Nazi ‘faith’ cf. Mitteilungen zur Weltanschaulichen Lage, published by: Der Beauftragte des Führers für die Überwachung der gesamten geistigen und weltanschaulichen Erziehung der NSDAP, Berlin (henceforth: Mitteilungen), Vol. III,

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RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH No. 25, 2.VII.1937, p. 10. 5. Cornelia Berning, Vom ‘Abstammungsnachweis’ zum ‘Zuchtwart’ – Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus, Walter de Gruyte & Co., Berlin: 1964 (henceforth: Berning), p. 208; cf. P. Eberhard Schlund O.F.M., Moderner Gottesglauben – das Suchen der Gegenwart nach Gott und Religion, Druck und Verlag von Josef Habbel, Regensburg: 1939 (henceforth: Schlund II), pp. 41–51. – One of the most illuminative studies on this term and its significance in the actual policy of Nazism in general, and towards the Jews in particular, see: Eberhard Jaeckel, Hitler’s Weltanschauung – a Blueprint for Power [translated from the German edition of 1969, by Herbert Arnold], Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Connecticut: 1972 (henceforth: Jaeckel), pp. 13 ff., 47 ff. 6. Berning, p. 209. 7. Ibid., p. 92. 8. Der S.A. Mann, 1938, No. 33 (12.VIII); No. 34 (19.VIII); No. 35 (26.VIII). 9. Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair – a Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology, University of California Press, Berkeley & Los Angeles: 1961, Chs. III, VIII, IX. Uriel Tal, Christians and Jews in Germany – Religion, Politics and Ideology in the Second Reich, 1870–1914, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London: 1975, Chs. III, V. – Among the huge amount of primary archival sources bearing evidence to the indebtedness of Nazism to early folkish ideologies even as late as 1943, cf. L.F. Gengler, ‘Theodor Fritsch der Kaempfer’ in: Die Judenfrage in Politik, Recht, Kultur und Wirtschaft, herausgegeben von der Antijuedischen Aktion, Berlin, October 1, 1943, No. 16/17, Vol. VII, pp. 272/3. Accordingly, it was among others, the Handbuch des Judentums by Theodor Fritsch, that made Hitler aware of ‘… the necessity of a radical solution of the Jewish Question’, YIVO Archives, NFL, Roll No. 2: ‘Rassische Auslese’, p. 4. 10. Völkischer Beobachter, No. 327, 23.XI.1938. 11. Das Schwarze Korps, No. 38, 22.IX.1938, cf. Schlund II, p. 43. 12. See above, footnote 8. 13. Schlund II, p. 51. In the files of the State Chancery and in the Rosenberg files a number of personal letters by members of the S.A., by governmental officials, by clergymen and others have been preserved, in which intensive concern with questions of faith and religion versus state and dilemmas in personal matters pertaining to one’s racial purity were raised. This and similar grass-roots literature in which, for example, the term ‘conscientious decision’ (Gewissensentscheidung) significantly appears [BA. 43 II. No. 155, letter by S.A. man Wilhelm Fisch of 6.IV.1936, also see personal letters in the Rosenberg files, N.S. 8, No. 500], would require a special psycho-historical study. Most helpful methodological guidance for such a study is to be found in Saul Friedlaender, Histoire et Psychanalyse – Essai sur les Possibilités et les Limites de la Psychohistoire, Editions Du Seuil, Paris: 1975, pp. 81–143. Also by the same author the excellent work: L’Antisemitisme Nazi – Histoire d’une psychose collective, Editions Du Seuil, Paris: 1971. Additional helpful studies in this area, cf.: Dietrich Orlow, ‘The Significance of Time and Place in Psychohistory’, in: Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. V, No. 1 (Summer: 1974), pp 131–8. R.G.L. Waite, ‘Adolf Hitler’s Guilt Feelings: A Problem in History and Psychology’, in Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Winter: 1971), pp. 229–49. Peter Loewenberg, ‘Psycho-historical Perspectives in Modern German History’, in Journal of Modern History, Vol. 47, No. 2. 1975. 14. It would seem that Eric Voegelin in his Die Politischen Religionen, Berman-Fischer Verlag, Stockholm: 1939, 67 pp., was among the first to have realized these

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‘POLITICAL FAITH’ OF NAZISM PRIOR TO THE HOLOCAUST dynamics. Also see the profound study: Detlev Grieswelle, Propaganda der Friedlosigkeit – eine Studie zu Hitlers Rhetorik 1920–1933, Ferdinand Enke Verlag, Stuttgart: 1972 (henceforth: Grieswelle), p. 183. As to the primary sources relating to the interrelationship of secularization and sacralization, and to the term säkularisierte Theologie in Carl Schmitt’s teachings, its influence on Nazism and later its rejection by Nazi leaders, see: Mitteilungen, Vol. 3, No. 1, 18.I.1937, p. 14. A significant example of the impact of the Friend and Foe Theory of Carl Schmitt on the attitude of Protestant supporters of Nazism toward Judaism and Jews is the speech by Wilhelm Stapel, delivered at the Second Conference for the Study of the Jewish Question in Nyon, near Geneva, sponsored by the ‘Weltstudentenwerk’, April 15, 1931, entitled ‘Die Rolle der Juden im politischen Leben der Gegenwart’ (The Role of the Jews in Contemporary Politics), Der Ring, Vol. IV, No. 22, pp. 402–8. Stapel still speaks about possibilities, or the necessity of a total assimilation of the Jews amidst the Germanic nation, a solution to the Jewish question Nazism could not accept. Indeed both Stapel and Schmitt were then rejected by their own disciples. On Carl Schmitt’s political thought and his theory that ‘… all seminal concepts in modern political theory are secularized theological concepts …’, cf. the illuminative work by George Schwab, The Challenge of the Exception – an Introduction to the Political Ideas of Carl Schmitt between 1921 and 1936, Duncke & Humbolt, Berlin: 1970, p. 73 and Part II: ‘Schmitt and National Socialism: 1933–1936’. Finally, the very term ‘säkularisierte Religion’ interpreted as a Nomos emerging from the depth of the ‘folksoul’ and its primordial, natural instincts, was also accepted by some of the leaders of the Germanic Faith movements, cf. Walter Baetke, Art und Glaube der Germanen, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg: 1934, p. 62. 15. Prof. Ernst Krieck is another example of one of the ideological authorities who, once their impact became too strong or somewhat independent, were opposed, if not persecuted, by other members of Nazi establishment; cf. IZG, Ma-611 (pp. 59055–201; 59286–543; 59583–641; 59650–693). As to Krieck’s teachings on political faith and Nazi ideology, cf Völkisch-politische Anthropologie, Part I: ‘Die Wirklichkeit’, Armanen Verlag, Leipzig: 1936, Ch. 6, ‘Religion’, pp. 57–69; Ch. 7, ‘Blut und Boden’, pp. 70–81; Ch. 8, ‘Politik und Geschichte’, pp. 82–96. Also: Ernst Krieck, Volkscharakter und Sendungsbewusstsein – Politische Ethik des Reichs, Armanen Verlag, Leipzig: 1940. 16. Karl Richard Ganzer, ‘Das Reich als Europaeische Ordnungsmacht’, in Reich und Reichsfeinde (1st edition: 1941), 2nd edition: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg: 1943, pp. 8–80. In his paper on Richard Wagner, delivered at the ‘Third Coloquium on the Jewish Question’, July 5–7, 1938, Ganzer defined Judaism in Wagner’s terms as the main cause of the ‘decay of humanity’, cf. Richard Wagner und das Judentum, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg: 1938, p. 4. 17. It would seem that the technique of unmasking subconscious, suppressed or latent motivations needs to be complemented or even reinforced (not substituted though) by the hermeneutical insight such as developed by Hans Georg Gadamer. The analysis of ideas in terms of ideologies, consciously or subconsciously justifying needs or interests – be they socio-economic or psycho-social, is perhaps one of the most helpful contributions of the sociology of knowledge. Indeed, Karl Mannheim correctly pointed out that it was the transformation of Hegelian dialectics of the spirit into those of society by Marx, which paved the way to the understanding of the difference between ideology and motivated reality. However, with Wilhelm Dilthey and then with the development of the hermeneutical

39

RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH ‘Verstehen’ of thought and its forms of articulation, an additional dimension emerged. Hermeneutics of thought-texts and of structures of meanings have shown that in some historical and political situations, interests and their justification, needs and their rationalization, inclinations and their projection, have been raised to the level of awareness, of self-knowledge and of critical conscious self-understanding. This reversal of the function of ideologies requires a new analytical technique, one in which the Ideologienverdacht already has been applied, yet not by the scholar, the analyst, the historian or the sociologist, but by the very object of their investigation itself. Cf. Ruediger Bubner, Konrad Cramer, Reiner Wiehl ed., Hermeneutik und Dialektik, Vols. I, II, J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen: 1970. Also, Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik, with contributions by Karl-Otto Apel, Claus v. Bormann, Ruediger Bubner, HansGeorg Gadamer, Hans Joachim Giegel, Jürgen Habarmas; Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt: 1971. See also Parts I, II of Werturteilsstreit, ed. by Hans Albert and Ernst Topitsch, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt: 1971, pp. 3–309. 18. Hitlers Zweites Buch – Ein Dokument aus dem Jahr 1928, introduced and annotated by Gerhard L. Weinberg; Quellen und Darstellungen zur Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 7, Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart: 1961, p. 62; and H. Picker, Hitlers Tischgespraeche, hrsg. von P.E. Schramm, Stuttgart: 1963, p. 153. As to the historical background of Social Darwinism in its relationship to Nazism, cf. Daniel Gasman, The Scientific Origins of National Socialism – Social Darwinism in Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League, MacDonald: London and American Elsevier Inc.: New York: 1971 (henceforth: Gasman), especially ‘Introduction’, pp. xi–xxxii and Ch. VII, pp. 147 ff. Gerhard Schulz in his critique of Gasman’s thesis claiming that the Monist League influenced leftists rather than Nazis missed the point, cf. his otherwise excellent study: Aufstieg des Nationalsozialismus – Krise und Revolution in Deutschland, Propylaeen-Ullstein Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Wien, 1975 (henceforth: Schulz), pp. 6, 8. Gasman did not claim that Ernst Haeckel influenced only or exclusively the Völkisch tradition. His study proves that indeed while Monism created a Social Darwinistic idealism different from those of the Marxists, it at the same time had a deep impact on a variety of German social reform movements. Also, see the penetrating analysis of the impact of Social Darwinism on Nazism by Helmut Krausnick, ‘Judenverfolgung’, in Hans Buchheim et al. Anatomie des SS Staates, Vol. II, Walter-Verlag, Olten und Freiburg i. Br.: 1965 (henceforth: Krausnick), pp. 293–304. 19. Ernst Krieck, ‘Autoritaetsgewinn und Leistungspruefungen – Rede an unsere Jugend’, YIVO, B.C. G-237. The theological associations and references in their secularized and politicized forms refer to the affirmation of faith as was taught by contemporary conservative Protestants, among others Ethelbert Stauffer. Accordingly, saving faith can be achieved once the knowledge of the Word of God (notitia) and its acknowledgment (assensus) are followed by personal confidence in the saviour (fiducia), or in Krieck’s transformation: by personal confidence in the Führer. 20. K.D. Bracher, Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik – eine Studie zum Problem des Machtverfalls in der Demokratie, 4th edn, Villingen, 1964 Schriften des Instituts für politische Wissenschaft, Vol. IV, Ch. VI. pp. 150–73. Idem, Deutschland zwischen Demokratie und Diktatur – Beitraege zur neuen Politik und Geschichte, Scherz, Bern/München: 1964, pp. 139–80. Schulz, pp. 165–354. Grieswelle, p. 96. On the impact of these historical circumstances, on the growth of radical and racist anti-Semitism, cf. Werner Jockmann, ‘Die Ausbreitung des

40

‘POLITICAL FAITH’ OF NAZISM PRIOR TO THE HOLOCAUST Antisemitismus’ in Werner E. Mosse, ed., and Arnold Paucker, Deutsches Judentum in Krieg und Revolution 1916–1923, Sammelband, J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen, 1971 (henceforth: Sammelband), pp. 409–510. 21. At this point the organistic political philosophy of Othmar Spann still had a substantial impact on potential supporters of Nazism. In fact, Spann served as a bridge between nationalist conservatism and nationalist socialism or between national universalism and political organicism. Afterwards, when Nazism could not tolerate relatively independent thought and sentiments, Othmar Spann’s teachings as those by Oswald Spengler or Carl Schmitt, were partially repudiated, cf. Martin Schneller, Zwischen Romantik und Faschismus – Der Beitrag Othmar Spanns zum Konservatismus in der Weimarer Republik, Kieler Historische Studien, Vol. XII, Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart: 1970, Chs. V, VI, VII. A major primary source in Hans Raeber, Othmar Spanns Philosophie des Universalismus – Darstellung und Kritik, Verlag von Gustav Fischer in Jena: 1937, 184 pp. The study clearly indicates those aspects that were different or even opposed to Nazi ideology, yet were then utilized by Nazism after having been adapted to its antiChristian tendencies. One of the examples of this technique of adaptation by transformation is the Geschichtsphilosophie of Spann as compared with Nazi historical consciousness. Cf., in Raeber’s book, p. 91 ff. and Karl Richard Ganzer, ‘Volk und Rasse als organische Kategorien’, in Arbeitsberichte des I.F.J., Summer 1938, p. 4 ff., YIVO Archives, Roll No. 2: ‘Rassische Auslese’, p. 5. 22. The social stratification and composition of the Nazi movement and Nazi supporters indicate that Nazism did not attract only members of the lower, unstable middle class or so-called frustrated intellectuals, nor did these social groups support the NSDAP only or exclusively, as indeed has often been assumed. Also, there is no full or clear-cut correlation between those areas which especially suffered from mass unemployment and from the financial crises from the late 1920s on, and those areas in which more support was given to the NSDAP or DNVP. On the socio-economic background of the NSDAP, cf. Schulz, pp. 547–59; regarding the voting patterns according to socio-economic conditions, cf. D. Petzina, ‘Materialien zum sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Wandel in Deutschland seit dem Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts’, in Vierteljahreshefte fuer Zeitgeschichte, Vol. XVII, 1969, No. 3, pp. 308–38. As to different opinions regarding the interrelationship of heavy industry and other branches of big business and Nazism, see: Heinrich A. Winkler, ‘Unternehmerverbände zwischen Ständeideologie und Nationalsozialismus’, in Vierteljahreshefte fuer Zeitgeschichte, Vol. XVII, 1969, No. 3, pp. 341–71. Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., ‘Big Business and the Rise of Hitler’, in The American Historical Review, Vol. LXXV, 1969/70, pp. 56–70. Amos E. Simpson, ‘The Struggle for Control of the German Economy 1936/7’, in The Journal of Modern History, Vol. XXXI, 1959, pp. 37–45. Opposition to socialist and bolshevist trends in early Nazism came from amidst the movement itself, on behalf of the leaders of racist and ‘völkisch’ mythology as well. See the symptomatic polemics between Alfred Rosenberg, Joseph Goebbels and Gregor Strasser: National-Sozialistische Briefe, ed. by Gregor Strasser (responsible editor: Dr. Joseph Goebbels), ‘6 Brief ’, 15 December 1925; ‘8 Brief ’, 15 January 1926; also cf. personal correspondence of February 1927, BA. NS. 8, No. 143. Also see Reinhard Huehne, Die nationalsozialistische Linke 1925–1930, Marburger Abhandlungen zur politischen Wissenschaft, Vol. VI, Verlag Anton Hain, Meisenheim am Glau: 1966, Part IV, pp. 151–69, 184–202. An analysis of the social and economic factors in the development of the Nazi movement, party and voting patterns is given by Seymour Martin Lipset,

41


23.

24.

25.

26. 27. 28. 29.

‘Nationalsozialismus – ein Faschismus der Mitte’ in Gotthard Jasper ed., Von Weimar zu Hitler 1930–1933, Neue Wissenschaftliche Bibliothek, Kiepeneuer & Witsch, Koeln, Berlin: 1968, pp. 101–23. Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, ‘The Emergence of Nazism as a Mass Movement 1928–1933’ in Documents on Nazism 1919–1945, The Viking Press, New York: 1974 (henceforth: NoakesPridham), pp. 87–116. The editors of this important volume point out the significance of the socio-religious background as a factor in the voting patterns of the supporters of Nazism in the Reichstag elections 1924–1933. Accordingly, the main strength of Nazism lay in the Protestant and rural areas, while it was weakest in the big cities, in the industrial areas generally and in particularly predominantly Catholic areas, p. 114. ‘… Das verlorene Eigendasein – neue Enthüllungen jüdischer Machtbereiche in einer entseelten und mechanisierten Welt …’ (‘… The lost self-identity – new revelations of Jewish spheres of influence in a deadened and mechanized world …’). This is the subtitle of a widely distributed pamphlet among students and young party leaders in the Berlin area prior to the beginning of World War II (apparently autumn 1937). The pamphlet includes a detailed list of sources of inspiration for ‘The thinking National-socialist … the new Germanic political soldier …’, p. 2. YIV0 Archives, NFI, Roll No. 4. Cf. George L. Mosse, Nazi Culture – Intellectual Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich, The Universal Library, Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1968, Chs. 3, 4. Max Wundt, Was heisst voelkisch, Langensalza: 1924, p. 36. Idem, Deutsche Weltanschauung – Grundzuege voelkischen Denkens, München: 1926, pp. 160 ff. As to Wundt’s impact on students, some of whom later became leading members of the NSDAP and of SS units, see the biographical notes preserved in Bonn, ER-Studenten, pp. 8 ff.; cf. especially the report of 1933/1934 by Prof. Walter Poppelreuther: ‘N.S. Studenten und die deutsche Massenpsychologie’, pp. 12 ff. The membership in those movements and associations was still appreciated in the early years of the Nazi regime. For example, thanks to his indirect involvement in the assassination of Rathenau, Councillor Willy Bukow was permitted by Hitler, personally, to retain his membership in the NSDAP, despite his having been married to a woman that was not entirely of pure Aryan blood. See the symptomatic correspondence of the years 1934, 1936, in BA. R 43, II, No. 599, pp. 24, 25. As to some of the main studies on this background of Nazism see the following: Uwe Lohalm, Völkischer Radikalismus – die Geschichte des Deutschvoelkischen Schutz- und Trutz-Bundes 1919–1923, Hamburger Beitraege zur Zeitgeschichte, Band VI, Leibnitz-Verlag, Hamburg: 1970, Parts IV, V. Josef Ackerman, Heinrich Himmler als Ideologe, Musterschmidt, Göttingen, Zurich, Frankfurt: l970, p. 73, pp. 196 ff. Reginald H. Phelps, ‘Before Hitler came – Thule Society and Germanen Orden’, Journal of Modern History, 1963, Vol. 35, pp. 245–61. Cf. W. Jochmann’s thorough study in Sammelband, pp. 483 ff. Robert G.L. Waite, The Free Corps Movement in Post-War Germany 1918–1933, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.: 1952, pp. 204 ff., also ‘Appendix’, pp. 285–96. Krausnick, p. 294. Völkischer Beobachter, 10.III.1922, No. 20/34 (editor’s article). Schlund I, p. 68. Already after the failure of the uprising of November 6–9, 1923 Munich (Hitler’s Putsch), Moeller van der Brueck realized the ‘… proletarian primitivity …’ of Hitler and his supporters: ‘… He did not know how to lay a spiritual foundation for his national socialism …’; cf. Jenoe Kurucz, Struktur und Funktion der

42


30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42.

Intelligenz während der Weimarer Republik, Sozialforschung und Sozialordnung, Schriftenreihe des Instituts für empirische Soziologie in Saarbrücken, Band 3, G, Grotelsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Köln: 1967 (henceforth: Kurucz), p. 88. Armin Mohler, ‘Bibliographie’, Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918–1932 – Grundriss ihrer Weltanschauungen, Friedrich Vorwerk Verlag, Stuttgart: 1950, pp. 212–73. Sontheimer, pp. 143–353. Wilhelm Stapel, Der christliche Staatsmann – eine Theologie des Nationalsozialismus, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg: 1932, pp. 7 ff. – Cf. Wolfgang Tilgner, Volksnomostheologie und Schöpfungsglaube – ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Kirchenkampfes, Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Kirchenkampfes, Vol. XVI, Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen: 1966 (henceforth: Tilgner), pp. 88–130. As to the critique of Wilhelm Stapel by Nazi leaders, cf. Mitteilungen, No. 23, Vol. 3, 18.VI.1937, pp. 1–2. Among the reactions by Jewish spokesmen to Stapel’s attempt at combining Lutheran Protestantism and Nazism; cf. Julius Goldstein, ‘Völkischer Antisemitismus I’, in Der Morgen, Vol. II, April, 1926, pp. 13–22; Hans Herzfeld, ‘Geistfeindlichkeit und ihre politischen Auswirkungen’, in Der Morgen, Vol. VII, October, 1931, pp. 307–14; also M. Elias, ‘Besinnungen zur Judenfrage’, in Der Israelit, 1935, No. 2, pp. 1–3; No. 3, pp. 5–6. E. Günther Gründel, Die Sendung der jungen Generation – Versuch einer umfassenden revolutionaeren Sinndeutung der Krise, E.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung München: 1932 (henceforth: Gründel), p. 224. Sontheimer, pp. 271 ff.; cf. Horn, Chs. IV, V. Gründel, pp. 30 ff. Ibid., p. 45. Ibid., p. 90. Shortly afterwards, on May 1, 1935, Hitler himself expressed his critique against Spengler, among others, because of Spengler’s pessimism and preference of Prussia as against the ‘Reich’; cf. Max Domarus, Hitlers Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945, Würzburg: 1962 (henceforth: Domarus), Vol. I, p. 501. Also see Himmler’s remark about ‘… the typical Jewish defeatism (jüdische Flaumacherei) …’, YIVO Archives, N.F.I., Roll No. 13, ‘Schulungsberichte’, # 6, 7, 8. Gründel, p. 2. Sontheimer, p. 71. Gründel, p. 293. Hitler used this technique not only in his public appearances, but also in his dealings with members of the cabinet. One of the revealing documents in which Hitler displays great skill in presenting his policy towards the Jews in a peaceful, civilized and logical way is his letter to the president of the Reich of 5 April 1933, cf. BA. R. 43, II, No. 600, pp. 74–8. Bracher, p. 119. Krausnick, p. 307. Paul Simon, one of the critical Catholic contemporaries displayed some apprehension, from his own traditional point of view though, of the significance of a modernized mythology for Nazism. Tracing its roots in the teachings of Bachofen, Nietzsche, H. St. Chamberlain, Georges Sorel, Stephan George, he still in the year 1935 denounced Nazi ideology as taught by authors such as Prof. Hans Naumann (and his use of Heideggerian terminology), the writer Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer and Alfred Rosenberg, cf. Paul Simon, Mythos oder Religion, 4’ Auflage, Druck und Verlag der Bonifacius-Druckerei, Paderborn: 1935, 111 pp. For additional primary sources see a variety of samples of Nazi political mythology in Hans Jochen Gamm, Der braune Kult – das Dritte Reich und seine Ersatzreligion, ein Beitrag zur politischen Bildung, Ruethen & Loening Verlag,

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43.

44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

50. 51.

Hamburg: 1962, Chs. II, VI, VII, IX. As to the systematic study of the political mythology in Nazism several of the works of George L. Mosse are essential and most instructive, cf. ‘The Mystical Origins of National Socialism’, in Journal of the History of Ideas, January–March, 1961, Vol. XII, pp. 83–96. Idem, Nazi Culture – Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich (1966), The Universal Library, Grosset & Dunlap, New York: 1968, especially Parts I, III, IV, VII. Idem, The Nationalization of the Masses – Political Symbolism and Mass Movements, Howard Fertig, New York: 1975, 252 pp. Also see the somewhat biased study: Wolfgang Emmerich, Zur Kritik der Volkstumsideologie, Edition Suhrkamp, No. 502, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main: 1971, esp. the chapter: ‘Der Mythos Germanischer Kontinuität’, pp. 132 ff. Emmerich follows the seminal studies by Th.W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer and R. Barthes. Jean F. Neurohr realized the far-reaching importance of the Mythos for Nazi ideology and policy already in 1933, yet his work Der Mythos vom Dritten Reich – zur Geistesgeschichte des Nationalsozialismus was published only much later, by J.G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung Nachfolger Stuttgart: 1957, 287 pp. As to the struggle of the Confessional Church against Germanic mythology, cf. Christian Stoll, Mythus? Offenbarung! Bekennende Kirche, Heft 14, Chr. Kaiser Verlag, München: 1934, 24 pp. Rudolf Homann, Der Mythus und das Evangelium, Westdeutscher Lutherverlag, Witten: 1935, 200 pp. (esp. Part III: ‘Die Antwort und die Religion des Mythus’, pp. 145 ff.). Grieswelle, p. 38. On Prof. Müller’s complicated position in the Nazi movement, cf. Helmut Heiber, Walter Frank und sein Reichsinstitut für Geschichte des neuen Deutschlands, Quellen und Darstellungen zur Zeitgeschichte, Vol. XIII, Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart: 1966, pp. 575 ff. Detlev Grieswelle, correctly, acknowledges these parts of Rauschning’s evidence as a reliable historical source, cf. Grieswelle, pp. 336–7, 40. Ibid., p. 55. The author uses here a rare primary source: H. Preiss (ed.), Adolf Hitler in Franken – Reden aus der Kampfzeit (n.p., n.d.). Ibid., p. 56. See also Koch, p. 221. Joseph Goebbels, Der Angriff-Aufsätze aus der Kampfzeit, München: 1935, p. 217. Schulungsinformationsschreiben, No. 2/38, Berlin (n.d.), YIVO Archives NFI, No. 13, # 8. Nationalsozialistisches Jahrbuch, Vol. XVI, ed. by secretary Robert Ley, Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Franz Eher Nachf., München: 1939 (henceforth: Jahrbuch: 1939), p. 5. The quotation was taken from a public speech by Hitler, delivered on 1 March 1935, in Saarbrücken, published in Völkischer Beobachter, 3 March 1935, reprinted in Domarus I, p. 487. Hitler again emphasizes the necessity of having faith, faith in the new Reich, in the future, in the fulfillment (Vollendung) of the mission of the new regime. The verse ‘faith can move mountains’ is but another example of the use of theological motifs (cf. I Corinthians 13:2) by transforming them into a profane, political faith. On the process of the reversal of meanings, of the sacralization of politics, cf. Uriel Tal, ‘Forms of PseudoReligion in the German Kulturbereich prior to the Holocaust’, in Immanuel, Jerusalem: 1973/4, No. 3, pp. 68 ff. On the use of metaphors by Hitler see the analysis of his First of May Speeches, Margarete Wedleff, ‘Zum Stil Hitlers Maireden’, in Muttersprache, Vol. LXXX, 1970 (henceforth: Wedleff), p. 117. Jahrbuch: 1939, p. 187. Ibid., p. 189, also: cf. P. Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat im Dritten Reich, Münchener Studien zur Politik, Vol. IX, München: 1969, p 246.

44

‘POLITICAL FAITH’ OF NAZISM PRIOR TO THE HOLOCAUST 52. Ackermann, p. 80. 53. Ibid. 54. Domarus I, p. 175. Cf. Noakes – Pridham, p. 333, Hitler’s speech to the Party faithful at the first NSDAP rally in Nürnberg after the seizure of power, September 1933. 55. Domarus I, p. 503; cf. Wedleff, pp. 109–27. 56. Domarus I, p. 609. 57. ‘An die Mitglieder der Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft, etc’. YIVO Archives, NFI, Roll No. 8. 58. The by now well-known words by Hitler according to which he himself, as well as other leading Nazis, had read only minor portions of Rosenberg’s Mythus, that he found the Mythus rather incomprehensible, and that only the Church had taken seriously the Mythus, might create the impression as if the ideological activity by Rosenberg and his office had but little significance for the Nazi regime. This impression might become even stronger when considering the fact that the Mythus had not been published as an official document. These conclusions, however, seem to be wrong and rather misleading. Rosenberg did not have much power in the party machinery proper, nor did he have much to say in matters of foreign policy or the administration of the Eastern occupied countries. However, his activities in matters of ideology and political indoctrination, including his Mythus, fulfilled vital functions for the regime of the Third Reich as well as for Nazism and its policy toward the Jew. The archival source material and the published primary sources show that the activity of Rosenberg in the realm of Weltanschauung functioned in a number of ways: (a) parts of the wider public, of the so-called ‘people of the street’, looked upon the Mythus as a document of pseudo-religious significance, even though the book was hardly understood; (b) the Mythus served as a focus and a permissive outlet, to some extent as a catharsis, for the opposition of the Church to the regime; (c) despite the question of jurisdiction and the internal struggle (Kompetenzstreit) among Nazi leaders, Heinrich Himmler and especially the SS and the SA units, used some of the ideological teachings issued by the department of Rosenberg. One of the examples is the typical Nazi doctrine according to which the Jew is the archenemy of Nazism, symbolizing and embodying all other evils such as Marxism, Communism, Christianity, for ‘… the Jew is the main obstacle blocking our path to victory over Europe … he is the origin of Christianity with all its degenerating impact on German culture and life … once the Jew … disappears the German folk and the Aryan race can fulfill their mission (that is) complete sovereignty over as much living space as we ever may need …’, YIVO Archives, G-206. As to the impact of Rosenberg’s ideological activities, cf. BA. R. 43, II, Nos. 156, 163/a, 178, 181/a; BA. NS. 8, Nos. 14, 103, 238. 59. This dilemma, typical of a dictatorship, was an integral part of Nazi political faith. On the one hand the regime could not function without spontaneous motivations on behalf of its followers, yet on the other hand it could not but become suspicious of any form of initiative other than its own. This is one of the reasons for the partial rejection of intellectuals and of some of the main sources of inspiration in the Nazi movement, such as Oswald Spengler, Moeller van den Bruch, Carl Schmitt, Ernst Jünger, Stephan George, Ludwig Klages, Ernst Krieck, Hans Naumann, Hans Heyse and the various religious or mythical movements, including ardent Nazi supporters in various ‘nordic-religious’ or ‘folkishreligious’ circles or movements, such as those headed by Arthur Dinter, Mathilde Ludendorff, Ernst Bergmann, Ernst Graf Leventlow, Jakob Wilhelm Hauer,

45


60. 61. 62.

63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

68. 69.

70.

Bernhard Kummer, Hermann Wirth. In addition to the detailed and informative description in Schlund II, Chs. IV A, B, C, see also: Herman Mandel, DeutschTheologie, Volume III, Appendix: ‘Heerschau deutschen Glaubens, eine Führung durch das deutschreligiöse Schrifttum’, pp. 17–31. Also see: Die ‘Dritte Konfession’? – Materialsammlung über die nordisch-religiösen Bewegungen, Evangelischer Pressverband für Deutschland, Berlin: 1934, 47 pp. At this point it should be made clear that the ‘Glaubensbewegung Deutscher Christen’ was an entirely different movement from the ‘Die Deutsche Glaubensbewegung’, cf. Hans Buchheim, pp.41–156; pp. 157–202. Krausnick, pp. 283 ff. – cf. Jacob Robinson, And the Crooked Shall Be Made Straight, Macmillan Company, New York, Collier-Macmillan, London: 1965, Chs. 1, 2, 5. The paper was delivered at the Conference on Holocaust and Church Struggle, NCCJ, New York, March, 1976. Ackermann, especially Chs. II, III, IV, V, also see our detailed review of Ackermann’s study in Freiburger Rundbrief, 1975. Cf. the important work: Werner T. Angress and Bradley F. Smith, ‘Diaries of Heinrich Himmler’s Early Years’, Journal of Modern History, Vol. 31, 1959, pp. 206–24. Bradley F. Smith, Heinrich Himmler, A Nazi in the Making 1900–1926, Hoover Institute Press, Stanford University, Stanford, California, 1971, 211 pp. The mythological approach of Himmler to the Third Reich did not interfere with his efficiency in dealing with financial or bureaucratic issues, cf. Reinhard Vogelsang, Der Freundeskreis Himmler, Musterschmidt, Göttingen, Zürich, Frankfurt: 1972, Chs. 5, 6, 7. Ackermann, p. 76. Ibid., p. 87. Ibid., p. 178. Gottfried Griesmayr: Das Mysterium des Blutes (n.p.), 1939, 2 pp. YIV0 Archives, G-243 (henceforth: Griesmayr). Der S.A. Mann, Nos. 33, 34, 35, August: 1938. Eberhard Schlund correctly traces these doctrines to the impact of Prof. Ernst Krieck who taught: ‘… the nationalsocialist revolution brings with it a new image of world and man out of the principle of “life” which manifests itself in race, folk and history …’ Krieck himself, Schlund points out, was here indebted to the ‘biocentric’ teachings by Ludwig Klages, cf. Schlund II, pp. 60 ff. Griesmayr, p. 14. Cf. Sigmund Freud, Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion, 1939, pp 164 ff. Among the many examples of protests by the Church against the Nazi regime, see the accusations of Clemens August Graf von Galen, the Bishop of Münster; the Bishop denounced the ‘reign of terror’ (Schreckensherrschaft) by the Gestapo, cf. BA. R. 43/II, No. 178 (also further correspondence of the years 1938/9). Heinrich Himmler, in his letter to Lammers, Secretary of State and Executive Director of the Reichskanzlei of 9 November 1939, agrees with Lammers that in fact the Gestapo should be beyond regular juridical restrictions even those that gave freedom to the executive arms of government, such as the Decree of 2 February 1933 for National Defence (Verordnung zum Schutze von Volk und Staat). As to protests by the Church against the persecution of the Jews, their limits and limitations, cf. Johan M. Snoek, The Grey Book – a Collection of Protests, van Gorcum, Assen: 1969; ibid., ‘Introduction’ by Uriel Tal. Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, ‘Kommissarbefehl und Massenexecutionen Sowjetischer Kriegsgefangener’, in Hans Buchheim et al., Anatomie des SS-Staates, Vol. II,

46

‘POLITICAL FAITH’ OF NAZISM PRIOR TO THE HOLOCAUST Walter-Verlag, Olten und Freiburg im Breisgau, pp. 163–279. 71. M. Broszat, Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik 1939–1945, Stuttgart: 1961, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte. M. Broszat, ‘Hitler und die Genesis der “Endlösung”’ in: Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, München: 1977, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 739–75. 72. Alexander Bein, ‘Der Moderne Antisemitismus und seine Bedeutung für die Judenfrage’ in Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Vol. XIII, 1965, p. 140; also quoted by Ackermann, p. 163 and by Mosse: Nazi Culture, pp. 336–7. 73. Cf. Hans Buchheim, pp. 32–3, ‘… For Hitler’s fighting ideology the Jew served as the quasi metaphysical foe principle, that negative power the impact of which could have been suspected everywhere … The national-socialist movement needed the “Jewish arch-fiend …”’ On the historical uniqueness of modern anti-Semitism and of the Holocaust, cf. Shmuel Ettinger, ‘The Origins of Modern anti-Semitism’ in: The Catastrophe of European Jewry: Antecedents – History – Reflections, Yad Vashem, ed. by Israel Gutman and Livia Rothkirchen, Jerusalem: 1976, pp. 3–39. Jakob L. Talmon, ‘Mission and Testimony – the Universal Significance of Modern anti-Semitism’, ibid., pp. 127–75. Saul Friedländer, ‘The Historical Significance of the Holocaust’ in: The Jerusalem Quarterly, Jerusalem: Autumn 1976, No. 1, pp. 36–59. Yehuda Bauer, ‘Trends in Holocaust Research’, in Yad Vashem Studies, Jerusalem: 1977, Vol. XII, pp. 7–36. Israel Guttman, ‘Martyrdom and Sacredness of Life’ (Hebrew) in: Yalkut Moreshet, October: 1977, No. 24, pp. 7–22. A. Roy Eckardt, Your People, My People – The Meeting of Jews and Christians, Quadrangle, New York: 1974, pp. 7–28. Franklin H. Littell, The Crucifiction of the Jews – the Failure of Christians to Understand the Jewish Experience, Harper & Row Publ., New York: 1975, pp. 60–82. Paul M. van Buren, The Burden of Freedom, A Crossroad Book, The Seabury Press, New York: 1976, pp. 57–85. 74. Ackermann, p. 178. 75. Ibid., pp. 172, 175.

47


FACSIMILE 1 Pamphlet of the Kämpfende Kirche (‘Struggling Church’) of January 23, 1934, published by the Rev. Gumbel, Kassel-Wilhelmshohe, attacking Dr. Krause one of the leading Protestant supporters of Nazism. Emphasizing the relevance of the ‘Old Testament’ for the Lutheran in the Third Reich, the pamphlet claims that in fact it is the pro Nazi Deutsche Christen who follow the Jews, for both Jews and Nazis understand themselves as racial nationalities limited to their Blood and Soil theology. True Protestants, it is said, do believe in the Old Testament because it has been foretold and then totally fulfilled in the New Testament. Original in the possession of the Archival Collection of the Library of the ‘Kommission für Zeitgeschichte bei der katholischen Akademie in Bayern’, Bonn, Germany

FACSIMILE 2 ‘The Father of the Jews is the Devil.’ From the satirical Picture Book for Adults and Children, by Elvira Bauer, Sturmer Publications, 8th edition, Nürnberg: 1936. The story starts with a parody on God who when creating the world invented the races, including the wicked Jews. Original in the possession of the Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York (AR C. 1570, A.1).

FACSIMILE 3 Telegram by Landbishop Weidemann to A. Hitler of 28 November 1938, in which the dedication of three churches in Bremen is reported. The churches bear the name of the Führer in gratitude to God for the miraculous salvation of the German people from the abyss of Jewish-materialist Bolshevism. Shortly afterwards the Nazi regime became intolerant toward its supporters from among the Deutsche Christen. Original in the possession of the Bundesarchiv, Koblenz (R 43 II, 165).

FACSIMILE 4 Report on the Annual Conference of the ‘Reich Institute for the History of the New Germany’, held in Berlin, 1 December 1938, published in 48


the Frankfurter Zeitung, 2 December 1938. According to Professor Walter Frank and other historians, ‘the scientific struggle against the Jews’ should be seen in an historical, universal, perspective. Original in the possession of the Stadtarchiv Frankfurt am Main, ‘Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage’, Bd. Nr. 1, 1938–1941.

FACSIMILE 5 Letter by nineteen year old Gustav Jansen, Bochum, of 12 December 1939, to Reich Minister Alfred Rosenberg, in which he describes how deeply moved he was when reading the Mythus. Quoting his own diary, the author declares that the Nazi Weltanschauung and Germanic Mythology are to substitute for Christianity and its Judaic foundations. The letter is a typical example of personal evidence to the pseudo-religious function Nazism fulfilled amidst young believers. Original in the possession of the Bundesarchiv, Koblenz (NS/8/14).

49

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50

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54

3 On the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide

A. THE TERM ‘GENOCIDE’ It was in 1943, at the height of the war, that Raphael Lemkin coined the term ‘genocide’ to describe the mass extermination of Jews in Europe under the Nazi regime.1 In his biographical essay ‘My Battle with Half the World’, Lemkin, former Adviser on Foreign Affairs to the U.S. War Department, said that it was the study of the persecutions of the Jews in ancient, medieval, modern and contemporary times that made him aware of the universal scope and significance of acts of extermination perpetrated against: … National, racial and religious minorities … I began to understand that it was not a matter of the Jews, of Arabs, or Catholics, Protestants and Buddhists separately, but of all peoples, religions, and nationalities … the pogroms under the Tzar, and the destruction of … Armenians in 1915, and … the destruction of … six million Jews by Hitler …2 And further: … There are basic phases of life in a human group; physical existence, biological continuity (through procreation) and spiritual or cultural expression. Accordingly, the attacks on these three basic phases of the life of a human group can be qualified as physical, biological or cultural genocide. It is considered a criminal act to cause death to members of the above-mentioned group directly, or indirectly, to sterilize through compulsion, to steal children, or to break up families … by destroying spiritual leadership and institutions, forces of spiritual cohesion within a group are removed and the group starts to disintegrate … Religion can be destroyed within a group even if its members continue to exist physically.3 Ever since, the term ‘genocide’ has been applied to destructive policies and mass atrocities committed against a growing number of peoples, 55


against the Gypsies under the Third Reich;4 against the Baltic peoples during and after World War II;5 against the Ibo people during the Nigerian Civil War of the 1960s; against the Bengals in Bangladesh’s struggle in 1971; against the aborigines in Australia;6 in the struggle between ethnic groups in Burundi in 1972;7 against the Indians in Paraguay;8 against Indians in Brazil;9 against traditional society and religion in Tibet;10 against the Kurds in Iraq,11 etc. etc. In several studies or essays additional terms have been coined such as ‘Armenocide’ – the term ‘genocide’ is of course used more frequently12 – or ‘aristocide’, extermination of intellectual and political leadership under both Nazi and Soviet Russian regimes.13 Works touching on genocide differ in their aims, methods and forms, and range from collections of primary sources, historical and sociopolitical analyses, minutes of scientific conferences, studies in collective psychopathology,14 and minutes of sessions of congressional committees,15 to surveys, travellers’ reports, journalistic reports and writings with political and polemic intent both explicit and/or implicit. Many of the writings on genocide refer, in different ways and for different purposes, to several of the major documents on human rights adopted by the United Nations, primarily to the following two: (1) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly of the U.N. in Paris on 10 December 1948, whose preamble states: ‘… recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world’ and ‘… disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind …’ and (2) The United Nations Genocide Convention, adopted by the General Assembly on 9 December 1948. The Genocide Convention was a result of World War II, and in particular an answer to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg which considered the mass murder of the Jews of Europe as being beyond its jurisdiction.16 Following the General Assembly Resolution of 11 December 1946, that declared genocide an international crime, the ‘Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’ states that genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Acts of violence listed in paragraphs (a) to (e) of Article II of the UN Convention of December 1948 and defined there as crime are mainly physical in nature, such as killing people as members of a human group, 56

ON THE STUDY OF THE HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE

creating conditions leading to the extermination of people as members of a human group, in whole or in part. In addition, these paragraphs include acts of violence of the character of biological genocide, such as creating conditions designed to prevent reproduction, that is, the biological survival of a specific human group. As already noted by Pieter N. Drost,17 the acts of violence included in the definition of genocide do not exhaust the list of crimes by means of which the annihilation of a human group can be accomplished. Such annihilation can also be achieved through mass deportations, arrests, imprisonments, incarcerations and hard labor, or through organized terror, torture, and other forms of inhuman treatment. This conception of the notion of genocide is similar to the position adopted as early as 1947 by the US Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in its trials of Ministerialdirektor Josef Altstötter and other judges, law officers and officials of the Ministry of Justice in the Nazi government. The Tribunal defined the crimes of the accused as genocide and thus a crime against humanity, according to what was stipulated in Allied Control Council Law No. 10, enacted by the four occupying powers and applied by the Nuremberg military tribunals and some German courts during the occupation. Accordingly genocide is defined as acts and also intentions or plans ‘… involving the commission of atrocities and offenses, including but not limited to murder, extermination, deportation, illegal imprisonment, torture, persecution on political, racial and religious grounds …’18 Additional complementary definitions of the concept of genocide are contained in studies, surveys, official reports and substantial petitions submitted to international institutions. These sources, among them testimony on communist oppression, include within the notion of genocide also acts like the forced deportation of scholars, of priests or of children and minors; the breaking up of families and prohibition of marriages between certain categories of citizens; shootings, torture, slavery, starvation, inhuman working conditions and standards of living; enforced collectivization of farms and lack of freedom of residence or choice of employment; extermination of culture, traditions or religion. Definitions of this kind expand the notion of genocide beyond the five paragraphs of the Genocide Convention, and indeed numerous investigations and discussions in international bodies have dealt with the question of extending the connotation of genocide, to include among others the following aspects: the persecution of children, cultural genocide, and the definition of various groups, such as ethnic, racial or political groups to which the term genocide may be applied. With regard to the persecution of children, the draft convention prepared by the UN Secretary-General still includes the paragraph covering ‘forcibly transferring children of the group to another group’ in the idea of cultural genocide, the rationale 57


being, among other things, that ‘… the separation of children from their parents results in forcing upon the former at an impressionable and receptive age a culture and mentality different from their parents. This process tends to bring about the disappearance of the group as a cultural unit …’19 After consideration, however, this paragraph on the forced transfer of children from one group to another was incorporated into Article II as subparagraph (e). The explanation was that the forced transfer of children from one group to another has serious physical and biological consequences and thus imperils the survival of a human group; it is thus in itself genocide, and not necessarily, or not exclusively, cultural genocide, the transfer of children from their original group to an alien one being construed as an act resembling compulsory measures to prevent reproduction, or in other words, to prevent the biological survival of a human group. The term cultural genocide too is an extension of the original idea of genocide, and was not included in the 1948 Convention. However, in the draft convention prepared by the Secretary-General the types of acts constituting cultural genocide were enumerated as follows: (a) forced transfer of children to another human group; (b) forced and systematic exile of individuals representing the culture of a group; (c) prohibition of the use of the national language even in private intercourse; (d) systematic destruction of books printed in the national language or religious works or prohibition of new publications; (e) systematic destruction of historical or religious monuments or their diversion to alien uses; (f) destruction or dispersion of documents and objects of historical, artistic, or religious value and objects used in religious worship.20 Article III of the draft of the Ad Hoc Committee on Genocide which prepared the 1948 Convention, included the statement that ‘… genocide means any deliberate act committed with intent to destroy the language, religion or culture of a national, racial or religious group on grounds of national or racial origin or religious belief …’21 Those on the Ad Hoc Committee who supported the inclusion of ‘cultural genocide’ in the Convention, emphasized that there were two ways of suppressing a human group, the first by causing its members to disappear, and the second by abolishing their specific traits, without making any attempts on the lives of the members of the group. Those who opposed the inclusion of ‘cultural genocide’ emphasized that there was a considerable difference between physical and cultural genocide, and that it was specifically physical genocide which presented those exceptionally horrifying characteristics which had shaken the conscience of mankind. They also pointed to the difficulty of fixing the limits of cultural genocide, which impinged upon the violation of human rights and the rights of minorities.22 The Convention did not include Article III of the draft of the Ad Hoc 58


Committee dealing with ‘cultural genocide’. The main arguments given for the exclusion were that ‘cultural genocide’ was too indefinite a concept; that the difference between mass murder and the destruction of cultural facilities or even creative works, was too great; that cultural genocide legitimately falls within the sphere of the protection of minorities. Also, it was claimed, a state may have legitimate reasons to follow a policy of assimilation by lawful means in order to create a certain degree of national and cultural homogeneity. But in practice it would be difficult to outline the precise limit between these acts of state sovereignty and cultural genocide.23 The omission of the article on cultural genocide has been considered by numerous commentators and scholars to be a contradiction to the spirit of the General Assembly’s Resolution of December 1946 which explicitly spoke of cultural values lost as a result of acts of genocide. The difference of opinion regarding the nature of cultural genocide still exists. Throughout the 1970s, various government and international and scientific institutions have declared themselves in favor of the inclusion of cultural genocide in the 1948 Convention, among them the governments of countries such as Austria, Ecuador, Israel, Oman, Rumania and Finland.24 The Vatican’s declaration of 18 September 1972 is of special interest: ‘Information and Views to the Commission of Human Rights’ stated as follows: … Genocide is also a crime against the rights and dignity of a people. Each people has its own heritage … It is a people’s cultural heritage that is the expression of that people … with its traditional language, customs, beliefs, art, laws, social patterns, and ways of looking at reality … All the individuals and social groups that make up a given people should be able to attain full cultural development in accord with their tradition. They should not be held back, nor have other cultures imposed on them … In view of the above-stated principles, serious consideration should be given to the matter of those acts which might be called ‘cultural genocide’ or ‘ecocide’.25 The inclusion of the terms ‘ethnic’ or ‘racial’ in the notion of genocide is part of the overall question of the nature of the human group to which the notion of genocide may be applied. According to the Genocide Convention, the term is applicable to a number of people constituting a group, and not to individuals. The draft of the Ad Hoc Committee noted explicitly that the act of extermination is termed genocide if it is designed or carried out ‘… on the grounds of the national or racial origin, religious beliefs or political opinion of its (the group’s) members …’26 At the same time, and this is also the opinion held by investigators of crimes of violence such as Herbert Jäger,27 killing entire groups or part of them carried out in the 59


course of war does not necessarily constitute genocide. According to the Genocide Convention an act of annihilation is termed genocide even if it is not directed at or carried out on an entire group; the concept of genocide can apply also to the intention of exterminating parts of a group, because of their belonging to it. This was clearly worded in the report of 1973 by the Special Rapporteur: ‘… a group of individuals identifiable by racial or national features because they constituted distinct, clearly determinable communities …’ 28 The term ‘political groups’ was deleted from the Genocide Convention, although in the bodies that prepared it, among them the Sixth Committee in its deliberations of 15 August 1948, there was a desire to retain ‘political groups’ within the overall definition of genocide.29 The reasons against the inclusion of the notion of ‘political groups’ were primarily political, deriving from the fear that its inclusion would afford an opening for international bodies to intervene in what was termed the internal political life of individual countries. Another justification for the non-inclusion of ‘political groups’ in the concept of genocide was that political groups are not permanent communities and are not therefore homogeneous in character, and in any case are not clearly defineable. Countering these arguments it was noted that the extermination of a political group should properly be included in the concept of genocide because these groups resemble religious groups in that they focus around a particular value system.30 In the same spirit, the International Commission of Jurists declared a few years ago that ‘… the definition of genocide should be extended to include acts done with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a political group as such, as well as national, ethnic, racial or religious groups. The massacre of unarmed political opponents is just as criminal as the massacre of these other groups, and should be recognized as such …’31 Bowing to objections to the inclusion of ‘political groups’ in the list of groups meriting protection against genocide, the Sixth Committee added the category of ‘ethnical’.32 However that term, like the term ‘racial’, turned out to be very complex and to have many and varied meanings. Research on the manifestations of ‘ethnocide’, especially as it has developed in recent years,33 considers ethnicity one of the basic, primary factors in every civilization, in ancient as well as modern times. It is due to ethnicity that national or social groups maintain their cultural uniqueness.34 In this view, the term ‘ethnical’ is close to the term ‘racial’, and in fact as early as 1950, in discussions in U.N. bodies on the definition of ‘minorities’, members felt that the word ‘ethnic’ relates to all the biological, cultural and historical characteristics of a group, while the word ‘racial’ relates only to hereditary and physical characteristics. In that connection, it was argued that in the 1948 Genocide Convention the term ‘ethnic’ was used to qualify the cultural, physical and historical characteristics of a group.35 60


Some anthropologists and social scientists tend to draw a distinction between the terms ‘race’ and ‘ethnic’ by pointing out that ‘race’ indicates ‘a group of persons with certain physical characteristics which are hereditary and transmissible’, while ‘… ethnic groups are descent groups differentiated by language, culture, style, national origin, kinship ties and religious belief …’ 36 The 1950 statement of UNESCO adds a significant aspect by emphasizing that those hereditary factors ‘… fluctuate and often disappear in the course of time … the cultural traits of such groups have not demonstrated genetic connection with racial traits. Because serious errors of this kind are habitually committed when the term ‘race’ is used in popular parlance, it would be better when speaking of human races to drop the term ‘race’ altogether and speak of ethnic groups …’ 37 The formal, seemingly technical definitions of the terms ‘ethnic’ and ‘racial’ and their applicability to the notion of genocide may prepare the ground for a keener moral perception. However, this sharper perception has not yet put an end to policies of discrimination and genocide and has remained confined to the declarations of intellectuals and international institutions. Examples are the series of resolutions by ecumenical organizations even before World War II, but mainly after, in reaction to presentday racial discrimination and genocidal policies, or the 1953 conclusion of UNESCO on the race concept, etc.38 The theories all stress that the use of terms referring to biological heredity for defining the nature of human groups is wrong from the point of view both of the facts and of social morality. Physical and medical conditions, education, and the cultural life style – and not biological determination – are the elements that should be protected by treaties against genocide. Living conditions in which man can develop his physical, intellectual and moral potential; in which man can be responsible for himself, his desires, his acts and their consequences; living conditions in which man can maintain autonomy, that is moral freedom, while remaining true to himself and his historic, ethnic or religious heritage – those are the elements requiring protection against genocidal policies. The conclusions in the area of social morality, though not yet translated into the language of political action, indicate an additional dimension for the definition of genocide – the dimension of time. Ever since the term genocide was coined, acts of persecution, expulsion, religious pressure or group extermination perpetrated even before the twentieth century are now classified as genocide. The preamble of the 1948 UN Convention has stated among other things ‘… at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity … while the concept of genocide is a recent one, the acts which it covers are as old as the history of mankind itself … where national, ethnic, racial or religious groups were destroyed.’39 61


