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    The Christians In The Third Reich
    The Christians In The Third Reich
    The Christians In The Third Reich
    Ebook119 pages1 hour

    The Christians In The Third Reich

    By Joseph Keysor

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    About this ebook

    Confusion dominates too many discussions of the churches in Nazi Germany. Germany was not a Christian country but had been deeply influenced by powerful philosophical and scientific forces of secularism for over a century before 1933. The churches themselves were often mere facades of theological liberalism that denied the fundamentals of the faith in very religious-sounding language. Even more conventionally orthodox churches were all-too-often lifeless, spiritless and powerless. These factors, along with simple human cowardice in the face of brutal tyranny, best explain the pathetic collapse of the churches before Hitler. Yet, we should not forget the few who did speak out publicly, often at the cost of their lives. Nor should we fail to distinguish between the different versions of Christianity in Germany and the teachings of Christ himself.

    LanguageEnglish
    Publisherapgroup
    Release dateJun 20, 2014
    ISBN9781310197765
    The Christians In The Third Reich
    Author

    Joseph Keysor

    Joseph Keysor is the author of "Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible" and an authority on Nazi ideology.

    Read more from Joseph Keysor

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    • 5/5
      An evidence-filled and rational objection to the linking of Christianity with Naziism, containing many proofs of the absence of Christianity in Germany prior to Hitler's takeover. It is a relatively short, and extremely important, read especially for its alternative view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Keysor is quite dogmatic on matters of traditional Christianity, but his arguments for seeing Bonhoeffer as less of a Christian hero are important to consider. Was the Confessing Church concerned more about losing control, or about the immorality of Naziism?

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    The Christians In The Third Reich - Joseph Keysor

    The Christians in the Third Reich

    by Joseph Keysor

    Smashwords Edition

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    Copyright Joseph Keysor 2014.

    All Rights Reserved

    Published by Athanatos Publishing.

    Cover by Julius Broqueza.

    Contents

    Introductory Note

    Part I

    Part II

    Introductory Note

    Because of the complexity of the topic, this analysis will be divided into two parts. Part i will deal with questions of the church, its nature, purpose and place in German society. Part ii will consider Hitler’s dealings with the churches.

    Part I

    To many historians – I suppose we could say to most historians – the question of the churches in the Third Reich is not a significant one. When we consider the great events that shook supposedly civilized Europe to its foundations, Hitler’s dealings with the churches seem like a very minor subject. This is especially true given the supposed irrelevance of Christianity to the modern world. And, of course, when we consider the sufferings and deaths of millions of people - most notably the Jews - a few thousand priests or pastors in concentration camps don’t seem like very much.

    Yet, on the other hand, there is more to this topic than meets the eye. A right understanding of the churches in the Third Reich not only can help us to a clearer understanding of the true nature of National Socialist ideology. It also provides a few rare examples of a commitment to higher truth that even the terrors of Hitler’s concentration camps and secret police could not completely stifle. Moreover, there are questions of Christianity itself, what it means, and how its followers are supposed to act when confronted with the demands of a hostile totalitarian state. These issues are still of interest to those who want to be followers of Christ in the modern age. Now that the climate in America is becoming increasingly hostile to Christianity, those of us who claim to be followers of Christ can perhaps learn something from the experiences of the churches in Nazi Germany.

    Regrettably, we cannot present a heroic picture of the churches boldly defying Hitler. The failure of Germany’s religious institutions and the docility of the great majority of Germany’s Christians (using the term Christian very loosely) are well known. Furthermore, there were Christians who were not merely docile and obedient – they openly embraced Hitler and his ideology, asserting that it was their duty as Christians to support the Fuhrer in his struggle to save the German race and defeat Bolshevism. They even went to so far as to claim that God had created the races, and it was their duty as good German Christians to keep the race pure.

