Martin Luther

Hero and Inspiration to the Nazis

Martin Luther was a notorious anti-Semite who later served as the spiritual leader of the Nazis. Luther preached against the Jews and wrote several strongly anti-Jewish essays. The most famous of these was On the Jews and Their Lies, published in 1543. This essay, some 70 pages in length, is a vituperative attack on Jewish theology, morality, beliefs and character. According to David Singer (2009:403),

They . . . [the Jews] . . . were, he wrote, stubborn and fanatical; they perverted the meaning of Scriptures and slandered  Christianity. No invective against the Jews was spared in Luther's diatribe against them. They were, among other things, drunkards, adulterers, usurers, thieves, and disgusting vermin. These abusive terms did not exhaust the list of insults that Luther flung at the Jews. He compared them to pigs, asses, and animal excrement, and he likened them to the devil — a particularly injurious comparison, because the devil symbolized all evil in Luther's theology.

 
Indeed, in On the Jews and Their Lies Luther refers to the Jews as [among other things] "prophet-murderers", “vulgar people”, "bloodhounds", "liars", "a brood of serpents”, “children of the devil", “a base, vexatious, blasphemous people”, "seducers of the people", "usurers", "stranglers", "indolent bellies", “circumcised saints”, “circumcised ravens”, "this stinking scum", “impious scoundrels” and "moldy leaven". He also claimed that Jews were "blinded", "cursed", "evil", "vindictive", "greedy", "blasphemous", "jealous", "conceited", "possessed", "stubborn" and "incorrigible."

One need only read excerpts from Luther’s essay to understand the depth of his anti-Semitism.

Martin Luther, On Jews and Their Lies
 

(The full text of On Jews and Their Lies is available on line)
 

http://www.awitness.org/books/luther/index.html
 

Chapter 3:
 

“ . . . they are the ones who constantly have pursued godless ways, idolatry, false doctrine, and who have had uncircumcised hearts, as Moses himself and all the prophets cry out and lament. But in all this they always claimed to be pleasing to God and they slew all the prophets on this account. They are the malicious, stiff-necked people that would not be converted from evil to good works by the preaching, reproof, and teaching of the prophets. The Scriptures bear witness to this everywhere. And still they claim to be God's servants and to stand before him. They are the boastful, arrogant rascals who to the present day can do no more than boast of their race and lineage, praise only themselves, and disdain and curse all the world in their synagogues, prayers, and doctrines. Despite this, they imagine that in God's eyes they rank as his dearest children.”

“The sun has never shone on a more bloodthirsty and vengeful people than they are who imagine that they are God's people who have been commissioned and commanded to murder and to slay the Gentiles. In fact, the most important thing that they expect of their Messiah is that he will murder and kill the entire world with their sword.”

Chapter 4:

“this subject is beyond the ken of the blind and hardened Jews. Speaking to them about it is much the same as preaching the gospel to a sow.”

“Learn from this dear Christian, what you are doing if you permit the blind Jews to mislead you. Then the saying will truly apply, 'When a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into the pit" [cf. Luke 6:39]. You cannot learn anything from them except how to misunderstand the divine commandments, and, despite this, boast haughtily over against the Gentiles — who really are much better before God than they, since they do not have such pride of holiness and yet keep far more of the law than these arrogant saints and damned blasphemers and liars.”

“Therefore be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in-which sheer self-glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously and vehming his eyes on them. . . . And where you see or hear a Jew teaching, remember that you are hearing nothing but a venomous basilisk who poisons and kills people merrily by fasten- And with all this, they claim to be doing right. Be on your guard against them!”

Chapter 9:

“I say, before they would have us Gentiles whom they incessantly mock, curse, damn, defame, and revile share the Messiah with them, and be called their co-heirs and brethren, they would crucify ten more Messiahs and kill God himself if this were possible, together with all angels and all creatures, even at the risk of incurring thereby the penalty of a thousand hells instead of one. Such an incomprehensibly stubborn pride dwells in the noble blood of the fathers and circumcised saints. They alone want to have the Messiah and be masters of the world. The accursed Goyim must be servants, give their desire (that is, their gold and silver) to the Jews, and let themselves be slaughtered like wretched cattle. They would rather remain lost consciously and eternally than give up this view.”

Chapter 10:

“From their youth they have imbibed such venomous hatred against the Goyim from their parents and their rabbis, and they still continuously drink it. As Psalm 109:18 declares, it has penetrated flesh and blood, marrow and bone, and has become part and parcel of their nature and their life. And as little as they can change flesh and blood, marrow and bone, so little can they change such pride and envy.”

