The Church in Germany 1935
Now all of this could have been very confusing for a regular church attender. To really try and live in their shoes you have to review your history after WWI and the harsh Versailles treaty, the horrible economic situation in Germany, etc. However, that acknowledged, it appears that many of the leaders in the Germany Christian church (the Nazified one) were power hungry. Initially there was a War vet who took over, almost by force: Bishop Mueller. He was not very smart or tactful and loudly proclaimed a "manly" christianity and disparaged the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). But there were also tactful and smooth speaking PR men like Heckel who handled all the contact with the Ecumenical works going on in Europe.
In 1935, the confession church, Bonhoeffer being directly involved in this effort, was requesting that the Ecumenical movement acknowledge the Confessing church as the true church in Germany, the one that still held to a confession of Christianity. However, the ecumenical movement couldn't see this as anything but stepping out of its bounds to include all Christian groups. Here is an example of one reply to Bonhoeffer's request from Canon Leonard Hodgson (Bonhoeffer refused to attend conferences that were to be attended by the German Christians):
... we cannot, as a Movement, exclude the representatives of any Church which "accepts our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior" ... we cannot arrogate to ourselves the right to discriminate between them.This was straightforward and was only to be expected. But Bonhoeffer hoped for something else. In a long letter he pointed out that the Reich church had betrayed Jesus Christ as God and Savior ... thus he could not spare the ecumenical movement from drawing the necessary conclusions. He went on to say that he was well aware that, to anyone removed from the arena, all this must sound very pharisaical and appear as the opposite of the necessary humility.
On September 15th, Hitler announced the Nuremberg Laws to a thunderous applause, introducing a second, "more ordered" phase of Jewish persecution. They separated Reich citizens of German or related blood from a second class of "nationals" who were without political rights. They forbade so-called mixed marriages and the employment of female "Aryans" under the age of forty-five in allegedly Jewish households.
The Confessing Church was going to have a synod (Steglitz) to discuss a statement which rejected the states right to preside over baptism (specifically as regards to Jewish Christians), BUT, some were wanting it to include a statement approving the Nuremberg Laws, "conceding the state's right to legislate the Jewish question in the political sphere."
Hildebrandt, a Jewish minister and Bonhoeffer's brother and law, informed Bonhoeffer by telephone. Bonhoeffer felt such a pronouncement on Jewish baptism would be an embarrassment if it was not accompanied by a clear statement condemning the general persecution of the Jews. Bonhoeffer wasn't alone in this feeling. A school teacher, anonymously, Elisabeth Schmitz wrote a memo called "The Situation of German Non-Aryans to the Confession Church:
Where is Abel your brother? In our case, too, in the case of the Confessing Church [this is the movement that broke away from the German state church], there can be no answer other than that given by Cain...And if the church, afraid for its own destruction, can do nothing in many instances, why is it not at least aware of its guilt? Why does it not pray for those who are afflicted by this undeserved suffering and persecution? Why are there no services of intercession as there were for the imprisoned pastors? The church makes it bitterly difficult for anyone to defend it...The fact that there can be people in the Confessing church who dare assume that they are entitled, even called, to preach God's justice and mercy to the Jews in the present historical situation when their present sufferings are our crime, is a fact that must fill us with icy fear. Since when has the evil-doer had the right to pass off his evil deed as the will of God? Let us take care that we do not conceal the horror of our sins in the sanctuary of God's will. Otherwise it could well be that we too will received punishment of those who desecrated the temple, that we too must hear the curse of him who made the scourge and drove them out."The synod did not adopt the favorable resolution on the Nuremberg Laws that had been initially considered and had aroused such misgivings; it made a declaration that defended the mission to the Jews and Jewish baptism. Given the actual situation of Jews in Germany, this was embarrassing; but within the National Socialist state even this statement was a kind of protest. Bonhoeffer was depressed when he returned to Finkenwalde and discussed Romans 9-11 with his ordinands.
I think the reason I feel this is so important is that it squarely faces the compromise of church and state, the conflation of Christianity and national aspirations, and the individual Christian conscience and how it attempts to take a stand. Of course, my situation in America is different, yet I feel some connection to Bonhoeffer and his struggles. And I do feel that the church continues to speak out mostly in its own defense and for its own sake ... I am struck by the words above from Elisabeth. Karl Barth, leaving his teaching position in Berlin because he refused to sign an oath to Hitler, wrote to pastors within the Confessing church:
the fact that the Confession church "has as yet shown no sympathy for the millions who are suffering injustice. It has not once spoken out on the most simple matter of public integrity. And if and when it does speak, it is always on its own behalf."
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