The term genocide or religious genocide is used when dealing with historical phenomena such as the persecution of Christians by Roman emperors, atrocities against Jews who refused baptism by the Crusaders in 1096 and afterwards, the destruction of religious sects such as the Albigenses in 1209–20 or the burning of heretics in the Middle Ages. In recent years the term genocide has been used also in studies on the history of Indians and Indian civilization in North and South America and the Caribbean Islands. The fate that befell the Arawak Indians according to primary source materials such as the letters and journals of Columbus or the historiography of the massacres of the West Indies by Father Bartolome de Las Casas have been termed genocide.40 One may on the other hand argue that genocide is a phenomenon typical of modern motivations and techniques, especially those of the twentieth century; hence it differs from the destructive treatment of captives or conquered peoples, massacres or mass murders of previous times, such as the often cited example of Genghis Khan, even though they too have resulted in the extermination or disappearance of entire groups. Genocide in the modern era is being perpetrated after, and in spite of the emergence of critical rational thought, Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the utopias of freedom, equality and peace, despite, or because of, modern technology and amidst a civilization rooted in the ideas of human ethical autonomy, of man’s inalienable right to self-government, self-knowledge, freedom from oppression, freedom from want and freedom from existential alienation. This becomes even more accentuated in recent trends in the study of modernization. Accordingly, the spread of European civilization connected with colonialism, missions, and with the uprooting process of industrialization also caused cultural and ecological changes that, intentionally or not, helped to liquidate traditional forms of society, religion and culture.41 Recent trends, not only in historiography, lean towards these versions of indirect genocide. Contemporary religious thought is wrestling with the interrelationship of historical phenomena of genocidal implications, historical traditions of missionaries and colonialism, and the current awakening of the Third World. Now, after the Second Vatican Council, even the language used in theological thought as well as in actual Church affairs is undergoing changes. Concepts that were essential to missionaries regarding the ‘falseness’ of ‘pagan culture’, ‘darkness’, ‘depravity’, ‘blindness’ of the indigene whose religion, culture and life-style had to be converted and westernized, are often changed. Circles in the Church feel to an increasing extent that one of the results of the Church’s mission work in the past has been to aid in the obliteration of ‘primitive’ cultures, an effect that nowadays is critically called ‘cultural’ or ‘ethnic’ genocide.42 Theologians 62


such as Jules Isaac and James Parkes pointed out the dialectic interrelationship of traditional Christian anti-Judaism and modern anti-Semitism that was also anti-Christian yet culminated in the mass annihilation of European Jewry. Several distinguished theologians have wrestled with the religious implications of the mass annihilation of European Jewry asking: ‘… does the affirmation that the task of the Church is to bring the world into the Covenant through Jesus the Jew, contribute in and through itself to a perpetuation of the anti-Semitism?’43 B. GENOCIDAL POLICY AND THE HOLOCAUST The history of the spread of Nazism throughout Europe, and within it of the genocidal policy, reveals numerous and varied motives.44 They were on the one hand economic and imperialistic, and on the other ideological, irrational, mythic and even apocalyptic in political dress, with the slogan ‘Space-Reich-Race’ (Raum-Reich-Rasse) expressing their essence. Influenced by the spirit of the times in his youth, Heinrich Himmler wrote in his diary on 22 November 1921 that he felt the West was doomed to decline, and East Europe was the source of vitality and promise for the future, hence ‘… in the East we must fight and settle …’45 Some of the youth movements such as Artamanen and the Artram Bund whose members included men destined to play leading roles in the Third Reich, Heinrich Himmler among them,46 turned the racial theory of the sociopolitical Darwinism founded by Ernst Haeckel and his disciple Willibald Hentschel47 into an ideology that justified and reinforced the pull toward the East. Supported by racial theory, the romantic yearning towards the magical and primordial source of power developed a political expression. That was the spirit which in the 1920s also inspired other youth movements which were close to the völkisch stream and which influenced Nazism such as the Bund Nibelungen, the Deutschwandervogel and groups which evolved around the periodical Die Kommenden, as well as small groups of Ostlandscharen who in the spring of 1924 already sought to have workers from Poland sent back.48 The motives, feelings and dreams involved were summed up in the phrase ‘Bonds to Blood and Soil’ (Bindungen an Blut und Boden). A parallel concept that developed at the same time in these circles, and which was also absorbed in Nazism, was that of the need for space (Raumnot), the essence of which was a sense of strain, of enclosure, a fear of confined spaces, a yearning for expansion, for further horizons, for renewal. According to that mood, industrialization, life in a metropolis, the petty bourgeois atmosphere of the home, the Weimar Republic’s political and economic ineptitude following the Versailles peace treaty, all these, it was felt, brought the Germans to a state 63


of alienation, of loss of identity, of detachment from the normal healthy base of life; in other words, to uprootedness (Entwurzelung). The yearning for geo-political expansion fed on the psychological stress suffered by the youth after the defeat in World War I, and on a sense of helplessness in the face of the Weimar Republic’s bureaucracy and political fragmentation. The depression of the inflation years, and the identification with its victims by intellectuals, students and young people, and along with it a feeling that there was no solution, no leadership, no future, strengthened the desire to escape to new old territory, to the East. In addition, many other ideological and mythical concepts of the Nazis’ genocidal policy evolved within these circles, among them the notion of a struggle out of desperation (Verzweiflungskampf). The main point of this notion was that a fateful war for survival had been forced on the Germans by the victors in World War I, by the existential and social alienation of the individual in modern society in general and in the Weimar Republic regime in particular, and by the Jews who symbolized and epitomized all those disrupting forces. During those same 1920s other concepts appeared which were likewise to form part of the Nazi genocidal policy, among them the idea of ‘poisons for the people’ (Volksgifte), which were poisons produced by the Jew or in his spirit in the rotten, decadent modern Western civilization to contaminate the German individual, nation, state and race.49 Another notion that was also to play an important role in the application of the genocidal policy was that of the un-German alien powers (fremdvölkische Mächte); these were not the international powers (überstaatliche Mächte) like Rome or Moscow in the real, political sense, but rather the alien, tribal-biological, mythic elements operating like microbes, infections, parasites and destroying Germany from within, destroying the body of the German people, the blood of the Germans, the soul of the Nordic or Aryan race, ruining natural, healthy instinctive morality which originates in the blood, and thus doing away with the German capacity to cope with the struggle for existence and win it. The figure that symbolizes and personifies these cursed forces is the Jew, who must consequently be removed entirely,50 while one of the military solutions to that danger is the thrust to Eastern Europe. Control of that expanse will pump natural healthy blood into the diseased body of the German people. This added energy will give rise to a new peasantry (ein neues Bauernvolk) who will produce an elite group of young Germans, healthy, sound and even perfect in body and spirit. For the sake of these sources of vitality, Germany must embark upon a sacred war, as a result of which the pure, superior Aryan race will attain control of Europe and perhaps the world. Even in those days, still unrelated to Hitler’s own criticism of exaggeratedly romantic dreams, these young people warned themselves against 64


unrealistic romanticism. Modern cities, heavy industry, and advanced technology would all be needed by the German people in order to win the battle for survival in modern society and achieve a position of leadership in it. However, the push to the East and the seizure of the sources of natural power would contribute to balancing the forces. They would provide the root soil (Wurzelgrund). A new covenant with blood and soil, it was said, embodied the solution ‘to all spiritual questions … the bondage to the soil commits us to the creed of peoplehood determined by blood …’ (Zu allen geistigen Fragen … die Erdgebundenheit verpflichtet uns zum Bekenntnis eines blutmässig bestimmten Volkstums …)51 In this context considerable response was elicited also by Hans Grimm’s call for renewing the image of the German, returning to a healthy productive way of life, reviving the German breed (deutschen Menschenzuwachs), producing a thoroughbred human being who was handsome, strong and authoritative, who found his own identity through overcoming his enemies, especially his polar opposite, the Jew. Another notion which evolved in the 1920s as a political term and was likewise to serve the genocidal policy was that of living space (Lebensraum). Under the influence of Hans Grimm’s expanse ideology and R. Walther Darré’s blood and soil ideology,52 and first and foremost following the conception of Hitler himself, the heads of the SS persuaded their rank and file that the need for Lebensraum was the moral justification for the conquest of as much East European land as needed, ‘in order to generate harmony between the ethnic body and its geopolitical space’ (… um zwischen Volkskörper und geopolitischem Raume einen Einklang hervorzustellen …).53 Hitler himself reacted to these trends in Nazism in a pragmatic and equivocal manner. He opposed irrationality, warned against it and ridiculed it, and at the same time fostered and institutionalized it in ideology and in practical policy. Cautioning against sentimentality and flight from the reality of modern industrial society, he nurtured mythic forces and even built on them. Within this two-directional policy, the ideology of race occupied a significant place, and this was true also of foreign policy to the extent that it involved an aspiration for control of Central and Eastern Europe. In the second volume of Mein Kampf Hitler noted: … The foreign policy of a People’s State must first of all bear in mind the duty of securing the existence of the race which is incorporated in this State … Our Movement must seek to abolish the present disastrous proportion between our population and the area of our national territory … it must bear in mind the fact that we are members of the highest species of humanity on this earth … We put an end to the perpetual Germanic march towards the South and West 65


of Europe and turn our eyes towards the lands of the East … we must principally think of Russia and the border States subject to her … Just as it is impossible for the Russian to shake off the Jewish … by exerting his own powers, so too it is impossible for the Jew to keep this formidable State in existence … He himself is by no means an organizing element, but rather a ferment of decomposition. This colossal Empire in the East is ripe for dissolution. And the end of the Jewish domination in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a State. We are chosen by Destiny to be the witness of a catastrophe which will afford the strongest confirmation of the nationalist theory of race …54 Later, in a conference with some of his most important military and diplomatic assistants, held in the Reich Chancellery, Berlin, on 5 November 1937, Hitler repeated the same ideas, and applied them to his socio-economic strategy. Among other things, it was stated that ‘… the aim of German policy was to make secure and to preserve the racial community (Volksmasse) and to enlarge it. It was, therefore, a question of space …’.55 With the outbreak of the war, and especially as the invasion of Soviet Russia approached, even greater emphasis was placed on the ideological racist motives in Nazi policy. In the course of the war, the mythic aspiration toward the domination of the conquered areas by the pure race became one of the decisive factors in the policy of Heinrich Himmler and Hitler himself, who stated in his speech of 30 March 1941 that the war against Russia was a ‘struggle of two creeds’ (Kampf zweier Weltanschauungen gegeneinander).56 On instruction from Hitler on 7 October 1939, Heinrich Himmler was appointed Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Nationhood (Reichskommissar für die Festung deutschen Volkstums). Among the main duties listed were the following: repatriating persons of German race and nationality now resident abroad who are considered suitable for permanent return to the Reich; eliminating the harmful influence of those alien parts of the population, which constitute a danger to the Reich and the German community; forming new German settlements by the transfer of populations and in particular by settling the German citizens and racial Germans returning from abroad.57 In the course of the next few weeks, basic premises and practical directives were evolved with regard to the policy in conquered Poland and especially the General Government, and among other things it was declared that the war was to be viewed as ‘a hard racial struggle which will not permit any legal restrictions. The methods will be incompatible with the principles which we otherwise adhere to …’ In addition, the chief 66


goals of the occupying regime were set, goals which were defined as genocidal after World War II. They included a provision, for example, that ‘… the Polish intelligentsia must be prevented from forming itself into a ruling class. The standard of living in the country is to remain low; it is of use to us only as a reservoir of labor … the formation of national political groups will not be permitted …’58 The program for the General Government outlined by Hitler on 2 October 1940, as recorded by Martin Bormann, emphasized that ‘… there must be no Polish masters; where there are Polish masters, they would have to be killed off (umgebracht), however cruel that may sound …’.59 It was in that spirit that Heinrich Himmler on 15 March 1940 addressed the camp commanders of occupied Poland, announcing that it was Nazi policy to see to it that ‘… all Poles disappear from the world’, simply through ‘the extirpation (Ausrottung) of ‘Polishdom’; hence the aim of the war is ‘to destroy (zu vernichten) all the Poles …’.60 At this point the notion of re-Germanization (Wiedereindeutschung) emerges as one of the central concepts in the Nazi genocidal policy, insofar as it served the occupation policy in Central and Eastern Europe. That notion was described by one of the American prosecutors in the trial of Ulrich Greifelt and others at Nuremberg as an expression of the Nazi historic and mythic credo. The Nazi ideology held that due to wanderings of the ancient Germanic tribes all through Europe, the Poles and other Central and Eastern European nations included people with ‘Nordic blood’ (nordisches Blut) in their veins. Thus, even if the genealogical trees of Polish families show no trace of Germanic ancestors, if people are found whose outward physical appearance (körperliche Erscheinungsformen) resembles that of the mythical master race (mythische Herrenrasse), they are to be restored to their origin, to the bosom of the German people.61 In conjunction with scientists, the SS and the party made various plans for occupied territories such as Bohemia, Moravia, and even in more remote areas in Eastern Europe, to achieve what was referred to as ‘the recovery of lost German blood’ (Rückgewinnung verlorengegangenen deutschen Blutes). In a document dated 20 May 1940 listing plans for handling the population of occupied zones in Eastern Europe,62 Himmler stipulates that all the inhabitants who look Nordic (have a nordisches Aussehen) can be absorbed into the ranks of the Herrenvolk, while the rest of the people, even if they are of the same nationality, will be subject to a regime of conquest or even slavery. If those chosen to be annexed and grafted on to the German people refuse to abandon their erstwhile nationality (ihrem bisherigen Volkstum), they may expect to be imprisoned in concentration camps or even executed by the Liquidationskommandos. Later, the special decree (Erlass) concerning the supervision (Überprüfung) and selection (Aussonderung) and separation of the population in the 67


conquered territories in Eastern Europe issued by Heinrich Himmler in his capacity of Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Nationhood, outlined additional plans for accomplishing the re-Germanization of residents of the occupied territories.63 Thus, even if they are of alien ethnic origin (Fremdvölkische) from the point of view of their citizenship, education or heritage, such people can be considered of German descent (deutschstämmig) from the point of view of their blood and body, or as Hitler put it, they are needed because of their usefulness for the racial strengthening of the Third Reich.64 Here, too, Himmler planned strict administrative arrangements which obliged the local police to see to it that the suitable candidates among the people of German descent (Deutschstämmigen) in the occupied zones should be listed in the ‘Registry of the German people’ (deutsche Volksliste), and those who despite prior warning refused to be so listed were subject to imprisonment in concentration camps.65 Similar plans were made by Otto Hoffman, head of the SS Race and Settlement Department (Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt) and by Freiherr von Neurath, between August and October 1940, in regard to what was termed ‘the solution of the Czech question in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia’. One of the primary aims of the various plans was ‘… assimilating the Tschechentum, i.e., absorbing about half of the Czech peoplehood into Germandom, insofar as they are of blood – or otherwise valuable significance … the other half of the Czech peoplehood must in various ways be rendered powerless, excluded and deported. This applies especially to the racial Mongol parts and to the major part of the class of intellectuals …’ 66 To achieve these ends the SS heads planned to sift (sieben), pick out (herauszuholen) and assimilate toddlers, schoolchildren and even young adults who in their physical features resembled the ideal image of the ‘good blood’ or ‘German blood’ as to color of hair and eyes, body structure, general appearance, and the like. It was necessary to remove these people from the masses of Slavs, or as Himmler put it, from the ‘ethnic hash of millions of subhumans’ (Völkerbrei von Millionen Untermenschen) and through them strengthen, fertilize and enrich the German people of Nordic blood.67 A secret report of the administration of the General Government dated 30 March 1942 sums up a speech Himmler made in Cracow about two weeks earlier in which he again stressed that if the physical appearance of Slav children accords with the ideal of the Nordic race, it is an indication of racial filiation, and anybody in this category is eligible for better living conditions which would enable him to acquire the German language and familiarize himself with the German intellectual treasury (sich mit dem deutschen Gedankengut vertraut zu machen).68 These goals were the concern of the Nazi ideological leadership with 68


regard to the population in the occupied zones of Soviet Russia as well. Here, too, the racist ideology was defined as a motive and justification for a genocidal policy. In an ideological speech on 30 March 1941, explaining the necessity of destroying the communist intelligentsia and the Bolshevik political commissars of the Red Army, Hitler described the war itself as ‘a war of extermination’ because it was a struggle between two world views.69 Also the spatial-political foundations (raumpolitische Grundlagen) of the Generalplan Ost as worked out by Professor Konrad Meyer Hartling of the SS, Heinrich Himmler’s speech to SS and police officers on 16 September 1942, and Hitler’s 30 September 1942 address at the Berliner Sportpalast, all indicated clearly the racial goals of the Nazi war in East Europe. According to Hitler, the war was aimed not only at the expansion of space (Raumerweiterung), but also ‘to fill this space with a consolidated nation …’. Consequently, Himmler told his people, ‘whenever you happen to find good blood, you must obtain it for Germany or you have to make sure that it will no longer exist’ (Wo Sie ein gutes Blut finden, haben Sie es für Deutschland zu gewinnen, oder Sie haben dafür zu sorgen, dass es nicht mehr existiert …).70 Again, in the autumn of 1943, and even later, in fact to the end of the war, Himmler continued to reiterate the aims of the racial policy in respect of the population of Eastern Europe. Thus the Slavs were actually subhumans but those of them who looked Aryan were to be counted as belonging to the master race. Except for those, most of the peoples of the East (Ostvölker), and considerable sectors of the Balkan and Danube peoples, especially the leadership, were destined for extinction by a variety of methods, depending on circumstances; ‘forced to die out’ through sterilization and extermination (durch Sterilisierung und Vernichtung zum Aussterben gezwungen)71 was one of these means. C. THE HOLOCAUST* Except for the annihilation of European Jewry, the various plans to implement the policy of genocide were carried out only in part. Some methods, among them euthanasia, were abandoned because of public opinion in and outside Germany including that of the churches.72 Some were discontinued due to public pressure, the objections of German army officers, or strategic considerations. That is what happened in connection with the ‘Commissar Order’ of 6 June 1941, which laid down that captured Red Army political commissars be liquidated by the SS. Under the pressure of * Cf. ‘Excursus on Hermeneutical Aspects of the Term Sho’ah’, see appendix, pp. 74–8.

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Russian resistance, Hitler, on 6 May 1942, ordered that as an experiment the commissars and politruks should be kept alive in order to encourage encircled Russians to desert or surrender.73 There were plans which were set aside until the war ended, such as the one Heinrich Himmler announced in his speech of 7 September 1940 to the officers of the ‘Adolf Hitler Leibstandarte SS’ regarding the organization of selected units for the ‘struggle against sub-humanity …’ (Kampf mit dem Untermenschentum). In order to train those units it would be necessary to establish concentration camps where it would be possible to provide ‘teaching about sub-humanity and lesser-racedom’ (Unterricht über Untermenschentum and über Minderrassentum).74 There were longterm goals that were deferred till the end of the war, such as genocidal plans for the Church, notably the Roman Catholic. In addition, in a 15 March 1940 speech to camp commanders, Heinrich Himmler declared that he foresaw ‘… the disappearance of the Poles from the world, the extirpation (Ausrottung) of “Polishdom” and the destruction of all the Poles.’75 A few weeks later, on 30 May 1940, Governor Hans Frank explained that the policy of exterminating the intellectuals would have to be completed after the war was won, for then, when the Third Reich had become a Weltmacht (world power), it would be possible to carry out politischen Aktionen, including the Kolonisieren of the occupied territories, more intensively. And toward the end of the war, Frank again stated, ‘Once we have won the war, for my part all the Poles and Ukrainians and the rest that are roaming around here can be made mincemeat of …’ (Wenn wir den Krieg einmal gewonnen haben, dann kann meinetwegen aus den Polen und aus den Ukrainen und dem was sich hier herumtreibt, Hackfleisch gemacht werden).76 The deferment in the implementation of the genocidal policy toward non-Jews in Poland and the other European countries, was explained by Erhard Wetzel, a high official in the Ministry of Occupied Eastern Territories: ‘… It goes without saying that one cannot resolve the Polish problem by liquidating the Poles as is being done with the Jews. Such a solution would brand the German people into the far future and would cost us sympathy on all sides …’77 In the same vein, Hans Frank noted in his diary that the liquidation of all the Poles unfit for work could not yet be carried out, for world opinion was still not ready to accept ‘the extermination of millions of human creatures …’ 78 This concept of ‘human creatures’ (menschlicher Wesen) in Hans Frank’s diary is important for an understanding of the special nature of the Holocaust. The Jews were excluded from the definition of ‘human’ as was stated years earlier by Walter Buch, supreme judge of the Nazi Party (NSDAP): ‘The National Socialist has recognized (that) the Jew is not a human …’ (Der Nationalsozialist hat erkannt: Der Jude ist kein 70


Mensch).79

With the excision of the Jew from humankind and his transformation into a germ, a parasite, a bloodsucker, or, as Heinrich Himmler stated before the outbreak of the war into the ‘basic material of everything negative’ (Urstoff alles Negativen),80 the ontological status of the Jew was revolutionized; he evolved from a subject with natural rights into an object without natural rights. As such an object he could be used in any way for any purpose, and there was no longer any need to maintain any kind of factual or logical connection between the characteristics and deeds attributed to him and his empirical, factual or historical identity. Thus the Jew was simultaneously described, on the one hand, as the father of Marxism, Communism, Bolshevism, and international defilement (Verseuchung), and on the other hand, of exploitative capitalism, sterile capital, usury, big business, and the liberal republican or democratic system. The Jew was helpless, weak and uncreative on the one hand, and on the other the overt or mainly secret and deceitful master of the economy, the press, art or academic life; the Jew is the source of Christianity and thus bears primary responsibility for the inculcation of the slave morality that destroys the will to live and the ability to prevail in the struggle for survival, and yet it is he who crucified God and spilled the blood of the redeemer; and the Jew is, on the one hand, a mixture of races, without character, form, or backbone, and on the other hand, the perfect, explicit, obvious symbol of the anti-race (Gegenrasse). This image of the Jew proved to be quite useful in Nazi policy. As early as the 1920s, Hitler noted that all possible propaganda methods should be used to focus the attention of the general public, with all its varied groups, on one enemy.81 Hitler’s path was followed by most Nazi propagandists, and the Jew became the archetype of the enemy, while the plethora of contradictions in the image of the Jew made their propaganda more attractive. Adolf Wagner, Bavarian Minister of the Interior and Vice-Premier declared in 1933, for example, that ‘the constant and everlasting watchword of our movement is the fight against every force that would destroy our right to live … an unending fight against the Jews, and in this fight it makes no difference to us whether the eternal Jew runs about in the red rags of the Bolshevik or in the black clothes of the Ultramontane …’.82 Thus it became possible to present the Jewish image as the diametric opposite of the Aryan; in this polar contrast many of the personal motives and desires of the Nazis themselves were projected. From then on the Jew was the one aspiring to world domination, to the extermination of all his enemies; it was the Jew who was Godless, conscienceless, and immoral or unrestrained in everything deriving from his base and perverse sexual instinct. Every evil, from the economic crises of the Weimar Republic, to personal or family problems, to the casualties of World War I, were the 71


fault of the Jew, and thus a defence mechanism was evolved through which the Nazi regime could attribute the blame for any failing, difficulty or suffering to the Jew. The Jew was the epitome of everything hostile to the Nazis, the total enemy, and thus his extermination had to be total as well. In contrast to the policy on other peoples, including communists, no candidates for re-Germanization could be selected from among the Jews, even if their outward appearance fitted the Nordic ideal.83 The Jew was not a foe because of any function he fulfilled, any position he represented; he was enmity personified. This total conception was systematically inculcated into the SS as indicated, for example, by an SS training pamphlet dated 22 April 1936, entitled ‘Why is Jewry Being Studied?’. And the answer is ‘… because the Jew is the German people’s most dangerous enemy’.84 The educators of the SS also stressed that history teaches that Jews have been a disruptive element at all times and places, especially because of ‘planned destruction of the blood consciousness of the host people, by destroying their racial pride, ethnic way of thinking and feeling, morals, law and culture …’ (planmässige Zerstörung des Blutbewusstseins der Wirtsvölker, durch Zerstörung ihres Rassenstolzes, ihres arteigenen Denkens und Fühlens, ihrer Sittlichkeit, ihres Rechtes und ihrer Kultur).85 In view of this total concept of the Jew as the symbol and substance of the hostile as such, of the anti-Nazi, the Holocaust was not carried out as a means of achieving some definite aim, military or economic for instance, but as an end in itself. If it had any purpose, that purpose was beyond the realm of interhuman relations and, as Hans Buchheim said, it was not war, but combatting insects (Schädlingsbekämpfung) or soziale Desinfektion.86 In 1943, at the height of the Holocaust, Alfred Baeumler, one of the foremost scholars in the Nazi movement, pointed out that in Nazi ideology and practice, the Jew represented not only Judaism, but the forces against which Nazism was struggling – the legacy of Monotheism, Western civilization, critical rationalism and humanism. Therefore Judaism was ‘… the demon who became palpable and who is the archfiend of the German … hence this is a fight for life or death, it is either us or him [the Jew] … The nation requires the whole person and thus reaches into the religious domain.’87 Indeed at this point there seems to have been full agreement between the various conflicting trends within the Nazi leadership. Moreover, this interpretation of anti-Judaism was perhaps one of the few consistencies in Nazi ideology and policy from the early twenties up to 1945. The Jewish question and its solution reflected a fundamental feature of Nazism, one that was structured in terms of transfiguration of reversing meanings. Forms of thought, feeling, expression and behavior rooted in historical tradition were transferred to the political domain. Theology and 72


religion were secularized while politics and state became sacred and served as an ersatz substitute religion.88 This process of reversing meanings assumed the form of a political myth which was expected to become a main instrument in the creation of a new image of man, a new type of society and a new Reich. Political myth was to contribute to the crystallization of a new consensus, new conventions and new taboos; it had to motivate the new Aryan to internalize civic commitment and political discipline. Political myth was to establish a system of values that would penetrate the realm of personal and family life, culture, education, art and the economy. In the individual’s daily life political myth had to provide relief from tension and fear, from uncertainty and frustration, from feelings of existential alienation and civic powerlessness. Political myth had to encourage a historical consciousness, an awareness of mission to what was called the political cosmos. Political myth was to bring home to the Aryan citizen that the Reich was founded on law and order and on normative standards all of which were embodied in the Führer. The framework in which political myth had to function was that of the race. The race, chosen and mighty, was to give the individual a sense of belonging to a higher, a transcendent entity. This entity was above rational criticism or scientific verification. Race was perceived, similar to the family, as an entity into which the person is born, to which he belongs by virtue of nature or fate. Man is one of the limbs of the organism called race, connected to it by blood and descent, as a son, father or mother might be. This blood pact between man and race, constitutionally affirmed in 1933, served as a cornerstone of Nazi anti-Jewish policy. The pact was stronger than any social contract or rational consensus; it was a given condition that could not be changed, and thus was expected to bring about stability, security, confidence and truth. Whoever did not belong to it was its enemy, since he was an alien body endangering the wholeness of the sacred organism. In reality Nazism accomplished but few of its goals. In one area though, in the Jewish Question, political myth fully achieved its purpose. Here the regime met the least opposition from among those who in other matters of genocidal policy were hardly in accord with Nazism – be they intellectuals, the Church, or public opinion in the Reich or abroad. The Jew served as a focal point around which Nazism revolved and on which the structural process of value-transformation and reversal of meanings took place. Among the values and meanings that were transformed the symbol itself was turned into substance; hence the negation of Judaism had to be transformed into the annihilation of the Jew, this time not spiritually but rather physically, not symbolically but in substance 89 – it is here that the metahistorical uniqueness of the Holocaust emerges. 73


One of the difficult questions in the study of genocide and the Holocaust is what they have in common and how they differ and, indeed, the similarities and differences between particular instances of mass extermination of human groups, be they differentiated by their ethnic origin, tribe or nation, their socio-economic class, ideology or religion. Is not mass extermination a phenomenon that outweighs all the differences between various human groups? Are not the phenomena accompanying mass extermination universal in nature, phenomena such as fear, pain, agony, death, manifestations of the absurd and of the alienation of the victim in the face of the forces affecting his fate, manifestations of prejudice, injustice, evil, cruelty, hate and violence? Is not the fact that genocide is happening in the twentieth century, that is, in the age of critical rationalism, of enlightenment and modern civilization, in the age in which man has at his disposal technology which could be a blessing if he could only control it according to the criteria of social morality; is not that fact an indication of the universal nature of genocide? And on the other hand, is not particular differentiation in the study of the mass annihilation of human groups absolutely necessary, for the victimizers themselves practice genocide on particular groups precisely because of that particularity? Furthermore, is not the universality of genocide composed of particular instances, with every instance exemplifying a particular aspect of the general phenomenon? And in regard to the specific case of the Holocaust, does it not demonstrate the need to differentiate among particular cases? The Nazis themselves, and especially those primarily responsible for the Holocaust, like Hitler and Himmler, viewed the Jew as both the symbol and substance of anti-Nazism as such. The triumph of Nazism over the Jew was the proof, but also a symbolic means of overcoming Monotheism and its legacy within civilization. Thus, the mass annihilation of the Jews was unique, different from other genocidal phenomena. APPENDIX EXCURSUS ON HERMENEUTICAL ASPECTS OF THE TERM SHO’AH In Biblical tradition, the term ‘Holocaust’ which originally indicated a sacrificial offering wholly consumed by fire, has been defined as a ‘burnt offering wholly’ sacrificed ‘unto the Lord’ (Ola Kalil la-Shem, I Samuel VII:9). Later the term ‘Holocaust’ was applied to historical phenomena of massacre and other forms of destruction of large numbers of human beings. 74


Already by the end of 1940 the term Sho’ah was used to indicate the mass annihilation of Jews in Europe. The collection of reports and surveys on the persecution and killing of European Jews starting September 1939, submitted by eyewitnesses such as Apolinary Hartglass (then President of the Zionist Organization of Poland and former Member of the Polish Parliament) and Moshe (Sneh) Kleinbaum (then Chairman of the Central Committee of the Zionist Organization of Poland and one of the editors of the Warsaw Haint) was published in Hebrew by ‘The United Committee to Aid Polish Jewry’, under the title Sho’at Yehudei Polin, Goldberg Press, Jerusalem, 1940. Then, until spring 1942, the term Sho’ah was but infrequently used, while nowadays its connotation is not only the destruction of the Jews of Europe, but genocidal policies by which additional human groups are wiped out as well. The mass annihilation of the Jews has become a prototype for different cases of genocide (cf. Gerd Korman, ‘The Holocaust in American Historical Writing’, Societas, Vol. II, No. 3, Summer 1972, pp. 251–70. On some aspects of the background cf. Alice and Roy Eckardt, ‘Christentum und Judentum – die theologische und moralische Problematik der Vernichtung des europäischen Judentums’, Evangelische Theologie, Vol. XXXVI, No. 5, Ch. Kaiser Verlag, München, 1976, pp. 406–26; Ismar Schorsch, ‘Historical Reflections on the Holocaust’, Conservative Judaism, Vol. XXXI, Nos. 1–2, New York, 1976–77, pp. 26–33). It seems that the term H . urban, with its Jewish historical and Yiddish connotations, was one of the first, spontaneous, choices (similar to the term ‘catastrophe’). When leading members of the Zionist labor movement and Hebrew writers and thinkers in what was then called Palestine, started publicly to relate to the destruction of European Jewry, the Hebrew term Sho’ah appeared. (One of the earliest significant sources dates to April 1942, cf. Jacob Eshed, H . eshbon shel Zehut, Ha-Kibbutz haMe’uhad, Ein-Harod, 1978, p. 37. The collection of essays is edited by Even Shoshan and Zerubabel Gilad.) On 12–13 July 1942, a significant conference of Hebrew writers and poets called ‘In Times of Distress to Jacob’ was held in the Jewish Agency offices in Jerusalem. Shaul Tchernichovsky, an outstanding Hebrew neoromantic poet entitled his moving address ‘The Command of the Horrible Sho’ah that is Coming Over Us’. The poet used the term Sho’ah in assonance with the Hebrew expression ‘The Command of the Sha’ah’ (of this hour). Describing some of the horrors that European Jewry was undergoing, Tchernichovsky exhorted the writers not to remain silent. On that occasion, Rabbi Benjamin (pseudonym for J. Radler-Feldmann), one of the active members of the Brith-Shalom peace movement and one of the founders of the ‘Al Domi’ group, in summarizing the conference stated that one of the events that made him and others more aware of the mass annihilation of 75


European Jewry was the Lidice massacre. That event, Rabbi Benjamin continued, should be looked upon as ‘… part of the world Sho’ah’ (cf. Ha’aretz, 13 July 1942, p. 4; and Moznayim, August 1942, pp. 380, 396). Afterwards, even following the official declaration on the Holocaust by the Jewish Agency of November 1942, use of the term Sho’ah was still limited. On 30 November 1942, a conference in Jerusalem, in which about four hundred rabbis participated, proclaimed that the Sho’ah that European Jewry was undergoing was without precedent in history. With Memorial Day to be observed on 2 December 1942, the Rabbis admonished the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine, for not being sufficiently concerned about the fate that was befalling their brethren in Europe. One of the first to use the term Sho’ah in historical perspective was Benzion Dinur (Dinaburg). In the spring of 1943, Dinur stated that the Sho’ah was a catastrophe that symbolized the uniqueness of the history of the Jewish people among the nations. (Cf. two of the three speeches by Dinur reprinted in his Remember! Addresses on the Holocaust and its Moral, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 1958, pp. 14–45, Hebrew.) Another source indicating the growing significance of the use of the term Sho’ah during the spring of 1943 and afterwards, is the collection of essays and studies by Fishl Shneerson entitled Psycho-History of Sho’ah and Rebirth (ed. by Eliezer Tur Shalom, Yezreel Publishing House, T.A., 1958, Hebrew) (I am indebted to Dina Porath, Research Fellow, for this reference). Shneerson in his address to the writers’ conference at Kibbutz Hulda in July 1943, pointed out that the term Sho’ah is sometimes used in connection with guilt feelings, subconscious rejection of facts, escape into numbness and stunned paralysis or dramatic and artificial gestures of grief. Shneerson, citing historical and Talmudic traditions, urged not to give way to excessive and destructive mourning, as did Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha and his sect of ‘Mourners of Zion and Jerusalem’, nor to false Messianism as did Rabbi Akiba in his support of Bar Kochba, but rather to develop spiritual strength and moral integrity, as indeed one could learn from Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai. Later, during 1944, the term Sho’ah was used for psychological studies of the reaction of children to the mass annihilation of European Jewry, carried out by the ‘Seminar on Psychology and Medical Social Pedagogy’ under Shneerson’s supervision (cf. op. cit., p. 104 ff). Methodologically it might be useful to analyse the current use of the term Sho’ah in Hebrew scholarship and literature in the light of two different yet complementary hermeneutical approaches: critical semantical hermeneutics such as by Emilio Betti (cf. Die Hermeneutik als allgemeine Methodik der Geisteswissenschaften, J.B.C. Mohr, Tübingen, 1962), on the one hand, and existential hermeneutics such as by Hans-Georg Gadamer (Wahrheit und Methode, 2nd edition, J.B.C. Mohr, Tübingen, 76


1965, part II, pp. 162–360), on the other. Betti strongly objects to an excess of subjectivity in the hermeneutical interpretation of texts or concepts. Obviously the existential interpretation of traditional texts or of concepts derived from historical sources, must necessarily involve an application to the present. Moreover, following the analytical studies of Betti and Wolfhart Pannenberg, it would seem that the very structure of hermeneutics requires a constant renewal of the interpreted ‘meaning’ (Sinn, or Hora’at-Davar and Muvan in Hebrew) through ever changing ‘explication’ (Deutung, or Perush and Be’ur in Hebrew) of the text. Yet in contradistinction to what critically has been called the subjectivism of Martin Heidegger and, following him, Gadamer, Betti warns against blurring the original meaning (here in the sense of Bedeutung or in Jewish tradition Ka Mashma Lan). Accordingly the verbal meaning of the explicated text or concept should remain consistent with its original implications, though not necessarily identical, as E.D. Hirsch Jr. would have it. Hans-Georg Gadamer, on the other hand, emphasizes that contemporary motivations and forms of ‘understanding’ (here similar to the term Verstehen in Dilthey’s teachings) in the interpretation of historical texts are not only legitimate, but rather necessary and unavoidable for the continuous development of tradition. Man’s use of concepts and his interpretation of texts are necessarily structured by his own existential presuppositions (cf. also Rudolf Bultmann in Existence and Faith, ed. by Schubert M. Ogden, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1961, pp. 289–96), while these presuppositions themselves are rooted in the past, in transmitted tradition (Überlieferung, or Massoret and Morasha in Hebrew), i.e. in history as experienced in semantic forms of expression. It is in this analytical framework that the current use of the term Sho’ah can perhaps be better understood. Semantically the term Sho’ah has remained close to its verbal roots in biblical language and symbolism, while existentially its contemporary interpretations have added historical and personal dimensions to the theological meaning of the biblical sources (cf. the ‘neo-Midrashic’ hermeneutics to Elie Wiesel’s Sinai-Holocaust comparison by Emil L. Fackenheim, God’s Presence in History, Harper Torchbook Edition, New York, 1972, p. 84 ff.). In the prophetic literature, such as Isaiah VI:11, X:3, XLVII:11, and Zephania I: 15, the term Sho’ah is used in order to give expression to threatening danger stemming from the surrounding nations, from the Assyrian conqueror or the hordes of Scythian invaders; Sho’ah is also a key word in the ode on the humiliation of Babylon. Job XXX:14, Proverbs I:27, III:25 and Psalms XXXV: 8, LXIII:10 use the term Sho’ah in order to articulate distress, anguish, desolation, disaster, destruction, as reflected less in history and more in the realm of one’s personal experience. Several of the major traditional exegetes, such as Rashi and Radak, have enriched the meaning of Sho’ah 77


by interpreting it in terms of H . urban i.e. ‘catastrophic destruction’, as indeed we can find in Hebrew and Yiddish writings before the concept Sho’ah became generally accepted. Also, traditional exegesis described Sho’ah as darkness, devastation or emptiness. All biblical meanings of the term Sho’ah clearly imply Divine judgement and retribution. At this point, the rather authentic, i.e. symbolic or even literal use, of the Biblical term Sho’ah undergoes a structural transformation in modern Hebrew. While religious thought tries to preserve textual consistency (cf. Norman Lamm, ‘Teaching the Holocaust’, Forum, No. 1 (24), Jerusalem, 1976, pp. 51–60, also Norman Lamm’s lecture, ‘Transmitting the Teaching of the Holocaust’, Address to UOJCA Convention, 30 November 1974, Boca Raton, Fla.), existential and historical thought develops non-biblical and non-theological forms of interpretation. The biblical meaning of Sho’ah is rooted in strict theological structures of Verstehen, such as the causal relationship of sin and punishment, commandment and reward, divine revelation in history and divine providence in one’s personal experience. The existential and historical meaning of Sho’ah implies metaphysical doubt, reconsideration of the validity of man’s rational faculties, sometimes even personal indulgence in despair. Thus, from an analytical point of view, the current use of the term Sho’ah represents a new phase in the methodological development of hermeneutics in the modern era. At this point, the beginnings of modern hermeneutics acquire new relevance. J.J. Rambach already in 1723 differentiated between three hermeneutical faculties: Subtilitas Intelligendi, i.e. ‘Understanding’ (Verstehen, or Binah-Lehavin in Hebrew); Subtilitas Explicandi, i.e. ‘Explication’ (Deutung, Auslegung or Perush, Be’ur in Hebrew), and in the tradition of the Pietists, influenced by Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, Subtilitas Applicandi, i.e. ‘Application’ (Anwendung or Hanhagat-Adam in Jewish tradition). The semantic use of the term Sho’ah, as we have seen, fulfills an additional interpretative function – that of transformation; it transforms an inexplicable historical event into a phenomenon relatable through the power of language.

NOTES 1. Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC, 1944, pp. 79–95. 2. Idem, ‘My Battle with Half the World’, Chicago Jewish Forum, No. 2, Winter 1952, p. 98 ff.; idem, ‘Genocide: A New International Crime’, Revue Internationale de Droit Penal, No. 10, 1946, p. 361 ff. 3. Raphael Lemkin, ‘Genocide as a Crime under International Law’, UN Bulletin, Vol. IV, No. 2, 15 January 1948, p. 71, quoted in Law Reports of Trials of War

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4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9. 10.

11.

Criminals, Selected and Prepared by the UN War Crimes Commission, Vol. XIII, HM Stationery Office, London, 1949, p. 40. Donald Kenrick and Grattan Puxon, The Destiny of Europe’s Gypsies, The Columbus Center Series, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1972 (esp. Part Two, pp. 59–184); Grattan Puxon, Rom: Europe’s Gypsies, Minority Rights Group, Report No. 14, London, 1973; Hans-Joachim Döring, Die Zigeuner im NSStaat, Kriminologische Schriftenreihe, Vol. XII, Hamburg, 1964; idem, ‘Die Motive der Zigeuner-Deportation vom Mai 1940’, Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, No. 4, Stuttgart, 1959, pp. 418–28; Selma Steinmetz, Österreichs Zigeuner im NS-Staat, Monographien zur Zeitgeschichte, Europa-Verlag, Wien, Frankfurt am Main, Zürich, 1966. Also see one of the earliest reports, ‘Hitler and the Gypsies – the Fate of Europe’s Oldest Aryans’, by Dora E. Yates, Secretary of the Gypsy Lore Society in London, Commentary, November 1949, pp. 455–9; Joseph B. Schechtman, ‘The Gypsy Problem’, Midstream, November 1966, pp. 52–60; Derek A. Tiler, ‘From Nomads to Nation’, ibid., August 1968, pp. 61–70. Aleksander Kaelas, Human Rights and Genocide in the Baltic States, Estonian Information Center, Stockholm, 1950; The Violations of Human Rights in Soviet Occupied Lithuania, Lithuanian American Community, Inc., A Report for 1971, 1972, 1973, Delran, New Jersey; K. Pelékis, Genocide – Lithuania’s Threefold Tragedy, edited by J. Rumsaitis, Venta, Germany, 1949; Appeal to the U.N. on Genocide, Lithuanian Foreign Service, 1951, p. 80. C.D. Rowley, The Destruction of Aboriginal Society: Aboriginal Policy and Practice, Vol. I, Aborigines in Australian Society No. 4, a series sponsored by the Social Sciences Research Council of Australia, Australian University Press, Canberra, 1970. René Lemarchend and David Martin, Selective Genocide in Burundi, Minority Rights Group, Report No. 20, London, 1974; idem, ‘Ethnic Genocide’, Society, Vol. XII, January/February 1975, pp. 50–60; Roger Morris, ‘The US and Burundi – Genocide etc.’, The Progressive, April 1974; Roger Morris et al., ‘The U.S. and Burundi in 1972’, Foreign Service Journal, Vol. 50, No. 11, November 1973, p. 8 ff., ibid., p. 31; Thomas R. Hughes of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and also ‘State Department Reply’, pp. 15, 29 ff. Also see the shortened version of a study on US policy and the Burundi situation, sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for Peace under the directorship of Roger Morris, in Africa Report, July–August 1973, pp. 32–9. Mark Münzel, The Aché Indians: Genocide in Paraguay IWGIA, Document Series No. 11, Copenhagen, 1973; Richard Arens, Genocide in Paraguay, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1976; idem, ‘A Violation of Human Rights in Paraguay’, Congressional Record – Senate, 24 March 1976, S 4114. Norman Lewis, ‘Brazil’s Dead Indians: The Killing of an Unwanted Race’, Atlas, Colorado, January 1970, pp. 28–9; ‘The Killing of a Colombian Indian Tribe’, ibid., January 1971, pp. 47–8. Gilbert Rodney, Genocide in Tibet – A Study in Communist Aggression, American Asian Educational Exchange, Inc., New York, 1959; Richard L. Walker, ‘The Human Cost of Communism in China’, Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, 92nd Congress, 1st Session, 1971, p. 13 ff. Roger N. Baldwin, Honorary President of the International League for Human Rights, Statement to the Members of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, New York, 14 January 1977; On the Kurdish Question at the United Nations, published by the Information Department of the

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12.

13. 14. 15.

16.

17.

18.

Kurdistan Democratic Party, No. 2, New York, 1974 and Exhibit G (also exhibits E, F, H, K). The Memoirs of Naim Bey – Turkish Official Documents Relating to the Deportations and Massacres of Armenians, compiled by Aram Andonian with an introduction by Viscount Gladstone, Armenian Historical Research Association, reproduced 1964 (1st edn, England, 1920). See ‘Two Memoranda on Subject of 60th Anniversary of the Turkish Massacre of the Armenians’, Armenian Review, Vol. XXVIII, No. 1, Boston, 1975, p. 75 ff. Vakan N. Dadrian, in his seminal research on genocide, established structures of functional analysis for the comparative study of historical cases, such as the mass annihilation of Armenians and Jews, cf. ‘Some Determinants of Genocidal Violence in the Intergroup Conflicts – With Particular Reference to the Armenian and Jewish Cases’, Sociologus, Vol. XXVI, No. 2, New Series 1976, Berlin, pp. 129–49; idem, ‘The Common Features of the Armenian and Jewish Cases of Genocide – a Comparative Victimological Perspective’, Victimology – a New Focus, Israel Drapkin and Emilio Viano, eds., Vol. IV, Lexington Books, Lexington, Toronto, London, 1975, pp. 99–119. Nathanel Weyl, ‘Aristocide under Fuehrers and Commissars’, Modern Age, Vol. 19, No. 3, Summer 1975, pp. 285–94. Anthony Storr, Human Destructiveness, The Columbus Center Series, Basic Books, Inc., New York, 1972. ‘Armenian Massacre – 1915–1918 and Holocaust that Struck European Jews 1930s–1940s’, pp. 4–137, US Congress House, Committee on International Relations, Hearings Before Subcommittee on Future Foreign Policy Research and Development, HR 94th Cong., 2nd Sess., 11 May, 30 August, 1976; US Congress, Senate, ‘The Ad Hoc Committee on the Human Rights and Genocide Treaties’, Congressional Record, Vol. 116, 10 June 1970, p. 58720; ‘The Genocide Convention’, Congressional Record, Vol. 119, No. 49, 29 March 1973; Subcommittee on the Genocide Convention, Foreign Relations Committee, 27 April 1970, S 6260; Subcommittee on the Genocide Convention, Statement of Hon. Arthur J. Goldberg on Behalf of Ad Hoc Committee on Human Rights and Genocide Treaties, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 10 March 1971 and 29 May 1977. American Bar Association – Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, Recommendation, adopted 13 August 1966, MS p. 3 ff.; Jacob Robinson, ‘The IMT and the Holocaust’, Israel Law Review, Vol. VII, No. 1, Jerusalem, 1962, pp. 1–13; Yoram Dinstein, ‘International Criminal Law’, Israel Yearbook on Human Rights, Vol. V, Tel Aviv, 1975, p. 59 ff. UN Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, SubCommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Twenty-Sixth Session, Study of the Question of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Progress Report by Mr. Nicodème Ruhashyankiko, Special Rapporteur, 25 June 1973 (hereafter – Study 1973), p. 25. UN Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, SubCommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Twenty-Eighth Session, Study of the Question of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Progress Report by Mr. Nicodème Ruhashyankiko, Special Rapporteur, 25 June 1975 (hereafter – Study 1975), p. 3. On the definition of genocide in the context of crimes against humanity, cf. Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals, selected and prepared by the UN War Crimes Commission, Vol. VI, HM Stationery Office, London, 1948, pp. 1–110 (ibid., footnotes 3, 4, 5).

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ON THE STUDY OF THE HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE 19. Study 1973, p. 24. 20. Ibid.; Nehemia Robinson, The Genocide Convention – a Commentary, Institute of Jewish Affairs, World Jewish Congress, New York, 1960 (hereafter – N. Robinson), p. 64. 21. Study 1975, p. 71. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid., p. 73; Irving L. Horowitz, Genocide – State Power and Mass Murder, Transaction Books, New Jersey, 1976. ‘Issues in Contemporary Civilization’, p. 37, suggests to make a ‘crucial distinction’ between genocide and various forms of coercion, i.e. ‘between the physical and cultural liquidation of peoples in contrast to mindbending the will of peoples’. A similar qualitative difference between forms of persecution and actual physical mass extermination has been made recently by Yisrael Gutman, ‘Martyrdom and Sacredness of Life’, in Yalkut Moreshet, No. 24, October 1977, p. 11 (Hebrew). 24. Ibid., pp. 74–5. As to the ratification of the Convention by the US see American Bar Association, Report by the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, adopted by the Council of the Section on 17 October 1969; also cf. American Bar Association, Report and Recommendations of the Standing Committee on World Order Through Law on the Genocide Convention, January 1970; also see the ‘Remarks of Senator Proxmire Before the Special Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Genocide Convention’, in Congressional Record, Senate, 27 April 1970, S 6260/1; and ‘The Ad Hoc Committee on the Human Rights and Genocide Treaties’, in Congressional Record, Senate, 10 June 1970, S 8720. 25. Study 1975, p. 74. On aspects of the historical-theological context of the changing attitudes of the Church, cf. Uriel Tal, Patterns in the Contemporary Jewish-Christian Dialogue, The Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1969, pp. 12–19 (Hebrew); idem, ‘Historical Roots and Cognitive Forms’, Concilium – Theology in the Age of Renewal, New Series, Vols. 7/8, No. 10, London, September/October 1974, p. 175 ff. 26. N. Robinson, op. cit., p. 60. 27. Herbert Jäger, Verbrechen unter totalitärer Herrschaft – Studien zur nationalsozialistischen Gewaltkriminalität, Walter Verlag, Olten & Freiburg i.Br., 1976 (hereafter – Jäger), Part IV ‘Krieg und Genozid’, p. 331 ff. 28. Official Records of the General Assembly of the UN, 3rd Session, Part 1, Sixth Committee, meetings 4, 66, 74, also quoted in Study 1973, p. 16. 29. N. Robinson, op. cit., p. 59. 30. Study 1973, p. 22. 31. Ibid. 32. N. Robinson, op. cit., p. 59; Pierre L. van den Berghe, Race and Ethnicity – Essays in Comparative Sociology, Basic Books, New York, 1970. 33. Robert Jaulin, La décivilization – politique et pratique de l’ethnocide, Edition Complexe, Bruxelles, 1974. 34. The fundamental study by Salo W. Baron, Modern Nationalism and Religion, Meridian, New York and JPS, Philadelphia, 1960, chapters I, IV, V, VII. Contemporary theology has become aware of the renewed significance of the ethnic-cultural factor, cf. ‘De Ecclesia in Mundo Huius Temporis’, in The Documents of Vatican II, Walter Abbott, MSJ ed., Guild Press, New York, 1966, p. 199 ff. 35. Study 1973, pp. 19–20. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid.

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RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH 38. Klaus Martin Beckmann, ed., Die Kirche und die Rassenfrage, Kreuz-Verlag, Stuttgart, Berlin, 1967, p. 11 ff.; Part II ‘Dokumente’, p. 76 ff. 39. Study 1973, p. 4. 40. The interesting, though impressionistic essay ‘Christliches Vorspiel,’ in Das Jahrhundert der Barbarei, Karlheinz Deschner, ed., Verlag Kurt Desch, München, 1966, pp. 7–42. 41. Wilbur R. Jacobs, ‘The Tip of an Iceberg: Pre-Columbian Indian Demography and Some Implications for Revisionism’, William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. 31, No. 1, Williamsburg, Virginia, January 1974, p. 123 ff.; Martin Calvin, ‘The European Impact on a North-eastern Algonquin Tribe: An Ecological Interpretation’, ibid., pp. 3–26. 42. ‘Information and Views Communicated by the Holy See on 18 September 1972’, Study 1975, p. 74. Similar trends are being developed among Protestants, part of them as a result of the decisions made by the Uppsala Assembly of the WCC in 1968 and the subsequent meeting of the Central Committee in Canterbury in 1969. These are but a few examples of a growing attempt in the Church at reconciling the traditional theology of salvation with current ethnopolitical reality. Not all circles and movements in the Church share these approaches, though Clyde W. Taylor, General Director of the National Association of Evangelicals, in his ‘Foreword’ to Winger’s report on the tribal warfare and genocidal violence in Burundi and Rwanda emphasizes that ‘… amid the facts and circumstances related in this book we are reminded that only through the penetration of the Gospel … can this terrible hatred and lust of power be removed’; see Norman A. Winger, No Place to Stop Killing, Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, 1974, p. 117 and Chapter 12 ‘The Christian Church in Burundi’, p. 90 ff. 43. Roy A. Eckardt, Your People, My People – the Meeting of Jews and Christians, Quadrangle, New York & Toronto, 1974, pp. 248–9. The relationship between Christianity and anti-Judaism, anti-Judaism and modern anti-Semitism, and finally the Holocaust, has been of growing concern to a number of well-known theologians, philosophers, historians, writers, poets and community leaders, and will be dealt with by us in a separate study. 44. On universal aspects of the anthropological crisis in Europe, as reflected in ‘the emancipation of power’ and in the ‘in-humanity’, cf. Helmuth Plessner, Diesseits der Utopie, Eugen Diederichs Verlag, Düsseldorf, Köln, 1966, pp. 190–229. 45. See the brilliant study by Josef Ackermann, Himmler als Ideologe, Musterschmidt-Göttingen, Zürich, Frankfurt, 1970, p. 196 (hereafter – Ackermann); the book review, Uriel Tal, ‘Heinrich Himmler als Ideologe’, Freiburger Rundbrief, Vol. XXVII, No. 101/104, 1975, p. 27 ff. 46. Ackermann, op. cit., p. 196 ff. 47. Daniel Gasman, The Scientific Origins of National-Socialism, Macdonald, London and American Elsevier, New York, 1971, p. 152 ff. When analyzing Social Darwinism in Germany, especially in connection with racism, anti-Semitism and later Nazism, the term ‘socio-political’ would define that particular trend of Social Darwinism quite accurately. Ever since Ludwig Woltmann’s ‘politische Anthropologie’, the term ‘political’ acquired a semi-sacral significance. On the other hand, the term ‘social’ seems to fit better the Anglo-American brand of Darwinism, cf. Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought, rev. ed., Beacon Press, Boston, 1960, especially chapters 8, 9, p. 143ff. 48. Harry Pross, Jugend, Eros, Politik – Die Geschichte der deutschen Jugendverbände, Büchergilde Gutenberg, Frankfurt am Main, Wien, Zürich, 1964 (hereafter – Pross), p. 305 ff.