“If they do perform some good deed, you may rest assured that they are not prompted by love, nor is it done with your benefit in mind. Since they are compelled to live among us, they do this for reasons of expediency; but their heart remains and is as I have described it.”

“A person who is unacquainted with the devil might wonder why they are so particularly hostile toward Christians. They have no reason to act this way, since we show them every kindness. They live among us, enjoy our shield and protection, they use our country and our highways, our markets and streets. Meanwhile our princes and rulers sit there and snore with mouths hanging open and permit the Jews to take, steal, and rob from their open money bags and treasures whatever they want. That is, they let the Jews, by means of their usury, skin and fleece them and their subjects and make them beggars with their own money. For the Jews, who are exiles, should really have nothing, and whatever they have must surely be our property. They do not work, and they do not earn anything from us, nor do we give or present it to them, and yet they are in possession of our money and goods and are our masters in our own country and in their exile. A thief is condemned to hang for the theft of ten florins, and if he robs anyone on the highway, he forfeits his head. But when a Jew steals and robs ten tons of gold through his usury, he is more highly esteemed than God himself.”

Chapter 11:

“Why, their Talmud and their rabbis record that it is no sin for a Jew to kill a Gentile, but it is only a sin for him to kill a brother Israelite. Nor is it a sin for a Jew to break his oath to a Gentile. Likewise, they say that it is rendering God a service to steal or rob from a Goy, as they in fact do through their usury. For since they believe that they are the noble blood and the circumcised saints and we the accursed Goyim, they cannot treat us too harshly or commit sin against us, for they are the lords of the world and we are their servants, yes, their cattle.”

“Christ says in Matthew 5 about how they preached and interpreted the Ten Commandments so deviously, how they installed money-changers, traders, and all sorts of usurers in the temple, prompting our Lord to say that they had made the house of God into a den of robbers [Matt. 21:13; Luke 19:46]. Now figure out for yourself what a great honor that is and how the temple is filled with such glory that God must call his own house a den of robbers because so many souls had been murdered through their greedy, false doctrine, that is, through double idolatry. The Jews still persist in such doctrine to the present day. They imitate their fathers and pervert God's word. They are steeped in greed, in usury, they steal and murder where they can and ever teach their children to do likewise.”

Chapter 12:

“They curse us Goyim. In their synagogues and in their prayers they wish us every misfortune. They rob us of our money and goods through their usury, and they play on us every wicked trick they can. And the worst of it is that they still claim to have done right and well, that is, to have done God a service. And they teach the doing of such things. No pagan ever acted thus; in fact, no one acts thus except the devil himself, or whomever he possesses, as he has possessed the Jews.”

“If they weren't so stone-blind, their own vile external life would indeed convince them of the true nature of their penitence. For it abounds with witchcraft, conjuring signs, figures, and the tetragrammaton of the name, that is, with idolatry, envy, and conceit. Moreover, they are nothing but thieves and robbers who daily eat no morsel and wear no thread of clothing which they have not stolen and pilfered from us by means of their accursed usury. Thus they live from day to day, together with wife and child, by theft and robbery, as arch-thieves and robbers, in the most impenitent security. For a usurer is an arch-thief and a robber who should rightly be hanged on the gallows seven times higher than other thieves. Indeed, God should prophesy about such beautiful penitence and merit from heaven through his holy angel and become a flagrant, blasphemous liar for the sake of the noble blood and circumcised saints who boast of being hallowed by God's commandments, although they trample all of them under foot and do not keep one of them.”
“what a base, vexatious, blasphemous people.”

“the Jews tear apart the text wherever they can, solely for the purpose of spoiling the words of Scripture for us Christians, although it serves no purpose for them either. For it teaches them nothing, it does not comfort them, it gives them nothing; it results in nothing but meaningless words.”

Chapter 14:

“. . . no one is holding them here now. The country and the roads are open for them to proceed to their land whenever they wish. If they did so, we would be glad to present gifts to them on the occasion; it would be good riddance. For they are a heavy burden, a plague, a pestilence, a sheer misfortune for our country. Proof for this is found in the fact that they have often been expelled forcibly from a country, far from being held captive in it. Thus they were banished from France (which they call *Tsorfath,* from Obadiah 20), which was an especially fine nest. Very recently they were banished by our dear Emperor Charles from Spain, the very best nest of all (which they called *Sefarad,* also on the basis of Obadiah). This year they were expelled from the entire Bohemian crownland, where they had one of the best nests, in Prague. Likewise, during my lifetime they have been driven from Regensburg, Magdeburg, and other places.”