    It is not hard to see why people today consider such disgusting displays of cowardice and unbelief as evidence for the uselessness of Christianity– but there were a few notable exceptions. The isolated individuals who did defy the state raise profound questions about human nature, and even about the existence of truth itself.For example, on the night of November 9-10, 1938, the Kristallnacht pogrom swept Germany. In a state-organized explosion of official hatred, violence, arson and murder, Jews throughout Germany were subjected to a savage and a bestial barbarism that simple-minded nineteenth-century optimists hadn’t counted on when they dreamed of building a better world based on reason, progress and science. A week later, on November 16, Julius von Jan, a Lutheran pastor in Oberlenningen, Wuerttemberg, directly denounced the pogrom from the pulpit. He was the only pastor in Germany to do so, as far as is known.

    Basing his sermon on a text from Jeremiah – O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord (22:29) – von Jan referred to the fact that the nation of Israel had refused to hear Jeremiah’s calls to national repentance and righteousness. Then he asked where were the prophets of God in Germany today, men who would call for justice and the right and condemn national sins? He stated that there were such men, but they had been sent to concentration camps or otherwise silenced.¹

    Von Jan referred to some unnamed church leaders who had been deprived of their incomes for speaking out against Nazi abuses, and then stated that there was a need for a day of repentance. He went on to refer explicitly to the pogrom, rightly understanding that safely vague generalities about sin and repentance were not enough. He denounced the murder of a Nazi official in Paris that provided the excuse for the pogrom, expressed concern for the victim, and then added: But who would have thought that this one crime in Paris could be followed by so many great crimes in Germany? People had been attacked, their houses of worship burned, their goods plundered, simply because they belong to another race, and all this without anyone being held accountable.²

    He stated that people knew the government was behind this, though they did not dare to say so, and stated that such criminality would bring God’s judgment on Germany. He referred to the famous Bible verse, Whatsoever a man soweth, that will he also reap, and said that the seeds of hatred being sown would lead to a harvest of horror. A few days later he was attacked by a large mob, badly beaten and taken to jail. He was latersentenced to prison for the sinister crimes of treachery and misusing the pulpit.³

    What is the point of mentioning such an incident? It is not to avoid legitimate criticisms of the churches. To say, as someone did, that the churches defied Hitler is untrue.Such misrepresentations give Christianity a bad name. Neither is it to give Christians occasion for pride and hero-worship. Those who understand biblical teachings on the sinfulness of human nature have no need of heroes.The purpose is to present a manifestation of moral and spiritual truth from another realm unknown to those who have arbitrarily decreed that ultimate reality is only matter and energy. This example also shows what could have been the real antidote to Hitler, if only enough people had taken it.

    That God will hold us personally accountable for our actions; that merely human success easily leads to destructive arrogance; that we need God’s laws – these and yet other points in von Jan’s sermon could have killed Naziism at its birth, if many people had believed in them. And, his prediction of God’s coming judgment on Germany, ridiculous though it may have seemed to many at the time, was more than fulfilled, giving some comments in the sermon the status of possibly genuine prophecy.

    Of course, we can’t expect secular historians to pay any attention to such a trivial incident. It made no difference to the ultimate fate of the Third Reich. It was by no means representative of the churches as a whole. Von Jan was a lonely individual – but the incident is nevertheless highly significant. Who else in the entire Third Reich stood in a public place and openly denounced this crime? What mysterious and impressive power of conscience was at work in the man’s heart, compelling him to stand alone and say what other people were afraid to say? This had nothing to do with survival-of-the-fittest.One reason people prefer to ignore this when they are interested in everything else about the Third Reich is because their extremely limited philosophies are completely incapable of taking such a phenomenon into account. It raises questions they do not want to have to consider. Perhaps they are afraid of the unknown, and do not want to change.

    Some philosophers have determined in their supreme wisdom that there is no higher reality beyond that which they can immediately experience – or, if there is such a reality, we cannot understand or know anything of it. After all, if knowledge comes from experience, and that higher realm is beyond our experience, we can say nothing meaningful about it. Who are theseelite thinkers and would-be guides of mankind that think they can arbitrarily declare the limits of our knowledge of reality according to their own imaginations? Do theyrepresent such a high point of human intellectand experience that no one can go beyond them? I cannot perceive it – ergo, no one else can either?

    What if that part of reality that we can all ordinarily experience is only the lesser part, the easier part? What if there is something that is inaccessible to

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