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ON THE STUDY OF THE HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE 49. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, München, 1943 (815–20 ed.), pp. 316, 449. On the students’ Zeitgeist see Hans Peter Bleuel and Ernst Klinnert, Deutsche Studenten auf dem Weg ins Dritte Reich, Sigbert Mohn Verlag, Gütersloh, 1967, ‘Student und Republik’, p. 79 ff., ‘Der Antisemitismus’, p. 130 ff.; Anselm Faust, Der Nationalsozialistische Studentenbund, Vol. 1, Pädagogischer Verlag, Düsseldorf, 1973, ‘Die Gedankenwelt der studentischen Verbände’, p. 128 ff. 50. These ideas were articulated in the Nazi literature already in the early 1920s and were consistently maintained until the end of World War II; cf. Völkischer Beobachter, Vol. XXXIV, Nos. 32, 52, 85, 1920; among the last expressions see Die Rassenfrage ist der Schlüssel zur Weltgeschichte, published by the headquarters of the SS 1945, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz (hereafter – BA), NS 19/456; Saul Friedländer, L’antisémitisme nazi – histoire d’une psychose collective. Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1971, p. 173 ff. The psycho-historical methodology developed and applied by Friedländer is most helpful for a better insight into the complicated interrelationship of irrational motivations and pragmatical, down to earth policy in Nazi history; cf. the excellent theoretical study by Saul Friedländer, Histoire et psychanalyse – essai sur les possibilités et les limites de la psychohistoire, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1975, p. 85 ff. 51. Pross, op. cit., p. 347. Similarly, in Nationalsozialistische Briefe, Halbmonatsschrift für NS Weltanschauung, Nos. 25, 26, Elberfeld, October 1926. 52. Hans Grimm, one of the influential authors of ‘Nordic thinking’ did not join the Nazi Party. The ‘Lippoldsberg poets’ meetings’ held under Grimm’s auspices since 1934 in which writers such as Rudolf G. Binding, Friedrich Bischoff, Ernst v. Salomon and E.G. Kolbenheyer participated, greatly contributed to the growth of Germanic poetry and the romantic yearning for space, expansion and return to primordial forms of life-experience. R. Walther Darré, one of the founders of the Blood and Soil mythology, lost much of his impact after 1941–1942; his teachings, however, especially about Menschenzüchtung, i.e. breeding selected Nordic or Aryan Germans, were accepted and taught by various SS departments, especially the main office for ‘Race and Settlement’. Cf. Hans Grimm, Volk ohne Raum, Vol. I, Langen, München, 1929, p. 129 ff.; ‘Amerikanische Rede’, Das Innere Reich, Vol. II, 1935, p. 924 ff.; Richard Walther Darré, Das Bauerntum als Lebensquell der nordischen Rasse, München, 1929, 9th edn, 1942; idem, Neuadel aus Blut und Boden, München, 1930, 5th edn, 1943; idem, Um Blut und Boden – Reden und Aufsätze, Hans Deetjen und Wolfgang Clauss, eds., München, 3rd edn, 1941. 53. Karl Haushofer, Raumordnung, pamphlet issued by the German Academy, 1936, YIVO Archives, New York, Goebbels’s Papers and Clippings, Box 2. 54. Hitler, op. cit., p. 523 ff. 55. Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds., Documents on Nazism, 1919–1945, The Viking Press, New York, 1975. Critical remarks on the ‘Minutes’ of that conference, see pp. 521–9. 56. Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, ed., Generaloberst Halder – Kriegstagebuch, Vol. II (1.VII.1940–21.VI.1941), W. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart, 1963 (hereafter – Halder), p. 336. At the same time, Hitler often gave expression to what were supposed to appear as rational, pragmatic calculations, such as his remark to Reichsecretary Dr. Todt on 20 June 1941, against illusions about an economic autarchy in Germany: ‘… that which one needs yet does not own one has to conquer’, cf. Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, 1939–1945: Der Zweite Weltkrieg in Chronik und Dokumenten, Wehr und Wissen Verlagsgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1959, p. 230.

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RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH 57. Blue Series, Vol. XXVI, Document 686-PS, p. 225. 58. Blue Series, Vol. XXXIX, Document 172-USSR, pp. 426–9. 59. Ibid.; Martin Broszat, Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik 1939–1945, Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart, 1961, p. 25. 60. Jacob Robinson, And the Crooked Shall Be Made Straight, JPS, Philadelphia, 1965 (hereafter – Jacob Robinson), p. 93. 61. Green Series, Vol. IV, p. 599 ff.; ‘The RSHA Case’, Case 8, Count One: Crimes against Humanity (pp. 609–17); Count Two: War Crimes (pp. 617 ff.); Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals, selected and prepared by UN War Crimes Commission. Vol. XIII, HM Stationery Office, London, 1949, p. 2 ff. 62. ‘Reflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East’, Blue Series, Vol. XIII, Document NO-1880. The text of the document was approved by Hitler and submitted to Lammers on 28 May 1940, cf. Green Series, Vol. XIII, Documents NO-1880, NO-1881, pp. 147–51. The document erroneously dated 20 May 1940 instead of 25 May has been reproduced in Ackermann, op. cit., pp. 298–300. 63. Quoted in Ackermann, op. cit., p. 207. For additional aspects of that policy of the Nazis, particularly relating to the Jews, see also Red Series, Vol. V, p. 581 ff. 64. ‘Top Secret Report’ of 20 October 1939, on the conference between Hitler and Keitel concerning the future of Poland, held 17 October 1939, in Blue Series, Vol. XXVI, Document 864-PS, p. 377. Accordingly, Poland is to be considered as a source of labor and possibly a military deployment area for Germany; a bare minimum of existence is to be allowed and the policy of exploitation and degradation should not be hampered by legal considerations. 65. Decree by Himmler in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for the Enhancement of Germanism (Festigung deutschen Volkstums), issued on 12 September 1940, in Blue Series, Vol. XXXI, Document 2916PS, pp. 283–94. 66. ‘Report of the Army Plenipotentiary with the Reichprotector in Böhmen and Mähren, Lieutenant General Friderici’, of 15 October 1940, in Blue Series, Vol. XXVI, Document 862-PS, p. 376, quoted in Ackermann, op. cit., p. 209. 67. Ackermann, op. cit., p. 206. Also see the recommendations by Erhard Wetzel of the Ministry of Occupied Eastern Territories and the Department of Racial Policy of the NSDAP, for the solution of the ‘Czech Question’ (zur Tschechenfrage); while the Czechs are less violent than the Poles, the hatred of the Germans by the Czech intellectuals is particularly dangerous. Plans that have been made to simply remove (abzuschieben) the Czechs who were undesired from a racial point of view, Wetzel noted, were out of the question as far as intellectuals were concerned. Therefore, just like the Polish intellectuals at that stage, they are to be forced to emigrate; see reproduction of the original document in VJZG, No. 3, 1958, p. 319. Wetzel was also involved in the ‘Final Solution’ conferences held on 6 March 1942, and 27 October 1942, in Green Series, Vol. XIII, Document NG-2586 H(8), pp. 209–10, and Document NG-2586 M (18), pp. 222–5. 68. Blue Series, Vol. XXVI, Document 910 PS, pp. 409–10. Martin Broszat, in his aforementioned study Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik describes the purpose of this policy as follows: ‘… Verminderung eines zweiten Zuwachses zur polnischen Intellektuellenschicht aus germanisch bestimmten, wenn auch polanisierten Sippen … die Vermehrung des rassisch erwünschten Bevölkerungszuwachses für das deutsche Volk’, cf. p. 131 and Ch. V, ‘Völkisch nationalsozialistische Neuordnung in den eingegliederten Ostgebieten’, pp. 118– 37. 69. Halder, op. cit., p. 336; Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, ‘Kommissarbefehl und Massenexekutionen Sowjetischer Kriegsgefangener,’ in Hans Buchheim et al., Anatomie

84


70. 71.

72.

73. 74. 75. 76. 77.

78. 79.

80. 81. 82.

des SS-Staates, Gutachten des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte, Walter-Verlag, Olten und Freiburg i.Br., 1965 (hereafter – Kommissarbefehl), p. 173 ff. Ackermann, op. cit., p. 209. Ackermann, op. cit., p. 210. Similarly, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Chief of RSHA, stated that the eastern peoples must be forced to die out by means of sterilization and extermination of their higher classes, cf. Blue Series, Vol. XXXIII, Document 3462-PS, p. 295 ff. Also see the fundamental speech by Heinrich Himmler at the SS commanders’ conference, Posen, 4 October 1943, on the non-German peoples who are to be looked upon as slaves in the service of German culture and destiny, and on the need to annihilate the Jew, in Blue Series, Vol. XXIX, Document 1919PS, pp. 110–73. Cf. Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia 1941–1945 – a Study of Occupation Politics, Macmillan, London & St Martin Press, New York, 1957 (hereafter – Dallin), p. 444 ff. Reinhard Henkys, Die nationalsozialistischen Gewaltverbrechen, Kreuz Verlag, Stuttgart, Berlin, 1964, p. 61. On the struggle of the Church see the excellent study by John S. Conway (translated by Carsten Nicolaisen), Die nationalsozialistische Kirchenpolitik 1933–1945, Chr. Kaiser Verlag, München, 1969, p. 281 ff.; Martin Broszat, ‘Nationalsozialistische Konzentrationslager 1933– 1935’, op. cit., p. 125 ff.; Jäger, op. cit., p. 355 ff., and Walter Schulte, ‘“Euthanasie” und “Sterilisation”’ in Andreas Filtner, ed., Deutsches Geistesleben und Nationalsozialismus, Rainer Wunderlich Verlag, Tübingen, 1965, p. 89 ff. Halder, op. cit., p. 243. On various ways in which the genocidal order about the commissars was received, carried out or opposed, cf. Kommissarbefehl, op. cit., pp. 174–5, 193 ff. Ackermann, op. cit., p. 154. Germans as ‘supermen’ (Übermenschen) were ordered to avoid contact with the Slavic ‘submen’ (Untermenschen), cf. Dallin, op. cit, p. 445 ff. Jacob Robinson, op. cit., p. 93; ‘Der Generalplan Ost – Dokumentation’, in VJZG, No. 3, 1958, p. 281 ff.: Kommissarbefehl, op. cit., p. 168. Hermann Langbein, Wir haben es getan – Selbstporträts in Tagebüchern und Briefen 1939–1945, Europäische Perspektiven, Wien, 1964, pp. 115, 124. Reproduced in VJZG, Vol. VI, 1958, p. 297 ff., also quoted in Jacob Robinson, op. cit., p. 93. On earlier suggestions made by E. Wetzel about different treatment of Poles and Jews, cf. his ‘Memorandum’ of 20 October 1939, in Documenta Occupationis Teutonicae, Posen, 1958, Vol. V, Document NO-3732 (documents in German), pp. 2–28. Blue Series, Vol. XXIX, Document 2233-PS, p. 565, excerpts from the Diary of 14 December 1942. Walter Buch, ‘Die Ehre etc.’, in Deutsche Justiz, Amtliches Blatt der deutschen Rechtspflege, ed. by Franz Günter, Reich Secretary of Law, 1938, p. 1660. This statement has been quoted in a number of studies, first by Max Weinreich, Hitler’s Professors, YIVO, New York, 1964, p. 249 (cf. p. 89); later by Alexander Bein, ‘Der jüdische Parasit’, in VJZG, No. 2, 1965, p. 140, and in Ackermann, op. cit., p. 163. Heinrich Himmler’s speech on a conference of SS commanders (‘Gruppenführer’) on 8 November 1938, quoted in Ackermann, op. cit., p. 160. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. I, München, 1934, pp. 124–5. Adolf Wagner’s speech to the NSDAP in Munich, October 1936, has been cited in one of the earliest source collections on this topic, cf. Catholic Church – the Persecution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich – Facts and Documents, Burnes Oates, London, 1940, p. 276.

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RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH 83. Gerd Ruhle, Das Dritte Reich – Dokumentarische Darstellung des Aufbaus der Nation, Hummelverlag, Berlin, 1933, p. 47 ff. On the complexity of the term ‘enemy’ especially in the framework of a culture as highly developed as that of the western and European civilization, cf. August Nitschke, Der Feind – Erlebnis, Theorie und Begegnung, Formen politischen Handelns im 20. Jahrhundert, W. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart, 1964, p. 62 ff., 135 ff., and Part III, p. 194ff. 84. Ackermann, op. cit., p. 159. 85. Ibid. The interpretation of the Jew as embodiment of evil can be better understood if studied against the background of the historical consciousness as taught by the SS prior to war, cf. Leitheft SS, No. 2 (3 June 1937), No. 3 (1 July 1937), No. 5 (1 September 1937), No. 6 (5 October 1937), published by the Education Department (Schulungsamt) of the Main Office for Race and Settlement. At the same time different approaches to history and historical consciousness were maintained, cf. Karl Ferdinand Werner, Das NS-Geschichtsbild und die deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft, W. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart, 1967, p. 123 ff. 86. Hans Buchheim, Totalitäre Herrschaft – Wesen und Merkmale, Köselverlag, München, 1965, p. 52. 87. Alfred Baeumler, Alfred Rosenberg und der Mythos des 20 Jahrhunderts, Huheneichen Verlag, München, 1943, p. 19 ff. 88. Uriel Tal, ‘Political Faith’ of Nazism Prior to the Holocaust, Annual Lecture of the Jacob M. and Shoshana Schreiber Chair of Contemporary Jewish History, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 1978. 89. Saul Friedländer, ‘The Historical Significance of the Holocaust’, based on his lecture delivered at the International Scholars Conference on the Holocaust – a Generation After, held in New York, 3–6 March 1975, published in The Jerusalem Quarterly, Vol. I, No. 1, Autumn 1976, p. 40 ff., and from a methodological point of view see Yehuda Bauer, ‘Trends in Holocaust Research’ in Yad Vashem Studies, Vol. XII, Jerusalem, 1977, pp. 7–63; and his recent book The Holocaust in Historical Perspective, University of Washington Press, Seattle 1978, pp. 30–49; as to the psychohistorical background of the process of value transformation, see Friedländer, Histoire et psychanalyse, op. cit., pp. 168–95.

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4 Structures of German ‘Political Theology’ in the Nazi Era

A. POLITICAL THEOLOGY From the outset of his political career, as well as in Mein Kampf, Hitler defined Nazism as a ‘political article of faith’.1 Shortly before the Nazis seized power Hendrik de Man realized that the strength of the Nazi Party resided in the fact that it was able to respond to the political and emotional needs of the masses, especially during the critical days of the Weimar Republic. One such need was ‘the longing for myth and utopia … the demand for leadership personalities’; it was the very lack of a unified view within Nazi ideology that accounted for its strength, according to de Man, for it was thus able to respond to different and even opposing social classes ‘by the vagueness of its ideas and the many contradictions in its mythology’.2 Towards the end of World War II, at the very height of the Holocaust, Heinrich Himmler repeated one of the basic doctrines of his faith and proclaimed that ‘this Reich will now be a sacred myth’.3 Thus, from the beginning until the end of the Nazi movement and party, the efforts of a number of Nazi leaders on various levels in the Party’s hierarchy were directed to imparting a redemptive character both to the Führer and to the Reich.4 Regarding the policy of Hitler himself, it may seem at first sight as if Hitler ascribed to himself the authority and character of a savior only in the first years of the Nazi movement, during the years of struggle in the Weimar Republic, but no longer did so after he assumed power. In reality he presented himself simultaneously in the role of an eschatological savior and as a modern, sober political leader during both the Weimar period and the days of the Third Reich. The redemptive character given to Führer and Reich was derived from the realm of theology and then transfigured into forms of secularism and politics;5 it is in this sense that the present paper will speak of ‘political 87


theology’ (that is, without any connection with the use of the term politische Theologie in recent theological and sociopolitical disputes).6 Many instances can be given of how statements made by Nazi Party leaders and heads of state during the Third Reich used concepts taken from theology and religious tradition to ascribe a supra-human quality to Hitler.7 One may also cite the contemporary statement of a distinguished scholar of constitutional law, Carl Schmitt: ‘All pregnant concepts of modern political science are secularized theological concepts.’ 8 (Schmitt, however, as George Schwab has correctly pointed out, is not to be regarded as one of the spiritual fathers of Nazism – despite his support of Hitler between 1933 and 1936 – or as one who simply ‘paved the way for the Führerstaat’.9) Rational Means and Supra-Rational Goals Nazism functioned in a political and administrative framework, and within this framework it had to employ rational criteria and instruments (although even in this rational, systematic and efficient area the Nazi regime did not completely achieve its goals, so that some scholars have called this regime ‘the authoritarian anarchy’).10 At the same time, many of its objectives were regarded by a number of its leaders as supra-rational. Especially the leaders who were involved in the Holocaust directly and indirectly, whether as administrators or ideologists, as well as intellectuals, thinkers, artists and educators who actively supported the Nazi Weltanschauung, attempted to build a bridge over this contradiction between rational forms of function on the one hand, and the supra-rational goals or motivations on the other. These goals included racial purity, the supremacy of the Aryan or Nordic race in Europe, the resettlement of conquered territories by Germans of pure blood, the subjugation of the peoples of Eastern Europe, and the weakening and liquidation of the forces that opposed Nazism, namely, the so-called ‘powers transcending the State’ (überstaatliche Mächte). Among these powers were the churches (especially the Roman Catholic), whose nature and status was a concern of Martin Bormann amongst others.11 Christianity was criticized and even negated as a product of Judaism.12 About this, however, there was perpetual argument; Nazi policy towards Christianity was also constantly influenced by internal and international considerations. (These ambivalences between the immediate and ultimate goals of the Nazi regime, and especially the contradictions between Nazi declarations about Christianity and the policies actually adopted, caused great personal vexation and disciplinary problems among members of the clergy, as among laymen who might simultaneously belong to a church, the Party and even the SA.13) 88

STRUCTURES OF GERMAN ‘POLITICAL THEOLOGY’ IN THE NAZI ERA

The focus of all these goals, from the rise of Nazism until the end of the war, was the Jew, who served as both a symbol and a concrete embodiment. As the irrationality and impracticability of many of these goals became clearer, the antisemitic policies of the Nazis became more virulent, going from the persecution of the Jews to their expulsion and finally their annihilation. The goals of Nazism, as understood by many of its leaders, were considered necessary for the economy yet at the same time superior to the economy;14 they took on the character of myths in which romantic or mystical motives were intermingled with sober political considerations. The mixture of these views and policies was one of the reasons for the intense Nazi preoccupation with questions of Weltanschauung. A considerable number of governmental bureaus and Party departments, various security agencies (principally the SS), as well as intellectuals and scientists, became increasingly active in an attempt to come to grips with questions such as: Weltanschauung and science, politics and belief, rationalism and inwardness, intellectualism and the racial affirmation of life.15 There was, in fact, a Nazi dread and even contempt of intellectuals, as is illustrated by Alfred Rosenberg’s difficulties in attracting them.16 The roots of this attitude are already found in the ideology of the fathers of political antisemitism in the later 19th century17 and even earlier;18 they continued to be detectable in the Weimar period.19 An early speech of Hitler (27 April 1923) correspondingly set up an opposition between the ‘instinct and will’ and the ‘corrosive, all-leveling intellect’,20 while an instance of the connection between Nazi anti-intellectualism and antisemitism is the statement of Karl Beyer (1933): ‘Jewish intellect and German faith are here conceived radically. And when we really think radically, our attitude in the Jewish question will be one of absolute estrangement.’21 Rational criticism seems to have been one of the chief bugbears of Nazism because of the rational autonomy and freedom inherent in reasonable criticism ever since the rise of the Enlightenment in the 18th century, but also because of the political danger that would be incurred by a state striving for totality. With the rise of the Third Reich, Hitler went further and formulated that Weltanschauung in forms borrowed from religion, for he believed it to be a substitute for religion, being both pragmatic and sacral. Here also, as in so many other instances, the Jew served as a focus, as the symbol, the embodiment and the causal reason for what was called the enfeebled will of the nation in its struggle for existence.22 The attainment of irrational goals by rational means was clearly stated by Alfred Baeumler, who was Leiter der Haupstelle Wissenschaft beim Beauftragten für die Überwachung der gesamten und weltanschaulichen Schulung und Erziehung der NSDAP under Alfred Rosenberg. A careful 89


study of his activities in this post shows that Baeumler did not always share the anti-intellectual opinions of the Party or support its policies;23 Armin Möhler has justly remarked that he was ‘a writer of the first rank … who, despite his great services to the Party, always remained an outsider’.24 This intellectual ambivalence also appears when one considers not merely his writings – such as Gutachten (expert opinions) – within the Nazi movement, but also his original work on Nietzsche, Bachofen and areas related to mythology, romanticism and the critique of modern civilization.25 Nonetheless, it is one of his Gutachten which clearly enunciates the attainment of the irrational through the rational: At stake is nothing less than to create anew in the light of consciousness a form of existence that hitherto resided in the unconscious … to nurture the irrational with rational means … proceeding from the purest impulses of the race.26 The immediate context in which these words were written was the question of the position of the farmers in the Third Reich and their future status, a question discussed in a critical exposition of the anthroposophic teachings. The significance of these words went much deeper, however, for they reflected one of the basic principles of Nazism, both ideologically and politically. Contemporary Insights A number of contemporaries, although not many, recognized that the racial antisemitism of the Nazis was the central expression of this tension between rationality and transcended rationality. As early as 1927, after the Nazis had become a legitimate political party, this was expressed by Felix Goldmann, writing in the influential periodical Der Morgen, as follows: ‘Racial antisemitism then is rooted in the belief in the irrational.’27 Contrary to former times, as was pointed out by writers like Arnold Zweig as well as Goldmann, it was a feature of the political rise of Nazism with its anti-rationalism, mythological thought and fanaticism, and of the fading hopes of an era of liberalism and enlightenment, that ‘the magic word “feeling” closes the gates [to reason] and exempts one from the necessity to prove and defend one’s point of view’.28 There were those, Goldmann went on to assert, who flee ‘to the dense, primeval forest of the irrational where they find a refuge’, so that in the attempt to combat this new antisemitism ‘we would be deluding ourselves to underestimate in any way the role of instinctive feeling’. The Jews, and indeed the Western world, were finding themselves face to face with a new phenomenon, a new antisemitism with ‘its completely illogical arguments from 90


the standpoint of the understanding, its altogether historically distorted judgments, its generalizations entirely impossible for thinking people’.29 The same desperate understanding is sometimes found in personal correspondence such as a letter of July 1933: The present-day politicized racial antisemitism is the embodiment of myth … nothing is discussed … only felt … nothing is pondered critically, logically or reasonably … only inwardly perceived, surmised … we are apparently the last … of the age of the Enlightenment.30 At the time when the Nazis seized power, Zionist spokesmen made a distinction between an antisemitism which could at least be explained by historical and rational motives, ones of an economic and social or even psychological nature and which could therefore be dealt with, and the new racial, irrational antisemitism that had now become dominant. The more the masses were influenced by these instinctive dark forces and the more that the latter were exploited by those in power, the less hope there was of solving the Jewish question in Europe: In the sphere of the irrational are no doubt to be found the roots of the other antisemitic attitude in which a metaphysical hatred that springs from the deep recesses of the soul appears as the primary element, a hatred that seeks to express itself in logical forms … The irrational is governed by an inner logic of its own.31 A little later, in reaction to an important speech delivered on 17 May 1933 by Alfred Baeumler, the Jüdische Rundschau stated (7 July 1933) in a tone of despair, at the same time emphasizing the Zionist solution: There is no point in advancing arguments that are not directed to the opponent’s position; for the belief in the power of blood to determine our fate is so deeply rooted in National Socialism that neither references to patriotic sentiments nor cultural ties, and least of all to cultural achievements, can shake this foundation.32 Baeumler had plainly stated, the journal went on to say, that ‘the Jews … will never be able to share our destiny or have any part in determining it’. In contradistinction to what the Jewish community had been accustomed to think ever since the era of the enlightenment and emancipation, with its belief in rationalism and political liberalism, it was now explicitly stated that national identity depended ‘not on a mental attitude and its expression, but on the community of blood and nature’.33 91


A similar note was struck by Hans Bach, this time in reaction to a speech that Hitler had delivered in Bad Reichenhall. In it he had proclaimed that one of the basic achievements of the National Socialist revolution was to make the racial problem, which was in reality the Jewish question, a central issue in the life of the new Reich. Bach’s comment on this was: The questions of leadership … of authority … all go back to the same root of blood and peoplehood … In the place of a political class of leaders formed from purely economic points of view … there must be erected a political leadership-elite based on race and blood.34 Such statements raise a question that has as yet not been adequately studied, namely, that of the reciprocal relations between the political views and conceptions that were prevalent in national and nationalistic circles in Europe, particularly in Germany, and views that were common in some circles of the Zionist movement. It was sometimes argued that various national movements, Jewish and European, had a number of characteristics in common that could make for better mutual understanding: romantic yearnings, a longing to return to the distant past, the search for a common origin as an important factor of national identity. Felix Goldmann, in the article for Der Morgen just mentioned, had criticized this tendency: ‘The national-Jewish ideology … has succumbed to the assimilation of general nationalism.’ 35 On the other hand, the Jüdische Rundschau in its issue of 4 August 1933 devoted a special page, entitled ‘Stimmen des Blutes’ (Voices of Blood), to the dilemma that faced Zionism as a result of the radicalization of the element of ‘blood’ in German nationalism. The article inaugurated a series of discussions on the meaning of ‘blood’ as a symbolic, historical or sociological factor in Jewish nationalism, in nationalism in general and in German nationalism in particular. In the following issue it was suggested by Ignaz Zollschan, the author of Das Rassenproblem unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der theoretischen Grundlage der jüdischen Rassenfrage (Vienna, 1911), that the study of Jewish anthropology and of the racial character of the Jewish people should be developed accordingly.36 However, a later issue of the journal resumed the discussion of ‘Nationalism in Europe’ with a more critical attitude to the conception of nationality based on biological factors.37 The special institute for the study of the Jewish question (Institut zum Studium der Judenfrage) under the direction of Goebbels used these anthropological discussions for its own propagandistic purposes, as can be seen in a book published by the institute: Die Juden in Deutschland (4th edn, Munich, 1936). The book contained quotations (p. 14) from 92


the 1911 edition of Buber’s Drei Reden über das Judentum, in which ‘blood’ had appeared as a biological factor of mystical and symbolic significance in Jewish nationalism and in determining the national identity of the Jew. Similarly, it cited (p. 409) a statement of Gustav Krojanker which had appeared in the Jüdische Rundschau in 1932, when the author, as a Zionist, had spoken of the inability of the Jews as a social group to assimilate into the German nation: ‘We really did not become integrated into the alien totality of the Volk.’ Goebbels’s publication summed up the essence of its arguments (p. 410) with another quotation from the words of Gustav Krojanker, according to which the Zionist point of view could contribute to ‘a deep understanding’ of the German national movement and also to ‘the process and world of thought of National Socialism’. But, the book commented (ibid.), this better understanding of German nationalism and even Nazism unfortunately came too late: These outspoken words of Krojanker, however, are too late … Judgment has taken its course … He who knows the history of Judaism in the last three thousand years will not be surprised at the delusion with which this people is always hastening to its obvious destruction. It is clearly a destiny that is insolubly related to its fate as a homeless people.38 Political Tactics and Political Faith In a desperate attempt to win acceptance by the Nazis, Alfred Hirschberg, writing in the official organ of the Berlin congregation, urged Jews to demonstrate that Nazi aims did not require this irrational faith in the power of race: The task of collective German Jewry is to convince the representatives of the State that race is not the prerequisite for creating a uniform national sentiment … We must demonstrate that we as Jews possess those qualities that contribute to the common communal life, those that a National Socialist state demands of its members, namely, unconditional fidelity to its principles, acknowledgement of the Führer-principle, the subordination of the organization to the movement.39 Attempts such as these, however, were doomed to failure, for in the eyes of many of the Nazi leaders it was precisely the irrationalism of racial antisemitism that bore witness to the greatness of the Nazi revolution, an irrationalism that was formulated, among others, by Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Theodor Fritsch, and made respectable by men such 93


as Ludwig Klages and by the mystical teachings of Stefan George and his circle, despite the sharp criticism directed against their antiintellectualism.40 Nevertheless, both the Nazi ideologues and the men of action agreed that the two aspects described above were both indispensable to the regime, namely, sober rationality, economic development, resolute action, perseverance and blind obedience on the one hand, and a vision, a mythical and even magical faith in the Reich and in the mission of the Aryan race on the other. Walter Gross, who was in charge of the Department for Racial Matters in the Nazi Party, formulated this view in one of the departmental consultations as follows: Racial antisemitism is the consummation, and at the same time our most sacred symbol, of the far-reaching revolution brought about by National Socialism against rigid rationalism … It leads us to the rebirth of our racial life-force, which has been drained of its strength by the abstract Jewish modes of thinking.41 The confrontation of these two opposing forces, rationality and transcended rationalism, was one of the central techniques of Hitler’s practical policy. As early as the middle of the twenties, and even more openly after his seizure of power, Hitler was careful not to grant too much legitimacy to the prevailing Romantic ideas which were opposed to what was called the ‘artificiality’ of technical culture, the ‘shallow utilitarian rationalism’ of the time, and which urged men to return to the primitive life of natural instincts and to the secret powers hidden in the blood and in the recesses of the folk-soul. These ideas were cultivated by the revolutionary conservatives, by the members of youth movements, and by the students who had joined the Nazi movement at the end of the twenties. At the same time, Hitler was astute enough to exploit these strong popular feelings among the people who looked forward with messianic hope to a powerful leader who would introduce radical political policies. He was well aware of the need to sustain these anti-intellectual ideas, as well as the opposing personal and economic interests of the ambitious men around him, so that a not inconsiderable part of his political leadership was based on the maxim of ‘divide and rule’. On the one hand, Hitler adopted a skeptical attitude, being apprehensive or even contemptuous of many of his most devoted supporters, as well as of those within religious movements who supported Nazism and who regarded Hitler as both a political and a mythical leader.42 Hitler himself feared the consequences of negative public opinion against such movements as the so-called Heidenchristen, resulting from criticism by the Church within Germany and abroad. He therefore kept aloof from fanaticisms (Schwärmereien) and from the very beginning of his political 94


career adopted a pragmatic policy. He thus avoided becoming too much involved with the various factions and rivalries within Protestantism and also with the Nazi supporters, the Deutsche Christen 43 who, despite all their loyalty to the Nazis and to Hitler, remained within the ecclesiastical framework and continued to cling to sources of authority more exalted than the Führer himself. On the other hand, Hitler well knew that the youth and the broad masses, together with part of the leadership within the movement and the Party, including some of his leading aides (like Heinrich Himmler) who were to be directly responsible for the Holocaust, insisted on the mystique of ritualistic forms, symbols and rites, and on the power of historical consciousness to vindicate and glorify the rule of Nazism and its conquests.44 Consequently, in his public appearances (especially after the year 1925), in his ‘May 1st speeches’ and even when he addressed himself to the purely pragmatic needs of the wealthier classes and industrialists, he explicitly emphasized both of these aspects of his policy.45 On the eve of his assumption to power, when Hitler asked the members of the Industrieklub in Düsseldorf for their unreserved support (27 January 1932), he stressed the beneficial effects that this would have on the German economy, but insisted at the same time that the indispensable basis for a flourishing economy was the unquestioned loyalty of the masses and their deep faith in the future of the German Third Reich, in his own words: ‘the faith of millions of people in a better future, the mystical hope of a new Germany.’ 46 At first sight, what we notice here is nothing more than the well-known phenomenon of an ideology in the service of socio-economic interests, the will to power and the pragmatic or cynical justification of whatever means are employed in the attainment of these ends. It is plain that the policies of Nazism and of Hitler can to a certain extent be explained in this manner.47 Nonetheless, a closer look into the careers of the Nazi leaders, their methods and their psychological character,48 reveals a much more complicated historical phenomenon. Together with this political opportunism, yet often contrary to its implications, we find a conscious and sometimes even self-critical faith in Nazism as a power that was destined to rule Europe, the belief in racial laws and the Germanization of parts of Eastern Europe, the negation of rationalism and Western culture together with its Christian sources, and the annihilation of the Jew as the symbol and embodiment of all that. This entire framework bore a mythological character that was presented as a political program and was carried out by rational, technical means. The resulting ideology was expressed by a commander in the SS as follows: ‘The myth is a humanization of the divine … The divine, however, has now become the final and unshakeable humanization of the Reich’s mystery.’ 49 Hitler himself, 95


even in the early years of the struggling movement, had defined the structure of Nazism in sacral-religious terms, as one in which faith (Glauben) preceded understanding (Erkennen).50 We are thus faced with a historical phenomenon that combined political tactics with political faith, these two ingredients serving at the same time both as ends and as means; latent, unconscious motives in conjunction with clear aims, an idea and an ideology to justify it. Eric Voegelin was one of the first to recognize the historical significance of this phenomenon: The pragmatic trait of the worldly attitude of faith necessarily leads a man of this religious type to a knowledge of the psychological technique involved in the creation of myths, their value as propaganda and their social role, but does not permit this knowledge to disturb him in his faith.51 A systematic and critical insight into the source materials of this period reveals that the structure of this political religion consisted of two basic forms: the secularization and politicization of theological roots on the one hand, and the sacralization of politics and its social functioning on the other. The investigation of this double process of transformation will be the subject of the remainder of this paper. B. FROM THEOLOGY TO THE REALM OF POLITICS A typical document to illustrate this first direction in the process of structural transformation is a lecture by Hanns Johst, an SS Brigadeführer and president of the Reich Chamber of Writers, which was delivered to a group of Nazi leaders apparently a short time after the law Zur Sicherung der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirche of 24 September 1935 had been published. The original manuscript, found in the collection of documents that was placed at my disposal by the late historian Eleonore Sterling, does not include the references to the biblical sources. These references are here inserted in brackets together with some additional remarks in order to indicate those sections where theology has been explicitly and systematically transformed into political mythology: It had once pleased God to choose the race of Israel as a people unto Himself, and with this people He made a covenant. This, however, was preparatory, a portent of the new covenant that was to be ratified in Christ. ‘Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant … I will put my law in their inward parts, and write 96


it in their hearts’ [Jer 31:31–34]. Christ instituted this new covenant in his blood [1 Cor 11:25] by calling together a people consisting of Jew and Gentile and making them one, not according to the flesh but in the Spirit [Eph 2:11–22]. The time has now come to complete this process of salvation by means of a dialectical negation. The blood is now our blood, pure and racial; the people, once of flesh and then born of both water and Spirit [Jn 3:5–6] is now the new chosen race, a royal priesthood to be called to rule over the earth … You who in times of Jews and Christians were called to be a holy people and yet remained chained to your Old Testament impurity … are now no longer the people of God [1 Pet 2:9–10] but the Race. The Reich our life [instead of ‘Christ our life’ – Col 3:4] and our blood and soil [instead of ‘creation itself ’] will be delivered from bondage of corruption, that is, from its impurity, its Jewishness, into the glorious liberty of the children of our Führer [instead of ‘the children of God’ as Rom 8:21]. We are the redemption of the world, sent forth into the world as the light of the world and the salt of the earth [Mt 5:13–16]. The uniqueness of the Aryan race is a manifestation of the Volkspirit. Since this spirit is from and for the Volk by virtue of its elitist essence, ‘it cannot be given to every man to profit’ [1 Cor 12:7]. These charismatic gifts are uniquely Aryan. It is enough to look at the Jew and at his history of suffering, the Jew who is the very embodiment of moral decay and physical perversion, of spiritual petrification and aesthetic degeneration, in order to realize that only the counter-Jew, the anti-Jew, is the one on whom the charisma of world leadership, of life, power and destiny has been bestowed.52 Several of the Nazi leaders, some of whom were directly responsible for the Holocaust, principally Heinrich Himmler,53 took part in this process of converting religion into a substitute religion (Ersatzreligion) by means of what in terms of a structural analysis is defined as the ‘reversal of meanings’. In the Third Reich, as in the entire tradition of cultural pessimism (Kulturpessimismus) since the middle of the 19th century, concepts of religion were not simply invalidated; nor were their socioinstitutional functions, those cohesive factors that served to hold the social structure together and ensure its functioning. These concepts and their functions were rather retained by the Nazis as a legitimate part of their racial theory. They merely deprived them of their original theological content and converted them into political weapons for combatting the ideals of Western civilization, its humanism and its religion, and their prototype in Judaism. This was aptly formulated by Christian Stoll, a Lutheran theologian 97


from Bavaria and one of the editors of the periodical Bekennende Kirche, when in 1934 he stated that the Nazis were using theological concepts for the sake of appearances. But no compromise was possible, Stoll insisted, between myth, especially as interpreted by Rosenberg, and revelation; it was the task of the Confessional Church to combat this system that was creating ‘a secular form … as the racial form of German Christianity’.54 To see how Nazi ideology created its substitute religion, it is necessary to examine many sources, especially the materials collected and produced by a number of special institutes established under the Third Reich for the study of the Jewish question.55 For instance, the communications of an institute for investigating ‘the Jewish influence on German ecclesiastical life’, contain important information which has so far hardly been studied; at its opening session in May 1939 its chief, Oberregierungsrat Leffler, explained that: An emancipation from the enslavement and servitude of the German essence by Judaism as a result of the National-Socialist revolution must now be extended to the sphere of religious life, if the Jewish influence in Germany is to be completely broken.56 The original sources of these institutes are still scattered in a number of archives, collections and libraries, often in files not especially connected with the institutes, so that the material is not easily available.57 A systematic study of these sources, however, already clearly shows how Nazi ideology, with all its inner contradictions, made use of structural transformations in relations between theology and politics, and between myth and politics. In particular, it shows how theological concepts of God and man were now used as anthropological and political concepts. God became man, although not in the theological New Testament sense of the incarnation of the word (‘And the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us’, Jn 1:14), nor in accordance with Paul’s understanding of the incarnation of God in Christ (in whom ‘dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily’, Col 2:9). In the new conception God becomes man in a political sense, as a member of the Aryan race whose highest representative on earth is the Führer. Communication with the Führer became communion. This transformation took place through public mass meetings staged and celebrated as sacred cults, as well as through education, indoctrination and the inculcation of discipline.58 All this was designed to achieve a personal identification with the Führer as the Father of the State, the Son of the Race, and the Spirit of the Volk (Volksgeist).59 This change in the essential meaning of the concepts of God and man was effected, from the standpoint of cognition, by converting the relative 98


into the absolute and, from the standpoint of theology, by transferring the Pauline conception of ‘putting on’ the new man that is about to rise (Eph 4:24; Col 3:10) from the level of metaphysics and eschatology to that of nationality and statehood. This radical change from the metaphysical to the physical realm expressed itself in the worship of life and power, and of the sun, mountains, rivers and forests and also (as the National-Socialist Studentenbund proclaimed in 1934, echoing an early 19th century romantic sentiment), ‘Germanic soil … the promised land, the kingdom of priests and the holy Volk’. Nazi mythology exalted the old pagan Adam, ‘the primordially human in the primordial German’ (das Urmenschliche im Ur-Germanen), as the Son of God into whom the German man had become transformed by ‘a new creation’ (thus Wilhelm Stapel’s exegesis of Gal 6:15 and 2 Cor 5:17). The Germans would be liberated, as Emanuel Hirsch and Hans Schomerus assured them, by overcoming death and the obsolete Law of the Old Testament, and by exalting the Bios, the sacralized vitality that resides in the Volk, in its blood and in its exclusive election.60 Similarly, the theological concepts of sin and redemption were transferred to a legal category of administrative regulations demanding outer conformity and inner obedience. In the traditional conception man’s redemption, and hence his eschatological existence, depends on his faith (Rom 3:21–24). On the other hand, the concept of sin and redemption in the Nazi regime was in the hands of the State or the Party, and it was used to convert man into a loyal subject whose allegiance is assured by instilling in him a constant fear of deviating in any way from the official ideology. The Christian belief that man could be saved through faith in the forgiveness of Jesus who died for his sins, ‘so that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin’ (Rom 6:6), was transferred from the theological to the secular, political plane. Even the comforting assurance of the believer that his sins will be forgiven, and that he will be found worthy to receive the purifying influences of grace, could now be gained only by his complete identification with the State, the Party and the superior Aryan race. Protestant Transfigurations The practice of transferring and transfiguring forms of theology was to be found not only among the ideologues of Nazi racism or, in a different way, among Deutsche Christen, as might be expected, but also among Protestant theologians who disagreed with Nazism and opposed the doctrine of race, and even among those who took part in the struggle against the anti-church policies of the Third Reich.61 One of the new arguments that arose in the days of the Third Reich, 99


especially after the Arierparagraph of April–May 1933 (excluding ‘nonAryans’ from public service) came into force,62 sought to compare the Jewish attitude to Christian salvation with that of Nazism. In a public announcement in answer to Alfred Rosenberg’s book on ‘the myth of the 20th century’,63 a distinguished theologian of the Confessional Church, Walter Künneth, declared that Rosenberg had erred, among other things, in his interpretation of Paul’s view of Israel’s election by maintaining that it was based on blood and race (Rom 9:4 f.; 11:24 f.), whereas the truth was the very reverse.64 The election and salvation promised to Israel, according to Paul, were based not on race or biology or its peculiar status as a nation, ‘for the old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new’ (2 Cor 5:17). Neither the Jews, in their obstinacy and unbelief, nor the Nazis would acknowledge this, Künneth claimed, but both continued to define the Jews as a people, nation or race. The Jews also remained obdurate in failing to acknowledge that their election is by grace and not by works (Rom 11:6) … This Pauline view of salvation excludes every form of Judaism … A misunderstanding of this deep Pauline insight is possible only if election is taken to be a special privilege based on Volk and race, that is, salvation and revelation are recast in political and worldly terms.65 Hence, Künneth continued, neither the Jews nor the Nazis acknowledged the principle of ‘Israel according to the Spirit’.66 Neither believed that ‘Jews can be saved … only by conversion to Christ, by being incorporated into the new community of Christ … The chosen people of God are, according to Paul, no longer the racial Jews.’ Neither the Jews nor the Nazis, therefore, believed that it is the holy spirit of God and not blood and race that determines who is to be God’s chosen people. Künneth accordingly concluded that there was ‘hardly a more glaring antithesis to the political-völkisch, secular conception of election’, which Jews and Nazis held in common, than the one believed by the true Christian. The situation here has thus been remarkably reversed. Paul does not make election dependent upon blood and race; his thinking here is Christian and not Jewish. Myth, on the other hand, bases everything on blood and race; its thinking is not Christian but runs parallel to Judaistic conceptions.67 As already remarked, Künneth’s arguments were a response to Rosenberg’s work on ‘the myth of the 20th century’, whose influence has not yet been adequately investigated. The widespread notion that this book of Rosenberg had not appreciable influence, because of the awkward 100


and incomprehensible style in which it was written or because it was taken to represent Rosenberg’s personal philosophical system and not the official views of the Party, is a notion that needs to be reconsidered. The book seems to have been significant on two levels. The first was the popular level of the general public,68 though it was apparently not the book’s content as such that the public found to be important, since this content was abstruse and confusing, but rather the book became significant for parts of the population as a kind of sacred manual that replaced the Bible.69 The second level on which the book had great importance was that of the regime, where it served a vital function as the focal point of an intense public debate that was carried on in hundreds of books, periodicals, pamphlets, articles, speeches and sermons among Protestants, Catholics and Nazis. This debate enabled the churches to give expression to their opposition to various ideological aspects of Nazism and even to the latter’s official ecclesiastical policies, but without any danger to the regime. It was another step in Hitler’s policy of ‘divide and rule’. Similar thoughts to those of Künneth were expressed by the conservative Lutheran theologian, Rudolf Homann, in a work regarded as having complemented Künneth’s reply to Rosenberg’s ‘myth of the 20th century’ and which appeared after the publication of another polemical work by Rosenberg, An die Dunkelmänner unserer Zeit.70 Homann also declared that the unwillingness on the part of the Church to separate itself from its biblical Jewish source was in no way to be regarded as a recognition of Judaism. Two manifestations, two meanings are attached to the concept Israel – ‘Israel as a Volksreligion on the one hand and as a prophetic religion on the other’,71 two opposing forces that existed side by side until ‘the hero came’ (Gen 49:10) and with his death on the Cross resolved the contradiction in favor of the prophetic religion of Israel in the Spirit. Biblical tradition makes plain this contrast between an Israel that believes in grace and an Israel that pursues only glory and fame and whose religion has degenerated into ‘the religion of Baal’. Every principle of prophetic revelation, from its beginnings in the Old Testament until its consummation in the New Testament, is relentlessly opposed to that which the Jews and the Nazis now had in common, according to Homann, which was ‘the idolatrous cult of the forces of nature and of blood’. Homann then went on to point out the similarities between the rulers of Israel in biblical days, such as Ahab and Jeroboam II, and the rulers of the Third Reich. In both cases, we meet with ‘powerful and able rulers from a political and national point of view’, rulers who established a natural religion based on race as the religion of the Volk and the State … The Old Testament prophecy therefore serves as a great 101


danger signal to warn us against all attempts, ancient and modern, to establish and support a religion based on the Volk.72 Similarly Adolf Schlatter, the influential theologian, openly declared that Judaism and Nazism had joined forces in their struggle against the Church, and especially against acknowledging Jesus as the Messiah. In his criticism of enthusiasts of the Aryan and Nordic races, Schlatter stated: ‘What is it they want, those who know nothing higher than their racial soul … Their thinking is completely Jewish.’ 73 A similar thesis was expressed by Eduard Putz in a public lecture delivered during a theological training course under the auspices of the Bavarian Volksmission, the purpose of which was to provide suitable material for clergymen, teachers and educators in their efforts to combat anti-Christian influences in the Third Reich.74 The Jews, Putz told his audience, had stubbornly refused to accept the glad tidings of Christian salvation and retired to a national religion based on völkisch-racial religiosity: In the fullness of time, the struggle for the religion of revelation was consummated … in Jesus Christ … but the pharisaic religion preferred the national God, and nailed Jesus to the cross. Jesus Christ is in the deepest sense the complete overcoming of Jewish-racial religiosity … and also he who overcame the völkisch religiosity of every people.75 Turning to the struggle waged by the Church against attempts to make National Socialism into a kind of secular and political religion, Putz declared that the biblical story of the burning bush must today be interpreted in the light of contemporary events: ‘In this blaze, all idolatrous attempts to establish a human völkisch religion must be recognized as impossible and sinful, and to be destroyed.’ 76 The attack that had been launched against the racialism of the Aryans and the Heidenchristen was thus at the same time directed to what was called the national religion of the Judenvolk. Furthermore: If the advocates of a völkisch religiosity reject the biblical God and the Savior Jesus Christ as the Son of God, then they are in rebellion against God even as were the Baal priests and the Pharisees. Then they are in the deepest sense neo-Jews, Judaists. From now on, Putz concluded, the believing Christian must fight on two fronts, on the one hand against anti-Christian Nazis like Alfred Rosenberg, and on the other against the Jew who in his obduracy still clings to his tradition, for ‘apostolic Christianity is the complete overcoming and dissolution of Jewish religiosity’.77 102


Catholic Viewpoints There also prevailed within the Roman Catholic Church the traditional conception of Judaism as a religion and a people that had been promised salvation and to whom the Messiah had come (Rom 9:4; 1 Pet 1:10); but the reprobate Jews in their obstinacy had not acknowledged the truth of this redemption, and to this day did not believe that the coming of the Messiah fulfilled the prophecy of the Old Testament (Rom 10:4), thus resulting in the rejection of Israel. Variants of this conception, however, did occur. In the internal struggle that took place among the Catholics, especially during the late twenties and early thirties, over the question of whether the Reich as an actual political state was to be invested with biblical and messianic significance, Judaism was regarded from two opposite points of view. There were those who pointed to Judaism as the embodiment of a purely physical and secular tradition bereft of all spiritual values and unable by its own strength to free itself from ‘the powers of the flesh’.78 Others, like the church historian Erik Peterson, cited Judaism as a perfect illustration of a tradition that sanctifies the state and endows with theological authority a phenomenon that, properly speaking, is political and entirely removed from the theological realm. Both sides in their criticism connected Judaism with paganism, whose historical manifestations were reflected in the present: ‘Only on the soil of Judaism or paganism can there exist such a thing as political theology.’ 79 Among the Catholic spokesmen there were also those who expressed themselves in a style that resembled more closely that of the antisemitism in the Third Reich, for example, the statement of the prelate Bernhard Bartmann: Christianity is not a ‘semitic embryo’ that receives its life-force from its Jewish mother. Such a vital relationship never existed; and wherever it has lived in the Jewish imagination it appears just as fragile as the dry leather skins into which the Lord declined to pour his new wine.80 Similarly, P. Tharsicius Paffrath attempted to separate Judaism from Christianity by employing an emphasis on race. In order to have the Old Testament retain its validity for the Christian believer, Paffrath severed it from its source in the Jewish people: The religion of the Old Testament did not arise from and in accordance with the (Israelite–Jewish) natural, peculiar character … It is something altogether unique, fundamentally independent of the peculiar racial character of Israel.81 103


There were prominent Catholic theologians, historians and educators who outspokenly deplored the racial doctrines and the efforts to create a kind of ‘neo-German religion’ (neugermanische Religion). At the same time, attempts were made to point out the reciprocal relations between the ancient German religion, with its primitive forms of worship, and historical Christianity in Germany.82 C. FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE SACRED The second direction, parallel and complimentary to the first, in the development of structures of political theology and myth, consisted in elevating the concept ‘political’ to a supreme place in the Nazi scale of values and investing it with a sacral character. Already in the writings of some of the fathers of racial antisemitism in the last third of the 19th century, and especially after World War I, we find a nearly sacral character conferred upon concepts such as: ‘political biology’, ‘political anthropology’, ‘political education’, and thereafter also upon ‘the political man’, ‘the political soldier’, ‘political faith’, ‘political psychology’, or ‘political myth’.83 One of the most instructive documents for the understanding of this development is a talk entitled ‘Die Autorität des Politischen’ given by Max Wundt to the students in Berlin at the end of 1932, on the eve of the seizure of power by the Nazis. The following excerpt deserves special attention not only because of the importance of Max Wundt as an ideologue who had great influence on the younger generation, particularly in the days just before the establishment of the Third Reich, but also because this speech was subsequently used in the preparation of antisemitic propaganda literature: The political purpose of the racial idea is to give the völkisch experience of unity the power of a political faith … Only when we think and believe politically will the total absoluteness of the Reich idea … the all-embracing Germanization of the Volk-soul, become possible. The realm of the political is now sacred above all else, bringing us grace and liberation … From now on, gentlemen, once for all no more Jewish-Bolshevist Marxism, no levelling-down liberalism, no abstract conceptual rationalism; we must stamp out the Judaizing of the German soul … at stake from now on is the primary experience of the German that is sacred to us all, our recognition of the rebirth of Germany, the unshakeable faith in the liberating mission of the Führer … The politically conscious National Socialist will free himself from paralyzing parliamentarianism by his 104


total emotional commitment to the will of the Führer, of blood, of race … To act politically means to sever the Reich once for all from the corrosive processes of Jewish Social Democracy … The Reich must be completely cleansed of party rule, of the rule of the unworthy rabble and of Jewish egalitarian tendencies … Our political faith will bring to completion the secularization process of Revelation … The equivalence God-man is from now on our new confession.84 The Example of Huber Admittedly, this principle of the absolute elevation of the political plane took different and even contradictory forms. There was, for instance, controversy over what should be the authorized bearer of political power: the State (or the Reich), on the one hand, or National Socialism, as a movement or Party, on the other. On the one hand, we find a group of jurists and philosophers of law who insisted on preserving the sovereignty of the State above the movement and the Party, a view that was advocated by Carl Schmitt, Ernst Forsthoff, Ernst Rudolf Huber, and in a more extreme form by Wilhelm Merk.85 These scholars were in favor of curbing the power of the Nazi Party and conserving the constitutional character of the State and Reich. On the other hand, there were those who fought for the supremacy of the Nazi movement and Party above the State as the embodiment of the highest political principle, among them some of the leading Nazi figures, besides Hitler himself, including Heinrich Himmler, Robert Ley and intellectuals among the SS such as Prof. Reinhard Hohn. (It seems that until the outbreak of World War II the Party was unsuccessful in obtaining all its demands; even during the war it did not succeed in becoming the sole bearer of what was called ‘the totality of the political’.) However, the controversy was largely limited to the question of identifying the bearer and representative of the principle of the supremacy of the political plane. The supremacy of the political, as an absolute value endowed with a sacral authority, was itself hardly disputed. This was particularly evident in the relatively moderate group among the jurists, such as E.R. Huber. One of the principal aims of the political and constitutional thought of Huber in the days of the Third Reich was to safeguard the supremacy of the State and within it ‘the principle of völkisch wholeness’. This was derived from the Hegelian idea of organische Totalität and then converted to the principle of politische Totalität.86 Accordingly, Huber argued, the people will achieve full freedom only if it succeeds in integrating itself as a ‘unity and wholeness’ (Einheit and Ganzheit), as an uncircumscribed and all-embracing politisches Volk.87 This political totality or even this principle of a totaler Staat may 105


become oppressive as, for example, dictatorships or totalitarian regimes if they remain only restricted to ‘the exclusivity and unconditionality of an external claim to power’.88 In order that this totality of the State should not acquire an oppressive character, Huber concluded, it is necessary for the people to reach a degree of maturity where ‘the principle of völkisch wholeness precludes the separation of the individual and the vital areas of his economic-cultural life from the Volk.89 The political plane here acquires a supreme and absolute value, the purpose of which is to avoid a conflict of interests between the individual and the State or between society and the State, and thus prevent the latter from assuming an oppressive character. The political plane must therefore include all of life’s processes and phenomena … The principle of wholeness (Ganzheit) is not content with outer conformity and accommodation but demands … voluntary adjustment. There is no neutrality of individual areas of life over against the political Volk.90 This process of elevating the State above all areas of life without turning it into a coercive and dictatorial power is possible only if all the citizens belong to the same race. The race, however, is only the ‘natural basis of the Volk’,91 and in order to rise from the level of a natürliches Volk to that of a politisches Volk 92 the people must reach a stage of selfconsciousness and have a sense of its historical mission.93 The power that enables a people to reach this stage, and hence its full freedom, is the Führer. The legal and moral basis of this leadership (Führerrecht)94 becomes plain, according to Huber, when we compare it with parliamentarian democracy and liberalism. Parliamentarianism enslaves man to society by maintaining ‘a conflict of social interests’ which makes it impossible for the will of the people to achieve full expression and complete freedom. The Führerreich, on the other hand, is a regime ‘in which the collective will of a genuine political unity is proclaimed … The Führer is the bearer of the people’s will.’ 95 Hence, ‘the Führer is not a “deputy” who carries out the will of a superior … His will reflects the will of the people. He transforms the pure feeling of the Volk into a conscious will.’ 96 In contradistinction to Rousseau’s principle of volonté générale which, according to Huber, did not completely liberate individuals or the various groups in society from their private interests, the Führer is the embodiment of the Volkswille, which is distinct from and superior to the sum of individual wills. Here again we have the concept of political totality as a free and not a coercive framework. Since the will of the Führer is itself rooted in a race that is common to all the citizens of the Reich, it 106


is not the arbitrary will of a dictator and is not expressed in ‘external, compulsory regulations, but … in Führungs-regulations … in a freely undertaken accommodation’.97 Huber’s ideas with respect to politische Totalität represented, as we have already noted, the views of the more moderate group among the jurists. On the other hand, Party leaders, such as Heinrich Himmler and through him the leadership of the SS, endowed Nazism as a Party with sacral and mythical authority which then, through the Party, also extended to the Reich, as indeed has been pointed out lately by scholars such as Joseph Ackermann. Sacralization through Language One of the means used by the regime to endow the political plane with a sacral character was language.98 The employment of language as one of the means to politicize life and endow the political realm with supreme sacral character was both spontaneous and at the same time a wellprepared, calculated plan. Sigrid Frind, in his important study of Nazi language, correctly observed that for language to be converted into an instrument in the service of the Nazi regime concepts that could be made into symbols, together with their ideational content and rich associations, were taken chiefly from three areas: 1) from the religious realm; 2) from the speech areas of völkisch circles with their archaic modes of expression and their PanGermanism; 3) from biological turns of speech, culminating in the ‘blood and soil’ myth.99 By relying on these associative sources, Nazism developed a mechanism designed to increase the power of language to penetrate both the deep, sensitive layers of man’s emotional life and his conscious and intellectual activities. The aim was defined by the psychologist Walter Poppelreuther as follows: ‘Language should give free, conscious expression to the primordial impulses of the German man, who is bound to a racial stock, and to the sound, vital impulses of his natural life, precisely by overcoming the counter-race.’100 The material for instruction and propaganda put out by SS headquarters and by other governmental and Party offices, through public speeches by some of the Nazi leaders and in parts of the press and literature, reveal a number of typical forms of articulation. At first sight it would seem as if the coarse and aggressive nature, rude insults, abusive language and calculated campaigns of slander – as they constantly appeared in antisemitic newspapers, principally in the Stürmer – were the only 107


characteristic traits of Nazi language. Certainly, in the speeches of Hitler, his ministers and Party leaders, coarse language was not infrequently heard. But in the process of sacralizing the political sphere other patterns of speech emerged that were probably of no less influence. An example is the constant repetition of the same words, concepts and motives, often in a tautological form and aiming at emotional intensification. Or again: the use of terms selected because of their high affective charge, and calculated to recall to the mind of the listener or reader memories from the days of early childhood, or from the historical and even primordial past of the nation as reflected in its legends and folklore. Motives borrowed from nature or even from daily social life were converted into tangible, living entities in a form similar to animism: the light of the sun cheers us and the darkness frightens us; fire, hail, hunger, lightning are menacing, but the spring with its sprouting buds and its blossoms awakens feelings of joy and confidence; the oak tree is a tangible symbol of stability and power, whereas the fields and plains serve as a spacious background for the Volk-soul. Recurring stereotypes intermingled with obscure, allusive generalities calculated to embellish otherwise commonplace ideas and to reduce the listener or reader to an emotional state which would hinder clear, logical thinking; pronunciamentos and dogmatic statements, abounding in superlatives, generated a temper of unreasoning loyalty.101 In this linguistic structure many words acquired new meanings. A word like fanatisch was used in a positive sense; rücksichtslos (‘ruthless’) and brutal appeared as terms of praise; unverrückbar (‘immovable’), restlos (‘to the last drop’), radikal (‘extremist’) indicated ideal qualities to be admired and emulated. Concepts taken from the sphere of theology, such as ‘salvation’ (Heil), ‘kingdom’ (Reich), ‘confessing’, ‘Resurrection’, ‘faith’ and ‘mission’, underwent a process of politicization. Thus, the general framework of articulation became pervaded by meanings of a mythological nature. Myth was converted into reality, and reality took on a mythological form. The distant, primordial past was transformed into experience, into reality. Qualities attributed to legendary figures, idols, giants or beasts were held up as models for the younger generation. Structures of magical function acquired political significance; intuition was put in the place of truth, while empirical, objective truths became illusions; contingencies and uncertainties took on a character of permanency, while the constant, invariable and permanent became relative, subject to the political authority of the Führer and his will. As with most of the goals of Nazism, the attempt to mythologize and politicize language was only partially realized; it achieved considerable success, however, in respect of the Jewish question. Already on the very eve of the Nazi seizure of power at the end of 1932, the periodical Der 108