“ . . . they hold us Christians captive in our own country. They let us work in the sweat of our brow to earn money and property while they sit behind the stove, idle away the time, fart, and roast pears. They stuff themselves, guzzle, and live in luxury and ease from our hard-earned goods. With their accursed usury they hold us and our property captive. Moreover, they mock and deride us because we work and let them play the role of lazy squires at our expense and in our land. Thus they are our masters and we are their servants, with our property, our sweat, and our labor.”

“There is no other explanation for this than the one cited earlier from Moses, namely, that God has struck them with "madness and blindness and confusion of mind." So we are even at fault in not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and of the Christians which they shed for three hundred years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the blood of the children they have shed since then (which still shines forth from their eyes and their skin). We are at fault in not slaying them. Rather we allow them to live freely in our midst despite an their murdering, cursing, blaspheming, lying, and defaming; we protect and shield their synagogues, houses, life, and property In this way we make them lazy and secure and encourage them to fleece us boldly of our money and goods, as well as to mock and deride us, with a view to finally overcoming us, killing us all for such a great sin, and robbing us of all our property (as they dailypray and hope). Now tell me whether they do not have every reason to be the enemies of us accursed Goyim, to curse us and to strive for our final, complete, and eternal ruin!”

Chapter 15:

“What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews?

First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians. . . .

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. . . .

Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. . . .

Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. . . .

Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews.
Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other means of earning a livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us an they possess. . . .

Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen. 3 [:19]). For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting., and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.”
“In brief, dear princes and lords, those of you who have Jews under your rule: if my counsel does not please you, find better advice, so that you and we all can be rid of the unbearable, devilish burden of the Jews. Lest we become guilty sharers before God in the lies, the blasphemy, the defamation, and the curses which the mad Jews indulge in so freely and wantonly against the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, his dear mother, all Christians, all authority, and ourselves. Do not grant them protection, safe-conduct, or communion with us. Do not aid and abet them in acquiring your money or your subjects' money and property by means of usury. We have enough sin of our own without this.”

“And you, my dear gentlemen and friends who are pastors and preachers, . . . When you lay eyes on or think of a Jew you must say to your self: Alas, that mouth which I there behold has cursed and execrated and maligned every Saturday my dear Lord Jesus Christ, who has redeemed me with his precious blood; in addition, it prayed and pleaded before God that I, my wife and children, and all Christians might be stabbed to death and perish miserably.”

“Especially you pastors who have Jews living in your midst, persist in reminding your lords and rulers to be mindful of their office and of their obligation before God to force the Jews to work, to forbid usury, and to check their blasphemy and cursing.”

“But if the authorities are reluctant to use force and restrain the Jews' devilish wantonness, the latter should, as we said, be expelled from the country and be told to return to their land and their possessions in Jerusalem, where they may lie, curse, blaspheme, defame, murder, steal, rob, practice usury, mock, and indulge in all those infamous abominations which they practice among us, and leave us our government, our country, our life, and our property, much more leave our Lord the Messiah, our faith, and our church undefiled and uncontaminated with their devilish tyranny and malice.”

“I have read and heard many stories about the Jews which agree with this judgment of Christ, namely, how they have poisoned wells, made assassinations, kidnapped children, as related before. I have heard that one Jew sent another Jew, and this by means of a Christian, a pot of blood, together with a barrel of wine, in which when drunk empty, a dead Jew was found. There are many other similar stories. For their kidnapping of children they have often been burned at the stake or banished (as we already heard). I am well aware that they deny all of this. However, it all coincides with the judgment of Christ which declares that they are venomous, bitter, vindictive, tricky serpents, assassins, and children of the devil who sting and work harm stealthily wherever they cannot do it openly.”

Chapter 17

“If I had power over the Jews, as our princes and cities have, I would deal severely with their lying mouth.”
 

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Luther’s Influence on the Nazis:

Martin Luther was a hero and an inspiration to the Nazis. One of the first acts the Nazis performed after coming to power in 1933 was to organize German Luther Day to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther. During this celebration and throughout their rule, Nazi leaders praised Luther and drew comparisons between his teachings and those of the Third Reich.

The following descriptions of Nazi praises of Martin Luther, unless otherwise noted, are taken from Steigmann-Gall (2003), The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945.
 