Jüdische Student published a brilliant analysis of these semantic changes as they later manifested themselves in the thought and policies of the Third Reich. The analysis was written by Ephraim Szmulewicz of Breslau and entitled ‘Zum geistigen Gesicht des Nationalsozialismus’. In it he points out that the most insidious result of Nazism was that it succeeded in substituting hatred for thought and thus encouraged the growth of irrationalism and anti-intellectualism: The National-Socialist intellectuals knew … how to devise a strictly anti-democratic ‘Kulturtheorie’ according to which all democraticliberal ideas appear alien and hostile to the arche-language [Ursprache] of Germanism … The new intellectual order that is to be erected on the ruins of the democratic system of reason bears the closest relation to the elementary emotions of the life of the soul. The political emotions … are concentrated in the desire for power and in the feeling of hostility to everything outside its own group … The National Socialist movement considers itself to be the apex of the pyramid of creation … Political thinking is mythicized so as to remove it from the control of reason … To be different means here, in mythological terms, to be inferior … the Jews [are] the natural point of attack … [the point at issue is the] ‘struggle of annihilation against Judah’ … Above all else the Führer-elite is surrounded by a radiant divine aureole … The political – its rule is boundless.102 A CLOSING NOTE In 1943, at the height of the Holocaust, Alfred Baeumler pointed out that in Rosenberg’s teachings, from the early days of Nazism, the Jew represented not only Judaism, but the forces against which Nazism was struggling – the legacy of monotheism, Western civilization, critical rationalism and humanism. Therefore, Judaism is: … the demon who became visible and who is the primordial enemy of the German … hence this is a fight for life or death, it is either us or him [the Jew] … The nation demands the whole person and thus reaches into the religious domain.103 Indeed, at this point there seems to have been full agreement between the various conflicting trends within the Nazi leadership, including Hitler and Himmler. Moreover, this interpretation of anti-Judaism was perhaps one of the few consistencies in Nazi ideology and policy, from the early twenties up to 1945. 109


In this study we have seen that the Jewish question and its solution reflected a fundamental feature of Nazism, one that was structured in terms of a transfiguration of reversing meanings. Forms of thought, feeling, expression and behavior rooted in historical tradition were now transferred to the political domain. Theology and religion were secularized while politics and the state became consecrated and served as a substitute religion. This process of reversing meanings assumed the form of a political myth which then was to become a main instrument in the creation of a new image of man, a new society and a new Reich. Political myth was intended to contribute to the crystalization of a new consensus, new conventions and new taboos; it had to motivate the Aryan to internalize civic commitment and political discipline, so that in the future no police enforcement would be necessary. Political myth was meant to establish a system of values that would penetrate into the realm of personal and family life, into culture, education, art and economy. In the individual’s daily life political myth had to give relief from tension and fear, from uncertainty and frustration, from feelings of existential alienation and civic powerlessness. Political myth had to encourage a historical consciousness, an awareness of mission to what was called the political cosmos. Political myth was meant to bring home to the Aryan citizen that the Reich was founded on law and order and on normative standards all of which were embodied in the Führer. The framework in which political myth had to function was that of the race. The race, chosen and mighty, was to give the individual a sense of belonging to a higher, a transcended entity. This entity was above rational criticism or scientific verification. Race was seen, like the family, as an entity into which the person is born, to which he belongs by virtue of nature or fate. A man is one of the limbs of the organism called race, connected to it by blood and descent, as a son, father or mother might be. This blood pact between man and race, constitutionally affirmed in 1933, served as a cornerstone in Nazi anti-Jewish policy. The pact was considered stronger than any social contract or rational consensus; it was a ‘given’ that could not be changed, and thus was expected to bring about stability, security, confidence and truth. He who did not belong to it was its enemy, since he was an alien body endangering the wholeness of the organo-sacralized organism. In this political myth the word – spoken and written – became a source of inspiration and of hope. Less than its verbal content, it was the sacral form of the word which imposed normative authority. The word expressed by the Führer, or in his name, was interpreted in many forms on various hierarchical levels in the movement, Party and Reich: in the forms of law, decree, order or command, in those of reproof, chastise110


ment, judgment or verdict, in those of anger or praise, of assessing reality or of revealing a vision. By virtue of the word, objective cognition was replaced with subjective faith and intuition, which then acquired the validity of objective truth. In reality Nazism accomplished but few of its goals. But in one area, that of the Jewish question, political myth achieved its purpose to the full. Here the regime met the least opposition from those who in other matters were hardly in accord with Nazism – be it intellectuals, the churches or public opinion in the Reich or abroad. The Jew served as the focal point round which Nazism turned and on which the structural process of valuetransformation and reversal of meanings took place. Among the values and meanings that were transformed, the symbol itself was turned into substance; consequently, the negation of Judaism had to be transformed into the annihilation of the Jew, this time not spiritually but rather physically, not symbolically but in substance. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS BA

– Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, Germany.

CL

– Cisler Library, Wayne State University, Detroit (now in New York), USA.

IZG

– Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Archives), Munich, Germany. HW – ‘Hauptamt Wissenschaft’.

YIVO – YIVO Archives, New York, USA. NFI – Source materials pertaining to the ‘Institute zur Erforschung der Judenfrage’; ‘Hauptamt Wissenschaft’. We are greatly indebted to the directors and the staff of the following archives for their valuable assistance and for kindly permitting us to publish their documents in this paper: – Archival Collection of the Library of the ‘Kommission für Zeitgeschichte bei der Katholischen Akademie in Bayern’, Bonn, Germany. – Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, Germany. – Cisler Library, Wayne State University, Detroit (now in New York), USA. – Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Archives), Munich, Germany. – Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York, USA. – YIVO Archives, New York, USA.

NOTES 1. A. Hitler, Mein Kampf (76th edn, Munich, 1933), pp. 423–4. Compare Völkischer Beobachter, 3 March 1929: ‘Das nationalsozialistische Manifest zum Reichsparteitag’, pp. 1 ff.

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RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH 2. Quoted by Detlev Grieswelle, Propaganda der Friedlosigkeit – Eine Studie zu Hitlers Rhetorik 1920–1933 (Stuttgart, 1972; henceforth cited: Grieswelle), pp. 59–60. 3. BA, NS 19/14. The speech was given on 24 September 1943. See also Joseph Ackermann, Heinrich Himmler als Ideologe (Göttingen, 1970, henceforth cited: Ackermann), p. 171; compare our essay on Ackermann’s work in Freiburger Rundbrief 27 (1975), pp. 14–26. 4. An instructive example of this may be found in the writings of Georg Schott, a student of Houston Stewart Chamberlain and one of Hitler’s friends in the early days of the movement until he fell out of favor. See his Das Volksbuch von Hitler (1st edn, Munich, 1924; 4th edn, by the semi-official publishing house, Verlag Frz. Eher, Nachf., Munich, 1934); Von Gott und der Welt (Stuttgart, 1937), esp. pp. 219–22; ibid. ‘Das 5. Buch Mosis in seiner kulturpolitischer Bedeutung’, pp. 85 ff. G. Schott in his speech at a mass convention of the Nazi movement as early as 23 June 1923 explained ‘in which respects the National Socialists do not wish to be Christians … if we understand Christianity as the continuation and consummation of a spiritual tendency … and this tendency can be no other than Judaism … It is in great measure owing to this dogma … that misfortune has overtaken us today.’ See Jakob Nötges S.J., Nationalsozialismus und Katholizismus (Cologne, 1931), pp. 81–2. 5. Among the first scientific studies on this subject was Fritz Nova, The National Socialist Führerprinzip and its Background in German Thought (Philadelphia, 1943), chs. 1–3, 5, 6. 6. In recent years the term politische Theologie has been introduced into current socio-religious thought, e.g., the periodical Politische Theologie – Evangelische Kommentare (1967 ff.); also see: Joachim Staedtke, Möglichkeiten und Grenzen politischer Theologie, Theologische Studien, no. 112 (Theologischer Verlag, Zürich, 1974), pp. 7–24; Jürgen Moltmann et al., Religion and Society (Harper & Row, Publishers, New York, Evanston, San Francisco, London, 1974), pp. 9– 47; 95 ff.; Alistair Kee, ed., The Scope of Political Theology (SCM Press, London, 1978), pp. 4–37; Uriel Tal, ‘L’homme et la société – Aspects herméneutiques d’une théologie sociale selon les sources juives’, in Sidic (Service international de documentation judéo-chrétienne, Rome), vol. 12, no. 1, (1979), pp. 4–6. 7. One of the many examples is the speech of Robert Ley of 10 February 1937 published in Der Schulungsbrief der NSDAP, no. 4, 1937. On the political use, or rather abuse, of terms rooted in religious tradition during the Nazi era, see Hans Buchheim, Glaubenskrise im Dritten Reich – Drei Kapitel Nationalsozialistischer Religionspolitik (Stuttgart, 1953; henceforth cited: Glaubenskrise), pp. 9–39. Also Grieswelle, especially chs. 4, 10; also see: Gunda Schneider-Flume, Die politische Theologie Emanuel Hirschs 1918–1933 (European University Papers, series 13, vol. 5; Frankfurt, 1971). 8. Carl Schmitt, Politische Theologie: Vier Kapitel zur Lehre von der Souveranität (2nd edn, Munich, 1934), p. 49. 9. See Schwab’s introduction to his translation of: Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (New Brunswick, NY, 1976) p. 14; also Schwab’s major work on Schmitt: The Challenge of the Exception – an Introduction to the Political Ideas of Carl Schmitt between 1921 and 1936 (Berlin, 1970; henceforth cited: Schwab), especially part II, pp. 101–50. A significant example of a Nazi critique of Schmitt’s political thought and teachings, tracing them to his Catholic background, is the official and confidential publication: ‘Der Staatsrechtslehrer Prof. Dr. Carl Schmitt’ in M.W.L., 8 January 1937, pp. 1–15; BA, NSD 16/38.

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STRUCTURES OF GERMAN ‘POLITICAL THEOLOGY’ IN THE NAZI ERA On the renewed controversy between Carl Schmitt and Erik Peterson, see Carl Schmitt, Politische Theologie II – Die Legende von der Erledigung jeder politischen Theologie (Berlin, 1970; henceforth cited: Schmitt II), parts II and III. 10. See Reinhard Bollmus, Das Amt Rosenberg und seine Gegner, zum Machtkampf im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem (Stuttgart, 1970), p. 10; also Peter Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat im Dritten Reich – Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis von NSDAP und allgemeiner innerer Staatsverwaltung 1933–1945 (Munich, 1969; henceforth cited: Diehl-Thiele). The latter author describes Hitler’s regime as a ‘permanent improvisation within the framework of a fundamental tactic of divide and rule’, see p. ix and esp. pp. 184 ff. As to the improvisations in Nazi policy towards the Jews, cf. Uwe Dietrich Adam, Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich (Tübinger Schriften zur Sozial- und Zeitgeschichte, no. 1 Düsseldorf, 1972). 11. See the discussion of the Memorandum from Martin Bormann to the Gauleiter in January 1941 (‘National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable …’) in J.S. Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933–1945 (London, 1968), p. 363; also Conway’s lecture (manuscript only) on ‘The Politics of Persecution – Antisemitism and Anti-Christianity in Nazi Ideology and Practice’. In an earlier signed circular letter (dated 2 February 1939), Bormann had called attention to the ‘Erlass des Reichs- und Preussischen Ministers des Innern vom 16. November 1936’, according to which Christianity was not to be described as ‘gottgläubig’, for this term had now been applied to those sects that believe in the doctrine of race and have left the organized Church; see H. Hermelink, Kirche im Kampf (Tübingen, 1950), pp. 503–4. On the sects concerned, see Die ‘Dritte Konfession?’ Materialsammlung über die nordischreligiösen Bewegungen (Berlin, 1934), pp. 13–47 (a publication of the Evangelischer Presseverband für Deutschland). 12. One of the many popular expressions of this attitude was a song sung by the SA (see CL, C-13): Wir sind noch nicht zu Ende Solange noch die Pfaffen von Beichtstuhl und Altar die deutschen Seelen raffen … Solang die Christenlehre der Norden Art verrät Solange wird deutsche Ehre vom Judenthum geschmäht. On some aspects of the historical background, see Uriel Tal, Religious and AntiReligious Roots of Modern Antisemitism (Leo Baeck Memorial Lecture, no. 14; New York, 1971). 13. See correspondence and newspaper clippings in BA, NS 8/99, NS 8/500. Also CL, C-3 (3, 4, 5, 6, 7). 14. See Fritz Klein, ‘Zur Vorbereitung der faschistischen Diktatur durch die deutsche Grossbourgeoisie (1929–1932)’, in Gotthard Jasper, ed., Von Weimar zu Hitler (Cologne and Berlin, 1968), pp. 124–55. Also Reinhard Vogelsang, Der Freundenkreis Himmler (Göttingen, 1972), and Anson Rabinbach, Beauty of Labor: The Aesthetics of Production in the Third Reich (manuscript).

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RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH 15. For some of the more systematic deliberations on behalf of the department Hauptamt Wissenschaft, see I.Z.G., H.W., ‘Vortragsmanuskripte’ of the year 1938, Wissenschaft und Weltanschauung, MA/607, pp. 55627–49, 55748–55; Arbeitsethos und Wissenschaft, ibid., pp. 55650–8; Weltanschauung, Wissenschaft und Wirtschaftswissenschaft, ibid., pp. 55659–71 (55672–734). For the term Weltanschauung see I.Z.G., H.W., MA/255, pp. 201 ff.: ‘Bedeutung des Wortes “Weltanschauung” und Probleme seiner Übersetzung’ (14 November 1938). 16. See his correspondence with H. Kretschmer in February 1933, BA, NS. 8/22. 17. See Uriel Tal, Christians and Jews in Germany – Religion, Politics and Ideology in the Second Reich 1870–1914 (tr. N.J. Jacobs, Ithaca and London, 1975; henceforth cited: U. Tal), pp. 121 ff., 223 ff. 18. See Uriel Tal, ‘Young German Intellectuals on Romanticism and Judaism – Spiritual Turbulence in the Early 19th Century’, in S. Lieberman and Arthur Hyman eds., Salo W. Baron Jubilee Volume (New York and Jerusalem, 1974), vol. II, pp. 919–38. 19. See Jenö Kurucz, Struktur und Funktion der Intelligenz während der Weimarer Republik (Sozialforschung und Sozialordnung, vol. III, Cologne, 1967), pp. 146 ff. Also, Kurt Sontheimer, Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik – die politischen Ideen des deutschen Nationalismus zwischen 1918 und 1933 (Munich, 1962; henceforth cited: Sontheimer), Part I, ‘Politischer Irrationalismus’ and ch. 8b, ‘Der Ruf nach dem Führer’. 20. Werner Siebarth, Hitlers Wollen – nach Kernsätzen aus seinen Schriften und Reden (3rd edn, Munich, 1936), p. 132. 21. Karl Beyer, Jüdischer Intellekt und deutscher Glaube (Leipzig, 1933), p. viii. See also Wilhelm Stapel, ‘Die deutsche Intelligenz heute’, Deutsches Volkstum, June 1935, pp. 1–8. We also found instructive source materials from the Third Reich reviling the Jew as a symbol of intellectualism in the legacies of families who remained in central Europe until the end of the war. These documents are now being prepared for publication, SC. B/4, 8, 9, 10. 22. ‘Die Geisteswende – Kulturverfall und seelische Wiedergeburt’, in Mitteilungen des Kampfbundes für deutsche Kultur, vol. I, no. 1 (January 1929), pp. 1 ff., 13 ff. Alfred Rosenberg, ‘Weltanschauung und Wissenschaft’, Reichstagung der Reichsstelle zur Förderung des deutschen Schrifttums, 21 November 1937, BA, 16/37 (pp. 11–13). See also the following important bibliographical lists: Schriften zur seelischweltanschaulichen Ausrüstung, Amt Weltanschauliche Information in der Dienststelle Alfred Rosenberg, BA, NSD 16/42. Eberhard Jäckel, Hitlers Weltanschauung – a Blueprint for Power (Middletown, CT, 1972), Chs. I, III, V. 23. For example, his evaluation of the work of the historian Robert Holtzmann, BA, NS. 8/264 (pp. 86 ff.). 24. Armin Möhler, Die konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918–1932: Grundriss ihrer Weltanschauung (Stuttgart, 1950), p. 16. 25. Rich source material reflecting Baeumler’s intellectual ambivalence is contained in the collection Hauptamt Wissenschaft of the YIVO Archives, New York. 26. I.Z.C., H.W., MA/610, pp. 57711–23. Alfred Baeumler, Gutachten of 13 December 1940. See also Baeumler’s lectures on Philosophy of History delivered strictly confidential (streng vertraulich) as recorded by U. Goede, 1939, in YIVO 236, MK-3. The lectures are important for the study of both the ideational development of Nazism and the complex nature of Baeumler’s intellectual activity within the Party machinery.

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STRUCTURES OF GERMAN ‘POLITICAL THEOLOGY’ IN THE NAZI ERA 27. Felix Goldmann, ‘Das irrationale im Antisemitismus’, in Der Morgen, August 1927 (henceforth: Goldmann), p. 314. 28. Goldmann, p. 314. 29. Goldmann, p. 315. 30. This and similar expressions by several Jewish intellectuals, teachers and lawyers are preserved in the collection S.C. E/2, 8, 14, 15, 16, 22 (compare notes 17 ff. above). For the broader background of Jewish reactions prior to 1933, see Werner E. Mosse, ‘Der Niedergang der Weimarer Republik und die Juden’, in W.E. Mosse and A. Paucker eds., Entscheidungsjahr 1932 – zur Judenfrage in der Endphase der Weimarer Republik (Tübingen, 1965), pp. 3–30; and Arnold Paucker, ‘Der jüdische Abwehrkampf ’, ibid., pp. 405–88. 31. Ernst Hoffmann, ‘Der Antisemitismus und die Lösung der Judenfrage’, Jüdische Rundschau, 4 April 1933 (henceforth cited: Hoffmann), p. 135. For the farreaching political impact of the ‘irrationalen Zukunftsvisionen des “Dritten Reiches”’, see K.D. Bracher, Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik – eine Studie zum Problem des Machtverfalls in der Demokratie (Institut für politische Wissenschaft, vol. 4, Stuttgart, 1957), p. 107. 32. Jüdische Rundschau, 7 July 1933, p. 305. 33. Ibid. 34. Hans Bach, ‘Die Neue Ordnung’, in Der Morgen, August 1933, pp. 161–6. 35. Goldmann, p. 313. 36. Jüdische Rundschau, 11 August 1933, p. 413. 37. Jüdische Rundschau, 29 May 1934, p. 5. On the historical background leading to the Holocaust: see George L. Mosse, Rassismus – Ein Krankheitssymptom in der Europäischen Geschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts. (Athenäum Verlag, Königsstein/Ts., 1978), pp. 107–19, pp. 159 ff. 38. For the polemics among the Jews regarding Krojanker’s booklet Zum Problem des neudeutschen Nationalismus, see the reply by David Schlossberg in Der jüdische Student, vol. 29, no. 5 (June 1932), pp. 134–8, and Krojanker’s remarks, ‘Die unangenehme Parallele’, ibid., pp. 138–9. The historical study of this complex problem is only of recent origin. See George L. Mosse, ‘The Influence of the Voelkisch Idea on German Jewry’, in Studies of the L.B.I. (New York, 1967), pp. 83–114; also Mosse’s Germans and Jews (New York, 1971), pp. 77–115; also Kurt Loewenstein, ‘Die innerjüdische Reaktion auf die Krise der deutschen Demokratie’, in Entscheidungsjahr 1932, vol. I, pp. 378 ff. For an excellent background study see Jehuda Reinharz, Fatherland or Promised Land – Dilemma of the German Jew, 1893–1914 (Ann Arbor, 1975), pp. 171 ff. Abraham Margaliot in The Political Reaction of German Jewish Organizations and Institutions to the anti-Jewish Policy of the National Socialists 1932–1935 (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Jerusalem, 1971) has made a major contribution to a more balanced and objective understanding of the controversy among political Zionists regarding a possible mutual understanding between the Nazi regime and German Jewry (see ch. 4 and p. 250). 39. Alfred Hirschberg, ‘Wege zu Deutschtum und Judentum’, in Gemeindeblatt der Jüdischen Gemeinde zu Berlin, vol. 23, no. 4 (April 1933), p. 167. 40. I.Z.G., M.A., 116/4; 116/5; 116/7. Compare Guide to Captured German Documents, no. 2, p. 65. 41. S.C. A/6a. Compare Walter Gross, ‘Aufgabe und Anspruch der nationalsozialistischen Rassengesetzgebung’, Sonderheft, N.S. Monatshefte, series 64, 1935, 16 pp. At the same time, however, Walter Gross also warned against excessive irrationalism and anti-intellectualism; see his Rassenpolitische

115


42.

43.

44. 45.

46. 47.

48.

49. 50. 51. 52.

Erziehung (Schriften der deutschen Hochschule für Politik, no. 6, ed. Paul MeierBonneckenstein, Berlin, 1934), pp. 1–31. For original sources that are both critical and informative, see Carl Schweitzer, das religiöse Deutschland der Gegenwart, vol. I (Berlin, 1928), pp. 32, 123–238, 273–95, 324–36, 365–95; P. Erhard Schlund OFM, Modernes Gottesglauben – Das Suchen der Gegenwart nach Gott und Religion (Regensburg, 1939), sections 5, 10, 12, 13, 14, 19, 24–41, 42–6. Among the original sources that were sympathetic to the ideas of a German pseudo-religion but, nevertheless, informative, see Hermann Mandel, Deutsch-Theologie, part 3 (Leipzig, 1934), pp. 1–109, and Heerschau deutscher Glaubens – und deutscher Frömmigkeit – eine Führung durch das deutsche religiöse Schrifttum (Leipzig, 1933), pp. 3–31. Kurt Meier, Die Deutschen Christen – ein Bild einer Bewegung im Kirchenkampf des Dritten Reiches (Halle, 1964). Compare Carsten Nicolaisen, ‘Die Stellung der Deutschen Christen zum Alten Testament’, in Zur Geschichte des Kirchenkampfes (Gesammelte Aufsätze), vol. II, pp. 197–200. George L. Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses – Political Symbolism and Mass Movements (New York, 1975; henceforth cited: Nationalization), chs. 1, 3, 6, 8, 9. See also Ackermann, parts II, III, IV, V. Margarete Wedleff, ‘Zum Stil in Hitlers Maireden’, Muttersprache 80 (1970), 109–27. For further documentation see Jochmann Werner, ed., Im Kamp um die Macht – Hitlers Rede vor dem Hamburger ‘Nationalklub von 1919’ (Veröffentlichungen der Forschungsstelle für die Geschichte des N.S. in Hamburg, vol. I, Frankfurt am Main, 1960), and H. Phelps, ‘Hitler als Parteiredner im Jahre 1920’, Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte II (1963), pp. 274 ff. M. Domarus, ed., Hitler – Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945, vol. I (Munich, 1965), p. 71. For the methodology of the interrelationship of socio-political motivations and ideology, see Hans Albert and Ernst Topitsch, Werturteilstreit (Darmstadt, 1971), part I, pp. 3–63, and II, pp. 67–309. Also Janet Wolf, Hermeneutic Philosophy (London, 1975), chs. 2, 3 and 7. See Saul Friedländer, L’Antisémitisme nazi – Histoire d’une psychose collective (Paris, 1971); also his Histoire et psychoanalyse (Paris, 1975), esp. ch. III, ‘Les Phenomenes collectifs’, pp. 143–208. Among the Nazi leaders, Heinrich Himmler is of the utmost importance for our study; hence, in addition to the works already mentioned the following are essential: Werner T. Angress and Bradley F. Smith, ‘Diaries of Heinrich Himmler’s Early Years’, Journal of Modern History 31 (1959), pp. 206–24; Bradley F. Smith, Heinrich Himmler – a Nazi in the Making 1900–1926 (Stanford, 1971); Peter Loewenberg, ‘The Unsuccessful Adolescence of Heinrich Himmler’, American Historical Review, 76 (1971), pp. 612–41. For the psycho-historical background of Hitler, see R.G.L. Waite, ‘A. Hitler’s Guilt Feelings’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 1 (1971), pp. 229–49, and Dietrich Orlow’s critique on Walter C. Langer’s The Mind of Hitler (London, 1973) in ‘The Significance of Time and Space in Psychohistory’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 5 (1974), pp. 131–8. S.C. A/24, d, e, f. For the fear of these circles on the part of the rulers of the Third Reich, and the regime’s ideological surveillance of these circles, see I.Z.G., H.W., MA-116/4, MA-116/5. Grieswelle, p. 55. Eric Voegelin, Die Politischen Religionen (Stockholm, 1939), p. 54. Uriel Tal, ‘Forms of Pseudo-Religion in the German “Kulturbereich” prior to the Holocaust’, in Immanuel (a Semi-Annual Bulletin of Religious Thought and

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53. 54. 55.

56. 57.

58. 59.

Research in Israel, published by the Ecumenical Fraternity, Jerusalem), no. 3 (1973–74), pp. 68–73 (on p. 71, instead of ‘Alfred Baeumler’ read ‘Hanns Johst’). Siegfried Casper, editor of Hanns Johst spricht zu Dir (Berlin, 1942), wrote in his introduction: ‘Through his [Johst’s] writings … the creaturelyorganic “things” – Lebensraum, homeland, Volk, fatherland, mother-tongue, political life-form – have become life’s basis for us all, an evident and weltanschauliche possession’ (pp. 7–8). Also by Hanns Johst: Erkenntnis und Bekenntnis (Georg von Kommerstadt ed., Munich, 1940) and Ich Glaube! – Bekenntnisse (Munich, 1943). For the ideological background, as officially approved and proclaimed by the SS leadership, see the review of Friedrich Murawski’s Die politische Kirche und ihre biblischen ‘Urkunden’ (Leipzig, 1938) in SS Leitheft, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 55–6. Compare Nationalization, p. 124. See above, note 3. Christian Stoll, Mythus? Offenbarung! (Schriftenreihe Bekennende Kirche, no. 14, Munich, 1934), p. 18. The first important pioneering study of these institutes and allied scientific organizations was: Max Weinreich, Hitler’s Professors – the Part of Scholarship in Germany’s Crime against the Jewish People (New York, 1946), Chs. 8, 9, 11 and 12. This subject is also treated in the comprehensive work by Helmut Heiber, Walter Frank und sein ‘Reichsinstitut für Geschichte des neuen Deutschlands’ (Quellen und Darstellungen zur Zeitgeschichte, vol. 13, Stuttgart, 1966). Some of these institutes, especially the work of Dr. Wilhelm Grau, have been discussed in the above researches of U.D. Adam and R. Bollmus. For a systematic study of the series of publications (1936–43) of the institute entitled Forschungsabteilung für Judenfrage des neuen Deutschlands, see Fritz Werner, ‘Das Judentumsbild der Spätjudentumsforschung im Dritten Reich – Dargestellt anhand des “Forschungen zur Judenfrage”, Bände I–VIII’, Kairos 8 (1971), pp. 161–94. Verbandsmitteilungen – Institut zur Erforschung des jüdischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben (Eisenach), no. 1, December 1939; see also no. 4, September 1941, etc. Much information is to be found in the source collection, Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage, N.F.I. (Rolls 1–13) at YIVO, New York, and in the Himmler Files MK 193 (Reels 16–20), also at YIVO (copies from the Library of Congress Photoduplication Service, Washington, DC). Additional source material is located in the Rosenberg Archives at the Bundesarchiv-Koblenz, such as BA NS. 8/237 (Archiv Forschungen zu Gunsten des Amts Juden- und Freimaurerfrage), NS. 8/239; NS. 8/264, N.S.D. 16/41. A comprehensive and annotated collection of these sources is now in preparation, and further on will be quoted under the heading I.J.Q. (‘Institutes on the Jewish Question’). Nationalization, pp. 100 ff.; pp. 207 ff. See also Klaus Vondung, Magie und Manipulation – Ideologischer Kult und politische Religion des Nationalsozialismus (Göttingen, 1971), pp. 159 ff. In addition to the obviously reversed meaning of the idea of the Trinity, Nazism used the terms Volksgeist or Volksseele in various ways. This has its origins in the teachings of the earlier nationalists and anti-Semites; compare U. Tal, pp. 54–5, 105, 182. Hubert Kiesewetter traces these concepts to Hegelian influences in his Von Hegel zu Hitler – eine Analyse der Hegelschen Machtstaatsideologie und der politischen Wirkungsgeschichte des Rechtshegelianismus (Hamburg, 1974), pp. 233 ff. A different approach has been suggested by Wolfgang Tilgner in Volksnomostheologie und Schöpfungsglaube – ein Beitrag

117


60. 61.

62.

63. 64.

65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

70.

zur Geschichte des Kirchenkampfes (Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Kirchenkampfes, vol. 16, Göttingen, 1966; henceforth cited: Volksnomostheologie). Tilgner, referring to Wilhelm Stapel, points out that ‘the various völkische, national and religious thoughts constitute … the basis for the coming völkischnational movement in Germany, which will then have justified its pseudoreligious intentions also theologically in a “theology of nationalism”’ (p. 58). Volksnomostheologie, pp. 85–157. Joseph Ganger ed., Gotthard Briefe – Chronik der Kirchenwirren (3 vols, Elberfeld, 1934, 1935, 1936; henceforth cited: Chronik). Compare John S. Conway, ‘Der deutsche Kirchenkampf – Tendenzen und Probleme seiner Erforschung an Hand neuerer Literatur’, Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 17 (1969), pp. 423–49. Chronik, Vol. I, pp. 102, 104, 105; Vol. II, p. 286; Jüdische Rundschau, 7 November 1933, p. 771 and 17 November 1933, p. 814; ‘Das Juden-problem und die Kirche’, in Walter Künneth and Helmet Schreiner eds., Die Nation vor Gott – zur Botschaft der Kirche im Dritten Reich (Berlin, 1934), pp. 117 ff.; Kurt D. Schmidt, ed., Die Bekenntnisse und grundsätzlichen Äusserungen zur Kirchenfrage des Jahres 1933 (Göttingen, 1934), pp. 96, 134, 178, 189 ff. The exclusion of Christians of Jewish origin from the Church aroused quite some opposition among theologians, such as at the Marburg theological faculty (20 September 1933), at Erlangen (25 September 1933), also among a group of twenty-two New Testament scholars who declared that the racist policy contradicts the faith in baptism, for indeed ‘… by one spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles … (1 Cor 12:13; see also 7:20)’. In fact the struggle against the introduction of the Arierparagraph into the Church was one of the major concerns of the members and supporters of the Pfarrernotbundes out of which later the Confessing Church emerged. See Carsten Nicolaisen, ed., Dokumente zur Kirchenpolitik des Dritten Reiches, vol. I (Munich, 1971), pp. 35, 130–1. Also Heinrich Hermelnik, ed., Kirche im Kampf – Dokumente (Tübingen and Stuttgart, l950), pp. 48–53. Full title: Protestantische Rompilger: der Verrat an Luther und der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (5th edn, Munich, 1937). W. Künneth, ‘Revolution in der Kirche?’, in Junge Kirche – Mitteilungsblatt der Jungreformatorischen Bewegung (Berlin), 21 June 1933, pp. 1–3. See Carsten Nicolaisen, ed., Dokumente zur Kirchenpolitik des Dritten Reiches, vol. II (Munich, 1975), p. 31. Walther Künneth, Antwort auf den Mythus (3rd edn, Berlin, 1935), p. 90. Ibid. Ibid.; also Künneth’s booklet Evangelische Wahrheit – ein Wort zu Alfred Rosenberg’s Schrift ‘Protestantische Rompilger’ (Berlin, 1937). Its reaction is attested by personal letters from different classes preserved in the Archiv Rosenberg, BA, NS. 8/14, NS. 8/99, NS 8/163. From a methodological point of view we are here confronted with one of the most interesting questions in historiography, namely, the various ways in which a text can be influential although its importance resides not in its content but in its form, in the circumstances under which it is published, and the needs or even longings to which it gives expression. Rudolf Homann, Der Mythus und das Evangelium (4th edn, Witten, 1936), p. 161. Homann, like other conservative Lutherans, believed that Nazism and racial doctrines, insofar as they were in opposition to conservative tradition, should be regarded as products of liberalism and the anti-religious attitudes of

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71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77.

78.

79. 80. 81. 82.

rationalism. Here also the Jews were blamed for the Zersetzung – the demoralization and disintegration. On the historical background of the ‘Political Myth’ in Nazi ideology and policy cf. Saul Friedländer, ‘L’extermination des Juifs d’Europe: Pour une étude historique globale’ in Revue des études juives, Vol. 135, Jan.–Sept. 1976, pp. 113 ff.; also Uriel Tal, ‘Political Faith’ of Nazism Prior to the Holocaust (Tel Aviv University, 1978), 54 pp. Homann, p. 162. Ibid. Adolf Schlatter, Wird der Jude über uns siegen? – ein Wort für die Weihnachtzeit (Freizeit-Blätter, no. 8, Delbert im Rheinland, 1935), p. 15. Eduard Putz, Völkische Religiösität und christlicher Gottesglaube (Th. Ellwein and Chr. Stoll eds., Schriftenreihe Bekennende Kirche, no. 4, Munich, 1933), pp. 46 ff. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 47. Another important example of rejecting the justification for Judaism’s existence after the rise of Christianity, as seen from a critical point of view with respect to racial anti-Semitism, is Hugo Flemming, Gottesvolk oder Satansvolk – Luther, die Juden und wir (Schwerin in Mecklenburg, 1929), pp. 7–27, 48–55, 61–5, 79–81. For opposite points of view, such as that of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, see Jorgen Glenthoj, ‘Dietrich Bonhoeffers Kampf gegen den Arierparagraphen’, Kirche in der Zeit 20 (1965), pp. 439–44; also Ruth Zerner, ‘Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Jews: Thoughts and Actions, 1933–1945’, Jewish Social Studies, 37 (1975), pp. 235 ff. See Hermann Greive, Theologie und Ideologie, Katholizismus und Judentum in Deutschland und Österreich 1918–1935, p. 163 and the entire section ‘Von 1930–1935’, pp. 127 ff. Section 7, ‘Die Judenfrage im Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus’, pp. 190. ff., is a significant contribution towards a more balanced understanding of the political and spiritual turmoil of those days. See also the analysis of the attitudes of Alberg Mirgeler, Robert Grosche and others in Klaus Breuning, Die Vision des Reiches – Deutscher Katholizismus zwischen Demokratie und Diktatur (1929–1934) (Munich, 1960; henceforth cited: Breuning). Breuning, p. 271; compare Schmitt II, pp. 94 ff. Bernhard Bartmann, Der Glaubensgegensatz zwischen Judentum und Christentum (Paderborn, 1938), pp. 77–8. The parable of the wine alludes to Mark 2:22. P. Tharsicius Paffrath OFM, ‘Die alttestamentliche Religion und die semitischen Religionen’, in P. Erhard Schlund OFM ed., Theologische Gegenwartsfragen (Regensburg, c. 1940), pp. 107 ff. For example, Dr. Hugo Dausend OFM, Germanische Frömmigkeit in der kirchlichen Liturgie (Wiesbaden, 1936), pp. 23–57, 90–127, 139–43, 145–50 See also D. Dr. Anton Stonner, Die deutsche Volksseele im christlichdeutschen Volksgebrauch (Munich, 1935), pp. 3–8, 165–213. One of the many examples critical of this subjection to the spirit of the times is Dr. Heinrich Helmgs’s booklet Die altgermanische Religion und der Christ unserer Zeit (Schriftenreihe: Der Christ in der Zeit, no. 11, Paderborn, 1935). Despite the outspoken words against the revival of the ancient Germanic myth as a kind of a new national religion (neugermanische Religionsbildung), there was no longer any reason for the continued existence of Judaism, and the only thing left for it was to adopt Christianity: ‘Only one people, the Jewish, can see religion’ fulfilled in

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83.

84.

85. 86.

87. 88. 89. 90.

91. 92. 93.

94. 95. 96. 97.

98.

Christianity. Otherwise, if ‘the religion of the Old Testament’ continues to reject Christianity as its own fulfillment, it cannot but forfeit the rationale for its very existence, pp. 31–2. Ludwig Woltmann, Politische Anthropologie (1903), in Woltmann’s Werke, Vol. I (Leipzig, 1936); see also Politisch-anthropologische Revue (Leipzig, 1902–22). Also Ernst Krieck, Völkisch-politische Anthropologie (Leipzig, 1936), part I, ‘Die Wirklichkeit’, section 2, ‘Das völkischpolitische Bild vom Menschen’, pp. 42–102. For Krieck’s National-Socialist teachings and his controversial position in the Party (especially in later years), see I.Z.G., H.W., MA/611, pp. 59052–139; 59144–201; 59286–404; 59469–543; regarding his polemics with Wartnacke, see pp. 59163–424. For an example of popularized teaching materials, see Dr. Hanjörg Männel, Politische Fibel – Richtlinien für die politisch-weltanschauliche Schulung (5th edn, Leipzig, 1935). I.J.Q., section 4. For Max Wundt’s impact on political thought and ideology prior to the seizure of power by the Nazis, see Sontheimer, pp. 36, 273. Compare Max Wundt, Deutsche Weltanschauung – Grundzüge völkischen Denkens (Munich, 1926), pp. 10 ff., 28 ff., 160 ff. Diehl-Thiele, pp. 5, 13; Schwab, part II, pp. 101 ff. Ernst Rudolf Huber, Verfassungsrecht des Grossdeutschen Reiches (2nd edn, published by the semiofficial publishing house Hanseatische Verlags-Anstalt, Hamburg, 1939; henceforth cited: Huber), pp. 157–9. An example criticizing the concept ‘totalitarian’ on the part of the Catholics is Dr. Desiderius Breitenstein OFM, Geist oder Blut? (Schriftenreihe Der Christ in der Zeit, no. 4, Paderborn, 1934), pp. 16 ff. Huber, p. 158. Ibid., p. 159. Ibid. Ibid. Heinrich Himmler, in his speech at the ‘Tagung der Dozentenbundsakademien’ in Munich, June 1939, criticized the use of the term ‘Gleichschaltung’: ‘as the head of the German police he knows, more than anyone else, that a revolution is victorious only when it has succeeded in overcoming the enemy spiritually and in justifying its own power spiritually.’ I.Z.G., MA/607, p. 55109 (the Report includes a remark according to which the leaders of the Nazi Faculty Members Associations wore SS uniforms). Huber, p. 153. Ibid., p. 154. Ibid., p. 159. The idea of the historical mission of the Third Reich fulfilled an essential function in Nazi ideology and policy, on both popular and scholarly levels. See SS. Leitheft, 3 June 1937, p. 4. Also, Prof. Karl Reichard Ganzer, Reich und Reichsfeinde (2nd edn, Hamburg, 1943), vol. II, pp. 8–80. Huber, p. 194. Ibid. Ibid., p. 196. Ibid., pp. 198–9. Compare the indispensable contributions on this point, as well as to the entire phenomenon of the eschatological structure of politics, by Jacob L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (London, 1952), and Political Messianism – the Romantic Phase (London, 1960). Werner Betz, ‘The National-Socialist Vocabulary’, in The Third Reich (London, 1955), pp. 784–96; Victor Klemperer, Die unbewältigte Sprache – Aus dem Notizbuch eines Philologen ‘LTI’ (3rd edn, Darmstadt, 1966); Cornelia Berning, Vom ‘Abstammungsnachweis’ zum Zuchtwart, Vokabular des National-Sozialismus,

120


99. 100. 101.

102.

103.

mit einem Vorwort von Werner Betz (Berlin, 1964), 225 pp. Paradoxically, concepts such as ‘anti-Semitism’ and ‘Third Reich’ were so deeply rooted in the thought and speech patterns of the people that the instructions of the authorities not to use them, for reasons of foreign policy, were of no avail. On 22 August 1935 the Ministry of Propaganda asked the public to refrain from using the term antisemitisch out of consideration for the Arabs, and to use instead such terms as: Judenfeindschaft, Judengegnerschaft, Antijudaismus. Similarly, in July 1939 and again in May 1943, the authorities attempted unsuccessfully to substitute for ‘Third Reich’ the term ‘Deutsches Reich’ and ‘Grossdeutsches Reich’; compare the study of R. Glunk mentioned below, vol. 22, pp. 64–9. Sigrid Frind, ‘Die Sprache als Propagandainstrument des Nationalsozialismus’, Muttersprache, 76 (1966), pp. 129 ff. I.J.Q., section 8. Compare Rolf Glunk, ‘Erfolg und Misserfolg der nationalsozialistischen Sprachlenkung’, Zeitschrift für deutsche Sprache, 22 (1966), pp. 56–73 and 146–54; 24 (1968), 72–90 and 112–19. As with the ideology and policies of the Nazis in general, so also in the development of the language different and even contradictory tendencies are to be found. An interesting example of this is provided by the instructions of the SS leadership to refrain from using those very expressions that it itself had cultivated and to observe ‘simplicity and clarity in the German written language … and unclear and bombastic style of writing is not in keeping with NationalSocialist sensibilities … Adjectives that are already superlatives … cannot be intensified further’; see SS – Leitheft, vol. 3 (1937), pp. 48–9. On the lack of unity in National-Socialist ideology, see Martin Broszat, ‘Die völkische Ideologie und der Nationalsozialismus’, Deutsche Rundschau, 84 (1958), pp. 53–68. Ephraim Szmulewicz, ‘Zum geistigen Gesicht des Nationalsozialismus’, in Der Jüdische Student, December 1932, pp. 308–11. On aspects of the Jewish reaction to the actual Holocaust, years after the student Ephraim Szmulewicz had realized the essence of the Nazi mythology, see: Israel Gutman, ‘Martyrdom and Sacredness of Life’ (Hebrew), in: Yalkut Moreshet, no. 24 (October 1977), pp. 7–22. The study of the Holocaust and its significance has been analyzed in two most helpful studies: Yehuda Bauer, ‘Trends in Holocaust Research’, in: Yad Vashem Studies, Vol. 12 (Jerusalem, 1977), pp. 7–36; Ismar Schorsch, ‘Historical Reflections on the Holocaust’, in: Conservative Judaism, vol. 31, no. 1–2 (Autumn–Winter 1976/77), pp. 26–33. Alfred Baeumler, Alfred Rosenberg und der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (Huheneichen Verlag, Munich 1943), pp. 19 ff.

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FACSIMILE 1 Pamphlet entitled ‘New Testament and Racial Question’ against the decision of the Prussian General Synod of 6 September 1933, to accept the ‘Aryan Clause’ which excludes non-Aryans from public service. The pamphlet was signed by some of the outstanding Protestant theologians, historians of religion and Bible scholars, among them, R. Bultmann, H. von Soden, J. Jeremias. The scholars argued that introducing racist policy into the Church would prevent the Church from fulfilling its mission, i.e. conversion. Copy in the possession of the Microfilm Collection ‘Bielefelder Archive – Kirchen Kampf ’, Section C-13, Cisler Library, Wayne State University, Detroit (now in New York), USA.

FACSIMILE 2 First page from a letter by Mrs. Maria Elisabeth Hein, Lutzschena near Leipzig, of 30 June 1934, to Alfred Rosenberg by then already ‘Commissioner of the Führer for the Supervision of the Total Intellectual and Philosophical Schooling and Training of the NSDAP ’. In her long letter the author expresses her emotional identification with Rosenberg’s The Myth of the 20th Century and with the idea of ‘de-Judaizing’ and ‘Germanizing’ Christianity. The letter illustrates some of the politicalmessianic feelings that were prevalent among segments of the population and utilized by the Nazi regime. Original in the possession of the ‘Bundesarchiv’ (NS/8/14), Koblenz, Germany.

FACSIMILE 3 First page of a detailed statistical study, carried out by the Ministry of the Interior of the Reich and of the State of Prussia and submitted to Major Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Hossbach, Hitler’s aide-de-camp, on 3 April 1935. According to this study the Jew was to be identified not by his religion only, but by his racial components as well; hence a person could be a ‘full-Jew’, a ‘half-Jew’ and a ‘quarter-Jew’. This procedure changed the number of the Jewish population in the Third Reich from 475,000 to 1,525,000 already in 1935. Original in the possession of the ‘Bundesarchiv’ (R. 43 II/595), Koblenz, Germany.

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FACSIMILE 4 From The Philosophical Foundation of National-Socialism – Summons to the Arms of the Spirit, by Otto Dietrich, National NSDAP Chief of the Press, Ferdinand Hirt Publ. House, Breslau: 1935. The author points out that the political ideology of Nazism is rooted in ‘universal-organic thinking’. FACSIMILE 5 Teaching material for SS troops, entitled ‘The Iron Age of the (Ancient) Germans’, by Kurt Pastenaci, Leitheft, vol. 3, no. 2, issued by the ‘Chief Department for Race and Colonization’ of the SS, Berlin, 3 June 1937. The essay describes the wars between the ‘nordic’ and Germanic tribes and the Roman Empire at the end of the second century B.C., in order to strengthen the historical consciousness of the SS members, their national pride and their faith in the redemptive mission of Germany reborn. Original in the possession of the Archival Collection of the Library of the ‘Kommission für Zeitgeschichte bei der Katholischen Akademie in Bayern’, (Kl.E.), Bonn, Germany.

FACSIMILE 6 Opening remarks of the Informative Instruction Communiqué No. 1/38, issued by the ‘Department for Racial Policy of the NSDAP’, District Baden, Karlsruhe, 24 July 1938. The circular letter defends German racist policies and international relations in Europe. The ideological point of departure is the declaration made by Hitler at the National Convention of 1937; accordingly racism is as crucial to the world as the discovery of the rotation of the earth round the sun. Original in the possession of the Archives of the ‘Institut für Zeitgeschichte’ (MA/1159), Munich, Germany.