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By the end of the war, Koch had gained tremendous notoriety as the Reich Commissioner for Ukraine, where he established his credentials as a brutal, ruthless Nazi of the first order. Indeed, he personified Nazi barbarity in the East, playing a leading role in the murder of thousands of Jews and partisans, their deportation to camps, the destruction of their villages, and the virtual enslavement of the remaining Slavic population. 6 By then he was no longer president of his provincial church synod: In fact, he had officially resigned his church membership by 1943. (ibid.p.2)
 
In his postwar testimony, taken by a public prosecutor in Bielefeld in 1949, Koch would insist:

"I held the view that the Nazi idea had to develop from a basic Prussian-Protestant attitude [Grundhaltung] and from Luther's unfinished Reformation."

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During the Nuremburg trials after the war, Streicher defended himself by saying that even a "genius" like Luther hated the Jews.

 
"He would today have been in the dock in my place, if ‘On the Jews and Their Lies’ would have been brought in by the prosecutors.”

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Hitler also quoted Luther during one of his earlier speeches:

 
“I do insist on the certainty that sooner or later-once we hold power . . . the German church established . . . without a Pope and without the Bible, and Luther, if he could be with us, would give us his blessing (Wiener 1999: ix-x; quoted in Paras 2008:7)

 
Finally, Hitler, influenced by Luther’s preaching, stated:

“My Lord and Savior . . . recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them.” (Heer 1967: 284-286)


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During the early 1930s, the Deutsche Christen (German Christian) Movement arose within the Evangelical Lutheran Church. It represented a self-conscious attempt to fuse Christianity and National Socialism (Bergen 1999). Comprising some 600,000 German Lutherans, its members promoted a "racially pure" church, and many of its adherents rose to prominence within the Third Reich. Even before Hitler became chancellor, the self-styled "Storm Troopers of Christ" began to attack Jewish influences in Christianity. Organizers sponsored huge rallies with tens of thousands of the faithful. The movement generated newspapers, scholarly monographs and controlled several university theology departments. Its members also played a dominant role in the unification of Germany's twenty-eight regional Protestant churches into the German Protestant Church.

 

Adherents of the movement frequently cited Luther as a precursor of their attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. They reprinted his essay Against the Jews and Their Lies and presented him as a champion of anti-Semitism. In 1940, they published a religious instruction book that quoted Luther's instructions to "set their synagogues and schools on fire, and whatever will not burn, heap dirt upon and cover so that no human ever again will see a stone or a cinder of it.” A German Christian publication in 1943 urged its readers to be hard like Luther in their attitudes toward Jews”. (Bergen 1999:47)

 

 
Presidium of the Deutsche Christen Lutherans

Berlin, November 13, 1933

 

In April 1939, leading Bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church signed the Godesberg Declaration.

 
"In the realm of faith there exists the sharp opposition between the message of Jesus Christ and his apostles and the Jewish religion of legalism and political messianic hope, which is already emphatically fought against in the Old Testament. . . . In the realm of the völkisch life an earnest and responsible racial politics is required for the preservation of the purity of our people."

 
The declaration was printed in the official Gesetzblatt of the German Protestant Church, along with an addendum stating the church's intention to establish an Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on the Church Life of the German Volk. (Heschel 1999: 70-71) That Institute was formally opened on May 6, 1939. Over fifty professors of theology at universities throughout the Reich joined the Institute, as did dozens of instructors and graduate students. The Institute also listed some one hundred pastors and bishops as members (Heschel 1999: 71). It soon produced a dejudaized version of the Bible, which changed or removed offensive passages from the New Testament and completely eliminated the Old Testament from its canon. The Institute also published a hymnal free of Judaic references, and a catechism that presented Jesus as the savior of Aryans.


 

Two years later, in December 1941, seven Evangelical Lutheran state churches, recalling Luther’s command that Jews should be banished from German lands, issued a statement claiming,

 
From Christ’s crucifixion to the present day, the Jews have fought against Christianity, or have misused or falsified it for their selfish aims. Christian baptism does not alter the racial character of the Jew, his affiliation with his people, or his biological essence. (Steigmann-Gaul, 2003: 186)
 

Friedrich Coch

Lutheran Bishop of Saxony

giving a Nazi greeting

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The Martin Luther Memorial Church:

In 1935, just two years after the Nazis came to power, they built an imposing church in Mariendorf (southern Berlin) dedicated to Martin Luther.¹

The Martin Luther Memorial Church²

The initial impetus for the building of a parish church at Mariendorf began in 1908. However, construction stalled for one reason or another until the National Socialists came to power in 1933 and the German Christian Movement swept election in the Old Prussian Union Church. Once the National Socialists were in power, construction of the church began almost immediately, with a cornerstone ceremony taking place on 22 October 1933. “By the time it was finished two years later, the Martin Luther Memorial Church had become a celebration of the union of Protestant Christianity, German patriotism, and National Socialism” (Jantzen 2014: 329).

The spiritual connection between Martin Luther and The Third Reich was expressed throughout the church^. An illustration of the esteem that the Nazis had for Luther can be seen not only by the fact that the church that was built in Berlin shortly after the Nazis came into power and named in his honor, but also in the many specific and carefully considered features that went into the design and construction of the church.
 

A face relief of Martin Luther is on the wall inside the entrance of the church. The opposite wall of the vestibule contains a face relief of Reich President Paul von Hindenburg. The wall with the Martin Luther’s face relief originally contained a face relief of Adolph Hitler. The change was made following German defeat in World War II. An Iron Cross chandelier is also located in the vestibule of the church. The chandelier originally contained a swastika. This was also removed following the war.³

The Pulpit contains a depiction of Jesus with a Nazi (Wehrmacht) soldier who, according to Jantzen (2014: 330), resembles the Nazi hero Horst Wessel.⁴

The pulpit also contains the image of a young boy in the attire worn by a member of the Hitler Youth.

Throughout the panels on the grand triumphal arch framing the sanctuary of the church are several Nazi images, including the head of a Nazi soldier, that of an SA officer and the Nazi eagle [with the swastika removed by law after the war ended], interspersed among various Christian icons (a chalice, symbols of the four gospels, a dove representing the holy spirit, the Chi-Rho symbol for Christ and Jesus’ crown of thorns).

The Triumphal Arch

. . . a massive triumphal arch 11 metres high and 1.65 metres thick spanned the entire front of the sanctuary. It consisted of 800 ornamental tiles - a combination of 36 Christian, pastoral, National Socialist, and military images. . . . Among the Christian symbols were the Greek letters Alpha and Omega, the symbols of the four gospels, a crown of thorns, a Luther rose, a cross, a chalice, a dove (rep¬ resenting the Holy Spirit), a crown, the scales of Christian justice, the symbol of the Protestant Inner Mission, and the Chi-Rho symbol for Christ. . . . Intermingled with these were a series of National Socialist and military symbols, including relief masks of SA-Men and soldiers, German eagles clasping wreaths and swastikas, other larger swastikas, the symbol of the National Socialist People's Welfare Organization, and an Iron Cross sitting atop oak leaves (the Nazi symbols were removed from the tiles after 1945). (Jantzen 2014: 330-332)

Numerous Nazi symbols can be seen interspersed among the various Christian symbols on the arch. Below are photos of two Nazi symbols before the swastikas were removed following the war (source unknown).

The Nazis portrayal of Jesus differed from that of mainstream Christianity. Rather than the suffering Jesus on the cross pervasive in Christian iconography, the Martin Luther Memorial Church displays a muscular, triumphant Aryan Jesus standing powerfully erect on the cross.

The rear of the church is dominated by a 3,300-pipe organ that had previously gained fame throughout Germany due to its use in public performances during the 1935 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg.

In Summation:

The connection between Martin Luther and the Nazis has been commented upon by numerous individuals over the past 80 years. Presenting a few select quotes seems a suitable way to close this brief essay.

In 1944, reflecting on the atrocities of the Holocaust, William Ralph Inge, the Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, declared,
 

“If we wish to find a scapegoat on whose shoulders we may lay the miseries which Germany has brought upon the world, I am more and more convinced that the worst evil genius of that country is not Hitler or Bismarck or Frederick the Great, but Martin Luther” (Paras 2008: 1).

 
William Shirer (1960: 236) in his best-selling book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, expressed the profound influence he thought Martin Luther had on the Nazis.

 
“. . . it is difficult to understand the behavior of most German Protestants in the first Nazi years unless one is aware of . . . the influence of Martin Luther. The great founder . . . was both a passionate anti-Semite and a ferocious believer in absolute obedience to political authority.”