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5 Law and Theology: On the Status of German Jewry at the Outset of the Third Reich (1933/34)

A On 7 April 1933, the Law for the Re-establishment of Professional Civil Service was passed. It stipulated, among other things, that ‘officials who are not of Aryan descent are to be retired ... non-tenured officials … are to be dismissed …’.1 At that stage various restrictions and concessions were appended to the law; for instance (as in §3/2), the law was not applicable to officials who had already been employed during World War I, or who had fought in the front line, or whose father or son had been killed in that war. The first order for implementing the law, dated 11 April 1933, added the following interpretation to §3: ‘… a non-Aryan is whoever is descended from non-Aryan parents or grandparents, in particular, Jews. It is sufficient if one of the parents or grandparents is a non-Aryan …’2 These regulations were part of a comprehensive legal policy aimed at diminishing the presence of Jews in the German public, as well as what was termed their disintegrating and destructive effect on the people, the culture and the State and, in particular, their actual proportion ‘in professions that shape and express the essence of Germandom, the Aryan character …’,3 such as schools and institutions of higher learning, and also in the areas of law, medicine and art. After the publication of the law, attempts were made by the Reich authorities and the Land Churches to apply the law, or parts of it, to the Church. These attempts provoked lively political and theological reactions, which contributed to the emergence of the Confessional Church (Bekennende Kirche). Debate among the Protestants was focused on the two legal provisions accepted by several Land Churches: (a) §1, regulation 130

STATUS OF GERMAN JEWRY AT THE OUTSET OF THE THIRD REICH

2, which provided that whoever is not of Aryan descent, or is married to a person not of Aryan descent, cannot be appointed a pastor or an official in the Church; ‘clerics of non-Aryan descent are to be dismissed …’; and (b) §3, regulation 2, which stated that clerics or officials of non-Aryan descent, or married to a person of non-Aryan descent, are to be retired.4 Although a considerable proportion of the members of the German Christians (Deutsche Christen) supported the racist policy of the Nazi regime, and thus also the application of those laws to the Church,5 brisk political and ideological action against this policy hastily evolved within the Protestant community that opposed the Deutsche Christen, and soon the Confessional Church was organized. How did the debate on the Aryan Provision develop? What were the motives for the support of that Provision, and what motivated its critics and opponents? How did the debate define the status of the Jew and the convert on the one hand, and the meaning, for the Church, of Jewish existence, of racism and of baptism on the other hand, at the outset of the Third Reich? B One of the first reactions to the Officials Law came from the leadership of the Church in Berlin in the form of a reasoned statement of opinion on the Church position regarding what was termed the Jewish question. At the request of Hermann Kapler, erstwhile President of the Council of the German Evangelical Church (DEKA), the statement was prepared by the Central Bureau for Apologetics in Spandau, and written by the head of the bureau, Walter Künneth, who in those days was a young lecturer in Berlin and later one of the leaders of the Confessional Church.6 To Kapler, the changes that were beginning to appear in the legal status of Jews and of Christians of Jewish descent were proof of the centralizing inclinations of the authorities. It was fear of centralization by the regime and of the Church’s loss of institutional and spiritual independence that led Kapler to urge a systematic, though not institutionally binding, reexamination of the Jewish question.7 By as early as 11 April, a draft of Kapler’s Opinion, embodying several of the main policy points of the future Confessional Church, was circulated among the delegates to the convention of the leadership of the Altpreussische Kirche. The methodic point of departure for the discussion of the Jewish and racist question was the traditional Lutheran doctrine regarding the division of labor between State and Church.8 Politically, the Church had to admit the right of the State to inaugurate emergency legislation (Ausnahmegesetze), among others, as a means of protecting the new State 131


from the danger of disintegration presented by the Jew.9 It was the State’s right, or perhaps duty, to correct the disproportion in vocational structure; that is, the presence of too many Jews in government jobs and free professions in proportion to their numbers in the population (prozentuales Missverhältnis). By doing so, the State would be fulfilling its duty, for the law to reinforce the Aryan character of officialdom was intended to correct a social and national fault, and was a sort of defensive measure taken to enhance the security as well as the integrity of the German people. As the historian Klaus Scholder rightly noted, the Church in effect, and perhaps contrary to its own best interests, accepted one of the principles of the folkish (völkisch) ideology: the principle of racism. As Künneth stated, agreeing with §3 of the new Officials Law applicable to officials outside the Church, the concept of ‘non-Aryan descent means the hereditary identity of the Jewish race, as opposed to that … from which the German people is constructed …’.10 On the other hand, Künneth continued, there are other criteria, perhaps even contradictory ones, for determining policy on the Jewish question. While racial membership today determines the citizen’s status in the State, it should not determine a person’s status in the Church. There it is not the race but the sacrament that counts, and whoever participates in the sacrament and has been baptized belongs to the congregation of the saved. This, according to Künneth, is the basis ‘for the obligation of the Church to treat all members of the community the same way … a digression would mean the renunciation of the Gospel …’. Consequently, Künneth noted, as did most of the people who were to lead the future Confessional Church, the Church must demand that the State distinguish between Jews and Jewish Christians insofar as their legal and civic status is concerned. Thus a converted Jew or child of such would be considered a Christian in every way, and would then be exempt from the Aryan Provision. The Church’s obligation would be to defend all those who are affected, and bring solace and relief to all sufferers, first and foremost the Jewish Christians. The Church was also obliged to insist that the racial policy of the authorities stipulating that the Jews be removed ‘as a foreign body from national life’ be implemented by means that do not contradict Christian morality.11 Another important critical reaction to the Aryan Provision on the part of an ecclesiastical institution was the letter of 5 May 1933, from the Land Bureau of the Church in Kassel to the Council of the German Evangelical Church.12 The letter castigates the Protestant community for collaborating in the persecution of brethren just for being non-Aryan, the reference being to Christians of Jewish descent whether they themselves were converts, or children or grandchildren of converts. Furthermore, it says, Jews who remain Jewish enjoy a better legal and civic status than do converts or their descendants. The Jews still retain recognized 132


organizational and community frameworks, through which they can obtain material assistance, spiritual encouragement and legal protection. In addition, ‘however great the material and spiritual suffering those people must bear, who have been ostracized because of their blood and become second-class German citizens, they have the right and possibility of praying to their God. They have their congregation before God …’13 In contrast, the Kassel letter adds, Christians of Jewish descent are now more isolated and orphaned than any other group. A few days later, the Young Reformation Movement (whose members included those who eventually were to head the Confessional Church) published the Principles of a new Church policy in view of the Nazi rise to power. The seventh of twelve points stated that the Movement objected to the removal of non-Aryans from the Church, as that smacked of State interference in ecclesiastical affairs.14 The same stand was taken by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a speech made before students and faculty from Berlin, Göttingen, Greifswald and Giessen who had gathered on 27 June at the University of Berlin to discuss ‘the struggle for the Church’. In his address, Bonhoeffer hinted at his Credo, as expressed in his ‘The Church in the Face of the Jewish Question’. Like Künneth, in the spirit of the Lutheran tradition, Bonhoeffer asserts that there must be division of labor between State and Church in all facets of policy, among them the Jewish question.15 It is the State’s function to use force – a means that is inevitable in the human situation and in social relations – even if the actions entailed are hard to justify morally. The Church is not authorized to intervene in the practice of politics, its function being ‘to relate positively to the State as an instrument for maintaining divine order in a world that is not Godfearing … History is not made by the Church but by the State … By nature the Church cannot operate directly in a political way, for it does not pretend to have knowledge of the natural course of history. Consequently, in regard to the Jewish question, it cannot intervene directly in the State and demand a different specific policy …’16 On the other hand, Bonhoeffer stresses his view of the moral mission of religion. The Church cannot sit with folded hands, but is obliged to three types of political behavior: the Church must not cease pressing the State in order to insure that its actions are not contrary to ethical laws; the Church must serve the victims of the State’s policy even when they are not members of the Christian community; and finally, in some situations (Bonhoeffer does not specify) the Church should intervene actively and directly in the affairs of State even, if necessary, in opposition to State policy.17 This matter reflected the dilemma typical of the members of the Lutheran Church who believed, on the one hand, in the sanctified authority of the State which derives from the Gospels and is therefore absolute, and on the other hand, in a moral mission, in the realization of the law 133


by the doctrine of love according to the Gospels, and in the binding authority of the historical tradition of martyrdom. Shortly thereafter, this was well expressed by Hanns Lilje when he preached about the sanctity of political authority on the basis of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (xiii:1–7), compared with what he described as ‘the educational meta-historical significance of the Gospel according to John (xiii)’. Lilje noted that Paul’s stipulation that there is ‘no power but God; and the powers that be are ordained of God’, obliges us to remain disciplined citizens even in today’s regime, and thus we must try to work together even with people of different theological and political positions. But the political regime too must remember that it was Luther, as early as 1543, who opposed excessive authority of the State and cautioned against the Church’s submission to the State, when he declared that ‘… indeed Satan in our time wants to place the Church under the wings of the State’.18 These positions regarding the Aryan Provision constituted criticism of both government policy and of the Deutsche Christen movement, which at the time was still gaining strength. The people who were about to establish the Pastors’ Emergency Association (Pfarrernotbund), and later the Confessional Church, were fearful of an equalization (Gleichschaltung) in politics and of the acquisition of control over the Church by the Nazisupporting Deutsche Christen. Their objections to the racial policy in the Aryan Provision derived from their fear that the sacrament of baptism would be rendered meaningless, and thus also the Church’s evangelical mission, its chief obligation. A clear formulation of those motives was given in the Teklenburg Credo, composed at the beginning of August by the Regional Synod of Teklenburg in the Westphalia district. The Synod members stated that ‘we must be strict about the prevailing difference between the State’s relationship to its guest-nations who are alien from the racial point of view (zu seinen rassenfremden Gastvölkern) and the Church’s relationship to members (Gliedern) of the people of Israel who became believers in Jesus …’. That problem, it was added, epitomizes crucial questions relating to the very existence of the Church, for the Jewish question is a test of the ‘validity of the sacraments’. The expulsion of Jewish Christians from the Church would nullify the value of baptism, and the transformation of converts to mere guests (Hospitanten) of the sacrament of the Holy Communion would likewise contradict the principles of faith upon which the Church stands. Consequently, the Synod concluded, the Deutsche Christen’s willingness to introduce racism into the Church is ‘an insuperable contradiction of the principles of the New Testament. The defense of the converted Jew’s rights is therefore essential for the defense of the mission of the Church in both society and State.’19 Thereafter, in the weeks preceding the National Convention of the 134


Evangelical Church on 27 September 1933, public action in regard to the Aryan Provision increased. On 4 and 5 September, the German Prussian Synod discussed the inclusion of the State Officials Law into the Church constitution. The meeting was significant because it involved the largest evangelical Land Church (Landeskirche) and, from a spiritual and political viewpoint, perhaps the strongest one in Germany. The Declaration of General-Superintendent Kalmus stated that the Church respects and appreciates the government policy as expressed in the Officials Law, and that the evangelical Church too must be alert to safeguard the purity of the German race. The Prussian General Synod therefore decided that the Church accepts §1 of the Officials Law which, in regulation 2, forbids a Christian of Jewish descent, or one married to a person of Jewish descent, to continue serving as a pastor or Church official. On the other hand, the Synod rejected §3, regulation 1, stipulating that pastors or Church officials be retired if there is no guarantee that they will demonstrate unreserved loyalty ‘to the nation State and the German Evangelical Church’, arguing that criteria for national or religious loyalty are an internal affair of the Church. Similar decisions were made by the Land Synods of Sachsen, Schleswig-Holstein, Braunschweig, Lübeck, Nassau-Hessen, Tübingen and Würtemberg.20 On 7 September, immediately after the meeting of the Prussian General Synod, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemöller composed a ‘Declaration’ which specified that the Aryan Provision, as incorporated into the new Church constitution by the decisions of those Land Synods, contradicted the basic tenets of the Church. On 12 September, Martin Niemöller issued the first version of a document that was later to become part of the platform of the Confessional Church; it was a declaration entitled ‘Primary Obligations of the Emergency Association’ which preached acceptance of the burden of faith and took a critical stand toward the State. The first to sign it were theologians and ministers who met regularly in the house of Gerhard Jacobi in Berlin, and who were the nucleus of the Pastors’ Emergency Association. This declaration stipulated that the binding authority of the Church derives not from the State but from Scriptures, and only the tenets of the Reformation – non-political compromises or racial ideologies – constitute the authoritative interpretation of the Scriptures. According to §2 of the Declaration, each of the signatories undertook to raise his voice, with all his might (mit rückhaltlosen Einsatz), in protest against any violation of these tenets, and according to §4, each pastor declared that he considered himself as ‘sharing the responsibility’ for the fate of those persecuted for their loyalty to the tenets of the Church. It is stated explicitly in §5 that the inclusion of the Aryan Provision in the Church constitution is a violation (Verletzung) of the principles of the Christian faith.21 135


Two weeks later, at the initiative of the Young Reformation Movement, an appeal (Aufruf) was directed at the National German Synod, the Church umbrella organization, urging the Land Churches to sign a Declaration of Faith and calling for them to cancel all regulations contradicting the tenets of the faith, in particular the Aryan Provision, which must be considered detrimental to the interests of the Church and damaging to the essence of its mission. By 21 September, approximately 1,300 pastors signed the appeal; by 23 September, when the National Convention of Churches opened at Wittenberg, the number had reached 2,000; and by end 1933– early 1934, as many as 6,000 had accepted the commitment of protest against a racial policy within the Church and against the Deutsche Christen. Thus was laid the foundation for the Pastors’ Emergency Association and, in its wake, the Confessional Church.22 There were two other important objections to the insertion of the Aryan Provision into the Church constitution. On 11 September, members of the Rhein Brotherhood issued the results of their consultations entitled ‘Position of Current Questions’. Paragraphs 4 through 6 stated that the transfer of the Officials Law to Church Law does not accord with the basic principles of the Church for the same reasons proffered by other institutions. The theologians went on to say that racialist trends should be confronted with spiritual resistance (geistlichen Widerstand), by means of public protest, protest from the pulpit, and defense of the rights of the persecuted and victims of violence; in other words, ‘non-violent opposition through Word and Love’.23 In the same vein, the Sydow Brotherhood issued a resolution condemning the Aryan Provision as nullifying the evangelical dogma of salvation, and politically violating the exclusive prerogative of the Church to ordain pastors according to its own internal criteria.24 C In the midst of all this political activity, the stress was laid on theological content. On 23 September, a group of twenty-one scholars and intellectuals, including such important theologians as Rudolf Bultmann of Marburg, Adolf Deissmann of Berlin and Hans Lietzmann, the historian of religion, also of Berlin, issued a statement entitled ‘The New Testament and the Race Question’. Its three main points were as follow: (a) According to the New Testament, there is no room for racism in the Church, for the Church is explicitly composed of ‘Jews and Greeks’, that is, of those who attained revelation at Mount Sinai, and of pagans or, in other words, ‘the nations’. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians 136


(xii:13) states: ‘For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free’; and the Epistle to the Galatians (iii:28) says: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus’ (cf. similar texts, Rom. iii:29; Acts x:35). (b) According to the New Testament, affiliation with Christendom – with the community – is determined solely by baptism and faith, and that is equally true of the Jews and of other peoples. This is the basic mission of the Church, as stated in Matthew (xxviii:19–20): ‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them … Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you’; and in Mark (xvi:16): ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.’ (c) The previous two points prove that Jews and Gentiles are equally eligible to serve the Church. Their ordination or appointment is the internal business of the Church and not of any political regime, and the criteria are not racial in origin but are the personal attributes of the candidate, as stated in Timothy (iii:2–4): ‘A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach; Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity …’ In conclusion, the authors again stressed that their position, which necessitates explicit political conclusions, is a reflection of the theological concept and moral imperative requiring the Church to remove all dividers between people so that they become ‘one body’, as per Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (xii:3–8).25 During the same period, on 11 September 1933, Schmidtmann, the regional Chief Pastor of Hessen-Kassel, requested that the theological faculties of Marburg and Erlangen Universities publish a systematic and official statement of opinion on whether the decisions of the Altpreussische Union Synod of 5 December on the inclusion of part of the Officials Law into Church Law should commit the entire German Evangelical Church (DEKA). The Marburg faculty, which included Rudolf Bultmann, issued a statement signed by Dean von Soden; and the Erlangen faculty issued one signed by the well-known theologians, Paul Althaus and Werner Elert. Both documents aroused great interest.26 The two statements stressed the need to safeguard the independence of the Church from State interference. Both stated that Christians of Jewish descent must not be discriminated against. Both noted that the message of the New Testament requires universality, and it is therefore above all racism. Neither questioned the right of the State to apply a racist 137


policy in regard to the Jews in its own area, that is, in the area of legal and civic status. However, the two statements differed on a number of points, one being the definition of the nature of Judaism. The Marburg theologians emphasized the danger to the spiritual and institutional independence of the Church presented by §§1(1) and 3(1), which make political loyalty to the regime a criterion of loyalty to the Church. Political loyalty should not be a condition for appointment to positions in the Church. The precedence of religion over politics must be the Church’s point of departure on the Jewish question as well. According to the New Testament, the Church must preserve its universal character, even now in times of nationalist awakening and political flux. Although there was now a growing insistence that the Church lay stress on ‘historical natural forces’, such as the descent of a person, his racial origin and national affiliation – these forces being recognized as the natural order divinely created (Schöpfungsordnung) – the Church must remain true to itself, so that ‘reverence for creation should not replace reverence for the Creator’. Thus, it was the position of the Church that anyone who is baptized and accepts the commitment of faith is referred to in the scriptural verse: ‘For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles’ (I Cor. xii:13; Acts x:34– 36; etc.).27 Against that background the Marburg theological faculty’s statement concluded that in connection with the Aryan Provision it was necessary to proclaim explicitly that Christianity does not admit racism and that the Church ‘heretofore has not recognized the concept of Judaism in the racial sense, but exclusively as a religion’. A Jew was not a member of a nation or race, but a person ‘who does not recognize Jesus as the Divine Savior. The Jew who sees in the Torah and prophets of his people the message regarding the Messiah, who converts to Christianity and is baptized, is no longer a Jew in the eyes of the Church.’ 28 A most illuminating response from Orthodox Jewish circles noted that there were two sides to the Marburg statement. On the one hand, by defining Judaism as a religion (Konfession), the statement ignores the national identity of the Jews and amounts to a denial (Leugnung) of their historical meaning and modern aspirations. ‘Moreover … ethnological research likewise defines the Jews as a mental race … but on the other hand, that position (of the Marburg statement, UT) can impel the Church to oppose the racist policy of the Nazi regime and the Deutsche Christen movement.’ 29 The statement of opinion issued by Erlangen was composed by two influential theologians who in earlier years had developed positive views on the strengthening of ties between Lutheran theology and the völkisch concepts of German nationalism.30 Paul Althaus in his 1917 essay on 138


‘Luther and Germanism’ and Werner Elert in the early ’twenties had already attributed religious sanctity, and to an extent even total metaphysical authority, to the ethnic – even biological – origin and to the national affiliation of Germans. This nationalist theology was not identical to that accepted by the Deutsche Christen, such as Imanuel Hirsch’s influential nationalist theology.31 Furthermore, Althaus was critical of new mythological-Germanic trends such as Jakob Wilhelm Hauer’s Deutschgläubige movement and the Neugermanischer Glaube movement. Like Elert, he stressed that he did not identify with the Nazi-supporting Deutsche Christen. The two theologians sought to endow the State, nationalism, and the ethnic origin of the German people with absolute religious sanctity, but within the traditional framework of the Church. The Volk embodies magical, primeval forces which have attained both symbolic and substantive expression in ‘blood and soil’; these forces represent the natural order sanctified in Christianity, and are peculiar to every people, every nation and language. Even adoption of the faith of the New Testament and baptism cannot detach a person from the roots of his national soul and his affiliation to an ethnic origin. On this point, divine and national law (Gottesgesetz, Volksgesetz) meet and even merge. This substructure is evident also in Althaus’s and Elert’s conception of the essence of Judaism. For them – contrary to the self-definition of liberal Jewish circles in Germany, as well as to the position taken in the Marburg statement – Judaism is a national and ethnic religion, and the Jewish people are distinguished by their biological origin. The Church is not competent to decide the question of whether ‘the Jews in Germany belong, in the full sense of the word, to the German people, or to their own ethnic or even racial nationality, and therefore are a guest people (Gastvolk)’. Consequently, ‘the question of the folk relationship between Germanism and Judaism has a historical-biological character … The Jews within the German people are today, more than ever, felt as an alien national entity (Volkstum). The Germans have recognized the threat to their own life by Jewry which has been emancipated, and defend themselves against that danger by means of emergency legal regulations.’ The statement goes on to say that the Officials Law, and through it the exclusion ‘of people of Jewish or half-Jewish extraction’ from posts in key positions, is vital policy in the framework of ‘the campaign for the renewal of our people’ and should be left to the authorities.32 As to the Church, it continues to view the Jews as a people, or a special people different from the rest, chosen to be redeemed even though they rejected the messianism of Jesus. And in the spirit of the Gospel according to Matthew (xxxiii:39) and Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (xi), the Jews will remain scattered and suffering until they admit Jesus to be the Messiah 139


and recognize the Gospel as the final realization of the Torah and prophets and thus fulfill their vocation as the chosen. This admission of the special nature of the Jews both within the framework of the Heilsgeschichte, the history of salvation, and in actual social and political reality, justifies or requires the acceptance, at least in principle, of the Aryan Provision and of the removal of converts from key positions in the Church. Christians of Jewish descent, being of the Jewish race ( judenstämmig), are detrimental to the process of the reinforcement of the national and völkisch consciousness of Protestants in Germany. Consideration of the ethnic origin of a Christian fits in with the spirit of the New Testament, Althaus and Elert claimed, and is a kind of continuation of the history of Christianity and the Reformation. The universalism of the Church does not cancel out ‘biological and social differences’, for the New Testament requires every individual to remain in the class or calling (Stand) ‘wherein he was called’ (I Corinthians vii:20); Christianity accepts descent and biological bond (biologische Bindung) as a given fact ‘which we cannot escape by force of destiny’.33 As yet, no major Jewish response to the Erlangen statement has been found, but some of the leaders of the Zentral Verein were aware of what Ludwig Holländer called ‘the danger to Jewish existence threatening from those who emphasize the national or folk character of Judaism, as they draw an analogy from German völkisch nationalism, now growing stronger, to the Jews; while actually the latter are only Germans of Mosaic faith’.34 Publication of these statements of opinion was followed by numerous public discussions of the Jewish question. Of special importance were comments by two prominent theologians, Georg Wobbermin of Göttingen and Rudolf Bultmann of Marburg. Wobbermin, based on his religiouspsychological or even existentialist approach, defended the decision of the Altpreussische Union’s Synod to incorporate the Aryan Provision into Church Law. According to him, the point of departure in considering legal questions should not be dogmatic or historic, but national, the concrete public feeling at that particular time. Thus, as the public was involved in a national upheaval and a political revival influenced by ‘the NationalSocialist German Liberation Movement’, it was the Church’s duty to respond to the new existential and ideological needs, taking into account the Gesamtexistenz of the Germans. And within the framework of overall national awakening, the Germans must defend themselves against the destructive power of the Jews. The credit goes to Hitler, Wobbermin added, for awakening national consciousness and awareness of the harmful influence of the Jews on culture and society. The Church does not have the right to ignore the straits (Notlage) in which Germany finds itself. The great nefarious power of the Jews was peculiar to Germany and, to a not inconsiderable extent was the fault of the Evangelical Church itself. 140


In recent decades, said Wobbermin, the Church admitted Jews who converted for reasons of economic or social advantage and thus contributed, perhaps unknowingly, to the creation of a devastating superfluity (ungeheuerlicher Übermass) of injurious Jewish influence. On that basis, Wobbermin arrived at a total refutation of the opinion of the Marburg faculty, and a more restrained objection to the Erlangen statement.35 In a detailed and forceful response, Rudolf Bultmann reiterated the theological and ideological argument of the two previous documents he had signed – the statement of opinion of the Marburg faculty and a paper entitled ‘The New Testament and the Race Question’ of 23 September 1933. In view of Wobbermin’s position, and taking into account Althaus and Elert, he added words of caution against the Church adapting to the political and racist atmosphere of the time. Bultmann warned that the spirit prevailing in the community (Volksempfinden) could become a sacrosanct value that would legitimize a racist policy in the Church. Like the vast majority of theologians, he did not deny the State’s right to introduce that policy, but noted that the Church must remember that the history of Christianity taught an anti-racist doctrine. Thus, most of Bultmann’s response was aimed at strengthening the universal character of the Church, at negating the principle of a folk-Church and at objecting to racism in the Church. Ethnic-biological extraction could not possibly be a factor preventing appointment to a pastoral or administrative position in the Church. What theologians like Wobbermin, Althaus, Elert and Stapel, and also the Deutsche Christen, called ‘the natural order’ or ‘the order of Creation’ need not be accepted by the Church as sacred. On the contrary, the task of the Church is to overcome natural phenomena and reshape them in the light of the Gospels and of its mission of salvation. One of these natural features which the Church must overcome is ethnic or national descent. Thus, Bultmann repeats the main point of the Marburg statement and stipulates that the universalism of the Church obligates it to rise above the particularity of ethnic origin, nationality or race. According to Christianity, a converted Jew or son of converts is no longer Jewish, and ‘the Church knows Jews only in the sense of religion; that is, Jews are only those Jews who do not admit Jesus to be the Messiah by the grace of God’.36 Considerable interest was aroused by an article by Georg Merz, editor of the periodical Zwischen den Zeiten and eventually an active member of the Confessional Church. Like most of the theologians who participated in the polemics of the Aryan Provision, he viewed the question as a fundamental one relating to the roots of Christianity, its place in the State, and its reciprocal relations with Judaism. The basic theological assumption underlying the historical and political relations between Christians and Jews, and the status of Jews in the Christian world, says 141


Merz, is that the Church is the true heir to Abraham’s covenant and the messianic promise to David (Matt. i:1). The Messiah King arrived in the shape of Jesus of Nazareth. He was sent to his people who despised and crucified him. When he was ‘risen from the dead’ (Matt. xxviii:7), he ordered his apostles, and thus the entire Church, to carry the message of salvation, the sacrament of baptism, and thereby, God’s blessing of Abraham, to all the peoples (Gen. xii:2–3; Matt. xxviii:19). The New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles in particular, relates how the first Christians called to the Jews to recognize Jesus as their Messiah, and how thereafter the Gospel spread among Jews and Gentiles to become a Church that is a ‘people of a covenant’ (Bundesvolk) united by faith. Since the Jews rejected the Gospel, the Church became the only congregation of God and the chosen Israel in spirit. If a Jew converts and accepts faith in Jesus as the Messiah, he thus secedes from his people as well, from Jewry as a nation. In joining the Israel of the spirit he becomes a stranger to his people.37 From this premise, Merz passes to a socio-political conclusion; so long as the traditional scriptural conception prevailed, as in the period preceding modernity, the national identity of the Jew was natural and accepted by Jews and Christians alike. When he converted, it was agreed that he left his people and joined another, the Israel of the spirit, the people of God. Consequently, Luther did not attack converts, for they were already accepted in the new people of God, Christianity; but attacked the stubborn (hartnäckig, verstockten) Jews who refused to convert. It is thus obvious that Luther sought to convert Jews and absorb them into the German nation, and preached their expulsion only when he realized their refusal was adamant.38 Even Adolf Stöcker, one of the fathers of modern anti-Semitism, believed that the Jewish question could be solved by the conversion of the Jews and by their absorption into the German people.39 However, with the spread of enlightenment, liberalism and modernism, the traditional social structure changed, the authority of religion and nationalism weakened, and a general Humanität evolved. ‘Since Moses Mendelssohn, the “Church father” of Reform Judaism’, the Jews have managed to use the weapon of enlightened liberalism (Aufklärungsliberalismus) to destroy the religious national tradition of German society. Hence, the current völkisch anti-Semitism, explained Merz, should be viewed as rebellion against these disintegrative forces; a kind of counterattack (Gegenschlag).40 The Jews, according to their own definition, have arrived at two extreme positions: the limitation of Judaism exclusively to a religion, especially a liberal one of the Reform type, and thus the blurring of the national component; or Judaism as purely a Volk, like political 142


Zionists, with a consequent blurring of the religious component. Both positions were extreme – the reduction to religion in liberal dress or nationalism in secular dress – and were contrary to the aspirations of the Germans now seeking to reinforce their national identity and (since Merz is speaking for Protestants) their religious-national identity as well. On these grounds, Merz proposes accepting the laws aimed at enhancing the national and Aryan character, but in the political area only, and rejecting them in the area of the Church. Politically, the laws were justified, for the government of the Third Reich felt it was called upon (aufgerufen) to defend itself against the destructive influences of liberalism, and thus of Jewry. Such was not the case with the Church; for it, racist ideology does apply, for baptism can overcome biological and national divisions between people. On this point, says Merz, he differs from Wilhelm Stapel and the Deutsche Christen. On the basis of the Protestant State theory, according to Melanchthon and the Apologia Confessionis Augustana, the Church should be viewed as a public body whose components transcend racial or national origin and culminate in faith, and thus requires criteria different from those of the State yet complementing them.41 Here Merz comes to a conclusion resembling that of Bonhoeffer, and not very different from those of Künneth and Lilje: there must be a division of labor between State and Church, and what the State is allowed – in this specific case, the initiation of a racist policy for the protection of the people, and the reinforcement of the national revival in the Third Reich – the Church is not. The Church must continue to uphold the principle of baptism and the dogma of Heilsgeschichte. Consequently, not only is there no justification for removing Jews and Christians of Jewish extraction from pastoral or administrative tasks in the Church, but the Church’s mission of salvation can be completed, fully realized, only if the Jews accept Christianity, that is, the Church. Explicit support for this traditional view – even under the special historical circumstances of the autumn of 1933 – was provided by Heinrich Vogel, one of the leading younger members of the Confessional Church and an active opponent of the Deutsche Christen and of the antiChurch policy which by theological association he called the devil’s government (dämonischen Staat).42 In his November 1933 objections to incorporating the Aryan Provision into Church Law, Vogel reiterated that traditional thesis and declared that the Jews are the chosen people, and that the decisive factor in determining Church policy on the Jews must remain the hope for their total salvation – which means overcoming the stubbornness and infidelity of Israel (Israels Halsstarrigkeit und Untreue) and returning Israel to its true mission as prophecied in the Old Testament and realized in the New.43 143


D The changes in the legal and civic status of the Jews in Germany as a result of the Law for the Re-establishment of the Professional Civil Service of 7 April 1933, led to the removal of Jews from posts in the liberal professions, gradually, and at varying speeds in different places. In relation to the Church, it was known at the outset that the Aryan Provision applied to a very small number of cases. Official statistics indicate that of more than 18,000 evangelical clergy in 1933/34, there were twenty-nine of Jewish descent, of whom eleven had either served in their capacities before World War I, or fought at the front during it, and were therefore exempt from that law. Thus, the campaign related directly to only eighteen people, one-tenth of one percent of the pastorate, plus some cases of mixed families whose number has not been established. And yet the Aryan Provision led to ramified vigorous public polemics in which a number of prominent scholars and philosophers, mainly theologians and historians, took an active part. We are thus faced with a historical event that is of interest from two aspects: materially, that is, regarding the history of the Jews and the Church in the Third Reich; formally, that is, regarding the relationship between size and influence, quantity and quality, in historiography.44 From the first point of view, it appears that what was then called ‘the Jewish question’ occupied a significant place in the growth of opposition to the Nazi regime, to political myth, and to the racial ideology of the Third Reich – opposition which, at the beginning of 1934, culminated in the establishment of the Confessional Church. Furthermore, primary sources and present-day critical historiography show that the more prominent of those engaged in the struggle against the inclusion of the Aryan Provision in Church Law considered the Jewish question the test of the Church’s faithfulness to its principles and its mission in society and the State. Research has also shown, however, that the term ‘the Jewish question’ was related almost exclusively to converts, the offspring of converts, and to some extent mixed families. In the problem dealt with in this article, almost no attention at all was paid to ordinary Jews (Volljuden). From the second viewpoint, the formal one, the historical phenomenon studied here indicates that the impact of an event or of a historical process is not necessarily dependent upon its scope; that there is not necessarily a correlation between geo-historical conditions and political or theological positions. The size of a cause is no guarantee of the extent or intensity of its effect. Here an almost insignificant matter from the quantitative and statistical points of view became one of the main symbolic factors in the history of Jews and Protestants in the Third Reich. 144


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS B.A.

– Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, West Germany.

C.L.

– Cisler Library, Archives on the History of the German Church Struggle 1933–1945, Charles Grosberg Religious Center of Wayne State Univ., Detroit, MI, USA (now in New York).

J.K.

– Junge Kirche, Göttingen, Germany.

J.R.

– Jüdische Rundschau, Berlin, Germany.

L.B.I., N.Y. – The Archives of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York, USA. R.G.Bl.

– Reichsgesetzblatt, published by the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Berlin, Germany.

We are greatly indebted to the directors and to the staff of the following archives for their valuable assistance and for kindly permitting publication of their documents in this book. – Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, W. Germany. – Cisler Library, Archives on the History of the German Church Struggle 1933–1945, Charles Grosberg Religious Center of Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA. – The Archives of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York, USA. – The Archives of the World Council of Churches, Geneva.

NOTES 1. See German government publication Reichsgesetzblatt (henceforth R.G.Bl.) 3(1), Vol. 1, No. 34, pp. 175 ff.; and detailed study by Uwe Dietrich Adam (henceforth Adam), Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich, Tübingen: Schriften zur Sozial und Zeitgeschichte (Düsseldorf: Gérard Schulz Droste-Verlag, 1972), No. 1, pp. 51– 71; and also see the partial but useful collection of sources, Bruno Blau (henceforth Blau), Das Ausnahmerecht für die Juden in Deutschland 1933–1945 (Düsseldorf: Verlag A.W.Z.J., 1965), pp. 13 ff.; the law was published in full on 22 September 1933 in R.G.Bl., Vol. 1, p. 655. See excellent work by Joseph Walk, et al. (henceforth Walk), Das Sonderrecht für die Juden im NS-Staat, eine Sammlung der gesetzlichen Massnahmen und Richtlinien, Inhalt und Bedeutung (Heidelberg, Karlsruhe: C.F. Müller Juristischer Verlag, 1981), pp. 12, 13, 17, 25, 27–32, 36–9, 44, 46, 59, 61, 66, 75; the law of 7 April 1933 and the first regulation for its implementation of 11 April 1933 are reprinted in the most helpful annotated source collection, Documents on the Holocaust – Selected Sources on the Destruction of the Jews of Germany and Austria, Poland, and the Soviet Union, eds Yitzhak Arad, Yisrael Gutman, Abraham Margaliot, ‘Part One: Germany and Austria’, ed. A. Margaliot (henceforth Margaliot) (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1981), pp. 39–42. 2. R.G.Bl., Vol. I, p. 195; Blau, pp. 18 ff. 3. From the notes of Ludwig Feuchtwanger from the end of 1935 (the exact date is obliterated) which include a detailed memorandum on the stages in the policy of the Nazi regime that led to the law for ‘The Protection of German Blood and

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RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH German Honor’ of 15 November 1935, in the Feuchtwanger collection in the archives of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York (henceforth L.B.I., N.Y.), AR-C, 6001, No. 2. On the laws and regulations, see R.G.Bl., Vol. 1, p. 225; Adam, pp. 60, 70; Blau, p. 20. Feuchtwanger’s contention that the Nuremberg Laws developed, among others, from the Aryan Provision and the law against the proliferation of non-Aryans in schools and institutions of higher learning of 25 April 1933 is confirmed by a list of laws and regulations compiled by the office of Hans Pfundtner of the Ministry of the Interior in the Reich and Prussia, entitled ‘Übersicht über die Gesetze und Verordnungen in denen Anforderungen an die Reinheit des Blutes gestellt werden’ (‘Survey of the Laws and Regulations in which the Requirements of the Purity of Blood are Made’), No. 1, A, 2111/5015. The list, which starts with the Law for the Re-establishment of the Professional Civil Service of 7 April 1933 and contains 48 items, bears the date 3 June 1936; see Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, West Germany (henceforth B.A.), R. 18/5515, 6 pp; Letter from Adolf Hitler to President Hindenburg, 2 April 1933, B.A., R. 43 11/600, 5 pp. In this letter to Hindenburg (two days before the Officials Law was published), Hitler explicitly and frankly presented the political and ideological reasons for the policy of dismissal of Jews. Hitler stated that the removal of the Jews from the areas of law, medicine and the like is a necessary defensive measure, first of all to redress the social wrong done German citizens disadvantaged by the surplus of Jews beyond their percentage in the population, secondly, because the Jews as a foreign body with primarily economic power are sabotaging German efforts to cure the economy, society and the State, and thirdly, in the coming years the foreign and domestic policy of the Reich will need leaders and officials who can keep secrets, and the Jews cannot be relied on for that. On a similar though not identical policy in respect to Communists (because of Communist aspirations to topple the regime – Kommunistische Umsturzbestrebungen), see B.A., R. 18/5643. In regard to the Law for the Re-establishment of the Professional Civil Service, the first implementation order of 11 April 1933 in connection with §2 included a regulation for the dismissal of Communists; see R. G.Bl., Vol. I, p. 195. This study focuses on the ecclesiastical sector and does not deal with the various economic branches and liberal professions. In those, the Aryan Provision was accepted only gradually and in varying degrees in different regions. Until the end of 1934, or perhaps until the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, the central government did not succeed in applying the Aryan Provision in its entirety. See Jüdische Rundschau (henceforth J.R.) (Berlin), 28 November 1933, Vol. 38, No. 95, p. 867; 8 December 1933, Vol. 39, No. 98, p. 957; 20 February 1934, No. 15, p. 1; 13 March 1934, No. 21, p. 4; 14 September 1934, No. 74, p. 5; 27 November 1934, No. 95, p. 4. 4. The law was called ‘Gesetz über die Rechtsverhältnisse der Geistlichen und Kirchenbeamten’ in Junge Kirche. Mitteilungsblatt der Jungreformatorischen Bewegung (henceforth J.K.) (Göttingen, 28 September 1933), No. 14, pp. 166f. Beginning with issue No. 16, the journal that is vital to our subject is called Halbmonatsschrift für Reformatorisches Christentum, ed. Fritz Söhlmann (Berlin/ Lichterfelde/Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1933–41). See also the collection of documents likewise central to our subject: Kurt Dietrich Schmidt (henceforth Schmidt), Die Bekenntnisse und Grundsätzlichen Äusserungen zur Kirchenfrage – 1933 (Göttingen: Verlag Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1934), Vol. I, pp. 178 ff.; see also Die Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland und die Judenfrage, Ausgewählte Dokumente aus den Jahren des Kirchenkampfes, 1933 bis 1934:

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STATUS OF GERMAN JEWRY AT THE OUTSET OF THE THIRD REICH bearbeitet und herausgegeben auf Veranlassung des Flüchtlingsdienstes des Ökumenischen Rats der Kirche (Geneva: Verlag – Oikumene, 1945) (henceforth Oikumene), pp. 35 ff. 5. The churchmen who on 21 November 1933 established the Pastors’ Emergency Association (Pfarrernotbund) and subsequently the Confessional Church were united in their opposition to the Deutsche Christen movement and to the State’s efforts to intervene in the leadership of the Church. At that time, middle 1933/ beginning 1934, the Nazi-supporting Deutsche Christen were growing stronger and yet their opponents within the Church managed, at least for a time, to prevent the incorporation of the Aryan Provision into Church law. See authentic testimony in Joachim Gauger (henceforth Gauger), Chronik der Kirchenwirren, Gotthard Briefe (Eberfeld, 1935), Vol. 1, pp. 106–98. Also, for a typical press report on a public appearance by the first state-appointed Head of the Protestant Church, during which he temporarily shelved the Aryan Provision under pressure of its opponents, see ‘Ludwig Müller erster Lutherischer Reichsbischof ’, Wolffs Telegraphisches Büro, Nachtausgabe (Berlin: 27 August 1933), 84 Jahrgang, No. 2358, 4 pp.; see Dr. Christian Kinder, memorandum, ‘Gegen die Darstellungen des Pfarrerbundes’ (Berlin: 23 January 1934), 14 pp., B.A., R. 43/II/161. This internal memorandum, along with a statistical appendix, contains a brief description of the Deutsche Christen movement of this period. See, in addition, the excerpts on 1933–34 in the illuminating article by Kurt Meier (henceforth Meier), ‘Kristallnacht und Kirche – die Haltung der evangelischen Kirche zur Judenpolitik des Faschismus’, Gesellschafts und Sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe (Leipzig: Karl Marx Universität, 1964) Heft No. 1, 31 Jahrgang: 1964, pp. 95 ff. For background see also Kurt Meier, Die ‘Deutsche Christen’ – Das Bild einer Bewegung im Kirchenkampf des Dritten Reiches (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967), pp. 1–37; and the primary source ‘Der Arierparagraph in der Kirche’, J.R., 17 November 1933, Vol. 38, No. 92, p. 814. 6. Walter Künneth and Helmut Schreiner, Die Nation vor Gott – Zur Botschaft der Kirche im Dritten Reich, 3rd edn (Berlin: 1934), pp. 115–37. Walter Künneth’s polemical work against Alfred Rosenberg was later confiscated, the ‘Apologetische Zentrale’ in Spandau was closed and its property confiscated. Künneth was forced to resign his teaching position and was relegated to a modest pastoral post in Bavaria. The attack on Rosenberg, whose publication the Third Reich prevented, is included in Künneth’s book issued immediately after the war: Walter Künneth, Der grosse Abfall – eine geschichtstheologische Untersuchung der Begegnung zwischen Nationalsozialismus und Christentum, 2nd edn (Hamburg: Friedrich Witting Verlag, 1948), pp. 122 ff. Like Helmut Schreiner, Künneth in the early 1930s believed a distinction should be made between Hitler’s Nazism and the mythological trend of Alfred Rosenberg, which proclaimed the anti-Christian stand more explicitly. While the latter was publicly denounced by Protestants and Catholics objecting to a ‘folkish substitute-religion’ (völkische Ersatzreligion), on the eve of Hitler’s rise to power people like Künneth and Lilje still viewed the growing power of Nazism as ‘a divine gift of the national revolution’. They expressed their admiration for the new State, the Third Reich, and for the Führer, and urged support for them, such as in ‘Aufruf der Jungreformatorischen Bewegung zum Neubau der Kirche’, 9 May 1932. The first disengagement from this limited support of the regime apparently came in the wake of the growing strength of the Deutsche Christen and the fear of their gaining control of Church leadership, and in the wake of the State’s attempts to control the Church by means of the Aryan Provision. See Walter Künneth, ‘Revolution in der Kirche?’, J.K.

147


7. 8. 9.

10.

11.

(Berlin: 21 June 1933), No. 1, pp. 1–3, where Künneth still approves (bejaht) ‘Hitler’s state’. See also Hanns Lilje, ‘Theologische Existenz und Kirchliches Handeln’, J.K. (Göttingen: 14 September 1933), No. 12, pp. 137–47. In debate with Karl Barth, Lilje notes the difficulty of maintaining any extreme opposition in the current political circumstances when it was perhaps possible to obtain more for the independence of the Church by at least partial cooperation with the authorities. See also the comprehensive study of Klaus Scholder (henceforth Scholder), Die Kirche und das Dritte Reich, Vol. 1: 1918–1934 (Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Wien: Propylaen Verlag, Verlag Ullstein, 1977), pp. 177 ff., 406–8. ‘Über unsere evangelischen Jugendbünde … Bemerkungen zu Landesbischof Müller … der Schirmherr der evangelischen Jugendbünde in Deutschland …’, 29 August 1933, p. 2; C.L., A/6, No. 24. On the general background, see Uriel Tal, ‘Lutheran Theology and the Third Reich’, Speaking of God Today, eds. Paul D. Opsahl and Marc H. Tanenbaum (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), pp. 87–96. This argument on the ‘disintegrative power’ of the Jew was to be repeated countless times. It took root at the inception of modern anti-Semitism, during the last third of the nineteenth century, through a false interpretation of Theodor Mommsen. See Uriel Tal, Christians and Jews in Germany – Religion, Politics and Ideology in the Second Reich, 1870–1914 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1975), pp. 50 ff. Protestant theology abounds in claims that morality and society were collapsing under the influence of modern Judaism or the secularism produced by rationalism and modernism, which are in turn the result of liberal Judaism. This claim was reiterated by, among others, one of the important Tübingen theologians, Adolf Schlatter, Wird der Jude über uns siegen? Ein Wort für die Weihnachtszeit (Freizeiten-Verlag zu Velbert im Rheinland: 1935), 25 pp. Schlatter also comes to the conclusion that on this point of disintegrative influence, Judaism and Nazism have a common denominator, since both foster nationalism, biological descent and thus race; both deny that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah (see ibid., pp. 13 ff.). For a similar view expressed by Eduard Putz in a series of lessons under the aegis of the Folk Mission of Bavaria, see Völkische Religiösität und christlicher Gottesglaube, Bekennende Kirche, Schriftreihe, No. 4 (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1933), pp. 44–7. Scholder, pp. 348 ff. On this point, Künneth and his adversary Wilhelm Stapel agree. See also Wilhelm Stapel, Antisemitismus und Antigermanismus, über das seelische Problem der Symbiose des deutschen und des jüdischen Volkes (Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1928). In the mid-1920s, National-Socialism was gaining strength. The question of race and of the racial or biological nature of Jews was already arousing a relatively lively debate amongst the Jews themselves. The Central Association (C.V.) and other liberal Jewish groups stressed the absence of any scientific-empirical basis, the immorality, and the irrational and mythic character of the racist ideology. See, for example, the series of scholarly and popular essays, ‘Die Rassenfrage’, C.V.Zeitung (Berlin: 1925), Vol. 4, No. 34, pp. 565–70; No. 37, pp. 609–14; No. 41, pp. 669–74; also the contribution of Julius Schäffer, ‘Die Zerstörung des Volksgedankens durch den Rassenwahn – eine Abrechnung mit H. Günther, Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes’, Der Morgen (Berlin: Philo Verlag, 1925), Vol. 1, pp. 268–98. For a primary source on the positions prior to the Nazi rise to power, see Franz Weidenreich, ‘Das Problem der jüdischen Rasse’, Der Morgen, Vol . 7, 1931, pp. 78–96. Scholder, p. 349.

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STATUS OF GERMAN JEWRY AT THE OUTSET OF THE THIRD REICH 12. The title of the letter is ‘An das Gewissen der Evangelischen Kirche’; a photocopy of the original is preserved in C.L. A/8, No. 4, pp. 1–8. 13. Ibid. On the actual legal-civic status of the Jews, see Adam, pp. 46–71, who points out that the policy of dismissing Jews was implemented in various Lands and districts of Germany even before the ban of 1 April 1933. Important evidence on this is preserved in one of the drafts for a report by Leo Wolff, ‘Entwurf … zur Lage der deutschen Juden’, in the files of S. Adler-Rudler, No. 4, p. 18. Wolff confirms, almost in the same words, the description of Adam. For other sources, see the Wolff collection, L.B.I., N.Y., AR-C, 1616, No. 13. 14. Gauger, pp. 77–9; Schmidt, pp. 145 ff. A few months later, in August 1933, the active members of the Young Reformation Movement (VertrauensmännerVersammlung der Jungreformatorischen Bewegung) met in Berlin and approved a significant document, the ‘Sixteen Points for Church Policy’, composed on 30 July 1933 by Martin Niemöller, which contains relatively sharp criticism of the authorities and their inclination to seize control of the Church. See J.K., No. 9 (Göttingen: 14 August 1933), pp. 99–101. For the background to that development, see Friedrich Zipfel, Kirchenkampf in Deutschland 1933–1945 – Religionsverfolgung und Selbstbehauptung der nationalsozialistischen Zeit (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1965), p. 33. 15. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gesammelte Schriften (henceforth G.S.II.) ed. Eberhard Bethge (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1959), Vol. 2, pp. 54 ff. Cf. also Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Theologe, Christ, Zeitgenosse (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1967), pp. 338 ff. 16. The writing was completed in the middle of April and published in June; see G.S.II., pp. 43–53. See also the illuminating article by Ruth Zerner, ‘Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Jews: Thought and Action, 1933–1945’, Jewish Social Studies (New York: Conference on Jewish Social Studies, 1975), Vol. 37, No. 34, pp. 235 ff. 17. See the like in Bonhoeffer’s writings and Zerner’s article, and cf. Scholder, pp. 350 ff., and note 100 on p. 806, the latter an important textual correction by Bethge, who testifies that Bonhoeffer assumed that active opposition to the regime by the Church might become unavoidable. See also Jorgen Glenthoj, ‘Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Kampf gegen der Arierparagraphen’, Kirche in der Zeit – Evangelische Kirchenzeitung (Düsseldorf: October 1965), Vol. 20, No. 10, pp. 439 ff. 18. A photocopy of the original is preserved in C.L., A/No. 4; the exact date of Hanns Lilje’s statement is not marked on the document, but its content and language indicate that it was spoken in a sermon Lilje preached not long after the publication of his reply to Karl Barth (see note 6 above). Karl Barth’s essay appears in Zwischen den Zeiten, Beiheft No. 2 (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1933), 40 pp.; see also his polemics against the policy of ‘armistice’ (Burgfrieden) proclaimed in the spring and summer of 1933 by members of the Young Reformation Movement, among them Hanns Lilje, as well as theologians of various trends, national or even nationalistic (ibid., p. 31). Barth attacks the signatories of 9 and 18 May because of their declaration on a ‘willing assent to the new German State’ (freudigen Ja zum neuen deutschen Staat). While Barth called for an uncompromising theological stand, in particular against the Deutsche Christen movement, others, like G. Jacobi and H. Lilje, considered the declaration only a political tactic and hoped to obtain and even ensure more independence for the Church through an ‘armistice’. The reference to Luther refers to his declaration of 1543 on the limits of State

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19.

20. 21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

authority in matters entrusted to the Church, and the need to oppose any departure of the State from its authority. See Lilje’s above-mentioned statement, p. 14, and Luther, W.A., XI, 267/8; W.A., XV, 256; W.A., SVIII, 395. These texts deal with the principle of the division of labor between Church and State (as they existed in Luther’s time), and with the right – or even duty – of the Church to insist on that division with all its might (so männlich wir es können). See Schmidt, No. 14, p. 65, and Oikumene, pp. 41 ff., and see there also the names signed. The sacrament of Abendmahl occupied a smaller place in the struggle against the Aryan Provision than did the sacrament of baptism. The symbol the Teklenburg people refer to in regard to the need to enable converts to take communion with equal rights and not as ‘guests’ only is also dealt with (without any political connection) in a Sunday school curriculum prepared around the same time on Luther’s debate with Zwingli and others after 1526: ‘Das Heilsgut des Abendmahls … einen Genuss dess Leibes Christi auch durch die Unglaubigen …’, C.L., A/No. 8.9. Gauger, pp. 100, 286; Oikumene, pp. 35 ff., and see note 4 above. G.S.II., pp. 70 ff. The original version included, in §3, a declaration of loyalty to Friedrich von Bodelschwing. But for political reasons, and perhaps personal ones as well, that section was cut out. Cf. Scholder, p. 613, and other references there, p. 843, note 182. G.S.II., pp. 74–6; see also Wilhelm Niemöller, ed. (henceforth Niemöller), Texte zur Geschichte des Pfarrernotbundes (Berlin: 1958), pp. 22 ff.; and see the perceptive study by Leonore Siegele-Wenschkewitz, Nationalsozialismus und Kirchen, Tübinger Schriften zur Sozial- und Zeitgeschichte (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1974), pp. 159 ff. On the political background see the solid and informative work, J.R.C. Wright, ‘Above Parties’. The Political Attitudes of the German Protestant Church Leadership 1918–1933 (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), pp. 110 ff. Niemöller, pp. 20–2; Scholder, p. 615. The concept of spiritual non-violent opposition is taken from Luther’s political philosophy, W.A., VI, 265 (‘Von den guten Werken’, 1520), and W.A., XVIII, 395 (‘Sendbrief vom hartenBuchlein’, 1525). At the start of the struggle against the Deutsche Christen and in preparation for the Confessional Church, Karl Barth proposed the following: ‘What we first of all need today is a spiritual center of opposition, one which then could give meaning and substance to a church-political (opposition).’ See note 18 above, on Barth’s essay. On the difference between Karl Barth and Martin Niemöller regarding the desirable and possible policy against the Deutsche Christen and the government, see Scholder, pp. 706 ff. Evidently, Niemöller and his friends in the Pastors’ Emergency Association and later in the Confessional Church made a greater effort to take into account day by day concrete political conditions. This source is quoted at length in an unpublished doctoral dissertation which has become controversial in academic circles: Wolfgang Gerlach, Zwischen Kreuz und Davidstern – Bekennende Kirche in ihrer Stellung zum Judentum im Dritten Reich (Hamburg: 1972), p. 62. Gerlach points out that the Martin Niemöller collection of sources contains only a truncated version. Schmidt, pp. 189–91; Oikumene, pp. 67–9. The views and scholarly papers of some of the academics who signed the position paper entitled ‘Neues Testament und Rassenfrage’ have been dealt with by Jewish critics. See, for example, the evaluation of Hans Lietzmann, Geschichte der alten Kirche, Vol. 1, ‘Die Anfänge’, 1932; Vol. 2, ‘Ecclesia Catholica’, 1936 (Berlin and Leipzig), by Ludwig Feuchtwanger who shows that Lietzmann’s studies are written ‘from the

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26.

27. 28. 29.

well known viewpoint of an evangelical theologian’, including his deep-rooted repulsion by anything Jewish. Both studies view Judaism as ‘loathsome and blinded’ and thus, claims Feuchtwanger, Lietzmann was faithful to the spirit of the New Testament (John viii: 12–59); see Der Morgen, Vol. 11, 1935/6, pp. 555 ff., and the continuation in Vol. 14, 1938, pp. 202 ff. Another important scholar who signed the statement of opinion was Adolf Deissmann, author of ‘Evangelium und Urchristentum (Das neue Testament im Lichte der historischen Forschung)’, Beiträge zur Weiterentwicklung der christlichen Religion (München: J.F. Lehmann’s Verlag, 1905), p. 117. Deissmann reiterated the view that Paul’s theology should be seen as ‘the separation of Christianity from national Judaism’. That is the background for the opening of this article (ibid., p. 77) contending that there are no grounds for detaching the Old Testament from the New, as Novum Testament in Vetere Latent, that is, the New Testament is concealed in the Old, so that Christianity must be considered the complete fulfillment of the Pentateuch and prophets. Whoever tries to detach the New from the Old, Deissmann adds, is severing the vine from the roots. The two statements of opinion were printed and quoted in various places, both at the time of the polemics and after World War II. For the Marburg statement, see J.K., No. 14 (Göttingen: 28 September 1933), pp. 166–71; Schmidt, No. 70, pp. 178 ff.; Oikumene, pp. 47–55; and recently, in Walter Furst, ed., ‘Dialektische Theologie’ in Scheidung und Bewährung 1933–1936, Theologische Bücherei, Neudrucke, Vol. 34 (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1966), pp. 79–85. The Erlangen statement was printed in J.K., Vol. 1, 2 November 1933, pp. 271–4; Schmidt, No. 71, pp. 182 ff.; Oikumene, pp. 55–62. Also see Heinrich Hermelink, ed., Kirche im Kampf-Dokumente (Tübingen and Stuttgart: Rainer Wunderlich Verlag Hermann Leins, 1950), pp. 51–3. Oikumene, p. 52. Oikumene, p. 51. From a two-page untitled circular in the ‘Ost-Juden’ file in the Adler-Rudel collection, pp. 40–2. We have not been able to identify the author, but the contents are in the main identical, even in the choice of words, with the October 1933 memorandum to the Prime Minister (entitled ‘Denkschrift an den Herrn Reichskanzler’) and signed by the Orthodox leaders, Rabbis M. Schlesinger (Halberstadt), E. Munck (Berlin), S. Ehrmann (Frankfurt a/M), J. Breuer (Frankfurt a/M), M. Auerback (Berlin) and J. Rosenheim (Frankfurt a/M). In it, the Orthodox leaders explain that they too object to ‘the destructive spirit of nationalism’, and they too consider that blood and race features differentiate the Jews from other people. Yet, Jewish nationality is determined by religion, and consequently does not admit racist ideology, for a convert of an alien race (der Fremdrassige) can join the Jewish people. Further on, using expressions which later acquired fateful significance, the authors of the memorandum ask the authorities if the aim of the regime is indeed to ‘annihilate the German Jews’ (die deutsche Juden zu vernichten). The term Ausmerzung (eradication) also appears, though still in the sense of ‘eliminating German Jewry from the German people’. This significant document is preserved in B.A., R53/201 and reprinted from a copy belonging to the Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, in Margaliot, p. 59. The term ‘mental race’ which appears in the source cited in the text was borrowed from ‘ethnological research’ as the document states, and refers to the application of the term seelische Rasse to the Jews, in a well-known study of the time, Menschliche Erblichkeitslehre by Bauer, Fischer and Lenz. The book is quoted by racists and anti-racists alike, among them Arthur Ruppin in Die soziale

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30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36.

37.

38. 39. 40. 41.

Struktur der Juden, Vol. 1, ‘Soziologie der Juden’ (Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag, 1930), pp. 52 ff. In the late 1930s, spokesmen of the Zionist movement in Germany likewise used the words ‘race’ and ‘blood’, although with reservations, to characterize Jewish identity in terms acceptable to their contemporaries. This matter deserves special attention and is beyond the scope of this study, but see a representative sample of the primary sources, such as the 21 June 1933 official memorandum of the Zionist Executive in Berlin entitled ‘Äusserung der zionistischen Vereinigung für Deutschland zur Stellung der Juden im neuen deutschen Staat’, and an attached letter to Hitler by Kurt Blumenfeld, chairman of the Zionist movement in Germany, dated 29 June 1933 in B.A., R43/II/594. On the background of this document, see the excellent annotated source collection, Jehuda Reinharz, Dokumente zur Geschichte des deutschen Zionismus, 1882–1933, Schriftenreihe wissenshaftlicher Abhandlungen des Leo Baeck Instituts, No. 37 (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr-Paul Siebeck, 1981), pp. 530 ff. In the autumn of 1933, Dr Ignaz Zollschan submitted to the Hebrew University at Jerusalem a memorandum urging the establishment of an ‘institute for sociological and anthropological research’ that would focus on race; see J.R., Vol. 38, No. 64, 11 August 1933, p. 413. Cf. Wolfgang Tilgner (henceforth Tilgner), Volksnomostheologie und Schöpfungsglaube, Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Kirchenkampfes. Vol. 16 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), pp. 179–211. Tilgner, p. 190, and cf. Werner Elert, Karl Barths Index der verbotenen Bücher, Theologia Militans, No. 2, ed. Martin Doerne (Leipzig: A. Deichertsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1935), 22 pp. Oikumene, pp. 55–62. Oikumene, pp. 55–62. From the Adler-Rudel collection above, note 29, p. 18. Georg Wobbermin, ‘Zwei theologische Gutachten in Sachen des Arierparagraphen kritisch beleuchtet’. This article and Wobbermin’s attack against ‘The New Testament and the Race Question’, discussed above, appeared in the influential Theologische Blätter (Leipzig: 1933). The quotation here is from Oikumene, pp. 72–7; see p. 78 therein for further references. Rudolf Bultmann, ‘Der Arierparagraph im Raume der Kirche’, also appeared in Theologische Blätter (Leipzig: 1933) and is quoted here from Oikumene, pp. 78– 97. See also another edition of this important article in the anthology edited by Walter Fürst (note 26 above, pp. 86–101). Georg Merz, ‘Zur theoretischen Erörterung des Ariergesetzes’, Zwischen den Zeiten, Vol. 11 (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1933), pp. 529 ff., and in Oikumene, pp. 97–105. For a clarification of Merz’s religious-national but antiracist stand, cf. also Georg Merz, Bekenntnis, Glaubensgewissheit Lebensführung, Bekennende Kirche, Schriftenreihe, ed. Th. Ellwein & Chr. Scholl, No. 16 (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1934), 16 pp. and also in same series, Georg Merz, Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands, No. 31, 1935, 32 pp. Oikumene, p. 99. On the historical background of this argument see Uriel Tal (note 9 above), Ch. 3, pp. 121 ff. Oikumene, p. 100. Oikumene, p. 103. Lilje expressed similar views: ‘Die Kirche, proprie dicta, ist die Congregatio Sanctorum, dessen Existenz von äusseren Zeichen unabhängig ist, da sie durch den Glauben und durch bekenntnistreue Verwaltung der Sakramente, im Sinne der A.C. Art VII und VIII, als eine reine doctrina evangelii

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STATUS OF GERMAN JEWRY AT THE OUTSET OF THE THIRD REICH … zu verstehen sei’, in C.L., A/6, No. 25. 42. Heinrich Hermelink, op. cit., p. 243. 43. Schmidt, pp. 80 ff. Heinrich Vogel, who was later one of the heads of the Confessional Church, likewise attacked the Deutsche Christen after the famous ‘Sportpalast-Proclamation’ of 13 November 1933. Entitled ‘Sixty-Five Points of Protest’, Vogel’s critique closely resembled the statement of the Marburg theologians. Among other things, he repeatedly stressed that Christianity could not renounce the Old Testament, for the New Testament and the revelation of Jesus as the Messiah are already implicit and assured in the former, which is not Jewish property but an essential, prophetic, preliminary stage of the New Testament (p. 21). In regard to the definition of Jewish identity, he noted that Israel is neither a race nor a nation, but the chosen people which are unique in that Jesus, the Messiah of all the nations (p. 22), was born and crucified among them. The points were first published in Zwischen den Zeiten, edited by Georg Merz, at the end of 1933. See also Oikumene, pp. 113 f.; and an illuminating collection of sources on this matter and the Aryan Provision in Renate Maria, ‘Erklärungen aus der evangelischen Kirche Deutschlands und der Ökumene zur Judenfrage 1932–1961’, Der ungekündigte Bund, eds. Dietrich Goldschmidt and Hans Joachim Kraus (Stuttgart: Kreuz-Verlag, 1962), pp. 183–228. Vogel’s polemics were dealt with also in Uriel Tal, ‘Introduction’, in Johan M. Snoek, The Grey Book – a Collection of Protests (Assen, Van Gorcum & Co., 1969), pp. xxi ff. On the position of the Church in the Third Reich as a result of, among others, the legal and political developments described in this paper, see the document ‘Die kirchliche Lage im Reich’, 8 August 1935, Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Berlin, Rep. 90, P; reproduced in the most illuminative study by John S. Conway, Die nationalsozialistische Kirchenpolitik 1933–1945 – Ihre Ziele, Widersprüche und Fehlschläge (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1969), pp. 355–63. 44. See the seminal contribution of A. Roy Eckardt to the historiographical dialectics by which ‘quantitative considerations are supplemented and sometimes replaced by qualitative ones’, Alice L. Eckardt and A. Roy Eckardt, ‘The Holocaust and the Enigma of Uniqueness: A Philosophical Effort at Practical Clarification’, Annals AAPSS, 450, July 1980, p. 166, note 2.

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FACSIMILE 1 Attempt at transforming the racist policy of purifying German institutions by removing members of Jewish descent, such as expressed in the Aryan Provision, by the ‘Institute for the Study of the Jewish Impact on the Life of the Church’, also called ‘dejudaizing institute’ (Entjudungsinstitut), at Eisenach. Heinz Hunger, ‘Wesen und Methode einer rassenkundlichen Religionsgeschichte’, in: Christentum und Judentum – Studien zur Erforschung ihres gegenseitigen Verhältnisses, Georg Wigand Verlag, Leipzig: 1940, pp. 202, 203. Nature and Method of a Racist-scientific History of Religion.

FACSIMILE 2 Section of the Statement of Opinion by the faculty of theology at Marburg University of 20 September 1933, signed by Dean von Socen. The document was widely distributed and discussed immediately after its publication, among others, at the World Council of Churches, Geneva (WCC Archives, 9 Box, Deutscher Kirchenkampf: 1933–1939, Dossier II, File b, Appendix I). Opposing the introduction of the Aryan Provision into the Church and the discrimination of non-Aryan Christians (§§1/2; 3/2), the authors emphasize that the mission of Christianity is to equally embrace and include all mankind (Acts x:34 ff.; Gal. iii:28), first and foremost the Jews. Contrary to racism and in the spirit of the Epistle to the Ephesians, Christianity is called to create the unity between Jewish and Gentile Christians. Recent examples of converted Jews who rendered a blessed service to the Church were the theologian August Neander, the hymn composer Philip Spitta and the painter Wilhelm Steinhausen. Junge Kirche, Mitteilungsblatt der Jungreformatorischen Bewegung, Göttingen, No. 14, 28 September 1933, p. 170.

FACSIMILE 3 Section of the Statement of Opinion by Professors Paul Althaus and Werner Elert of the theology faculty at Erlangen University, of 25 September 1933. The authors, expressing the opinion of wider circles among conservative Lutherans, point out that while theologically the Church continues to understand the Jews as the suffering people chosen by the Lord to eventually be salvaged through faith in Jesus as the Messiah (Matt. 154


xxxiii:39; Rom. xi), in political reality and according to biological and historical criteria, they constitute a separate völkisch entity. Hence the Jew could hardly be expected to belong to the Volk-Church of the re-born German. Being in Christ does not really obliterate biological or social differences (I Cor. VII:20). Junge Kirche, Mitteilungsblatt der Jungreformatorischen Bewegung, Göttingen, No. 17, 2 November 1933, p. 273.

FACSIMILE 4 Appendix to the detailed memorandum ‘Against the statements of the “Pastors’ Emergency Association”’ by Deutsche Christen leader Christian Kinder of 23 January 1934, attempting to prove that the majority of Protestants support national socialist Reich Bishop Müller. Original in the possession of the Bundesarchiv, R. 43.II/161, Koblenz, Germany.

FACSIMILE 5 From the ‘Survey on the Peril of the Non-Aryan, Christian Refugees …’ by Dr. A. Freudenberg, executive secretary of the department for refugees at the Ecumenical Council of Churches, Geneva, April 1940. The aid to refugees organized by the Church, including Rev. Gruber’s office in Berlin, was mainly extended to Christians and non-Aryan Christians, since the ‘full Jews’, that is to say the non-converted Jews, could rely on their own organizations. Die Kirchen und die Nichtarischen Christen by Dr. A. Freudenberg, Ecumenical Council of Churches, Geneva: 1940, p. 5 (manuscript). Original in possession of the World Council of Churches Archives, 9 Box, Deutscher Kirchenkampf: 1933–1939, Dossier II, File b.

FACSIMILE 6 Chronological report on the application of the Aryan Provision to the Land Church of Sachsen. Landbishop Coch, in his sermon on 9 July 1933, described Adolf Hitler as the ‘good shepherd’ and true ‘Führer’ sent by the Lord, whose ‘Christianity of the deed’ inspires ‘a new faith’. On 16 September 1933, Reich Councillor Flor ruled that the introduction of the law for the restoration of German officialdom into the 155


Church was illegal, as well as contrary to the spirit of Church Constitution, among others because under the impact of the Deutsche Christens’ political theology Bishop Coch ordered the establishment of a ‘national socialist clergy’ (#1). Gotthard Briefe, ed. by Joachim Gauger, Eberfeld: 1935, Letters 146–58, Vol. XII, p. 202.

FACSIMILE 7 Letter dated 2 November 1933 from the office of the Secretary of State at the State Chancery, on behalf of Chief Privy Councillor von Bose, to Max Lenz, leading member of the Reich Association of Christian German Citizens of non-Aryan or not Pure Aryan Descent. The letter points to previous attempts made by the association of non-Aryan Christians, such as Lenz’s letter to Dr. Medicus of the Secretary of the Interior of 21 October 1933, to improve their legal and civic status by promising ‘hundreds of thousands’ of voters. Original in the possession of the Bundesarchiv, R. 43 II/1, Koblenz, Germany.

FACSIMILE 8 Letter by Martin Bormann, Secretary of the Führer, of 2 November 1944, to Hans Lammers, Chief of the Reich Chancellery, in which the policy of the Aryan Provision is being brought to its final culmination. In the light of the attempted coup of 20 July 1944, the Führer ordered the removal of officials in the highest positions who were of mixed and/or Jewish descent or somehow related to family members of mixed and/or Jewish descent; because people who are not of pure German blood will never be able to wholeheartedly approve of national socialist ideology and policy. In his ‘urgent’ and ‘confidential’ circular letter of 27 November 1944, Lammers urges all highest governmental authorities to carry out the Führer’s order immediately. Original in the possession of the Bundesarchiv, R. 43 II/599, Koblenz, Germany.

FACSIMILE 9 Express circular letter of 30 September 1935 by Wilhelm Frick, then Minister of the Interior to state governments (except Prussia) and other 156


state and Reich governmental agencies, in which a more systematic policy in matters of racism and intermarriage, eventually used for a more comprehensive implementation of the Aryan Provision, is inaugurated. The racist definition of a Jew is no longer limited to biological criteria. Rather the membership in the Jewish community of some or one of one’s spouse’s grandparents is another indication of being ‘volljüdisch’. Original in the possession of the Bundesarchiv, R. 43 II/595, Koblenz, Germany.

FACSIMILE 10 Petition of 5 November 1934 to the Führer by Berlin University theology professors, signed by Prof. E. Seeberg. Seeberg who in a letter to Hans Lammers as Secretary of State of the same day, as National Socialist Dean of Faculty of Theology at Berlin University, together with theologians such as Emanuel Hirsch and Georg Wobbermin, asked the Reich Chancellor to honour the Lutheran tradition of liaison between Church and State. This, Seeberg argued, should entitle the reorganized pro-Nazi Conference of Bishops of the German Evangelical Church (DEK) to the exclusive support of the government, as against the other powers in the Church, such as the churchmen who eventually were to establish the Confessional Church. Original in the possession of the Bundesarchiv, R. 43 II/163, Koblenz, Germany and photocopy (Section C-13/a) in the Cisler Library, Wayne State University, Detroit (now in New York).

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6 Religious and Anti-religious Roots of Modern Anti-Semitism

Leo Baeck in his essay ‘Romantic Religion’, perhaps one of his most important efforts, characterized romanticism as follows: ‘It elevated pure feeling above everything else, above all conceptual and all obligatory truth … It strove to drown in beautiful illusion more and more of reality with its commandment, and to let the profound seriousness of the tasks of our life fade into the mere musical mood, to let them evaporate into the floating spheres of existence…’ 1 Baeck’s description, while based on theological insight and psychological intuition, may help us appreciate also the historiographical significance of a specific type of primary and archival sources dating from the early days of modern anti-Semitism. It is a type of historical document shedding light on the immense impact which the romantic craving for a total surrender to irrationalism and sentimentalism had on violent massmovements such as modern anti-Semitism. A representative example is a speech made by Karl Heinz Forster, a young student in Berlin. Forster, one of the leading agitators of the first anti-Semitic student rallies in the early 1880s, told his enthusiastic and enflamed audience what made him support the still amorphous and sporadic anti-Semitic movement: ‘… I joined the D.V.P. because I felt that only here, among young, simple, straightforward Oppositionaere (non-conformists), I may find my inner freedom. With all my might I yearn; I yearn for all that has been maliciously destroyed by those cold-blooded, barren rationalists, by shrewd capitalists, by reckless manipulators, by petrified intellectuals, by all those Jewish perverts who live in a prison whose bars are simply abstract ideas; 171


by those who turned natural life into an unnatural mechanism, who debased intuition into formal, empty reasoning; who reduced the healthy human mind to a sick, ailing, decaying formula, good enough for some scientists or philosophers … like Novalis and our Turnvater Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, my whole being is but a deep, aching Schwaermerei, a longing for a world of vitality and magic, a world in which the mystery of love may engulf me, my soul, my body, my total life … what my German Volk needs is neither the agonizing Jewish moral conscience, a disease with which the whole Western world is afflicted, nor the Christian preaching of love, a theory needed by weaklings and cowards … what we really need is not a Moses or a Jesus, but a Siegfried and a Hermann, we need more of our genuine “Germanic heroism” …’2 Such documents may support the trend in present historiography which would have anti-Semitism understood in a more comprehensive sense; not simply as a particularistic anti-Judaism, but rather as an antiJudaism reflecting a universal crisis of both society and the intellect.3 Moreover, out of many primary sources like the one we quoted above, the question arises, whether modern anti-Semitism was a negation not just of Jews and Judaism, but also of Christianity; as Salo W. Baron has said: ‘It is unmistakable how the resistance against everything that Judaism and Christianity stand for has increased since the ’70s of the 19th century, and it is no exaggeration to say that this development prepared the ground for the Nazi assumption of power …’.4 On the other hand, however, history and experience alike have taught us that not anti-Christianity but rather Christian theology, Christian education, Christian politics, in fact the history of Christendom have played a substantial part in the emergence of anti-Semitism – not to mention additional episodes in the history of the abuse of power.5 What, then, is the relationship between the religious and anti-religious roots which gave rise to modern anti-Semitism? It is this question we wish to deal with in this paper, limiting ourselves to the historical rather than the purely theological aspects and only to Germany since the days modern racial anti-Semitism emerged. We intend to conclude the lecture with the question whether this historical analysis may perhaps help us also in acquiring an additional insight into the rise of irrationalism and prejudice in our own days. Recent historiography has paid much attention to the part Wilhelm Marr, the man who apparently coined the term ‘anti-Semitism’ in the 1870s,6 played in the emergence of that movement. However, it seems that attention should also be paid to the fact that Marr himself, as well as other fathers of early political and racial anti-Semitism – for instance, H. NaudhNordmann, Eugen Duehring, Adolf Wahrmund, Friedrich Lange, and 172

RELIGIOUS AND ANTI-RELIGIOUS ROOTS OF MODERN ANTI-SEMITISM

Theodor Fritsch – understood anti-Semitism not simply in terms of a rejection of Jews and Judaism, but also as a critique, and even a negation of Christianity and religion in general, with special emphasis on Roman Catholicism.7 One of the earliest polemical works against Marr dates from 1862. Called Der Christenspiegel von Anti-Marr, it was written by Moritz Freystadt, a member of Leipzig’s ‘Society for History and Theology’ in answer to Marr’s Judenspiegel. Freystadt interprets Marr’s rejection of Judaism as a rejection of monotheism, based on his anthropological view of God as a subjective product of our conscious life. Marr’s anti-religious analysis, Freystadt stated, had its roots in the teachings of Voltaire, Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer.8 With the intensification of anti-Jewish propaganda in the 1870s and 1880s inspired by a racial anti-Semitism, we also find increasing criticism of Christianity both as a system of beliefs and as an institution. In one of his popular works Religioese Streifzuege eines Philosophischen Touristen (1876), Marr, relying rather freely on the theories propounded by Voltaire and Feuerbach, observes that from the atheistic point of view it is evident ‘that Christianity, in its dogmas and precepts, is like every religion, a malady of human consciousness. The philosopher interprets … every religion as a product of man’s conscious life and relegates to the sphere of phantasy the so-called “revelations” of which all people boast depending on the state of their culture …’9 Drawing heavily on Friedrich Daumer,10 Marr argues that Judaism and consequently also Christianity are to be understood as a system of belief and superstition which demoralizes man and corrupts his original normal, healthy nature. Anti-Semitism, therefore, is a weapon against religion as such, including Christianity; its chief aim is to save the German nation and the whole world from Jewish domination and from the moral depredation of the Jewish ‘race’. Christians are not yet fully cognizant of the gravity of the problem, and they deceive themselves when they think that baptism or conversion can solve the Jewish question. The Jew’s aberrations are not religious; they are biological and hence incorrigible. The Jewish question, most early racists conclude, is a racial question. As they see it, Christianity having its roots in Judaism, is in no position to save the world from the perils of the Semitic-Jewish race.11 We here encounter a primary distinction or, better to say, antagonism between the doctrines of racial anti-Semitism and those of the Christian Heilsgeschichte. This racial law rejected the traditional notion that the Jews could still hope for redemption and for the renewed status of election assured them in the New Testament (Rom. 9–11) on condition that they acknowledge their error and accept the redeeming truth of Christianity. Already in the early years of racial anti-Semitism, in the seventies and 173


eighties of the last century, we find this inner contradiction between a racial theory which regards Jews as the ontological embodiment of an ineradicable evil and the views of the Heilsgeschichte holding this evil remediable if only the Jews could be persuaded that salvation comes from the Savior who was sent first of all to the Jews themselves and who atoned for the sins of all mankind.12 A significant move in resolving this contradiction was made by the Darwinian racial doctrines of Eugen Duehring and his anti-Semitic disciples. Whereas Marr had formulated the anti-religious meaning of modern Anti-Semitism in ominous terms of an inescapable Jewish domination of Europe and especially of Germany, Duehring adopted a so-called constructive approach by suggesting an alternative to Judaism in particular, as well as religion and religious culture in general – the alternative of race. In his writings after 1880, Judaism serves as the prototype of religion in general, including Christianity. While the primary aim of this antiSemitism was for Duehring the struggle against Jews and Judaism, it was also a struggle against monotheistic religions and all forces suppressing what he called ‘the instinct of the free, natural life’. In his anti-religious book, Wert des Lebens (1877), and especially in the third edition issued four years later, he points out that Christianity as a monotheistic religion is opposed to life and that all religious systems are nothing but pathological maladies ‘… ein Stueck weltgeschichtliche Krankheit des Geistes’. Christianity is thus not interested ‘in ennobling man but rather in suppressing his natural instincts’ as is evident, for example, in the ‘paradoxical Christian doctrine’ of the crucifixion of the flesh.13 Hence, it is absurd and hopeless to conduct the struggle against the Jews with Christian theological concepts borrowed from Judaism. Those Christians who attach importance to this, only deceive themselves, for it is plain that ‘… their anti-Semitism lacks the primary truth, namely, that Christianity itself is Semitism, a truth … that must serve as the terminus a quo for all genuine anti-Hebraism …’14 As long as Christians fail to disavow their Jewish source and their own Jewishness, they themselves will be tainted by Judaism’s anti-natural influence. But since Christianity is inextricably bound to its Jewish origins, and even the New Testament is nothing but a ‘racially Jewish tradition’ (eine rassenjuedische Ueberlieferung), the only hope for struggling humanity is to throw off once and for all this humiliating yoke – the religious heritage of Jews and Christians alike. Liberation from the Jewish-Christian heritage, on the one hand, and strengthening the Nordic German race, on the other hand, cannot be achieved through the process of education or civilization, but only by means of a racial purity which will cleanse man of his religious depravities and restore the vital sources of his instinctive life. Christianity is 174


inadequate for this struggle since it is itself ineradicably debased by its complicity with Judaism: ‘Those who would cling to Christian tradition are in no position to combat Judaism effectively … An understanding Christian cannot be a serious anti-Semite … The Nordic gods are rooted in nature itself, and no millennial diversion can eradicate them … We here see a vivid phantasy in operation that is incomparably loftier than the Jewish slave-imagination …’15 This basic thesis, that racial anti-Semitism must also be directed against Christianity, continued to be elaborated from the end of the 19th century on by Theodor Fritsch, as well as in a number of journals, among them the Antisemitische Correspondenz, which in 1888 became the official organ of the D.A.P. under the name of Deutsch Soziale Blaetter, the Antisemiten Katechismus later called Handbuch zur Judenfrage and, in the early years of the present century, the influential journal Hammer. The general tendency of this movement was directed against Christianity as an ecclesiastical institution, sometimes chiefly against the Catholic Church which was suspected of ‘ultra-montanist’ sympathies for a foreign ecclesiastical power. Christianity was also opposed as a system of beliefs and practices that tended to debilitate the German Aryan race in its struggle for existence. Finally Christianity was opposed because of its Jewish origins which corrode the whole human race by elevating spirit over body, rational thought over the wisdom of the senses, abstract ideas over direct and spontaneous experience, and the discursive intellect over the vital emotions. We find the same line of thought pursued by the followers of Duehring – Prof. Paul Foerster for one – as well as in circles connected with antiSemitic journals, like Heimdall, Freideutschland and Staatsbuerger Zeitung. Similar notions were to be encountered among some of the functionaries associated with the imperialistic Alldeutscher Verband, such as Friedrich Lange, the author of the anti-Christian Reines Deutschland (1893), and numerous writers, historians, orientalists, scientists, and students influenced by anthropology, materialism, and Darwinism. A popular exposition that reveals the national and Romantic roots of this ideology appeared in the Hammer (Oct. 1908), and reads in part as follows: ‘… What shall we do with a Christ whose kingdom is not of this world? A Bluecher, a Gneisenau, a Koerner, and Arndt can always be useful for Germany, but not a Christ. The God who was called upon at Leuthen, Leipzig and Sedan was not the God of love, nor the God of Abraham. Christ comforts the lowly, the weak and the sick. We too are sorry for these poor folks and try to alleviate their condition; but they are of no use to us and to our future. They only degrade that which we deem to be the highest good – the German character. Strength, health, the joy 175


of life are what we need. The kingdom of Heaven can be left to the lowly and the wretched, as long as we possess the earth. Give the Bible to the sick and lonely, the shut-ins and the scholars who wear their faces on their backs …’16 Similarly, the anti-Semitic propagandist Dr. Ernst Wachler writes in the same journal (Jan. 1911): ‘… Away with the stories and tales, the doctrines and precepts of Jews as well as Christians! … Not only the free-thinkers, but our basic Aryan instincts demand: the Church with all its trappings must be done away with …’17 In the course of this debate the anti-Semitic movement displayed a readiness to reconcile itself to the continued existence of Christianity on condition that it substitute the biological values of the Aryan race for its Jewish origins, as was recommended by the ideologues who made Jesus a member of the Aryan race – Julius Langbehn, Max Bewer, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Leopold Werner, and later Dietrich Eckart and the ‘German Christians’ in the days of the Third Reich.18 At this point, before we proceed to the last phase in this development, the phase of the Third Reich, a question arises as to the historical circumstances in which this anti-religious tendency of modern anti-Semitism emerged. The answer many historians have offered is that the socioeconomic situation prevalent at the time when political and racial antiSemitism began, caused this ideological development. According to Paul Massing, the author of one of the best works on the rise of political antiSemitism in the Bismarckian and Wilhelminian Era, the emergence of political and racial anti-Semitism resulted directly from the rapid process of industrialization and urbanization. Massing emphasizes – as do also Eva Reichmann and Peter Pultzer – the growth of corporate business and science in socio-economic developments. This process generated instability and insecurity; boom periods – waves of prosperity and of energetic financial speculation – were followed by times of crisis, like the depressions of 1873, 1877, 1900–1901, and 1907–1908.19 Still, as smooth and convenient as such an explanation may look, it is doubtful that it can stand the scrutiny of an objective historical analysis. On the one hand, as Fritz Stern in his excellent study on ‘Money, Morals and the Pillars of Bismarck’s Society’ has proved, socio-economic factors, including the famous Gruenderzeit and the successive waves of prosperity and depression during the last third of the 19th century, had a deep influence on both political and intellectual life in the whole Germanspeaking area.20 Moreover, historiography has also shown the deep impact of the economic situation on the growth of anti-Semitism and Nazism, especially after the collapse of the Weimar Republic. It was the rapid decline in industrial production after 1929 that tremendously 176


swelled the ranks of jobless workers and professionals during the early 1930s.21 Yet, it seems that more attention should be paid to the fact that these socio-economic crises, especially in the 1870s, the 1890s, and at the beginning of the 20th century, are reflected less in the rise of political and racial anti-Semitism, than in the rapid growth of three other camps, three of the major political powers in those days: the Socialists and Social Democrats on the one hand, and on the other hand two clerical powerstructures, the two pillars on which the Kaiserreich rested: the Protestant Conservatives and the Catholic Zentrum.22 The historical situation which influenced the rise of the early political and racial anti-Semitic parties was entirely different. To begin with, except for Berlin, it is most difficult to find any significant geo-political correlation between those areas which were directly affected by the contemporary economic crisis and those areas where political and racial anti-Semitism gained lasting power, the states of Hesse and Saxony, and some of the provinces of Greater Prussia. Even more important for the attainment of a correct historical perspective on the role of economic crises in the emergence of modern anti-Semitism is that, by the evidence of some of the political leaders themselves, it was not the economic crises that brought about this new political, racial and anti-religious antiSemitism, but completely the reverse, it was precisely the anti-Christian and anti-religious ideology of racial anti-Semitism which hampered the first anti-Semitic parties in their efforts to utilize the economic crisis for their political development. Leaders like Adolf Stoecker and Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg realized that Germans were not ready for an anti-Semitism which negated the religious basis of social, political, and national life even if it were modernized or secularized. What still attracted the masses was the classical traditional life. What still attracted the masses was the classical, traditional Christian anti-Judaism, however adapted it may have become to the new economic situation. The history of Stoecker’s movement in the 1880s, and even more so that of the Conservatives, the Bund der Landwirte, to some extent the Free Conservatives, and later perhaps also the Wirtschaftliche Vereinigung, may sustain this evidence quite substantially.23 Both the anti-Semites and the clerical power-structures – despite the differences between them – looked for support to the lower middle classes; to small shopkeepers and merchants who were disadvantaged by the big department stores; to the old-fashioned craftsmen who could hardly survive the competition from the increasingly industrialized production; to the growing centers of immigrants from the countryside who were lured by the urban centers, yet could not become absorbed by the still limited urban industries; to the frustrated and disappointed masses of workers and even professionals who could not find their place 177


in the rapidly changing society of the years prior to the Third Reich. The anti-Semites and the clericals were at one also in their systematic use of anti-Jewish agitation and actual policy for the same purpose, to suggest to their potential voters a handy, familiar scapegoat. Yet, there were striking differences between these two kinds of anti-Jewish ideology and policy. One of the differences was that the Christian political parties, the Protestant Conservatives in particular, continued to build their cause on traditional foundations – on the ideal of a Christian state, a state exclusive to those who had not only inherited the position of ‘Chosen People’ once held by the Jews, but as Adolf Stoecker claimed, who have now conferred this ‘Chosenness’ on the Kaiserreich, the rising Christian Nation-State.24 Contrary to the Conservatives, modern political and racial antiSemitism constructed its political program on the basis of a new antiJudaism, one, which was rooted in Christian tradition but which also renewed pagan and pre-Christian motifs and thereby turned against Christianity itself, against Christian theological as well as socio-political forms. During the Kaiserreich, as an examination of voting patterns clearly indicate, the German-speaking world (der deutsche Sprachbereich) was not yet ready to take the decisive step towards the destruction of what was called, since the days of Bismarck, das praktische Christentum.25 That would take another generation, a postwar generation, an accelerated development of cultural and political secularization, to say nothing of another socio-economic crisis at the end of the 1920s. Only then would the masses, led by intellectuals, by men of learning in the sciences and the arts, be ready to accept a political and racial anti-Semitism based on different ontological premises. It is this new anti-Semitism to which we turn now, this new anti-Semitism that culminated in the Third Reich. What was the cognitive structure, as well as the actual policy, by which modern anti-Semitism in the Third Reich opposed religion, opposed Judaism as the origin, the prototype and the actual embodiment of monotheism, and consequently (although, it goes without saying, in an entirely different way and with entirely different consequences) opposed Christianity as well? It was not simply a negation of religion. Instead, Nazism appropriated the messianic structure of monotheism, especially of Christian monotheism, deprived it of its authentic content, reversed the meaning of the redemptive rhythm of Christianity, and went on to exploit that new pseudo-religion for its own political ends, in a most effective way. The immediate foundations of this ideological and political development were laid quite systematically by Richard Wagner and his disciples in the Bayreuther Circle, then by Houston Stewart Chamberlain and later by Dietrich Eckart and Alfred Rosenberg who each served as a link 178


between Wagner and Hitler, and in addition, by the teachings of Paul de Lagarde, Julius Langbehn and the Rembrandtschool, Wilhelm Stapel, Hans Schomerus, Hans Gunther, Erich and Mathilde Ludendorff, and finally Ernst Bergmann and Joachim Hossenfelder.26 One of the earliest examples of the anti-theological structure of this ideology is the so-called ‘exegesis’ to Isaiah (40:3–5), by the influential agitator and anti-intellectual, Max Bewer. In one of his speeches at the beginning of this century, a speech which testifies to the growing influence of Houston Chamberlain’s ‘The Foundations of the 19th Century’, Bewer stated that with the emergence of modern anti-Semitism a new era of ‘racial prophecy’ (rassische Verkuendigung) had begun. Until the beginning of the 19th century, said Bewer, the prophetic promise of Israel’s future restoration with the coming of the Messiah had been adopted and continued by Christianity. According to Christian tradition (Matt. 3:3, Mark 1:3, Luke 3:4–6, John 1:23), Isaiah’s prophecy ‘Clear Ye in the Wilderness the Way of the Lord …’ (40:3–5), refers to John the Baptist who was believed to have prepared the way for Jesus the Christ. Now, however, continued Bewer, the new prophecies of Fichte, Jahn and Wagner revealed that the eschatological status of Judaism, previously transferred to Christianity, had been bestowed upon the Aryan race, the ‘Superior Race’ called the Germanic Volk.27 It was this ideology that later, with the establishment of the Third Reich, culminated in official curricula such as the dictation given in 1934 to the third grade of an elementary school: ‘Just as Jesus redeemed mankind from sin and hell, so did Hitler rescue the German people from destruction. Jesus and Hitler were persecuted, but whereas Jesus was crucified, Hitler rose to be the Chancellor … Jesus worked for heaven, Hitler for the German soil …’28 This pseudo-gospel ultimately came to preach both a new apocalyptic and simultaneously a redemptive political messianism. One of the first definitive and effective steps toward its institutionalization was taken on the eve of the Third Reich – during the year 1932, when the Deutsche Christen published their first pseudo-religious statements.29 It was only then that religious, moral and educational authorities began to realize how overpowering, how magnetic and hypnotic these pseudo-messianic Verheissungen were in the eyes not only of the youth, but of a growing number of adults and presumably mature intellectuals as well. One of the first public protests on behalf of Christian life in the Third Reich – again, as we all know today, too late and too weak – was made by the Bekenntnissynode der Deutschen Kirche, in its Botschaft (Part 1, #2, 5), as adopted by the Conference held in Berlin-Dahlem on 19–20 October 1934. The ‘Message’ stated: ‘… The National Church that the Reichsbishop has in view under the slogan: One State-One People-One Church, simply means that the Gospel is no longer valid for the German 179


Evangelical Church, and that the mission of the Church is delivered to the powers of this world … The introduction of the Fuehrer principle into the Church and the demand of unconditional obedience based upon this principle are contrary to the Word of Scripture and bind the officials of the Church to the Church polity instead of to Christ.’30 A short time later, on 4–5 March 1935, the Bekenntnissynode der Evangelischen Kirche der altpreussischen Union published its protest against the pseudo-religious authority Nazism had assumed: No. 1 of their declaration stated: ‘… the first commandment reads “I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods beside me” … we obey this commandment alone … The new religion is a revolt against the first commandment …’31 During the following years the pseudo-religious foundations of Nazism and of its totalitarian regime continued to be systematically elaborated. In May 1936, the Assembly of Die Geistlichen Mitglieder der Vorlaeufigen Leitung der Evangelischen Kirche would address a memorandum to the Fuehrer, complaining that Nazi policy was not only directed against the Church as an institution, but was actually designed ‘to de-Christianize the German people’ (das deutsche Volk zu entchristlichen). The assembly could quote, among other things, the words of Reichsorganisationsleiter Dr. Robert Ley: ‘… The Party lays total claim to the soul of the German people … and hence we demand the last German, whether Protestant or Catholic.’32 At this point, the last and most crucial question of our topic arises. What do these anti-religious and anti-Christian elements in modern antiSemitism teach us about the very nature of anti-Semitism? Since the persecution and annihilation of Jews represented something universalistic, a total negation of humanism and monotheism and consequently also a negative attitude to authentic Christianity, are we to conclude that modern anti-Semitism is an entirely new phenomenon, or a renewal of pagan pre-Christian anti-Judaism, but in either case alien to the traditional Christian attitude toward Jews? Or should political and racial antiSemitism be understood as only a continuation, although in a new absolutist and totalitarian guise, of the historical antagonism of Christianity against Judaism? In recent years, a growing number of historians, theologians and psychologists have devoted themselves to the study of this problem. While most scholars agree that both elements, Christian and anti-Christian, are represented in modern anti-Semitism, it seems that contemporary scholarship is divided in regard to the essential character of this interrelationship. One school emphasizes, as A. Roy Eckardt said: ‘There can be little serious doubt that Christendom’s traditional antipathy to the Jews is the major 180


historical root of anti-Semitism in the Western world. Historically speaking, anti-Semitism derives from “the conflict of the Church and the Synagogue”. Here is the Crime of Christendom. Such distinguished and authoritative historians as James Parkes and Jules Isaac have chronicled this fact definitely …’33 But, then, Eckardt – correctly it seems to us – also shows additional ‘extra Christian’, or to use Bernhard E. Oisen’s remark on Jules Isaac: ‘pre-Christian’ roots of anti-Semitism. In common with other scholars, like Franklin H. Littell, Eckardt links a historical and a theological analysis and concludes that anti-Semitism also constitutes a Christian protest against the Jewishness of Jesus and against pure monotheism represented by the Jews; it is a revolt of residual paganism which has persisted in Christianity. Quoting Franz Rosenzweig, Eckardt agrees with Will Herberg that ‘Whenever the pagan within the Christian soul rises in revolt against the yoke of the Cross, he vents his fury on the Jew’.34 The other school, while also emphasizing, as Hanna Arendt, Eva Reichmann, and Edward Flannery do, the anti-Christian elements in racial anti-Semitism, arrives at conclusions only apparently remote from the above. This approach has been elaborated from a historical point of view by Salo W. Baron, from a theological point of view by the late Karl Thieme, and from a psychoanalytical aspect in Sigmund Freud’s controversial theory on the pagan, hence also anti-religious elements in anti-Semitism. According to Freud, in his last major work ‘Moses and Monotheism’, antiSemitism functions, among other applications, as a catharsis. It gives release to a repressed paganism, a pre-Christian heritage of the Gentile, which remained latent, mostly subconsciously, in Christianity. By negating, hating, ridiculing, fighting, and then also persecuting the Jew, the Christian revenged himself on those he held to blame for his alienation from his Gentile past, his original roots in nature. Therefore, by turning against the Jew, anti-Semitism was also able to attack the Christian conquerors and baptizers of the past, or the moral authority of Jesus as the Christ in the Christian’s own present. Unable to meet the high moral standards that Christian theology demands from the Christian, and at the same time unable to break completely with this authority, the Christian fights Christ, or even himself, by persecuting the Jew. Psychologists like Rudolph M. Lowenstein and authors like Maurice Samuel have also shown that anti-Semitism turned in a paradoxical, and perhaps twisted way, against Christianity itself, mainly thanks to a revival of vestigial pagan elements which remained latent, often more manifest than latent, in the Church. Recent historical scholarship too has concluded that modern antiSemitism discovered in Judaism, as Hitler told Rauschning, the roots of religion, the roots of moral conscience. Hence it turned also, although as 181


mentioned before, in an entirely different way and of course with entirely different consequences, against the fruit borne by those roots, against Christianity. Shmuel Ettinger in his studies on the attitude of Deism towards Jews and Judaism, and Arthur Hertzberg in his work on the antiJewish aspects of the European – and especially the French – Enlightenment have marshalled considerable evidence that non-religious rationalism tended to culminate in anti-religious anti-Semitism. Pre-Christian antiquity and post-Christian Enlightenment both became again united in a new historical reality. This very development, the secularization of anti-Semitism, continued in the 19th century; yet turning against 18th century rationalism mainly through romanticism, materialism and later, racism, it achieved its climax in the pseudo-religious character of Nazism in the Third Reich, as we mentioned before, by exalting anti-Semitism unto a comprehensive negation of all religion. Against this background we may now suggest an additional answer to the question about the relationship between Christianity and modern political and racial anti-Semitism. Unlike the purely theological approach, the historical discipline enables us to turn away from the dogmatic aspects of religious faith, and instead to investigate the dynamic aspects of the development of faith. From this point of view, the answer to our question lies less in the static essence of Christianity than in its changing history. In history we might find traditions that originated in the barbarism of the pagan world, turned anti-Christian by that very paganism, then continued as anti-Jewish attitudes and policies on the part of the Christian world – and finally culminated dialectically into a destructive force, that was directed not only against Judaism, but through Judaism against humanity and hence also against Christianity. One of these powerful antiJewish elements rooted in Christianity – which after having become secularized became an effective means used by totalitarianism against the Jews, both as Jews and as the symbol of non-conformism, as the embodiment of the human quest for a free existence, for the right to be different – is the very concept of collective guilt. Its origin is the idea of guilt for the Crucifixion of God who took on Flesh (Matt. 27:25; I Thessalonians 2:15) – a guilt which lies as a heavy yoke on the shoulders of all the Jews till the end of the days. It was then applied in public life by various Church Synods in the early Middle Ages and the two Lateran Councils in the 12th and 13th centuries with their succession of repressive measures and harassments directed against the Jews. It then culminated under the influence of blood libels (such as Andreas of Ryn, 1462, and Simon of Trent, 1475) in the Late Middle Ages and (under such as TiszaEssler, Korfu, Xanten, Polna, Konitz) in modern times – down to the days of the Third Reich. 182


By using the very pattern of a Collective Guilt the Christian projected on to the Jew the frailties common to all human beings. This mechanism enabled the Christian to see his own weakness reflected in the Jew so that by persecuting the Jew, moreover by exterminating him, the Christian could obliterate his own image as a sinner, and cleanse his conscience from the burden of guilt. These patterns of thought and conduct, these models of generalization, projection – and prejudice – that originally were established by Christianity with respect to the Jews – were finally employed by the Nazi regime also against Humanity, and consequently against the Church herself, whenever the racial anti-Semites attacked her ethical Judaic foundation. Let us conclude with one final remark on the possible implications of this historical analysis for a further study of some contemporary Western phenomena, such as social life obscured by prejudice and irrationalism or by outbursts of hatred and violence. I do not feel competent to pronounce any value judgement on our current scene, nor do I feel that the analytic tools we used in this research, the tools of historiography, are sufficient to penetrate into the mostly inarticulated experience of our youth today, into a life of agitation and excitement, of high expectations and deep disappointments, of delight and pain, of sincere hopes for a new, better world and of escape from the responsibility for these hopes. I am afraid that any comparison between different historical situations – as fascinating as it may be – might mislead us in our attempt to understand our times and to avoid a new disaster. Even so, perhaps it is not improper to suggest that a study like the one we have attempted here may sharpen our vision, may make us more alive to the complexities confronting us.35 Romanticism, when exalted ad absurdum, when transformed into a single-minded absolutist irrationalism, leads, as history has shown time and again, to atrocities. This kind of romantic irrationalism has meant a yearning for freedom yet not for, but rather away from reason; a yearning for freedom from rational codes of behavior, forms of thought, and ways of life; it has meant a yearning for the abolition of the need to meet the scrutiny of reason. Romantic irrationalism has meant release from any rational and logical restraint, from the restrictive norms of responsibility. Romantic irrationalism has meant an attempted return to raw nature, to primordial powers, to mythological symbols, to the glory of ‘Blood and Soul’, to the mystique of ancient forests, to moon-worship and sun-worship, to the all-embracing soul of the Cosmos. Romantic irrationalists have dreamed about a fusion of man and nature, man and cosmos, ultimately about man’s total engulfment by nature and cosmos. They have construed society as an organism, and seen 183


social life as a plantlike unfolding of a mystical soul embedded in nature and cosmos. While actual historical reality does not repeat itself, patterns of thought and action should perhaps be understood in terms of recurrent patterns. One of them, as we have seen, is that in romantic irrationalism thought is converted into emotion, reason into feeling, rational calculation and planning displaced in favor of adventure and unrestrained impulse. The theoretical and intellectual framework of concepts and ideas is destroyed, melted, and moulded into unlimited sentimentality into an all-pervasive Mood and Passion. NOTES 1. ‘Romantic Religion’ in: Baeck, Leo, Judaism and Christianity, Essays by Leo Baeck, translated with an introduction by Walter Kaufmann, Philadelphia (J.P.S., 1958), p. 195. See the introduction by Akiva Ernst Simon to the Hebrew edition of L. Baeck’s Essence of Judaism, Jerusalem (Bialik, 1968), pp. 7–54; also Walter Kaufmann’s ‘Biographical Introduction’, Leo Baeck, op. cit., p. 16. 2. Family Archives (henceforth cited: F.A.) 2/d. This document, with much additional source material, was put at my disposal by the late Eleonore Sterling, one of the finest historians in this field. See also: Tal, Uriel, Christians and Jews in the Second Reich (1870–1914) – a Study in the Rise of German Totalitarianism, Jerusalem (Hebrew) (H.U., Magnes Press: 1969) (henceforth cited: Christians and Jews), p. 208, n. 60 – This trend of dumpfes Gefuehl und blindes Wollen had a strong impact on German youth between the two world wars, cf. the fourth chapter Vom Wandervogel zum Jungenstaat in: Pross, Harry: Die Zerstoerung der deutschen Politik-Dokumente 1871–1933, Frankfurt am Main (Fischer: 1960), pp. 146 ff., pp. 161–2. See also: Laqueur, Walter, The German Youth Movement and the Jewish Question in: Year Book of Leo Baeck Institute, Vol. VI, London, 1961, pp. 193 ff. (cited henceforth: L.B.I.Y.B.). 3. Baron, Salo W., Modern Nationalism and Religion, New York, Philadelphia, 2nd edition (Meridian and J.P.S.: 1960), pp. 68 ff., 77, 220 ff., 240 ff. Ettinger, Shmuel, ‘The Roots of Modern Anti-Semitism’, in: Molad, Jerusalem, New Series, Vol. II (XXV), No. 219, January–March 1969, pp. 323 ff. (Hebrew). Also, on the earlier historical and universalistic roots of Modern Anti-Judaism, see S. Ettinger: ‘The Beginnings of the change in the Attitude of European Society towards the Jews’ in: Scripta Hierosolymitana, Vol. III, Jerusalem, 1961, pp. 193–219. Hertzberg, Arthur: The French Enlightenment and the Jews, New York, London and Philadelphia, 1968, Ch. IX, pp. 268 ff. Mosse, George, The Culture of Western Europe – the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Chicago, 1961, Chs. I–XI. Idem: ‘The Image of the Jew in German Popular Culture – Felix Dahn and Gustav Freytag’, in L.B.I.Y.B., Vol. II, pp. 218–27. Idem: The Crisis of German Ideology – Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich, New York (Grosset and Dunlap: 1964), pp. 297–311. Stern, Fritz, The Politics of Cultural Despair – A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961, pp. 41, 42; cf. pp. 139, 143, 144, 145, 163, 199. See also F. Stern’s analysis of the intellectual and anti-intellectual climate in Germany at that particular time: ‘The Political Consequences of the Unpolitical German’ in: History, No. 3, New

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RELIGIOUS AND ANTI-RELIGIOUS ROOTS OF MODERN ANTI-SEMITISM York, 1960, pp. 104 ff. Also, F. Stern: ‘Money, Morals and the Pillars of Bismarck’s Society’ in: Central European History, Vol. III, Nos. 1/2, March 1970, pp. 49 ff. Talmon, Jacob, The Unique and the Universal – Some Historical Reflections, London, 1965, Ch. IV: ‘Mission and Testimony, the Universal Significance of Modern Antisemitism’, pp. 119 ff. 4. Baron, Salo W., in: Deutsche und Juden, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp: 1967), pp. 84–5. On the historical background of the term ‘anti-Christian anti-Semitism’ see: Christians and Jews, Chapter V, pp. 175 ff. Cf. also: Tal, Uriel, ‘Introduction’ to: The Grey Book – a Collection of Protests against anti-Semitism and the Persecution of the Jews issued by non-Roman Catholic Churches and Church Leaders during Hitler’s Rule, by Johan M. Snoek, Assen (van Gorcum: 1969) (cited henceforth: The Grey Book), pp. i–xxvi. For the study of additional primary sources from the days of early political and racial anti-Semitism in which the terms ‘non-Christian’, ‘un-Christian’ or ‘anti-Christian’ anti-Semitism occur, see the periodical Mitteilungen des Vereins fuer Abwehr des Antisemitismus, Berlin, 1891, No. 17, pp. 150 ff.; 1896, No. 19, p. 149; 1898, No. 7, p. 54; 1899, No. 12, p. 9; 1901, No. 17, pp. 329 ff.; 1902, No. 23, p. 168; 1904, No. 4, pp. 25 ff., No. 16, pp. 126–7; 1906, No. 29, p. 220; 1909, No. 19, p. 166. Massing, Paul, in his Vorgeschichte des Politischen Antisemitismus, Frankfurt am Main, 1959, p. 99 (translated by Felix J. Weil), shows that the conservative Protestants also differentiated between a ‘justified’ anti-Semitism, and ‘un-Christian’ hatred of the Jews (berechtigtem Antisemitismus und unchristlichem Judenhass). Karl Kupish distinguishes between modern, Christian anti-Semitism which is but a continuation of the earlier konservativen Fruehantisemitismus and radical, racial and violent anti-Semitism; see his important source collection: Quellen fuer Geschichte des deutschen Protestantismus, 1871– 1945, Muenchen, Hamburg, 1965, pp. 181–90. Hannah Arendt, in her Elemente und Urspruenge totaler Herrschaft, Frankfurt am Main, 1955, p. 10, not only differentiates but separates between anti-Christian racial anti-Semitism and the traditional hatred of the Jews. 5. Parkes, James, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue – a Study in the Origins of Anti-Semitism (Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia: 1961), Appendix I, pp. 379 ff. At the same time, Parkes also points out the secular historical factors which brought about anti-Semitism, in addition to its religious roots, cf. Parkes, James, An Enemy of the People: Anti-Semitism (New York: 1946), pp. 63 ff. See also the comparative list of Canonical and Nazi anti-Jewish measures drawn up by Raul Hilberg in his work: The Destruction of the European Jews (Chicago: 1961), pp. 5–6. Roy Eckardt in his work Elder and Younger Brothers – the Encounter of Jews and Christians, New York (Scribner’s: 1967), pp. 12–13, presents this list and concludes that the Nazis ‘… did not discard the past; they built upon it … this fact makes ludicrous any unqualified claim that the Nazis were the enemies of Christendom’. As to the general historical connection between Christianity and modern anti-Semitism, Eckardt points out that ‘To refer to modern antisemitism as a “post-Christian creation of pseudo-culture and massmanipulation” is to utter a half-truth. Obviously, anti-semitism directly violates Christian moral standards. But to identify modern antisemitism with something “post-Christian” is to shut one’s eyes to the intimate and centuries-long association of Christianity and antisemitism …’, ibid., p. 15 – cf. James Parkes’s statement, with which Eckardt concludes this section: ‘This hatred and denigration have a quite clear and precise historical origin. They arise from Christian preaching and teaching from the time of the bitter controversies of the first

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6. 7.

8.