 
Raul Hilberg (1985) reached a similar conclusion in his book, The Destruction of European Jews,

 
The picture of the Jew we encounter in Nazi propaganda and Nazi correspondence had been drawn several hundred years before. Martin Luther had already sketched the main outlines of that portrait, and the Nazis, in their time, had little to add to it. (Hilberg 1985: 15)
 

Westerink (2007) expressed quite clearly the influence he believes Luther had on the Nazis:

 
In “On the Jews and Their Lies” Martin Luther had developed a seven point pogrom plan which the Nazi's strictly followed, starting with the Kristallnacht on November 9th, 1938. "First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them", he wrote. He furthermore called to destroy the homes of the Jews, to take away their holy books, to kill rabbis who still want to teach, to disallow Jews on the streets, to forbid their "usury", to take all their money and jewelry, and to impose forced labor on strong and young Jews.
 

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Notes:

¹ The Nazi regime has generally been portrayed as having been hostile to Christianity. This belief has been increasingly called into question by contemporary scholars (cf. Burleigh 2000; Steigmann-Gall 2003a, 2003b, 2007; Jantzen 2008). Documents reveal, for example, that over 900 church buildings were either built new or substantially renovated during the time of National Socialist rule (Jantzen 2014: 326). Most of these projects were achieved through the cooperation of parish clergy and the local congregation with the support of higher church officials, working with the National Socialist government to gain approval for their project. As Jantzen point out, German protestant churches saw opportunity, not opposition, in the National Socialist government, particularly in the early years of the new administration.
 

During the early years of Nazi rule, thousands of Protestant theologians, church officials, and parish clergy were actively engaged in bridge-building with the Hitler government, through official church pronouncements, noteworthy theological publications, and the formation of the German Christian Movement, along with its campaign to create a united Reich Church. Parish clergy celebrated the Nazi seizure of power and debated endlessly about how to forge a union between Christianity and Nazism, generally through the revitalization of a true national church (Volkskirche). These many ecclesiastical initiatives suggest that - during the first years of Nazi rule - Protestants sensed opportunity rather than hostility from the Hitler regime.

² The contemporary photos of the Martin Luther Memorial Church were taken by me on March 15, 2023 when I was generously given a guided tour of the church by Klaus Wirbel and Sigrid Mathes, two church congregants knowledgeable of the church's history.

³ Section 86a of the German Strafgesetzbuch (Criminal Code) outlaws the "use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations" except for their use in "art, science, research or teaching." Such symbols, of course, included all those associated with the Nazi Party.

⁵ Verses 1 & 2 of the Horst Wessel Song:

 
1.  Flag high, ranks closed,

The S.A. marches with silent solid steps.

Comrades shot by the red front and reaction

March in spirit with us in our ranks.

 
2.  The street free for the brown battalions,

The street free for the Storm Troopers.

Millions, full of hope, look up at the swastika;

The day breaks for freedom and for bread.
 

References Cited:

Bergen, D. (1996). Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Bergen, D. (1999). Storm Troopers of Christ: The German Christian Movement and the Ecclesiastical Final Solution. In R. Ericksen and S. Heschel (eds.), Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust.  Minneapolis, Fortress Press: 40-67.

Burleigh, Michael. (2000). National Socialism as a Political Religion. Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 1(2): 1-26.

Endlich, Stefanie, Monica Geyler-von Bernus & Beate Rossie, eds. (2008). Christenkreuz und Hakenkreuz, Kirchenbau und sakrale Kunst im Nationalsozialismus: Katalogbuch zur Austellung. Berlin: Metrapol.

Heer, F. (1967). God's First Love: Christians and Jews over Two Thousand Years. London, Weidenfield and Nicholson.

Heschel, S. (1999). When Jesus Was an Aryan: The Protestant Church and Antisemitic Propaganda. In R. Ericksen and S. Heschel (eds.), Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust. . Minneapolis, Fortress Press: 68-89.

Hilberg, R. (1985). The Destruction of the European Jews. New York, Holmes & Meier.

Jantzen, Kyle. (2008). Faith and Fatherland: Parish Politics in Hitler's Germany. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008.

Jantzen, Kyle. (2014). Church-Building in Hitler's Germany: Berlin's Martin-Luther-Gedächtniskirche as a Reflection of Church-State Relations. Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 27(2): 324-348.

Luther, Martin. (1543). On Jews and Their Lies. (http://www.awitness.org/books/luther/index.html)

Shirer, William L. (1959). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Crest Books.

Singer, David C. 2009. “Baptism or Expulsion: Martin Luther and the Jews of Germany.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 44 (3): 401-408.

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