9. 10.

century in which the two religions separated from each other. From that time up to today there has been an unbroken line which culminates in the massacre in our own day of six million Jews …’ Recently, Hermann Greive too has raised serious questions as to the legitimacy of clear-cut distinctions between Christian anti-Semitism or kirchlicher Antijudaismus and racial anti-Semitism or Rassenantisemitismus. However, his argument refers mainly to later times. As to earlier days, Greive seems to agree that there existed a difference between the Judenfeindliche Argumentation on behalf of pre-Nazi Catholicism and the Voelkisch-rassischen Antisemitismus; see his work: Theologie und Ideologie – Katholitzismus und Judentum in Deutschland und Österreich (1918–1935), Heidelberg, 1969, pp. 222–3. Karl Thieme describes and analyzes the various historical and theological conceptions on the interrelationship of Christianity and anti-Judaism as well as anti-Semitism, in his essay Der religioese Aspekt der Judenfeindschaft, in: Judentum-Schicksal Wesen und Gegenwart, herausgegeben von Franz Boehm und Walter Dirks unter Mitarbeit von Walter Gottschalk, Wiesbaden, 1965, Vol. II, pp. 603 ff. Bein, Alexander, Der moderne Antisemitismus und seine Bedeutung fuer die Judenfrage, in: Vierteljahresschrift fuer Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart, 1958, pp. 345–6. For a detailed analysis of the primary sources of early racial anti-Semitism, see our book Christians and Jews, op. cit., in particular pp. 180, 184, 194, 206, 208–9, 212, 213, 215, 217, 219, and in general, Ch. V, ‘Christian and AntiChristian Anti-Semitism’. Freystadt, Moritz, Der Christenspiegel von Anti-Marr – ein offenes Sendschreiben an die modernen Judenfeinde, 2. Auflage, Koenigsberg, 1863, pp. 3, 8, 20, 21, 39. Wilhelm Marr himself was not a philosopher or a theologian; however, it may be true that he succeeded in popularizing some of the ideas of the thinkers mentioned by Freystadt. On Voltaire and his anti-Jewish teachings, see: Hertzberg, Arthur, The French Enlightenment and the Jews, New York, London and Philadelphia, 1968, Ch. VIII, pp. 248 ff., 280 ff. On Bruno Bauer see: Rotenstreich, Nathan, ‘For and against Emancipation: The Bruno Bauer Controversy’, in L.B.I.Y.B., Vol. IV, London, 1959, pp. 3 ff. Also: Rosen, Zwi, ‘The Anti-Jewish Attitudes of Bruno Bauer (1838–1843)’, in: Zion, 1968, Vol. 33, Nos. 1–2, pp. 59 ff. (Hebrew). As to the origin of the anthropological interpretation of God in terms of a deified form of man, an interpretation that was shared by many of the early racist anti-Semites, see: Ludwig Feuerbach, Das Wesen der Religion – Dreissig Vorlesungen, 1845 [1848], Third lecture, Leipzig, 1908, p. 12. The atheistic, anti-Christian polemic of Bruno Bauer, Das entdeckte Christentum, of 1843, titled after Eisenmenger’s Das entdeckte Judentum, was confiscated by the government soon after its appearance, and reprinted only in 1927 in Jena, with a foreword by E. Barnikol. Marr, Wilhelm, Religioese Streifzuege eines philosophischen Touristen (Berlin: 1876), pp. 95–6. Cf. p. 192. See also one of Marr’s earlier writings: Streifzuege durch das Koncilium von Trient – Voltaire frei nacherzählt (Hamburg: 1868). Ettinger, Shmuel, The Critique of Judaism in the Teachings of the ‘Young Hegelians’ as one of the Roots of Modern Antisemitism, lecture given at the Academia Scientiarum Israelitica, Jerusalem, 1969 (Hebrew). In his latter days, Friedrich Daumer turned to Catholicism and defined his previous anti-Jewish atheism as ‘definitely an anti-Christian kind of thought’, see: G. Fr. Daumer, Meine Conversion – ein Stueck Seelen und Zeitgeschichte, Mainz, 1859, p. 3. I am indebted to Shmuel Ettinger for this, as well as for many other primary sources on which this study is based. On the theoretical and systematic aspects

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RELIGIOUS AND ANTI-RELIGIOUS ROOTS OF MODERN ANTI-SEMITISM of the critical teachings of Daumer, Bruno Bauer and others concerning the emancipation of the Jews, see Rotenstreich, Nathan, Judaism and the Rights of the Jews – a Chapter in the Polemics on Emancipation, Tel-Aviv, 1959, chapters 1, 3, 4 (Hebrew). As to the historical and ideational background of the anti-Jewish attitudes of Daumer, Bauer, Ruge, etc., see: Sterling, Eleanore, Er ist wie Du – Aus der Fruehgeschichte des Antisemitismus (1815–1850), Muenchen, pp. 111 ff. For a socio-historical analysis which concentrates on a critical differentiation between empirical reality and its ideological manifestation, see Katz, Jacob, Antisemitism as a Social and Political Power in Modern Society, Jerusalem, 1968, pp. 43 ff. (Hebrew – multigraphed). 11. Christians and Jews, pp. 208 ff. See especially Marr, Wilhelm, Religioese Streifzuege eines philosophischen Touristen, Berlin, 1876, pp. 192 ff.: ‘We reject Christianity as well as Judaism … we reject … all religions …’ In our ‘Introduction’ to The Grey Book, we have tried to point out that Wilhelm Marr, like most of the fathers of racial anti-Semitism, was not consistent in his antiChristian arguments. Sometimes anti-Christian motifs are directed not so much against Protestantism as against Catholicism. The anti-Catholic attitude of many racial anti-Semites was part of the national awakening in the days of Wilhelminian Germany, an awakening that was rooted among others, in the idea of Protestant sovereignty. Of the many sources of anti-Catholic anti-Semitism from the first days of this movement, the propaganda of Ottomar Beta is typical. In his book which he dedicated to Bismarck, Juda-Jesuitismus, we find, among others, ‘The arrogant assumption of infallibility of the Jewish descendants in Rome is nothing more than an ultra-montanist firework to divert the eyes of the Germanic peoples from the more ominous capitalistic infallibility of their racial brethren in worldly garb …’. The source appears also in the anti-anti-Semitic collection: AntisemitenSpiegel, die Antisemiten im Lichte des Christenthums, des Rechtes und der Moral, Danzig: 1892, p. 136. This anti-Catholic attitude culminated later in Nazi policy and in the teachings of Alfred Rosenberg, cf. An die Dunkelmaenner unserer Zeit, 33. Auflage, Muenchen, 1938. See also his combined critique of Protestants and Catholics, in: Protestantische Rompilger, Muenchen, 1937. One of the first answers to Rosenberg on behalf of the Catholics during the Third Reich was published in 1934: ‘Studien zum Mythus des 20 Jahrhunderts’ in: Kirchlicher Anzeiger fuer die Erzdioezese, Koeln, October 1934: also ‘Nachtrag, etc.’, ibid., December 1934. 12. This antagonism between the traditional Christian faith in the salvational power of conversion and the doctrines of racism culminated later in the struggle on behalf of the Bekennende Kirche against the Arierparagraph. As to the theological and ethical motifs in the statements against the Arierparagraph, by the theological faculty of the University of Marburg of September 1933, by theologians such as Rudolf Bultmann and the members of the Bekenntnis der Vaeter und die bekennende Gemeinde (Betheler Bekenntnis), in 1934, see: Der Ungekuendigte Bund, eds. von Dietrich Goldschmidt and Hans Joachim Kraus, Stuttgart, 1962, pp. 206, 218. Cf. the work by J. Snoek, The Grey Book, op. cit., pp. 36–42. See also Meier, Kurt, Die Deutschen Christen – Das Bild einer Bewegung im Kirchenkampf des Dritten Reiches, Im Auftrage der ‘Kommission der E.K.D. fuer die Geschichte des Kirchenkampfes’, eds. von Heinz Brunoffe and Ernst Wolfe, Ergaenzungsreihe, Vol. 3 (Goettingen: 1967, 3. Auflage), pp. 26, 28, 32, 34, 37, 40, 42, 58, 65. 13. Duehring, Eugen, Wert des Lebens, 3. Auflage, 1881, p. 5: ‘… paradoxe Lehre von der Umkehrung oder Kreuzigung aller Fleischregungen …’

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RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH 14. Duehring, Eugen, Die Parteien in der Judenfrage, Separatausgabe von Hefte 7/8 des ersten Bandes der Schmeitznerischen internationalen Monastsschrift, Leipzig, 1882 [Verlag: Theodor Fritsch], pp. 403 ff. 15. Antisemiten-Spiegel, op. cit., pp. 137 ff. These sources were also published in the form of a pamphlet by the same Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus, the antianti-Semitic association that published the Antisemiten-Spiegel, cf. Antisemitisches Christenthum und christlicher Antisemitismus, Flugblatt, No. 7, pp. 1–2 (year not given). The influence of Nietzsche, although he himself kept aloof from the more vulgar manifestations of the racial, anti-intellectual anti-Semitism of his day, is at this point quite self-evident, cf. Friedrich Nietzsche, Gesammelte Werke, Gesamtausgabe – Kroener, Leipzig, Vol. II, p. 273. 16. From the journal Hammer (Oct. 1908), reprinted in Antisemiten-Spiegel, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, 1911, p. 201. 17. Ibid., p. 203. 18. For a detailed collection and analysis of the primary sources on the earlier phases in the ‘Aryanization of Christ’ see our book Christians and Jews, pp. 216 ff. For additional sources see some of the publications of the anti-anti-Semitic organization Mitteilungen des Vereins zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus, Berlin, for example: 1898, No. 7, p. 54: ‘Vom “Arier” Christus’; ibid., No. 9, p. 71: ‘Christus als “Arier”’; 1899, No. 12, p. 91: ‘Antisemitisches – Antichristiches’; 1900, No. 1, p. 5: ‘Zu dem Missgebrauch des Namens Christi’; 1904, No. 16, p. 126: ‘Christus ein Germane’. For a further comparative study see the work of Josef Mueller, from a pro-Nazi point of view: ‘Die Entwicklung des Rassenantisemitismus in den lezten Jahrzehnten des 19. Jahrhunderts, dargestellt hauptsächlich auf Grundlage der Antisemitischen Correspondenz’, in: Historische Zeitschrift, 1940, No. 372. For a critical analysis of the major sources and authors with regard to the Germanisierung des Christentums in both the 19th and first third of 20th centuries see: Tilgner, Wolfgang, Volksnomos theologie und Schoepfungsglaube, Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Kirchenkampfes in Auftrage der Kommission der E.K.D. fuer die Geschichte des Kirchenkampfes, in Verbindung mit Heinz Brunotte und Ernst Wolf, Vol. 16 (Goettingen: 1966), see especially Chs. V, VI–IX. 19. Massing, Paul, Rehearsal for Destruction – A Study of Political Anti-Semitism in Imperial Germany (New York, 1949), p. 249, note 49. 20. Stern, Fritz, ‘Money, Morals, and the Pillars of Bismarck’s Society’, in: Central European History, Vol. III, Nos 1/2, March 1970, pp. 49 ff. The political background of those days has been described and analyzed as well in: Jacob Toury, Die politischen Orientierungen der Juden in Deutschland – von Jena bis Weimar (Tübingen: 1966), part D, ‘Die Krise (1879–1892)’, pp. 170 ff. 21. Mosse, George L. The Crisis of German Ideology – Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich (New York: Grosset and Dunlop, 1964), Part III, pp. 237 ff. 22. On the emergence of some of the Christian political powers see the detailed bibliography of primary and secondary sources in: Christians and Jews, op. cit., pp. 279–83. For a general survey see: Pinson, Koppel S., Modern Germany – Its History and Civilization (New York: Macmillan, 1961, 6th Printing), Chs. VIII, IX, X. 23. There is an urgent historiographical need for a systematic study of the interrelationship between the socio-economic situation in Germany during the last third of the 19th century and the emergence of political anti-Semitism, and especially its limited development in terms of numbers, size of membership and organizational framework, as compared with the extensive and intensive

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RELIGIOUS AND ANTI-RELIGIOUS ROOTS OF MODERN ANTI-SEMITISM development of the main political powers. Meanwhile, a careful analysis of some of the primary sources may shed additional light on the conclusions we suggested here. Die Faelschung der oeffentlichen Meinung, nachgewiesen durch stenographischen Bericht ueber die erste oeffentliche Sitzung des neugegruendeten Deutschen Volksvereins, am 14. III. 1881 im Grossen Concert-Saale der TivoliAktien-Brauerei; Hrsg. vom Vorstande des D.V.V., Berlin, 1881, #1. – Perrot, F. An die deutschen Handwerker – Aufruf zur Bildung von Vereinen zum Schutze des Handwerkes, Frankfurt am Main: 1881. – Glagau, Otto, Der Boersen und Gruendungsschwindel, Berlin: 1876. – Der Wucher auf dem Lande – Berichte und Gutachten; Hrsg. vom Verein zur Sozialpolitik, Leipzig: 1887. – Philippi, E., ‘Die Schwankungen des Volkswohlstandes im Deutschen Reich’ in: Preussische Jahrbuecher, Vol. 53, 1883, pp. 221–314; Vol. 54, 1884, p. 216; pp. 418–43 (cf. Vol. 55, 1885). – Anonymous, Otto Boeckel und Adolf Stoecker – Wir brauchen Beide! Aufruf zur judenfeindlichen Solidaritaet, Dresden: 1889. – Antisemitisches Jahrbuch, hrsg. von W. Giese, Verlag Hauptgeschaeftsstelle der Deutsch-Sozialen Reformpartei, Berlin: 1896–1901, Vols. I–V. 24. See the detailed list of source materials including archival sources, in: Christians and Jews, Ch. III: ‘The Christian State and the Jewish Citizen’, pp. 85 ff.; also, Chapter V: ‘Christian and Anti-Christian Anti-Semitism’, pp. 175 ff. 25. On the origin of this socio-economic doctrine in the speech of Bismarck in the Reichstag of 2:IV: 1881, see Theodor Barth’s essay titled: Practisches Christentum, in: Die Nation, Berlin: 1889, Vol. VI, No. 38. Cf. also Die Nation, 1891, Vol. VIII, No. 44. Friedrich Lange, one of the leaders and spokesman of non-Christian, or anti-Christian anti-Semitism declared in his journal, Deutsche Zeitung, of 15 April 1896, that ‘… Wir sind ueberzeugt, dass ueberall, wo ein practisches Christenthum die koerperliche oder seelische Energie unseres Volkes schwaechen koennte, wir das Christenthum durch das Deutschthum einzuschraenken haben und nicht umgekehrt …’ 26. For a thorough research on this development see the two works mentioned before, The Politics of Cultural Despair by Fritz Stern (especially Ch. I, #3; Ch. II, #9, 10; Ch. III, #14), and Volksnomostheologie und Schoepfungsglaube by Wolfgang Tilgner (especially Chs. V, VI, VIII). The political aspects of this ideological development culminated in Die 25 Thesen der Deutschreligion (Breslau, 1934) composed by Ernst Bergmann; also his Die Deutsche Nationalkirche (Breslau: 1933), I. Teil, Ch. III: Das Wesen des Christentums, pp. 55 ff., and of course in the most influential teachings and doctrines of Alfred Rosenberg, such as: Houston Stewart Chamberlain als Verkuender und Begruender einer deutschen Zukunft, Muenchen: 1927, and in his major work: Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (1930), 142. Ausgabe (Muenchen: 1938). See also an example of the many critical answers to earlier editions: Hueffmeier, Heinrich (Pastor in Berlin-Wilmersdorf), Evangelische Antwort auf Rosenbergs Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: 1935), 4. Auflage. On the influence of Chamberlain on the Germanisierung of Christianity see: Tilgner, Wolfgang, op. cit., pp. 77–8. Cf. also Kupisch, Karl, Buergerliche Froemmigkeit im Wilhelminischen Zeitalter in: Zeitschrift fuer Religions und Geistesgeschichte, 1962, Vol. XIV, No. 2, p. 126. Among the many Ludendorffs’ writings see: Mathilde Ludendorff, Erloesung Jesu Christo, Ungekuerzte Volksausgabe, 1936, and E. and M. Ludendorff, Das grosse Entsetzen – die Bibel nicht Gotteswort (Muenchen: 1936); see additional sources on pp. 20–3. Among the numerous answers see: Kurt Aland, Wer faelscht? Die Entstehung der Bibel; Zu den ‘Enthuellungen’ E. und M. Ludendorffs, Verlag Evangelischer Presseverband fuer

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RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH Deutschland (Berlin-Steglitz: no date). 27. Christians and Jews, p. 221, n. 89. 28. Hofer, Walter, Der Nationalsozialismus – Dokumente 1933–1945 [Frankfurt am Main: 1957] (henceforth cited: ‘Hofer’), p. 281. 29. Meier, Kurt, Die Deutschen Christen, op. cit., pp. 10 ff. For additional historical primary sources see: Kurt Hutten, Um Blut und Glauben – Evangelische oder Voelkische Religion? (Stuttgart: 1932), pp. 114–26: Uebersicht ueber die voelkisch religioesen Stroemungen der Gegenwart. 30. Beckmann, Joachim, ed., Kirchliches Jahrbuch fuer die Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland 1933–1944 (Guetersloh: 1948), pp. 76 ff., reprinted in Hofer, p. 140. 31. ‘Wort der Bekenntnissynode der evangelischen Kirche der altpreussichen Union an die Gemeinden, 4/5 Maerz, 1936, in Berlin Dahlem’, reprinted in Hofer, p. 144. See also: Die Nation vor Gott – Zur Botschaft der Kirche im Dritten Reich, eds. von Walter Kuenneth and Helmuth Schreiner (Berlin: 1933), 2. Teil, pp. 214 ff.; 3. Teil, pp. 320 ff. Cf. Julius Sammetreuther, Die falsche Lehre der ‘Deutschen Christen’, Schriftenreihe der Bekennenden Kirche, Heft 15 (Muenchen: 1934), p. 30. 32. Hermelink, H., ed., Kirche im Kampf – Dokumente des Widerstandes und des Aufbaus der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland von 1933 bis 1945 (Tuebingen, Stuttgart: 1950), pp. 344 ff. On the background of the term ‘political messianism’ in this historical context, cf. Talmon, Jakob, J., The Unique and the Universal – Some Historical Reflections, London, 1965, Ch. IV: ‘Mission and Testimony – The Universal Significance of Modern Antisemitism’, pp. 119 ff. 33. Eckardt, Roy A., Elder and Younger Brothers – The Encounter of Jews and Christians (New York: 1967), Ch. I, p. 8. 34. Ibid., pp. 159 ff. See also: Littell, Franklin H., The German Phoenix – Men and Movements in the Church in Germany (New York: Doubleday, 1960), pp. 12 ff.; p. 19; p. 34 ff.; p. 72. 35. Cf. Freedom Institute Bibliography, issued by Iowa Wesleyan College, 1969, 56 pp. See also: Seminar Study Guide, issued by Freedom Institute, Iowa, Wesleyan College, Mount Pleasant, 1969. In addition to Dr. Franklin H. Littell’s Study Papers given at this Seminar, cf. also Littell, Franklin H., The German Phoenix, op. cit., Ch. 6, pp. 141 ff.

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7 On Modern Lutheranism and the Jews

Prefatory Note The essay published here is a slightly revised version of the original draft of the Seventh Siegfried Moses Memorial Lecture delivered by the late Professor Uriel Tal in Jerusalem on 12 May 1983. It was to form the core of a much more substantial contribution to the Year Book in which his purpose was to examine in considerable detail the policy of the Bekennende Kirche towards the Jews. One of Tal’s many scholarly achievements was that he was almost the first to point to the disconcerting equation of Judaism with the Völkisch Right, propagated by some of the leading proponents of the Confessional Church, a manifestation virtually ignored by contemporary historiography. It was Uriel Tal’s intention to complete his manuscript for the Year Book in Oxford in August 1984, but alas, his untimely death has robbed Jewish learning of what would have been one more in the total of his perceptive and profound essays. The Editor [of the Leo Baeck Year Book] has no hesitation in presenting this preliminary version and to honour thus the memory of a great Jewish scholar who left us too soon and by whose death we are diminished. Arnold Paucker In the present paper, I would like to focus on one topic only: the teachings of those German Lutherans, in the 1920s and 1930s, who belonged to the trend which eventually established the Bekennende Kirche (Confessional Church) and which compared and even equated Judaism with the Völkisch movement, including National Socialism. This puzzling phenomenon has hitherto barely been tackled at all by historians of the period; it has not been treated in the otherwise rich historiography on the struggle of the Church, nor has it so far been examined in general Jewish or in German-Jewish historiography. We shall proceed in the following manner: in an initial section we shall 191


deal with the early and mid-1920s; in a second section we shall concentrate on the late 1920s and on the days leading up to the seizure of power by the Nazi Party, and afterwards to the first years of the Confessional Church; and in a final section we shall attempt to wrestle with the question of what the motivations could have been that made possible an equation of Judaism with Nazism by a religious movement that will certainly be recorded by historians as a significant force of resistance to the evil of dictatorship on issues other than that of the position of the non-converted Jew.1 Thus, it is with those Lutherans who resolutely opposed racial antisemitism, and yet drew a common denominator between the Jew and the racist, that I would like to concern myself in this paper.2 I It was in the early 1920s, that Pastor Karl Aner of Berlin, while discussing the significance of his anthology From Herder’s Message for our Times, stated that both the Jews and the growing Völkisch movement should heed Herder’s warnings against all forms of ‘pride and prejudice’ so symptomatic of ethnic and national groups. At the same time, Hans Hofer, a staunch Lutheran, a spokesman for the Conservatives, and an ardent opponent of the Völkisch movement, repeatedly warned against the anti-Christian trends of the Völkisch for they turn ‘… the nation and nationality … into a religious value’. Hofer stated that ‘… there are Germans who simply deify (vergöttern) our peoplehood’, yet ‘… peoplehood should not be exalted as if it were divine’. The worship of one’s nation, he admonished his fellow Lutherans, is nothing but ‘a degradation’ and ‘… a falling down to the low levels of Judaism’. For is it not the Old Testament which, when deprived of its fulfilment and its spiritualisation by the New Covenant, testifies to the terrible fate that befalls a people once it idolises nationalism? The irony, Hofer concluded, is that that very level of Judaism to which the Völkisch have sunk is the main target against which they themselves and the Nazis struggle. Another reason for opposing the Völkisch, Nazism and the entire racist Weltanschauung, Hofer added, is evangelism – in terms of preaching to the nations (Matt. XXVIII: 19, 29; Mark XVI: 16) and baptising converts (Acts II: 38, 41; VIII: 12, 13, 36, 38; IX: 15; X: 47, 48; XVII: 8; XIX: 5). Following along the lines of Luther, baptism is not to be understood as sacrament only, but also as part of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Baptism, then, is not simply a means to spiritual regeneration (John III: 5), but symbolises the ultimate fulfilment of the Heilsgeschichte, i.e., 192

ON MODERN LUTHERANISM AND THE JEWS

of the attainment of full salvation for all, especially for the Jews. Hence racism, since it does not allow for the total personal transformation which takes place under the redeeming impact of baptism and the justifying impact of faith, undermines the most sacred mission of the Christian. Likewise in the mid-twenties, another anti-Völkisch Lutheran voice was raised. Pastor Ernst Moering, friend and active defender of German Jewry, an ardent supporter of the Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens, the predominant non-Zionist Jewish Association, and an outspoken opponent of racist antisemitism and of Nazism, again compared and equated Jewish nationalism with Nazism on the grounds that both by nature of their ethnic particularism constitute ‘… a regression from universal humaneness …’ Similarly, another supporter of the Jewish defence association, Heinrich Frick, Professor of Theology at the University of Giessen, warned German Jewry against both the Völkisch, including the Nazi movement, and the Zionists. Quoting Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, a great humanist and yet another indefatigable fighter against racism and antisemitism, Frick defined Jewish nationalism and Nazism as two movements which turn earthliness, this-worldliness and materialism into metaphysical entities, i.e., into religion. Zionism and Nazism shared the conviction that Germany could not tolerate Jews in its midst; while for Christians as well as for Humanists, the very integration of Jews in German society, culture and nation-state would bear witness to the integrity of Germany. Then, stirred up and disturbed by the growing impact of Nazism on students, an additional voice from among German Lutherans was raised. In 1926, the Deutsche Christliche Studentenbewegung published the contribution by Professor Willy Stärk of Jena to the polemics on The Position of Biblical Christianity on the Völkisch Question.3 Referring to the political Zionist movement, Stärk quoted outstanding Zionist intellectuals such as Martin Buber, Jakob Klatzkin and the labour leader, Nachman Syrkin, in order to illustrate what he believed was the common denominator between as yet unfulfilled Old Testament Judaism and the current Völkisch and Nazi movement. Both are understood to be a supreme value endowed with religious sanctity; they are conceived, in their physical crudeness, as Flesh and Blood and Soil, not yet as a spiritual entity, as in Christianity; both are bound by primordial and mythic sentiments (Urgefühle), rooted in ‘Mother Earth’ instead of in the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’. Hence, Stärk and the anti-Nazi Protestants in the Christian student movement concluded that there could be no reconciliation between Christianity – if understood as a community of believers justified by faith alone and united by the spirit in Christ (Gal. III: 26 f.) on the one hand, and, on the other hand, Judaism as a Völkisch religion (‘… einer erdgewurzelten, in Blut und geprägten Volkstum begründeten Glauben193


Lebensgemeinschaft’ …). The renewed Rabbinic-Pharisaic stiff-neckedness creates a new challenge for the Mission to the Jews, Stärk adds. We should not embrace racial antisemitism as racism does not allow for the saving blessing of baptism. Moreover, racial antisemitism similar to Judaism – simply constitutes a narrow-minded nationalism exalted to a political religion. Finally, Pastor Eduard Lamparter of Stuttgart, a devoted, consistent and capable defender of Judaism against prejudice, discrimination and antisemitism,4 was also one of the first to foresee the impending threat from Nazism to religion, to ethics, to democracy or ‘simply to human decency’. His polemical work on the opposition of Evangelic Christianity to racism and Nazism (1928) was endorsed by outstanding theologians and clergymen such as Karl Barth, Otto Baumgarten, Paul Fiebig, Wilhelm Kahl, Martin Rade, Friedrich Siegmund Schultz, the young Paul Tillich and others. How tragic it was, how paradoxical and how ironic, Lamparter pointed out, that both the Völkisch and Judaism misinterpreted the Heilsgeschichte in a similar way. The Nazi slogan of a Third Reich consecrated to last a Thousand Years – that is to say, a state of grace chosen to fulfil an eschatological political mission – and Jewish nationalists’ yearnings for a Messianic Kingdom to be restored in an earthly, thisworldly Zion; both constituted an abuse of the millennial metaphor of Revelation XX 1–3 (1–10) on the origins of the thousand-year symbol. Also, the redeeming war, as prophesied by Ezekiel (XXXVIII), incorporated in the New Testament apocalypse and taught by Luther, should be waged against erring souls – against the Jews and Völkisch – who both must be saved, that is to say, converted. Just as the current new idolaters must be shown the true light, the Jews too should be brought back to their original salvational mission. Both Jews and Nazis need to be guided to that life in which there is no evil and no death. Indeed, only after this mission has been fulfilled will the New Jerusalem reappear, be renewed, and descend from heaven like a bride prepared to meet her groom (Rev. XXI: 2). II The next period in which Judaism and the Völkisch were again compared and equated occurred in the late twenties and early thirties – the time preceding and leading to the establishment of the Confessional Church early in 1934. In those years, many of the young, dynamic clergy and theologians shared the fear of what Pastor Richard Karwehl, when addressing the Jung-Evangelische Konferenz (10 June 1931), called the ‘secular eschatology’. Karwehl was one of the first to use the term ‘Political 194


Messianism’ in reference to Nazism, pointing to the fateful process of transforming the profane into the sacred, thus threatening (though in entirely different ways) Judaism, Christianity, and in fact mankind. Hence, Karwehl concluded, the Jews and the new pagans will be saved only if and when they accept the evangelical doctrine of true, rather than of national or political, Messianism (Matt. XVI: 16; Gal. III: 6 ff.; I Cor. XV). During the early 1930s, on the eve of the establishment of the Third Reich, an intensive, indeed a somewhat hectic, activity developed among leading Lutherans. They realised that it was urgent that they clarify their position on the political-messianic claims of the Nazi movement. They believed it necessary to consolidate the lines of demarcation between the growing pro-Nazi trend in the Church, led by the Deutsche Christen – who, in June 1932, under the leadership of Pfarrer Hossenfelder, had already introduced principles of the Nazi Party into the Church – on the one hand, and on the other hand, their own movement which on Christmas Day 1933 established the (Pfarrernotbund) Emergency League of Pastors, led by Martin Niemöller, and then the Confessional Church itself. It was precisely during those fateful years that the Lutherans who opposed Nazism continued to elaborate on the thesis we are studying here – the comparison and equation of Judaism and Völkisch, including Nazism. Let us turn now to some representative examples. Friedrich Niebergall, Professor of Pastoral Theology at Heidelberg, though himself not a member of the groups belonging to the Confessional Church, was nonetheless a significant source of inspiration in the area of the praktische Theologie and of Paul Drew’s teachings. He was one of the first to connect the Völkisch, including Nazism, with the Jews. Both rejected Jesus as the Saviour. The Nazis worshipped a political Führer as a Messiah, thus bringing about ‘die Sakralisierung eines Menschen’, as was manifested in contemporary ecstasy and intoxication which, as Niebergall bitterly complained, practically bedevilled the masses. In parallel, the Jews simply worshipped crude materialism and vulgar this-worldliness, as was manifested in the Old Testament or in their contemporary liberal and revolutionary movements which, Niebergall felt, were in fact secular religions, and which attracted so many secular and enlightened Jews. We must exhort those, continues Niebergall, who nowadays erroneously believe in National Socialism as a religion endowed with attributes such as rapture, passion, hope, discipline and hatred of infidels. We are called upon to preach and teach that the very errors made by the Völkisch new pagans have their archetypal origins in the materialism, the selfsufficiency and self-righteousness, the narrow nationalistic ethnicity and the haughty resistance to salvation through faith and in Christ – so symptomatic of Judaism. 195


The suffering, the misery and the degradation Jews have endured among the nations should bear evidence to the truth of Christian Messianism – contrary to that of the Nazis and the Jews. The Jews, in their blindness, simply ‘… expected a Messiah who would drive away the Romans (a political saviour) and who would provide for their bread abundantly (a materialistic, this-worldly saviour)’. Similarly, Paul Fiebig of the University of Leipzig, a renowned theologian and quite knowledgeable in rabbinics, a firm friend of the Jews and a courageous defender of Jewish civil rights in their struggles against Nazism, equated the Nazi nationalistic narrow-mindedness with that of the Jews, primarily that of the political Zionists. Moreover, contrary to the teachings of Völkisch leaders such as Theodor Fritsch (who had exercised a major influence on Adolf Hitler), Jesus and the first Apostles were of course of Palestinian-Jewish origin. Fiebig concluded that in our times ‘… each people, the Jewish and German as well, could and should become Christian …’. Both the erring German and the sinning Jew must be saved; first, though, the German Völkisch and the Nazis, for, as Paul had taught, the Jews’ hardening of heart and their stubborn blindness will have to continue ‘… until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in …’ (Rom. XI: 25). Then the Jews will follow their fellow Germans and see the light of Christ (Zech. XII: 10; Rev. I: 7), the good Lord will save them, and will renew his covenant with them so that the Law will be inscribed in their hearts rather than in flesh (Jer. XXXI: 31–34, culminating and fulfilled in Heb. VIII: 8–12). This then is the only way, Fiebig concluded, by which Israel can be delivered from its earthly enemies, including the Völkisch and the Nazis who simply carry out the divinely ordained punishment of the Jews. The years preceding the seizure of power by Hitler and the first years of the struggle of the Confessional Church were also times in which the attitude towards the Jew, as described in this paper, reached its culmination. Among the leading members of the Confessional Church who contributed to the further development of the comparison and the equation of Jews and Nazis, the following are of special interest: Helmuth Schreiner, a political theologian and a prolific writer; Walter Künneth, then still a young lecturer and in charge of the Apologetics Department, one of the active polemicists against Alfred Rosenberg’s Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts;5 Heinz Dietrich Wendland, outstanding social theologian, also later active in ecumenical work; Ernst Wolf whose study of Martin Luther (1934) sheds much light on our topic and who was one of the most significant Nachkriegstheologen; Heinrich Vogel, the author of the significant anti-Nazi 65 Theses of Protest of March 1933; Hans Asmussen, one of the leading authors of the anti-Nazi Altonaer PastorenBekenntnis (Priests’ Creed) of 1932 and after 1945 an active member of 196


the Rat der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (EKD), and also a major bridge between Lutheranism and Karl Barth’s reformed Protestantism; Horst Stephan of Leipzig University; Rudolf Homann, one of the outspoken polemicists against Alfred Rosenberg’s Germanic religion; Christian Stoll, one of the editors of the Bekennende Kirche series; Georg Merz, editor of the bi-monthly Zwischen den Zeiten since its conception in 1923, and thus one of the leaders of the growing Dialectic Theology; also the participants in the October 1933 workshop of the Lutheran Volksmission at Riederau, Ammersee. Their teachings, in which the Völkisch including Nazism were compared and even equated with Judaism, were based on the ideas discussed above and these emphasised the following points. Both the Völkisch and the Nazis as well as the Jews, especially modern and liberal Jewry, proclaimed man’s self-redemption through works, through man’s self-sufficiency, and through man’s Selbstherrlichkeit – thus worshipping creation rather than the Creator. They rejected one of the major Lutheran dogmatics and teachings on the Pauline Epistles (for example on Eph. I: 7–10), according to which man’s justification is achieved through faith alone. Hence, the transformation of the human condition from sin to righteousness can be made neither by means of works, be they religious or political, nor by proclaiming man’s selfconfidence, as indeed the Jews and the pagans erroneously and sinfully have done, and as was taught in Luther’s Tabletalk of 12 March 1539 ‘… gleichwie die Heiden aus dem Willen des Fleisches’. True redemptive justification and reconciliation is bestowed upon man by divine grace, thanks to the sacrifice of Christ and in response to the dispensation of faith, as Luther pointed out in his teachings on Psalm XXXII: 5; on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans II: 11–13; IV: 1–3; and in his Sermon on St Stephen’s Day on Acts IV: 8–14. Both the Völkisch and the Nazis, as well as the Jews, reject Jesus as the Messiah, for they expect only a mundane, this-worldly Messiasreich, a kingdom in which man, not God, is the ruler. This was inferred, among others, from Luther in his early writings against Rome and later in his 1543 Von den Juden und ihren Lügen. This actually contradicts the major dogma of the Heilsgeschichte according to which the Old Testament is valid only because it has been fulfilled in Christ, in the New Covenant and by the true spiritual Israel, as was also inferred from Luther’s teachings, from his introduction to Ezekiel XXXVIII, XXXIX. The earthly, thisworldly messianic expectation renders history into a secular, political phenomenon, for it reduces man’s understanding of history to an ‘innerweltliche Sinndeutung der Geschichte’. This, then, has greatly contributed to the contemporary process of relativisation of values, to the disintegration of binding norms – so 197


symptomatic of the existential crisis that enabled Nazism to take root among the masses, as well as among intellectuals. Indeed, the fear of what was termed ‘disintegrating powers’ – such as materialism, critical rationalism, scientific scepticism, in short: liberalism with its ‘Eigengesetzlichkeit der weltlichen Lebensbereiche’ still held at bay in the Wilhelminian era – was probably one of the main motivations of the Lutheran joint criticism of Judaism, especially modern liberal Jewry, and the Völkisch including Nazism. Both, it was claimed, were destroying the traditional authority in the family, in society, in the economy and in politics. With the collapse of these norms – under the impact of cynical enlightenment, a decadent democracy or materialistic racism – the turn to a political Messiah, it was feared, would be unavoidable. Finally, both the Völkisch, including the Nazis, and the Jews, define their identity, their self-understanding, in terms of blood-relationship, kinship and exclusive, superior descent, hence in terms that necessarily lead to national particularism and ethnic racism or, as Helmuth Schreiner, on the eve of the establishment of the Third Reich, expressed it, ‘… der Rassengedanke ist Judentum’. III What motivated these leaders of non-Nazi and even anti-Nazi Lutheranism to compare and in fact to equate Judaism with Nazism? What caused Lutheran theologians, clergy, preachers and teachers – who eventually headed a movement that will be remembered as a significant and courageous religious force, demanding firm resistance to the evils of dictatorship, the robbery of man’s inalienable rights, protesting against sins such as the mass annihilation of the mentally ill – to draw a common denominator between Judaism and Nazism? What could have been the epistemological and hermeneutical means of understanding that made possible such a parallel, such an equation? These are questions with farreaching implications from a strictly scientific, historical and theological point of view, as well as for the future of the Lutheran-Jewish dialogue. In order to attain well-substantiated and verifiable answers, undoubtedly much further painstaking research is required. For the historiographers of the struggle of the Church and of post-Second World War theology have hardly dealt with these intriguing and puzzling questions. Nevertheless, a number of pointers for future study should briefly be suggested here. The immediate historical background shows that in the early 1920s the Protestant Church, and especially its Conservative and Nationalist members, had to adjust to a new legal status. Articles 135–41 of the 198


Constitution of the new Republic of Weimar imposed upon the Church separation from the State, for from now on it was decreed: ‘… es besteht keine Staatskirche’. According to the Weimar Constitution, the Protestants found themselves in the same position as Roman Catholics, i.e. no more than ‘Körperschaften des öffentlichen Rechtes’ (corporate bodies of the civil law). Lacking the traditional backing of the government, the Lutherans were now searching for ways to shift their stronghold from the State to society, from an old and well-established institution to the Volk – as exemplified by the Social Proclamation of the Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag on 17 June 1924 at Bethel, Bielefeld. At this point, the Church clashed with the Völkisch including the Nazis, for both competed for support from among the people, youth, the masses, and also from the liberal professions and the intellectuals. Both camps emphasised the need for a strong defence against what they called the corrosive impact of modernity, of liberalism, of materialism and, generally, of the entire urban way of life, not to mention Socialism and Communism. Both admonished the nation to return to traditional social morals, to respect and discipline, to authority and obedience, to wholehearted devotion to family and fatherland; both cautioned against the disintegrating impact of democracy with its plurality of particularistic and egocentric power groups. Then followed a series of crucial political events. The elections to the Reichstag of December 1924 brought about a reinforcement of the rightof-centre parties, such as the Deutsche Volkspartei and the Bayerische Volkspartei; and of the right-wing Deutschnationale Volkspartei, which attracted growing segments of Lutherans and Conservative Nationalists. The elections of May 1928 reflected the growth as well as the radicalisation of the Left, of both the Social Democrats and the Communists, thus alarming Conservatives and Nationalists and pushing them even more to the political Right. Against the background of the financial crisis in the autumn and winter of 1929, the downfall of the Müller government in March 1930, and the establishment of the Glaubensbewegung ‘Deutsche Christen’ in June 1932,6 Lutherans who later participated in the Confessional Church felt that the current crises in Germany were most conducive for the emergence of a secular dictatorial ‘saviour’. The more severe the threats of spiritual vacuum, social instability, political disillusionment, growing inflation and mass unemployment, the greater were the chances for the rise of what Pastor Karwehl in 1931 had called: ‘… eine Säkularisierte Eschatologie.’ It would seem that non- and anti-Nazi Lutherans were bound to react in a recalcitrant manner in order to counteract this process. This they did by making use of two traditions: the old Christian antagonism against the 199


Jew and Luther’s own combined struggle against Jew and pagan. They criticised the refusal of Jews and Nazis to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah and thus the dogma of the Kerygma and the entire principle of the Heilsgeschichte. It was these traditions which, in the historical reality of the era between the two world wars, motivated leading Lutherans to compare and to equate their two adversaries, antithetical as they were. On the one hand, there were the Völkisch and the Nazis, so-called neo-pagans, who adopted, secularised, politicised and totally transformed traditions such as the Thousand Year eschatology (Rev. XX: 1–6) and trinitarian conceptions of history such as Joachim of Fiore’s vision of the Third Era, the Reich of Redemption. On the other hand, there were the Jews who, as Luther in 1543 bitterly and wrathfully complained,7 do not realise that the word of the Lord to Jeremiah (XXXIII: 17–26) prophesied the final phase of the Sceptre of Judah and the covenant of the New Era by David’s son, the Messiah. APPENDIX Primay Sources I. Bekennende Kirche, Schriftenreihe herausgegeben von Th. Ellwein und Chr. Stoll, Chr. Kaiser Verlag, München (later by Chr. Stoll). Heft 1, Riedauer Thesen zur Volksmission, 2. Auflage, 1933, 27 pp. Heft 3, Theodor Ellwein, Gesetz und Evangelium, 1933, 28 pp. Heft 4, Eduard Putz, Völkische Religiosität oder christlicher Gottesglaube?, 1933, 52 pp. Heft 7, A. Schlatter/G. Schmidt/Chr. Stoll, Das alte Testament als Buch der Kirche, 1934, 36 pp. (Cf. D. Adolf Schlatter, Wird der Jude über uns siegen?, Freizeit-Blätter, Nr. 8, Delbert im Rheinland, 1935, 25 pp.) Heft 13, Gerhard Schmidt, Das alte Testament und der evangelische Religionsunterricht, 1934, 22 pp. Heft 20, Hermann Sasse, Das Volk nach der Lehre der evangelischen Kirche, 1934, 30 pp. Heft 24, Heinrich Fausel, Luther und die Deutsche Nation, 1935, 32 pp. Heft 26, Georg Merz, Amt und Gemeinde, 1935, 29 pp. 200


Heft 30, Hermann Sasse, Kirchenregiment und weltliche Obrigkeit – nach lutherischer Lehre, 1935, 40 pp. Heft 49, Friedrich Wilhelm Hopf, Vom weltlichen Regiment nach evangelisch-lutherischer Lehre, 1937, 40 pp. II. Theologische Existenz heute,

Heft 6, Heft 42, Heft 49/50, Heft 71,

Schriftenreihe, herausgegeben von Karl Barth und Ed. Thurneysen, Chr. Kaiser Verlag, München (later by H.G. Steck, Evang. Verlag A. Lempp). Ernst Wolf, Martin Luther. Das Evangelium und die Religion, 1934, 2. Auflage, 1934, 28 pp. Hans Hellbardt, Abrahams Lüge: zum Verständnis von I. Mose 12: 10–20, 1936, 23 pp. Hans Asmussen, Sola fide – das ist lutherisch! (II) 1937, 47 & 82 pp. Edo Osterloh, Gottes Gerechtigkeit und menschliches Recht im alten Testament, 1940, 32 pp.

III. Junge Kirche,

Halbmonatsschrift für reformatorisches Christentum, Göttingen, herausgegeben von Hanns Lilje und Fritz Söhlmann. 1. 1. Jahrgang, 1933, Heft: 14, 15, 17, 20. 2. Jahrgang, 1935, Heft: 1, 9. 7. Jahrgang, 1939, Heft 1.

IV.

Hans Hofer, Nationalismus und Christentum, ‘Die Aue’, Verlag in Wernigerode 1924, 3. Auflage, 148 pp. Helmuth Schreiner, Der Nationalsozialismus vor der Gottesfrage. Illusion oder Evangelium? Wichern Verlag, Berlin-Spandau 1931, 62 pp. Leopold Klotz (Hrsg.) Die Kirche und das dritte Reich. Fragen und Forderungen deutsche Theologen, Vol. I, Leopold Klotz Verlag, Gotha 1932, 138 pp. Idem, Vol. II, 136 pp. Walter Künneth and Helmuth Schreiner, Die 201


Nation vor Gott – zur Botschaft der Kirche im Dritten Reich, Wichern Verlag, Berlin 1934, 544 pp. Rudolf Homann, Der Mythus und das Evangeltum, 4. Auflage, 1936, Westdeutscher Lutherverlag, Witten, 200 pp.

NOTES 1. In connection with the 40th anniversary of the failed 20 July 1944 anti-Hitler plot the attitude of the German resistance to the Jewish Question has been variously raised. The position of the Confessional Church has also been touched on in this context. See for instance Georg Benz, ‘Der Widerstand und die Juden’, in Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung, XXXIX, No. 29 (20 July 1984), pp. 1 & 3. Christof Dipper in his excellent essay ‘Der deutsche Widerstand und die Juden’, in the special issue Juden in Deutschland zwischen Assimilation und Verfolgung of Geschichte und Gesellschaft (edited by Reinhard Rürup), IX, No. 3 (1983), pp. 349–80, also briefly refers to the standpoint of the Dahlem wing of the Bekennende Kirche. Richard Gutteridge in his moving indictment ‘German Protestantism and the Jews in the Third Reich’, in Papers Presented to the International Symposium on Judaism and Christianity under the Impact of National Socialism (1919–1945), The Historical Society of Israel, Jerusalem, June 1982, pp. 201–26, has also concerned himself in a more general context with the attitude of the Confessional Church to the Jews during the Nazi regime. This volume also contains a paper by Uriel Tal, ‘Aspects of Consecration of Politics in the Nazi Era’, pp. 49–102, in which he dealt at that time too with the position of some theologians of the Confessional Church, in particular Walter Künneth. (Of this limited, duplicated manuscript edition a revised and enlarged edition, edited by Otto D. Kulka and Paul Mendes-Flohr, to be issued by the Indiana University Press, is now in preparation.) A doctoral dissertation by Wolfgang Gerlach, Zwischen Kreuz und Davidstern. Bekennende Kirche in ihrer Stellung zum Judentum im Dritten Reich, Hamburg University 1972 was, as far as I can ascertain, not at the disposal of Uriel Tal – (Ed.). 2. Another previous publication which contains certain allusions to the specific topic under discussion here is Eberhard Busch, Juden und Christen im Schatten des Dritten Reiches. Ansätze zu einer Kritik des Antisemitismus in der Zeit der Bekennenden Kirche, Theologische Existenz heute, Nr. 205, München 1979 – (Ed.). 3. The publications which concern us here must be Willy Stärk, Das religiöse Leben der westeuropäischen Judenheit: vornehmlich Deutschlands und seine Wertung vom christlichen Gottesgedanken aus, Berlin 1926; and idem, Alttestamentliche Frömmigkeit und Volkswiederaufbau, Berlin 1927, 21 pp. and 26 pp., FurcheVerlag (Stimmen aus der deutschen christlichen Studentenbewegung, Heft 49 and 57) – (Ed.). 4. On Eduard Lamparter see also the essay by Barbara Suchy, ‘The Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus (II) – From the First World War to its Dissolution in 1933’, in the current volume or the Year Book, pp. 90–1 – (Ed.).

202

ON MODERN LUTHERANISM AND THE JEWS 5. Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts. Eine Wertung der seelisch-geistigen Gestaltenkämpfe unserer Zeit, Munich 1930. 6. Manifesto of the movement, dated 26 May 1932, written by Pastor Joachim Hossenfelder. 7. Martin Luther, Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimarer Ausgabe, 1883 ff.), Bd. 53, pp. 469, 476.

203

8 Jewish and Universal Social Ethics in the Life and Thought of Albert Einstein

FORMS OF SOCIO-ETHICAL THOUGHT To the question ‘Just what is a Jew?’, Einstein in November 1938 replied that two features have been characteristic of Jewish life: the democratic ideal of social justice, coupled with the ideal of mutual aid and tolerance among all men. Even the most ancient religious scriptures of the Jews are steeped in these social ideals, which have powerfully affected Christianity and Mohammedanism and have had a benign influence upon the social structure of a great part of mankind … The second characteristic trait of Jewish tradition is the high regard in which it holds every form of intellectual aspiration and spiritual effort. I am convinced that this great respect for intellectual striving is … responsible for the contributions that the Jews have made toward the progress of knowledge, in the broadest sense of the term.1 These two elements, social justice and intellectual aspiration, which in Einstein’s opinion characterize Judaism, exemplify the two planes on which Jewish and human morality exist, that of the individual and that of society. For Einstein, perhaps the highest of all moral values is the individual. Of all the phenomena in the empirical world, the individual is the only one with the status of a subject and the ability to reason, the only one by nature capable of consciousness, of self-awareness, of selfcriticism, of self-restraint, and thus also of moral responsibility: ‘The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.’ 2 The second plane, society, attains the status of a lofty value because of the individuals composing it. Consequently, society is superior to the state. It is the function of society to enable the individual to develop his 204

JEWISH AND UNIVERSAL SOCIAL ETHICS OF ALBERT EINSTEIN

particularity, his intellectual and moral potential, while the role of the state is to serve society, allowing it to function in freedom and autonomy: ‘the state is made for man, not man for the state … The state should be our servant; we should not be slaves of the state’; ‘the only justifiable purpose of political institutions is to assure the unhindered development of the individual and his capacities.’ 3 These moral values – that is, the individual as sovereign, society as a framework for the implementation of that sovereignty, and the state as their servant – are, according to Einstein, among the chief components of the legacy of Judaism. Together with the heritage of classicism, they represent the essence of Western civilization, or, as he termed it, of the ‘European spirit’. Thus dictatorships, like Nazism in his day, are the extreme opposite of what Einstein termed the Judeo-Christian tradition and likewise of the ‘European spirit’, for the ‘essence of despotism lies not only in the fact that one man with virtually unlimited authority holds power, but that society itself becomes an instrument for enslaving the individual. This is why I consider the servitude to the state as the main enemy of the European spirit.’ 4 And in that vein, in the famous speech at the Princeton Theological Seminary in May 1939, Einstein concluded: The most fundamental principles of our aspirations and valuations are given to us in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. It is a lofty goal … When one divests this goal of its religious form and regards only this purely human side, it may be expressed as follows: Free and self-responsible development of the individual so that he will freely and joyfully put his energies at the service of the community of man … the same words may be considered as the expression of the fundamental democratic principle. The true democrat deifies his nation just as little as the religious person in our sense does.5 These principles, as formulated in the late 1930s, were for Einstein the essence of Jewish and universal social ethics. Here we shall analyze them from two aspects: the form of Einstein’s manner of thinking and arguing in this area of Jewish and universal morality, and the content of his thoughts and argument in this area. One of the characteristic features of the form of Einstein’s manner of thinking and argument on our present subject is its inner consistency throughout an extended period, in fact from the beginning of the First World War until his last days in the spring of 1955. Those years can be divided into five distinct segments. First, Einstein’s support of Zionism 205


begins in 1919 with his first public appearances, especially his first visit to the United States in 1921 with Chaim Weizmann for the Zionist movement and the Hebrew University. Next, his activity continued between the two world wars in international institutions for peace, among them the League of Nations Committee on Intellectual Co-operation in 1924, 1925, and 1929, and the International Labor Organization’s Advisory Committee of Intellectual Workers in 1927. Then, in the 1930s, and especially in the immediate prewar years, Einstein warned of the imminent danger to Jews, to democracy, and to civilization presented by Nazism, Fascism, and dictatorial regimes in general. Following World War II, Einstein emphasized the moral and political responsibility that scientists on the one hand and political leaders on the other hand were charged with, in view of the atomic energy they controlled. As Einstein wrote in 1948, in his contribution to a college debaters’ handbook: ‘In the shadow of the atomic bomb it has become even more apparent that all men are, indeed, brothers. If we recognize and act upon this simple truth, mankind may proceed to a higher level of human development. But should the angry passions of a nationalistic world engulf us any further, we are doomed.’ 6 In the last years of Einstein’s life, after the Holocaust and as the State of Israel was established and struggled for its existence, the main thrust of his political reaction continued to be moral. As he said in a letter to one of the heads of the Jewish Agency a short time before his death: ‘The most important aspect of our policy must be our everpresent, manifest, desire to institute complete equality for the Arab citizen living in our midst … the attitude we adopt toward the Arab minority will provide the real test of our moral standards as a people.’ 7 The consistent nature of Einstein’s Judeo-ethical conception over forty years was apparent as well in cases where he felt obliged to take an exceptional stand. Thus, for example, a few days after the murder on 24 June 1922 of German Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau, Einstein wrote to a colleague that in this particular instance he was in favor of the proposal that the University of Berlin should hold a memorial service for Rathenau, for, although ‘In general, the intervention by a cultural institution into political affairs is to be condemned … here, it is a question of affirming a broad moral position … The university must … affirm that any society which does not insist upon respect for all life must necessarily decay.’8 Subsequently, from 1933 on, as the Nazis rose to power, as despotism spread throughout Europe, and as the freedom of the world was endangered, Einstein came to the conclusion that the pacifist principles he still believed in dared not to stand in the way of armed struggle against Nazism, for, as he wrote in a letter to a student who was a conscientious objector: ‘Organized power can be opposed only by organized power. Much as I regret this, there is no other way.’9 206


Understanding the structural form of Einstein’s argument is essential for understanding his actual stand. On the one hand, Einstein refrained from developing a formal or systematic creed of social or Jewish philosophy. Most of his statements on such problems were brief, concise, sometimes even fragmentary, often resembling formulas and employing such expressions as ‘God’ in a symbolic manner. On the other hand, he remained consistent in his cognitive approach, which demanded that a position regarding social morality, in Jewry or humanity as a whole, must be based on the inseparable relationship between two components of knowledge: the rational and the empirical, that is, theory and experience, imagination and sophistication, or, as he once said when explaining his Zionist motivations, ‘not merely by my spontaneous feelings but on rational grounds …’10 On the one hand, general laws in matters of Jewish and universal social ethics cannot be inferred from personal or social experience but must originate in tradition, faith, or perhaps even more in the inventive and aesthetic faculties of the human mind. Belief in the possibility that the rules governing society, history, art, man’s ethical responsibility, and man’s religiosity are amenable to reason is a theoretical assumption that precedes experience and empirical observation. On the other hand, logical thinking, theoretical formulation, and ethical consciousness cannot in themselves provide us with an adequate knowledge and evaluation of the empirical reality of history, of actual social traditions, or of the ways of life. In short, a principle of Jewish or universal ethics cannot simply be inferred from experience, nor can social reality and its critical and constructive assessment be experienced without factual observation or perhaps even actual participation. Finally, although logical and conceptual generalizations about Judaism and universalism are a cognitive necessity for rational attitudes on ethics, these generalizations should not be pushed too far. Reality includes a multiplicity of individualities, be they human beings or social values, and no generalization can fully represent this plurality. In social reality, for example, a specific, individual sequence of cause and effect, though derived from a theorem, can never be fully identical with it. One should remember, says Einstein, that ever since David Hume, causal interrelationships can be verified and substantiated theoretically, in thought and in logic, but not necessarily empirically. Sensuous experiences (sinnliche Erlebnisse) in themselves, Einstein wrote to Ernest B. Zeisler, cannot establish an adequate cognitive framework for social ethics, human rights, or Jewish values. Hence, Judaism must be understood as an empirical individual reality rooted in universal theoretical ethics. The individuality of each phenomenon, person, group, nation, or tradition must be safeguarded, but within the universality of mankind and as an inseparable part of it.11 207


ETHICS OF RESTRAINT These forms of thought in the area of social ethics provided a framework within which Einstein reacted to some of the problems of his time, and we shall consider a number of these according to their substance and chronology. A In 1920–21 and later in 1929, Einstein testified that the anti-Semitism he encountered in Germany upon his arrival there in 1914 had had a considerable influence on his development of his Jewish identity. What worried him from the outset was how anti-Semitism had damaged the Jew’s self-image, ‘how … innumerable … forces of the Gentile majority undermined the confidence even of the best of my fellow-Jews …’.12 The devastating effect of anti-Semitism was greatest, Einstein felt, during the Emancipation period, for at that time most Western Jews lacked consciousness of their identity as Jews and, to an extent, of their dignity as human beings. As a result, their moral resistance weakened, in contrast to earlier times, when the Jewish community was less amorphous. But with the emergence of Zionism, oppression and antagonism could be transformed; Jewish existence would be reawakened and flourish.13 With regard to the nature of anti-Semitism, why and how it persisted, Einstein proffered a number of answers. Hatred of the Jews developed because the Jews were a weak and defenseless minority and because individual Jews nevertheless achieved prominence in gentile society. ‘The Jews as a group may be powerless, but the sum of the achievements of their individual members is everywhere considerable and telling … The forces dormant in the individual are mobilized, and the individual himself is stimulated to self-sacrificing effort, by the spirit that is alive in the group.’14 This intellectual vitality and power concentrated in a weak, scattered minority aroused fear and suspicion, and thus resentment, opposition, and even hatred, evident especially in the Nazi movement: ‘More than anything else in the world, they fear the influence of men of intellectual independence. I see in this the essential cause for the savage hatred of Jews raging in present-day Germany … they see the Jews as a nonassimilable element that cannot be driven into uncritical acceptance of dogma …’15 The motives for hating Jews also formed the mechanisms of antiSemitism, primarily justification and projection. In the political sphere, for example, anti-Semitism was used to justify the interests of the privileged classes: in the case of Nazism, this anti-Semitism ‘enabled a small, 208


unscrupulous, and insolent group to place the German people in a state of complete bondage.’16 The second mechanism operating in this case was projection. In the long history of Jew-hating, The crimes with which the Jews have been charged … were to justify the atrocities perpetrated against them … They were supposed to have poisoned wells … murdered children for ritual purposes. They were falsely charged with a systematic attempt at the economic domination and exploitation of all mankind. Pseudo-scientific books were written to brand them an inferior, dangerous race. They were reputed to foment wars and revolutions for their own selfish purposes. They were presented at once as dangerous innovators and as enemies of true progress. They were charged with falsifying the culture of nations by penetrating the national life under the guise of becoming assimilated. In the same breath they were accused of being so stubbornly inflexible that it was impossible for them to fit into any society.17 In addition, exploitation of the Jews, a minority group, served to reinforce the self-awareness of the majority group.18 Einstein’s conclusion, on the basis of the overall form of his thinking on these matters, is so formulated that the particular phenomenon – in this instance, in Jewish history – reflects a universal phenomenon in human history as a whole. Thus, political reality is the product of a struggle between two trends, one optimistic and the other pessimistic. In the optimistic view, in the original sense of the German Enlightenment and British liberalism, society will attain the fullest development of its qualities if it is allowed to develop in complete freedom. The ‘free unfolding of the productive forces of individuals and groups’ is the guarantee for the realization of progress, whereas the role of political forces is to safeguard the external conditions for this development in freedom. The pessimistic view, on the other hand, claims that freedom leads to the ruin of society and that only ‘blind obedience, and coercion’ can ensure society’s continued existence. Einstein concluded: ‘The adherents of this second trend are the enemies of the free groups and of education for independent thought. They are, moreover, the carriers of political antiSemitism.’19 B Einstein’s interpretation of the nature of anti-Semitism led to his concept of Zionism. Given the structure of Einstein’s socioethical thinking, it followed that as Zionism was among other things a solution to anti-Semitism, 209


it must necessarily maintain what anti-Semitism negates and build what it destroys – the universal values of ‘mutual toleration and respect’, freedom for man and society, the equal status of men, and democracy. Furthermore, if the political reality is characterized, as we have seen, by a struggle between optimism and pessimism, and political anti-Semitism is an expression of pessimism regarding the nature of man, Zionism must necessarily develop according to the optimistic conception, that is, on ‘the free interplay of individuals and groups’ without discrimination with regard to social class, ethnic group, religion, or nationality. This way of thinking led Einstein to conclude: ‘Palestine is not primarily a place of refuge for the Jews of Eastern Europe but the embodiment of the reawakening corporate spirit of the whole Jewish nation.’ 20 And that reawakening, as noted before, is structured in terms of a meeting between tradition and modern reality: ‘The community in Palestine must approach the social ideal of our forefathers as it is laid down in the Bible, and at the same time become a seat of modern intellectual life …’21 The meeting between tradition and modernism, if expressed on the socioethical plane, requires political Zionism to establish a model society, a society whose sons will resemble their forefathers, ‘men who embodied the conscience of the western world, defenders of human dignity and justice’.22 For that reason, Zionism must keep in mind that its function is not ‘to create a political society’; rather ‘our aim is, in accordance with the old tradition of Jewry, a cultural one in the widest sense of the word’.23 These ethical criteria, Einstein added, are not applied at the expense of practical political criteria. On the contrary, the ethical approach, consideration for one’s fellow man, elimination of the irrational psychological barrier between Jews and Arabs – these are the essential conditions if Zionism is to achieve its practical political aims. Consequently, ‘We – that is to say, the Arabs and ourselves – have got to agree on the main outlines of an advantageous partnership which shall satisfy the needs of both nations. A just solution of this problem … is an end no less important … than the promotion of the work of construction itself.’24 The events in Hebron in August 1929 affected Einstein deeply and intensified his awareness of the urgent political necessity of finding a common language for Jews and Arabs in Eretz Israel and a solution for the tension between the two peoples through understanding and consent. The British mandatory policy earned Einstein’s sharp criticism, but he felt the main responsibility for the future relations of Jews and Arabs belonged to the Jews themselves.25 In a letter to Samuel Hugo Bergman, dated 27 September 1929, Einstein wrote that the riots in Eretz Israel proved once again how essential it was to create ‘a kind of true symbiosis’ between Jews and Arabs. By symbiosis, Einstein meant the regular operation of joint organizations and institutions in the realm of administration, society, 210


and economics. The separate existence of the two peoples, he added, would inevitably lead to dangerous tension.26 Einstein later criticized public statements by Zionist leaders such as Selig Brodetsky. In a letter of 25 November 1929 he complained to Chaim Weizmann that ‘the economic and psychological problems of the JudeoArabic symbiosis were completely by-passed, but handled as an episode of conflict … should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned absolutely nothing during our 2,000 years of suffering, and deserve all that will come to us …’.27 In a similar letter of the same date to Bergman, Einstein added that if the Zionist policy toward the Arab population did not change, ‘a catastrophic development’ was to be expected.28 Bergman then wrote to Kurt Blumenfeld and expressed his fear that Einstein might become estranged from Zionism if he came to feel that Zionism could not be realized ‘without oppression of the Arabic people and in peaceful agreement with it …’.29 In a number of his letters to Bergman, Einstein consistently reiterated his view that there was no practical possibility or moral justification for carrying out Zionism in the absence of cooperation with the Arabs and that such cooperation must take place in many areas, including the community, economics, education. Moreover, the Arabs should be assisted in raising their standards of living, of health, and of education. For a better life and education are the sine qua non for the creation of a society based on reason. And such a society is essential for the growth of a free person – free from the point of view of his political status, free of political dependence or oppression, free of economic subjection, and free internally from the control of the irrational.30 The moral superiority of society to politics, which Einstein emphasized throughout his public life, not only required an attitude of understanding, cooperation, and equality with the Arabs but also led Einstein to approve the Zionist Labour and Kibbutz movement.31 This favorable approach was based on his general conception of the nature of man and his relation to society. On the one hand, man is dependent on society, on the culture into which he is born and on the socioeconomic conditions obtaining in the society in which he lives. In all areas ‘his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word “society”’.32 Man’s particular nature, however, is such that his dependence on society is neither passive nor automatic. Although heredity, biological condition, and cultural environment set the pattern of human lives, at the same time, thanks to man’s ability to engage in ‘conscious thinking’, ‘human beings are not condemned … to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate’.33 Far from saying that there is ‘free will’ in empirical 211


reality, Einstein believed that biological facts and geo-historical conditions have great impact on man. But through hard work society is able to improve life, and that is what led Einstein to respect, and sometimes even to admire, the Labour-Zionist movement in Eretz Israel. C Einstein’s socioethical conception of Jewish nationalism within the framework of Zionism reflected his general view of nationalism, and especially the need to restrain it. On the one hand, he himself in 1921 defined his position on Zionism as an expression of his admission that in political reality, nationalism is unavoidable: ‘I am a national Jew in the sense that I demand the preservation of the Jewish nationality as of every other. I look upon Jewish nationality as a fact, and I think that every Jew ought to come to definite conclusions on Jewish questions on the basis of this fact … That was the main motive of my joining the Zionist movement.’34 On the other hand, Einstein constantly urged caution in regard to ‘narrow nationalism’, ‘exaggerated nationalism’, ‘excessive nationalism’, and ‘the spell of nationalism’, and he made it clear that ‘my Zionism does not exclude cosmopolitan views’.35 The political and social events to which Einstein reacted in the course of four decades were varied and were even to him of diverse significance. World War I was an expression of gratuitous hate between nations; Nazism and racism were a manifestation of the predominance of irrationalism; the use of atomic weapons from the end of World War II on was a major moral challenge for scientists and politicians; the McCarthy era was a test of the integrity of intellectuals in confrontation with political powers; and the State of Israel was a test of Jewish ethics and self-restraint. Despite all the variety in those events and processes and their relative historical significance, Einstein remained constant in his struggle in favor of curbing nationalism. As early as the spring of 1915 he agreed with his friend Romain Rolland that it was the duty of intellectuals ‘to restrain impassioned outbursts … opposing them with the voice of reason …’36 Also in that year he wrote in the same vein to Hendrik A. Lorentz, adding, ‘it would seem that men always need some … fiction in the name of which they can hate one another. Once it was religion. Now it is the State.’37 To the end of his days, Einstein rejected, in essence, the irrationalism in ‘exaggerated nationalism’, for irrationalism, with its accompanying chauvinism, bitterness, and suspicion, was an obstacle to human progress, and thus also one of the causes of war.38 Instead of ‘excessive nationalism’, said Einstein, what was required was internationalism, that is, ‘a rational relationship between countries, a sane union and 212


understanding between nations, mutual cooperation for mutual advancement without interference with the particular customs of any nation’.39 D The principle of retaining the individuality of each people within internationalism and as part of it was evident also in Einstein’s view of the religious character of Judaism. Here, as in other matters, he dealt with the particular question of religion and Judaism as part of the universal problem of religion and reason, religion and science. Einstein’s connection with Judaism and Zionism, as we have seen, was directed at Judaism not as an institutionalized religion but as a community and a historical tradition, which, together with classicism and Christianity, provided the foundation for the development of Western civilization. Einstein was of course aware that historically Judaism was based on religion, but here, as in all areas of his social thought, he formulated his stand from a critical rationalistic and universal point of departure. Einstein viewed religion on two planes, the historical-institutional and the cognitive-symbolic. On the former, religion is defined as obsolete, unable to stand up to the rational criticism of modern man, and is in fact considered to be an obstacle to human progress. On the second, religion is defined as a manner of thinking and even feeling that complements science, enriching modern man’s spiritual and aesthetic world. The two planes are explained as the product of a three-stage evolution, which Einstein termed the ‘stages of religious experience’. The first stage is that of the ‘religion of fear’. Man is by nature beset with needs and fears – of hunger, of sickness, of death. Consequently, in order to enable man to overcome those fears, ‘the human mind creates illusory beings more or less analogous to itself on whose wills and actions these fearful happenings depend. Thus one tries to secure the favor of these beings by carrying out actions and offering sacrifices which, according to the tradition handed down from generation to generation, propitiate them or make them well disposed toward a mortal.’40 The second stage is that of ‘moral religion’, motivated by ‘the social impulses’ of man. Here the ‘desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence, who protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes … the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied longing: he who preserves the souls of the dead.’41 Although these two stages are represented in all institutional religions, in Judaism, and later in Christianity, the second stage is stronger. Thus, like the ‘religions of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient’, Judaism is to be viewed as a ‘moral religion’. 213


In both stages, the conception of divinity is still anthropomorphic and as such suits the ‘religiosity of the naïve man … a sublimation of a feeling similar to that of a child for its father, a being to whom one stands, so to speak, in a personal relation, however deeply it may be tinged with awe’.42 Religions of that kind, with all their social, legal, and denominational aspects, ‘I can only consider historically and psychologically; they have no other significance for me’. However, Einstein continued, there is a third stage in the evolution of religions, latent or repressed in the first two stages, which has deep meaning for a person of scientific, rational critical thought: ‘I shall call it cosmic religious feeling.’43 Although Einstein remained remote from and opposed to all sentimentalism, he considered aesthetic criteria relevant in this context, and he felt that the religiosity that could be meaningful to a rational man and to scientific thought was the ‘religious feeling [that] takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is utterly insignificant reflection’.44 Moreover, ‘The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.’45 These statements are consistent in their content and fragmented in their literary form. Underlying them is the assumption that religion is a kind of ‘religiosity’, a set of theoretical formulas and aesthetic impressions expressing rational man’s awe at the pluralistic unity of the cosmos. In the spirit of Spinoza’s logic and pantheistic thought, Einstein defined religiosity as faith in the ‘rationality and intelligibility of the world’, a faith based on the cognitive assumption that the world is rationally comprehensible. This religion was not conceived as a set of dogmas, rituals, or authoritative institutions, nor was the concept of God conceived as a ‘personal God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings’. Rather – and here too Einstein was close to Spinoza – God is a rational, logical concept, sometimes even metaphoric, as necessitated by the basic notion that the world is constructed according to the ‘orderly harmony of what exists’. Thus, God is a rational, symbolic expression of the pluralistic unity of cosmic harmony. Consequently, there is no room for divinity in the traditional or institutional religious sense, or for a divinity that is a kind of ‘will or goal outside the human sphere’. Einstein summarized his interpretations: My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order and harmony which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to 214


content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem – the most important of all human problems …46 In a similar vein, aesthetic feeling and a cosmic sense assume the form of rational harmony. Einstein wrote: The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science … A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds – it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man …47 In the course of many years, and quite consistently, Einstein made it clear that his spiritual proximity to Spinoza and his own conviction of the epistemological validity of causation and determinism do not necessarily lead to the relativization of man’s ethical values. On the one hand, Einstein approved of Spinoza’s view of both ‘the causal dependence of all phenomena’ and the application of causality ‘not only to inanimate nature but also to human feelings and actions’.48 Moreover, Einstein also commended Spinoza’s argument against man’s notion of free will independent of causality. This notion ‘was an illusion resulting from our ignorance of the causes operative within us’.49 This, so it would seem at first sight, could not but lead to a deterministic interpretation not only of human knowledge but also of human ethics, thus practically undermining the notion of moral responsibility. Indeed, in a private letter referring to the horrors of World War II, Einstein says: ‘Objectively, there is, after all, no free will … What need is there for a criterion of responsibility? I believe that the horrifying deterioration in the ethical conduct of people today stems primarily from the mechanization and dehumanization of our lives …’50 On the other hand, however, the notion of ethical responsibility as one of the highest values in the human sphere was constantly and consistently an essential factor in the thought and life of Einstein. This notion was deeply rooted in the legacy of the Enlightenment: the individual, conceived in terms of a rational being, is endowed with the unique attribute of autonomy, that is, of the potential freedom and independence of reason. Seen from a logical point of view, man’s rationality is a concept and a value that cannot be derived from empirical experience; hence, as Einstein argued against Bertrand Russell, it has to be grounded in reason itself.51 This conclusion, which, as Einstein perhaps somewhat grudgingly admitted, is not altogether alien to Immanuel Kant, has far-reaching 215


implications, for it makes autonomous ethics possible despite determinism. For if indeed the notion of man’s inherent rational nature is not inductively gained from experience or sensation but rather from the a priori ‘instrumentality of thinking’,52 there must be a realm of cognitive concepts and propositions separated from causation and determinism. This, then, is the realm of ‘the free creations of thought’.53 The freedom of thought, though, does not contradict scientific thought: rather, it complements it, as is indeed shown by the notions of religiosity and of ethics. Religiosity and ethics are two different frames of reference and are independent of each other; neither can be determined by sense data. Religiosity, as we have seen, nourishes, enriches, or even inspires scientific thought, and Einstein was ‘of the opinion that all the finer speculations in the realm of science spring from a deep religious feeling and that without such feeling they would not be fruitful’.54 Thus, it is by the power of the intellect, of free creative thought, that man admires the magnificence of the structure bestowed upon nature and confronts it with a feeling of awe and humility.55 Ethics, being ‘an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it’,56 also enriches scientific activity, but in a different way: it sets the goals for science. The scientific method itself is neutral insofar as the purposes it may serve are concerned; it ‘would not have led anywhere, it would not even have been born …’,57 without the determining quality of man’s ethical – or, unfortunately, unethical – decisions. Science itself cannot create ends, nor can it teach the merits of those ends. It does, however, supply the means by which those ends can be achieved once they have been determined by individuals or society. Moreover, the rules concerning ethical reasoning, its acceptability and logical validity, cannot be founded on a scientific empirical basis. Just as ‘the valuation of life and all its nobler expressions can only come out of the soul’s yearning toward its own destiny’, so should the ‘moral foundation for the personal conduct of life’ be determined by man’s ethical autonomy in the light of free thought.58 What ‘Spinoza so often emphasized under the name of amor intellectualis’ 59 exemplifies Einstein’s own definition. Accordingly, one should preserve the ‘moral foundations of science’, but one cannot limit man’s inherent ethical autonomy by turning it around and speaking of the ‘scientific foundations of morality’, for these foundations indeed are to be determined by man’s reasoning faculty alone.60 With this statement, Einstein arrived at a crucial conclusion in the area of social ethics and religiosity, whereby ‘the cosmic religious feeling’ and man’s ‘deep conviction of the rationality of the universe’ 61 do not contradict scientific thought, but, as we have seen, are likely to complement it. ‘For the scientific method can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are 216


related to, and conditioned by, each other.’ However, ‘knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be’. Religiousness and, independently from it, ethics are valid frameworks of evaluation, determining the aims to be achieved by the scientific faculties of mankind.62 SUMMARY This analysis has focused on the form and content of Einstein’s Jewish and universal social ethics as they are exemplified in his thought and life. Analysis of the form has shown that, according to Einstein’s cognitive approach to social ethics, theoretical concepts are true, hence valid, only if they are applicable to actual social, empirical experience. Analysis of the content has shown that Einstein conceived of both Judaism and Zionism as particularistic frames of reference in which universalistic values are reflected and embodied. And, finally, we have seen that form and content together constitute a harmonious system, formulated in ethical terms, ordered according to rational rules, and expressed in the actual, empirical human condition. This potential harmony of the human condition – peace – was the lifelong focus of Einstein’s Jewish and universal social ethics. Peace is thus formulated as the harmony of the coordinative relationships between form and content, reason and faith, knowledge and understanding, theory and experience, truth and beauty, freedom and responsibility, autonomy and justice, Judaism and Mankind. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my gratitude to The Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, to The Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem, and to The Weizmann Archives, Yad Chaim Weizmann, Rehovoth, for permission to use and to quote from their materials, and to their staffs for the help extended to me. I also wish to acknowledge the competent assistance of Mr Giora Hon, Chelsea College, London. The activities of Albert Einstein on behalf of institutions of higher learning, such as Hebrew University, Jerusalem, have not been dealt with in this article. Much source material on this matter is located in the Weizmann Archives, the Jewish National and University Library, and the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem. As to Einstein’s connection with Brandeis University, see Israel Goldstein, Brandeis University – Chapter of Its Founding, New York, Bloch Publishing Co., 1951. 217


NOTES 1. Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions [based on Mein Weltbild, ed. Carl Seelig, Amsterdam, Querido Verlag, 1934], new trans. and rev. Sonja Bargmann, 5th printing, New York, Crown Publishers, 1960, p. 195. A similar definition of the meaning of Judaism was formulated by Einstein after a meeting with Dr. M.L. Perlzweig, chairman of the World Union of Jewish Students, of which Einstein was honorary president. A photocopy of the manuscript dated 3 October 1933, is preserved in the Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem (hereafter cited as ZA), File K.11/224/3. The original is in the possession of Dr. Perlzweig. An English translation has been printed in Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, New York and Cleveland, World Publishing Co., 1971, pp. 504–5; now also in Albert Einstein, The Human Side: New Glimpses from his Archives, ed. Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1979, pp. 60–1. 2. Ideas and Opinions, p. 12. 3. Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden, eds., Einstein on Peace, New York, Schocken Books, 1968, pp. 150, 320. Cf. Virgil G. Hinshaw Jr., ‘Einstein’s Social Philosophy’, in Paul Arthur Schilpp, ed., Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, 2 vols., New York, Harper and Row, Harper Torchbooks, The Science Library, 1959, vol. 2, p. 653. 4. Einstein on Peace, p. 241. 5. Philipp Frank, Einstein: His Life and Times, trans. from a German manuscript by George Rosen, ed. and rev. Shuichi Kusaka, New York, Albert A. Knopf, 1947, p. 288; see also Einstein, Out of My Later Years, New York, Philosophical Library, 1950, p. 23; cf. Einstein’s definition: ‘In the last analysis, everyone is a human being, irrespective of whether he is an American or a German, a Jew or a Gentile’, Einstein, The Human Side, p. 61. 6. Einstein on Peace, p. 459. Cf. the plea for international understanding by Einstein, New York Times, 27 November 1947, p. 1, col. 7 (address to the Foreign Press Association of the UN, 11 November 1947). 7. Einstein to Zvi Lurie, 4 January 1955, in reference to their conversation held on 29 December 1953; photocopy preserved in ZA, 12/50/K. 8. Einstein on Peace, p. 53; cf. Clark, Einstein, pp. 292–4. The paperback edition of Clark (New York, Avon Books, 1972) will henceforth be cited as Clark (Avon). 9. Einstein on Peace, p. 319. 10. Ideas and Opinions, p. 181. 11. Ibid., pp. 19–24, 46, 188, 197, 270, 276; Frank, Einstein, pp. 282–3. See also Philipp G. Frank, ‘Einstein, Mach, and Logical Positivism’, in Schilpp, ed., Albert Einstein, Vol. 1, pp. 269 ff. Also, the letters by Einstein to Ernest B. Zeisler, 5 August 1936, 24 May 1951, 24 July 1951, and 10 December 1952, in the Schwadron Collection of the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem (hereafter cited as SC), ‘Einstein’ Box, M/32/7. 12. Ideas and Opinions, p. 171; Einstein, About Zionism: Speeches and Letters, trans. and ed. Leon Simon, London, Soncino Press, 1930, pp. 27–8. See also About Zionism, p. 23: ‘Before we can effectively combat anti-Semitism, we must first of all educate ourselves … out of the slave-mentality … We must have more dignity, more independence …’ On the impact of the Prague environment, see Clark, Einstein, pp. 137–41; also Clark (Avon), p. 179. In an illuminating letter to Menachem Ussischkin, dated 19 March 1929, Einstein once again stated that it was the ‘Berlin environment’ that ‘enlightened’ (aufzuklären) him to his

218


13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21.

22. 23.

24. 25.

‘appurtenance to the Jewish people …’. The persons who supported him in this ‘turnabout’ (Wandlung), Einstein added, were Chaim Weizmann and Kurt Blumenfeld; cf. SC, ‘Einstein’ Box, M/32/5. Additional evidence, especially on the period of Einstein’s stay in Prague starting in the autumn of 1910, is included in Samuel Hugo Bergman’s Personal Reminiscences, in the Bergman Archives of the Jewish National and University Library (hereafter cited as AB), 4°/1502/ 155/a. Ideas and Opinions, p. 196; cf. pp. 178, 187–8. See also About Zionism, pp. 23 ff. ‘Why Do They Hate the Jews?’ appeared originally in Collier’s Weekly Magazine 102 (26 November 1938), pp. 9–10, translated by Ruth Norden. Ideas and Opinions, p. 197; see also p. 192. Ibid. Ibid., p. 192. Ibid., pp. 192–3. lbid., p. 193. Ibid., pp. 197–8. Ibid., p. 181. One of the major aims of Zionism, in Einstein’s eyes, was the regeneration, or convalescence, of the Jew (jüdische Gesundung), and it seems to have been an essential and recurrent theme in his Zionism. He gave a typical summary of this approach in 1929: ‘The greatest enemies of Jewish national consciousness and Jewish dignity are fatty degeneration – by which I mean the loss of moral fibre which results from wealth and comfort and a kind of spiritual dependence on the surrounding non-Jewish world …’, About Zionism, pp. 37–8; also p. 23. See also Ideas and Opinions, pp. 178, 187–8. Ideas and Opinions, p. 180. Also see the message by Einstein to the Jewish Teachers Seminary: ‘the intellectual decline brought on by shallow materialism is a far greater menace to the survival of Jewry than the numerous external foes who threaten its existence with violence …’, New York Times, 8 June 1936, p. 22, col. 2. Ideas and Opinions, p. 177. Ibid., p. 178. Cf. ‘Jew and Arab’, in About Zionism, pp. 51–64. In his 12 July 1938 letter to Haim Greenberg, then editor of the New York Jewish Frontier, Einstein reports on his meeting with Dr. Shatara, president of the Arab National League in New York, during which a possible agreement between Jews and Arabs to avoid the partition of Palestine was discussed; cf. ZA, A/259/16. Ideas and Opinions, pp. 176–7; see also pp. 172–4. ‘Palestine Troubles’, Manchester Guardian Weekly, 21 (1929), p. 314; reprinted in About Zionism, pp. 53–62. In his letter to Dr. Joseph Marcus, dated 8 March 1948, Einstein called the British policy in Palestine ‘perfidious’ and the cause of the dangerous situation then prevailing in Palestine, even more than ‘our own failures and sins of omission’; in ZA, 12/50/K. On the moral responsibility of the Jewish people for the political situation in Palestine, see Einstein’s letter of 1 June 1944 to Kurt Blumenfeld, president of the German Zionist Federation: ‘it would be nice if we could lay the entire blame for that on the British …’, in ZA, A/222/111. Later, in his detailed letter of 29 January 1946 to Martin Buber, Einstein once again emphasized his criticism of British colonial policy in the Near East, which had been putting obstacles in the way of Jewish–Arab cooperation in Palestine since the 1920s. See Martin Buber, Briefwechsel aus sieben Jahrzehnten, edited and introduced by Grete Schaeder in consultation with Ernst Simon, and with cooperation of Rafael Buber, Margot Cohn and Gabriel Stern, Heidelberg, Verlag Lambert Schneider, 1975, vol. 3 (1938–65), no. 79, pp. 98–100.

219

RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH 26. ZA, A/187/18/a. 27. In Clark, Einstein, pp. 402–3. Several months earlier, Einstein wrote that despite the August 1929 outbreak of violence in Hebron, which was a ‘tragic catastrophe’, one must remember that ‘no irreconcilable differences stand in the way of peace between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Let us therefore above all be on our guard against blind chauvinism of any kind …’, About Zionism, pp. 51–2. See also Einstein’s public letter ‘To the Arabic World’, published in Falastin, 28 January 1930 and reprinted in Jüdische Rundschau (Berlin), no. 9, 31 January 1930. The Hebrew press reacted skeptically, and even negatively, to Einstein’s suggestion of joint endeavors. Although Einstein never received the harsh criticism leveled at members of the ‘Brith-Shalom’ peace movement, his ideas were by and large rejected. See, for example, the official organ of the Zionist movement, Haolam (London) 1930, no. 15, p. 287, no. 18, p. 295. 28. ZA, A/187/18/a. Samuel Hugo Bergman, in a letter of 17 December 1929, agreed with Einstein that ‘a catastrophic development’ was to be expected because Zionist leadership and public opinion were not aware that indeed ‘the Arab question is the key to our entire situation’. Only ‘a generous cooperation’ and ‘a forward looking program for Semitic cooperation’ could help to settle the Jewish–Arab conflict. In his reply to Bergman of 19 June 1930, Einstein expressed his agreement with Bergman’s views and with most of his suggestions, and added that if the Jews did not realize the necessity of direct cooperation with the Arabic world, ‘the entire Jewish position … will become completely untenable …’, in AB, 4°/1502/(1928–50). Cf. the Hebrew periodical, Sheifotenu, published by Brith-Shalom, Jerusalem, 1930, no. 5, pp. 15–18. In a letter to Martin Buber of 2 September 1929, Hans Kohn expressed his appreciation of Einstein’s views on the Jewish–Arab issue and added that responsibility for the ethical-political situation in Palestine rested on the shoulders of the Jewish community; one should not shift this burden onto ‘fate and other people …’, Buber, Briefwechsel, vol. 2 (1918–38), no. 307, p. 347. 29. Cf. Bergman’s letter to Blumenfeld, 1 January 1930, ZA, A/187/18a. Also see the polemics of Einstein and Erich Kahler with Prof. Philip K. Hitti of Princeton University, in the Princeton Herald, 14 April 1944, pp. 1, 6, and 29 April 1944, pp. 1 ff., reprinted in Erich Kahler, The Jews among the Nations, with an appendix, ‘The Jews and the Arabs in Palestine’, New York, Frederick Ungar, 1967, pp. 130–49. 30. ZA, A/187/18a, and AB, 4°/1502. 31. Cf. Einstein’s letter to Mrs. Lindheim, written in Pasadena, CA, on 2 February 1933, SC, ‘Einstein’ Box. Also see Samuel Hugo Bergman to Einstein, 8 October 1929, ZA, A/187/18a. In his letter to Zvi Lurie, quoted above (see note 7), Einstein stated that ‘the Kibbutz movement is an excellent example’ of a just policy toward the Arab citizen in Israel; in ZA, 12/50/K, and Einstein on Peace, p. 638. Einstein’s positive attitude to the communal way of life of the kibbutz was part of his much broader identification with the moral ideals of socialism, their roots in biblical prophecy as he saw it, and their contribution to the eradication of ‘the real source of the evil’, namely, the ‘economic anarchy of capitalist society’, ‘Why Socialism?’ in Out of My Later Years, p. 128. Einstein’s socialism is a topic of great significance and would require a special study. 32. Out of My Later Years, p. 126. 33. Ibid., p. 127. 34. About Zionism, p. 29. 35. Ibid., pp. 30, 52; Ideas and Opinions, pp. 188–9; Einstein on Peace, pp. 152,

220


36. 37. 38. 39.

40.

41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47.

48. 49.

240–1, 311 ff., 406; Frank, Einstein, p. 149. Chaim Weizmann, reacting to the term ‘narrow nationalism’, wrote to Einstein in detail on 28 April 1938 that despite the ‘inhuman provocation’ by the Arabs and the international powers that supported them, the Jewish community in Palestine had succeeded in not sinking ‘to the level of our opponents’; in the Weizmann Archives, Yad Chaim Weizmann, Rehovoth. Rolland to Einstein, 28 March 1915, reprinted in Einstein on Peace, p. 14. Ibid., p. 11. Ibid., p. 44; cf. p. 70. Also see Einstein’s ‘Foreword’ to Homer W. Smith, Man and His Gods, Boston, Little, Brown, 1952, pp. ix, x. Einstein on Peace, p. 44. Also see the comment by Einstein on the need for ‘teaching, for instance, history without creating the obsession of the past … the spell of nationalism may be thus broken …’, New York Times, 11 August 1949, p. 8, col. 6. Ideas and Opinions, p. 37. ‘Religion and Science’ was written especially for the New York Times Magazine, and appeared there 9 November 1930, sec. 5, pp. 1–4. The German text was published in the Berliner Tageblatt, 11 November 1930, supplement, p. 1. Ideas and Opinions, p. 37. Ibid., p. 40. Ibid., pp. 262, 38. See also ‘Is There a Jewish View of Life?’ in Opinion 2 (September 1932), p. 7; reprinted in Ideas and Opinions, pp. 185–6. Ideas and Opinions, p. 40. Ibid., p. 38. Banesh Hoffmann, with the collaboration of Helen Dukas, Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel, New York, New American Library, 1973, p. 95. See also New York Times, 25 April 1929, p. 60, col. 4. Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein pointed out, quite correctly, that Einstein used the term ‘God’ in order to formulate the idea of cosmic unity as a rationally conceived equivalent for the term monotheism. Cf. Frank, Einstein, pp. 280–8; Clark, Einstein, pp. 413–14; Ideas and Opinions, pp. 38, 45, 52, 120, 174, 195, 262; Arnold Sommerfeld, ‘To Albert Einstein’s Seventieth Birthday’, trans. Paul Arthur Schilpp, in Schilpp, ed., Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, p. 102. Also see Banesh Hoffmann, ‘Albert Einstein’, in Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook XXI, London, 1976, p. 284. ‘What I Believe’, Forum and Century, 84 (1930), pp. 193–4, reprinted in Living Philosophies, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1931, pp. 3 ff.; also reprinted under the title ‘Meeting Place of Science and Religion’, in E.H. Cotton, ed., Has Science Discovered God?, New York, Crowell, 1931, pp. 91 ff. See also Ideas and Opinions, p. 11. Similar ideas, especially on ‘truth and beauty’, were expressed in the famous conversation of Einstein with Rabindranath Tagore; see ‘The Nature of Reality’, Modern Review (Calcutta), 49 (1931), pp. 42–3. An authorized version of this conversation was published in ‘Tagore Talks with Einstein’, Asia, 31 (1931), pp. 138–42, and also, in abbreviated form, in Asia, 37 (1937), pp. 151–2. Einstein himself, however, seems to have felt that his encounter with Tagore was rather disappointing; cf. Einstein on Peace, pp. 112, 655. Einstein, ‘Introduction’ to Rudolf Kayser, Spinoza: Portrait of a Spiritual Hero, New York, Philosophical Library, 1946, p. xi. Ibid. Also Einstein’s ‘Foreword’ to Smith, Man and His Gods, pp. ix–x, and his argument that Spinoza ‘had fully recognized the senselessness of the question of an interaction of soul and body, as well as the problem which of both be the “primary”’, in his ‘Foreword’ to Spinoza: Dictionary, ed. Dagobert Runes, New

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50.

51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

York, Philosophical Library, 1951, p. vi. For a similar expression by Einstein of 5 February 1921, see Einstein, The Human Side, p. 40. On the question of determinism, see the letters by Einstein and Robert A. Millikan, published in the New York Times, 28 January 1931, p. 2, col. 2. Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann pointed out the dissatisfaction of Einstein ‘with the quantum theory with its denial of determinism’; cf. Einstein, The Human Side, pp. 68, 69. At this point, questions emerge that are beyond the scope of our study. It would seem advisable to keep in mind the remark by Niels Bohr on ‘the importance of utmost caution’ regarding a possible affinity of Einstein to Spinoza in matters other than those discussed here. Bohr, ‘Discussion with Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics’, in Schilpp, ed., Albert Einstein: PhilosopherScientist, p. 237. Einstein, The Human Side, pp. 81–2. Also see ‘My Credo’ of 1932, reproduced in the impressive Catalogue for the ‘Exhibition Einstein 1879–1979’, composed by Yehuda Elkana and Ady Ophir, Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem, March 1979, pp. 48, 49, and Prof. Elkana’s enlightening remarks on the rigidly classic epistemology of Einstein, according to which ‘human knowledge had to be deterministic’ (p. 56). Einstein, ‘Remarks on Bertrand Russell’s Theory of Knowledge’, trans. Paul Arthur Schilpp, in Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, 2nd edn, Evanston, IL, Library of Living Philosophers, 1946, p. 285. Ibid. Ibid., p. 287. See Russell’s answer, ibid., p. 697. Cf. ‘Science and God: A German Dialogue’, Forum, 83 (1930), p. 375. Einstein, The Human Side, pp. 39, 43–4, 67–70. Also see ‘On the Moral Obligation of the Scientist – a Message from Albert Einstein’, in Impact, Paris, UNESCO, 1950, vol. 1, p. 104. Here Einstein emphasized the notion of the ethical and social responsibility of the scientist, which is determined by man and his reasoning faculty; cf. p. 105. Similarly, on the ‘scientists and engineers’ who ‘carry particular moral responsibility’, see the communication by Einstein to the Fellows of the Society for Social Responsibility in Science, in Science, 112 (22 December 1950), pp. 760, 761. Einstein, The Human Side, p. 39. From a broadcast recording for the Science Conference, London, 28 September 1941, reprinted in Out of My Later Years, p. 113. ‘Science and God’, p. 374. Ibid., p. 375. Ibid. Ideas and Opinions, pp. 38–40. Also see the answer Einstein wrote to an enquiry by a Chicago rabbi on ‘The Religious Implications of the Theory of Relativity’, 20 December 1939; in Einstein, The Human Side, pp. 69, 70. Ideas and Opinions, pp. 41–2; cf. pp. 30, 46.

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Index

aborigines, 56 Ackermann, Joseph, 107 Ad Hoc Committee on Genocide, 58–9 Albigenses, 62 Alldeutscher Verband, 175 Allied Control Council Law No. 10, 57 Althaus, Paul, 137, 138–9, 140, 141 Altonaer Pastoren-Bekenntnis (Priests’ Creed 1932), 196 Altpreussische Kirche, 131 Altpreussische Union Synod, 137, 140 Altstötter, Josef, 57 Aner, Karl, 192 Antisemiten Katechismus, 175 Antisemitische Correspondenz, 175 anti-Semitism, 63, 90–1, 171–90, 208–9, 210 Arabs, 206, 210–11, 220n28 Arawak Indians, 62 Arendt, Hanna, 181 Artamanen, 22, 63 Artram Bund, 63 Aryans, 2, 8, 19, 21, 28, 34, 36, 64, 69, 71, 73, 88, 94, 97, 98, 99, 102, 110, 132, 175, 176, 179; Aryan Provision, 130–44 Asmussen, Hans, 196–7 Australia, 56 Bach, Hans, 92 Bachofen, Johann Jakob, 90 Bad Reichenhall, 92 Baeck, Leo, 171 Baeumler (Bäumler), Alfred, 6, 21, 31, 72, 89–90, 91, 109 Balkan peoples, 69 Baltic peoples, 56 Bangladesh, 56 Baron, Salo W., 9–10, 172, 181 Barth, Karl, 194, 197 Bartmann, Bernhard, 103 Bauer, Bruno, 173 Baumgarten, Otto, 194 Bäumler, Alfred see Baeumler (Bäumler), Alfred

Bayerische Volkspartei, 199 Bayreuther Circle 178 Bekennende Kirche see Confessional Church Bekennende Kirche (periodical), 98, 197 Bekenntnissynode der Deutschen Kirche, 179–80 Bekenntnissynode der Evangelischen Kirche der altpreussischen Union, 180 Bengals, 56 Benn, Gottfried, 6, 7 Bergman, Samuel Hugo, 210, 211, 220n28 Bergmann, Ernst, 179 Berlin, 66, 93, 104, 131, 135, 171; University of, 133, 136, 206 Berlin-Dahlem, 179 Bethel, 199 Bewer, Max, 176, 179 Beyer, Karl, 89 Blumenfeld, Kurt, 211 Bohemia, 67 Bolshevism, 27 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 133, 135, 143 Bormann, Martin, 67, 88 Bracher, Karl Dietrich, 27 Braunschweig, 135 Brazil, 56 Brodetsky, Selig, 211 Broszat, Martin, 32 Bruck, Möller von den, 5 Brüning era, 20 Buber, Martin, 93, 193 Buch, Walter, 35, 70 Buchheim, Hans, 32, 72 Bultmann, Rudolf, 136, 137, 140, 141 Bund der Landwirte, 177 Bund Nibelungen, 63 Burundi, 56 Caribbean Islands, 62 Catholics/Roman Catholic Church, 16, 31–2, 70, 88, 101, 103–4, 173, 175 Central Bureau for Apologetics, 131

223

RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH Central Verein, 140 Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens, 193 Chamberlain, Houston Stuart, 5, 9, 21, 93, 176, 178–9 Christ, 28–9, 96–7, 98, 100, 175, 197 Christianity/Christians, 16, 31, 33, 34, 63, 71, 88, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104, 213; and anti-Semitism, 172, 173, 174–5, 176, 178, 179, 180–3; Lutherans and the Jews, 191–203; and status of Jews, 130–70 Christiansen, Broder, 24, 25–6 Church, 16–17, 31, 34, 62–3, 70, 73, 88, 94, 101, 102, 176, 180; Lutherans and the Jew, 191–203; and status of Jews, 130–70 Church Law, 136, 137, 140, 143, 144 Columbus, Christopher, 62 Commissar Order (1941), 69–70 Communists, 199 Confessional Church, 98, 100, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 141, 143, 144, 191, 192, 194, 195, 196, 199 Conservative Nationalism, 24, 199 Conservatives, 177, 192, 199 Conway, John, 32 Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard, 193 Council of the German Evangelical Church see German Evangelical Church: Council of Cracow, 68 Crusaders, 62 cultural genocide, 58–9 Czechs, 68, 84n67 D.A.P., 175 Danube peoples, 69 Darré, Walter, 6, 22, 34, 65 Daumer, Friedrich, 173 Deissmann, Adolf, 136 Department for Racial Matters, 94 Detmold, 30 Deutsch Soziale Blaetter, 175 Deutsche Christen (German Christians), 24, 95, 99, 131, 134, 136, 138, 139, 141, 143, 179, 195, 199 Deutsche Christliche Studentbewegung, 193 Deutsche Volkspartei, 199 Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag, 199 Deutschgläubige movement, 139 Deutschlands Erneuerung, 26 Deutschnationale Volkspartei, 199 Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutz Bund, 2, 22 Deutschwandervogel, 63 Dingolfing, 28

Dingräve, Leopold (Ernst Wilhelm Eschman), 24 Drew, Paul, 195 Drost, Pieter N., 57 Dühring (Duehring), Eugen, 5, 19, 21, 172–3, 174, 175 Düsseldorf, 95 Eastern Europe, 35, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 88, 95 Eckart, Dietrich, 5, 23, 176, 178–9 Eckardt, A. Roy, 180–1, 185–6n5 Einstein, Albert, 204–22 Elert, Werner, 137, 139, 140, 141 Emancipation period, 208 Emergency League of Pastors (Pastors’ Emergency Association), 134, 135, 136, 195 Engels, Friedrich, 5 Enlightenment, 89, 215 Erlangen University, 137; statement, 137–8, 138–40, 141 Erzberger, Matthias, 22 Eschman, Ernst Wilhelm (Leopold Dingräve), 24 Esser, Hermann, 6 ethics, 204–22 ethnicity, 60, 61 Ettingen, Shmuel, 182 Feder, Gottfried, 4, 20 Feuerbach, Ludwig, 173 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 179 Fiebig, Paul, 194, 196 Fischer, Eugen, 9 Flannery, Edward, 181 Foerster, Paul, 175 Forster, Karl Heinz, 171–2 Forsthoff, Ernst, 1, 2, 5, 6, 105 Frank, Hans, 70 Frank, Walter, 8 Free Conservatives, 177 Free Corps (Freikorpse), 2, 22 freedom through totalitarianism, concept of, 2–9 Freideutschland, 175 Freud, Sigmund, 181 Freystadt, Moritz, 173 Frick, Heinrich, 193 Friedrich, Carl J., 1–2 Frind, Sigrid, 107 Fritsch, Theodor, 21, 22, 93, 173, 175, 196 Führer, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 17, 18, 20, 25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36, 73, 87, 97, 98, 104–5, 106–7, 108, 110–11, 180, 195; see also Hitler, Adolf Ganzer, Karl Richard, 18

224

INDEX Geistlichen Mitglieder der Vorlaeufigen Leitung der Evangelischen Kirche, Die, 180 Genghis Khan, 62 genocide, 55–86 Genocide Convention (1948), 56–9, 60, 61 George, Stefan, 94 German Christians see Deutsche Christen German Evangelical Church, 137, 140–1; Council of (Rat der Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland), 131, 132, 197 German identity, 34–5 German Prussian Synod, 135 Germanic faith movements, 23 Germanic man, 7, 8, 22, 33, 36 Germanic tribes, 34, 67 Germans, 20, 25, 64, 65, 66, 88, 99, 138–9, 140, 143, 174–5 Germany, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 33, 34, 64, 69, 92, 104, 140, 144, 193, 199, 208 Glaube, 17, 18, 19, 28, 31; see also ‘political faith’ Gobineau, Comte de, 5, 8 Goebbels, Jospeh, 21, 28, 92, 93 Goldmann, Felix, 90, 92 Göttingen, 140 Greater Prussia, 177 Greifelt, Ulrich, 67 Greive, Hermann, 186n5 Grieswelle, Detlev, 28 Grimm, Hans, 65 Gross, Walter, 94 Gründel, E. Günther, 24, 25–6 Gunther, Hans, 179 Gypsies, 56 Haeckel, Ernst, 19, 21, 63 Hamburg, 30 Hammer, 175–6 Handbuch zur Judenfrage, 175 Hartling, Konrad Meyer, 69 Hartmann, Eduard von, 21 Hauer, Jakob Wilhelm, 139 Hebron, 210 Heidenchristen, 94, 102 Heimdall, 175 Hentschel, Willibald, 22, 63 Herberg, Will, 181 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 192 Hertzberg, Arthur, 182 Hesse, 177 Heuss, Theodor, 16 Himmler, Heinrich, 22, 23, 29, 30, 32–3, 34, 35, 63, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 87, 95, 97,105, 107, 109 Hirsch, Emanuel, 99, 139 Hirschberg, Alfred, 93 Hitler, Adolf: and genocidal policy, 55, 64,

65–6, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 74; and ‘political faith’, 16–17, 18, 19, 20, 23–4, 27, 28–9, 29–30, 30–2, 33; and ‘political theology’, 87, 88, 89, 92, 94–5, 95–6, 101, 105, 108, 109; other references, 140, 179, 181, 196; see also Führer Hitler Youth, 18 Hofer, Hans, 192–3 Hoffman, Otto, 68 Hohn, Reinhard, 105 Höllander, Ludwig, 140 Holocaust, 1, 10, 32, 35, 63–74, 88, 95, 97 Homan, Rudolf, 101–2, 197 Horn, Wofgang, 25 Höss, Rudolf, 22 Hossenfelder, Joachim, 179, 195 Huber, Ernst Rudolf, 1, 5, 30, 105–7 Hume, David, 207 Ibo, 56 Indians, 56, 62 individualism, 8–9 Industrieklub, 95 Institut zum Studium der Judenfrage, 92–3 intellectuals, 5–9 International Commission of Jurists, 60 International Labor Organization: Advisory Committee of Intellectual Workers, 206 Iraq, 56 Isaac, Jules, 63, 181 Israel, 10, 100, 101, 103, 143, 179, 210, 206, 210, 212 Jacobi, Gerhard, 135 Jaensch, E., 9 Jäger, Herbert, 59–60 Jahn, Friedrich Ludwig, 172, 179 Jesus, 99, 102, 138, 139, 142, 176, 179, 181, 195, 197, 200; see also Christ Jewish Agency, 206 Jews: and genocide/Holocaust, 55, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 69, 70–3, 74; and German ‘political theology’, 89, 90–3, 95, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 108–9, 110, 111; Jewish and universal social ethics in life and thought of Einstein, 204–22; and modern Lutheranism, 191–203; and Nazi ideology, 9–10; and ‘political faith’ of Nazism, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27–8, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35–6; roots of modern anti-Semitism, 171–90; status at outset of Third Reich, 130–70 Johst, Hanns, 8–9, 96–7 Judaism, 33, 72, 73, 88, 93, 97, 98, 101, 102, 103, 109, 111, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142–3, 172, 173, 174, 175, 178, 179,

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RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH 180, 181–2, 191, 192, 193–4, 195, 197, 198, 198, 204, 205, 207, 213, 217 Judeo-Christian tradition, 8, 205 Jüdische Rundschau, 91, 92, 93 Jüdische Student, Der, 108–9 Jung, Edgar J., 7, 24, 25 Junge Frontgeneration, 25 Jünger, Ernst, 1, 4–5, 7, 24 Jungorden, 22 Juniklub, 24

Lübeck, 135 Ludendorff, Erich and Mathilde, 179 Luther, Martin, 134, 142, 196, 197, 200 Lutherans, 131, 133–4, 191–203

Kahl, Wilhelm, 194 Kahlwert, Richard, 16 Kaiserreich, 177, 178 Kalmus, General-Superintendent, 135 Kant, Immanuel, 9, 215; Kantian tradition, 6 Kapler, Hermann, 131 Karwehl, Richard, 194–5, 199 Kassel letter, 132–3 Kirdof, Emil, 21 Klages, Ludwig, 94 Klatzkin, Jakob, 193 Kogon, Eugen, 32 Kommenden, Die, 63 Krausnick, Helmuth, 22 Krieck, Ernst, 1, 2–4, 5–9, 18, 19, 21, 25 Kriegsjugendgeneration, 25 Krojanker, Gustav, 93 Kulturtagung, 31 Künneth, Walter, 100, 101, 131, 132, 143, 147–8n6, 196 Kurds, 56 Lagarde, Paul de, 21, 179 Lamparter, Eduard, 194 Land Churches, 130–1, 135, 136 Land Synods, 135 Langbehn, Julius, 176, 179 Lange, Friedrich, 172–3, 175 language, 107–9, 110–11 Las Casas, Father Bartolome de, 62 Law for the Re-establishment of the Professional Civil Service (1933), see Aryan Provision League of Nations Committee on Intellectual Co-operation, 206 Leers, Johann von, 3 Leffler, Oberregierungsrat, 98 Lehman, Ernst, 19 Leipzig, 173 Lemkin, Raphael, 55 Ley, Robert, 30, 31, 105, 180 Liberals, 16 Lietzmann, Hans, 136 Lilje, Hanns, 134, 143 Littell, Franklin H., 181 Lorentz, Hendrik A., 212 Lowenstein, Rudolph M., 181

McCarthy era, 212 Man, Hendrik de, 87 Mann, Thomas, 6 Marburg University, 136, 137, 140; statement, 137–8, 141 Marr, Wilhelm, 172–3, 174 Marx, Karl, 16 Marxism, 7, 8, 24, 33, 104 Massing, Paul, 176 Matzke, Frank, 24 Mendelssohn, Moses, 142 Merk, Wilhelm, 105 Merz, Georg, 141–3, 197 Messiah, 102, 103, 138, 142, 179, 196, 197, 198 Ministry of Occupied Eastern Territories, 70 Moering, Ernst, 193 Möhler, Armin, 90 Monotheism, 72, 74 Moravia, 67 Morgen, Der, 92 Müller, Adam, 2 Müller, Karl Alexander von, 27 Müller government, 199 Munich, 16, 22 Nachkriegsgeneration, 25 Nassau-Hessen, 135 National Convention of Churches, 136 National Convention of the Evangelical Church, 134–5 National German Synod, 136 nationalism, Einstein’s views on, 212–13 Nationalists, 199 Naudh-Nordmann, H., 172–3 Nazism: and Einstein, 206, 208; and genocide, 63–5, 66, 67, 68–9, 70–3, 74; ideology, 1–15; and modern Lutheranism, 192, 193, 194, 195 196, 197, 198, 199, 206; and ‘political faith’, 16–54; and ‘political theology’, 87–129; other references, 131, 133, 138, 144, 176, 178, 180, 182, 183; see also Third Reich Neugermanischer Glaube movement, 139 Neurath, Freiherr von, 68 New Testament, 98, 101, 134, 136–7, 139, 140, 142, 173, 174, 194 ‘New Testament and the Race Question, The’, 136–7, 138, 141 Niegbergall, Friedrich, 195–6 Niemöller, Martin, 135, 195 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 8, 21, 90

226

INDEX Nigerian Civil War, 56 Nordic gods, 175 North America, 62 Novalis, 172 Nuremberg (Nürnberg), 18; tribunals, 56, 57, 67 Officials Law (Law for the Re-establishment of the Professional Civil Service), 131, 132, 135, 136, 137, 139; see also Aryan Provision Oisen, Berhard E., 181 Old Testament, 99, 101, 103, 143, 192, 193, 195, 197 Organization Consul, 22 Orthodox Jews, 138 Ostlandscharen, 63 Paffrath, P. Tharsicius, 103 Palestine, 210 Papen, Franz von, 16 Paraguay, 56 Parkes, James, 63, 181 Pastors’ Emergency Association (Emergency League of Pastors), 134, 135, 136, 195 Paul, St, 98, 100, 134 pessimism, cultural, 8 Peterson, Erik, 103 Poland, 35, 63, 66–7, 70, 84n64 Poles, 35, 67, 70 ‘political faith’, 16–54; and political tactics, 93–6 political myth, 73, 110 ‘political theology’, 87–129 Poppelreuther, Walter, 107 ‘Primary Obligations of the Emergency Association’, 135 Princeton Theological Seminary, 205 Protestant Conservatives, 177, 178 Protestant State theory, 143 Protestants/Protestantism, 16, 31–2, 95, 99–102, 130–6, 140, 144, 198–9 Pultzer, Peter, 176 Putsch (November 1923), 20 Putz, Eduard, 102 race, 7, 9, 61, 65–9, 73, 93, 110; see also Aryan Provision Rade, Martin, 194 Rat der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland see German Evangelical Church: Council of Rathenau, Walter, 22, 206 rationalism/irrationalism, 88–90, 90–1, 93–4 Rauschning, Hermann, 28, 181 re-Germanization, 67–8 Red Army, 69 Reform Judaism, 142

Reich, 1, 2, 4, 10, 16, 17, 18, 22, 24–5, 29, 33, 35, 66, 73, 87, 94, 97, 103, 105, 107, 110 Reichmann, Eva, 176, 181 Reichstag, 29, 199 religion, Einstein’s views on, 213–17 Rembrandtschool, 179 Rhein brotherhood, 136 Riederau, 197 Rolland, Romain, 9, 212 Roman Catholic Church see Catholics/Roman Catholic Church Romanticism, 94, 171, 183–4 Rosenberg, Alfred, 5–6, 22, 31, 32, 34, 45n58, 89, 98, 100–1, 102, 109, 178–9, 196, 197 Rosenzweig, Franz, 181 Roth, Alfred, 22 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 106 Russell, Bertrand, 215 Russia, 56, 66, 69; Russians, 35, 70 S.A., 18, 24, 33–4 S.A. Mann, 17, 33 SS, 18, 23, 28, 32–3, 34, 35, 65, 67, 68, 69, 72, 89, 105, 107; Race and Settlement Department, 68 Saarbrücken, 29 Sachsen, 135 Salomon, Ernst von, 24 Samuel, Maurice, 181 Saxony, 177 Schirach, Baldur von, 30, 31 Schlatter, Adolf, 102 Schleswig-Holstein, 135 Schlund, Eberhard, 16 Schmidt, Friedrich, 35 Schmidtmann, Chief Pastor, 137 Schmitt, Carl, 1, 3, 5, 11n2, 88, 105 Scholder, Klaus, 132 Schomerus, Hans, 99, 179 Schönerer, Georg Ritter von, 17 Schopenhauer, Artur, 8, 21 Schott, Georg, 112n4 Schreiber Chair of Contemporary Jewish History, Tel Aviv University, 16 Schreiner, Helmuth, 196, 198 Schultz, Friedrich Siegmund, 194 Schwab, George, 88 Schwarze Korps, Das, 18, 34–5 Sebottendorf, Graf, 22 Second Vatican Council, 62 Slavs, 68, 69 Social Darwinists, 19–20, 22–3 Social Democrats, 177, 199 social ethics, 204–22 Socialists, 177 Soden, Dan von, 137

227

RELIGION, POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH Soldatenvereine, 22 Sonnenberg, Max Liebermann von, 177 Sontheimer, Kurt, 25 South America, 62; see also Brazil; Paraguay Soviet Russia, 56, 66, 69 Spann, Othmar, 41n21 Spengler, Oswald, 8, 21, 26 Spinoza, Baruch, 214, 215, 216 Staatsbuerger Zeitung, 175 Stahlhelm, 22 Stapel, Wilhelm, 24, 99, 141, 143, 179 Stärk, Willy, 193–4 State, 105–6, 131–2, 133, 134, 137–8, 143, 204–5 Stephan, Horst, 197 Sterling, Eleonore, 96 Stern, Fritz, 176 Stöcker (Stoecker), Adolf, 142, 177, 178 Stoll, Christian, 97–8, 197 Strasser, Gregor, 20 Studentenbund, 99 Stürmer, 107 Sydow Brotherhood, 136 Syrkin, Nachman, 193 Szmulewicz, Ephraim, 109

Vatican, 59 Versailles treaty, 20, 63–4 Verschuer, Otmar Freiherr von, 9 violence, 1–15 Voegelin, Eric, 96 Vogel, Heinrich, 143, 153n43, 196 völkisch movement, 21, 22, 23, 24, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200 Völkischer Beobachter, 17, 23, 28 Volksmission, 102, 197 Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), 173

Tat, 24 Teklenburg Credo, 134 theology: political, 87–129; and status of Jews, 130–70 Thieme, Karl, 181 Third Reich, 2, 3, 5, 7, 27, 56, 63, 68, 70, 87, 88, 89, 90, 95, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 109, 176, 178, 179, 182, 194, 195; status of German Jewry at outset of, 130–70 Thule Gesellschaft, 22 Thyssen, Fritz, 20 Tibet, 56 Tille, Alexander, 22–3 Tillich, Paul, 194 totalitarianism, 2–9 Tübingen, 135 UNESCO, 61 United Nations: General Assembly Resolution on genocide (1946), 56, 59; Genocide Convention (1948), 56–9, 60, 61; report of Special Rapporteur (1973), 60; Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 56 United States, 206 Untermenschen, 35

Wachler, Dr. Ernst, 176 Wagner, Adolf, 71 Wagner, Richard, 178, 179 Wahrmund, Adolf, 172–3 Wehrverbände, 22 Weimar Republic, 2, 3, 20, 23, 63–4, 87, 176 Weizmann, Chaim, 206, 211 Weltanschauung, 17, 18–19, 22, 25, 31, 88, 89 Weltsch, Robert, 16 Wendland, Heinz Dietrich, 196 Werner, Leopold, 176 West Indies, 62 Wetzel, Erhard, 70, 84n67 Wirtschaftliche Vereinigung, 177 Wittenberg, 136 Wobbermin, Georg, 140–1 Wolf, Ernst, 196 Woltmann, Ludwig, 19 World War I, 130, 212 World War II, 56, 87, 105, 215; see also Holocaust Wundt, Max, 21, 104–5 Würtemberg, 135 Young Reformation Movement, 133, 136 Zeisler, Ernest B., 207 Zentrum, 177 Ziegler, Matthias, 31 Ziesel, Kurt, 5 Zionism, 91, 92, 93, 143, 193, 196, 205–6, 207, 208, 209–10, 211, 212, 213, 217 Zollschan, Ignaz, 92 Zur Sicherung der Deutschen Evangelishcen Kirche, 96 Zweig, Arnold, 90 Zwischen den Zeiten, 141, 197

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