(Hitler Given First Jolt by Protestant Pastors: Refusal of 4,000
Lutheran Clergymen to be Nationalized Brings Nazi Regime Significant
Check
By Edwin L. James
The New York Times; Dec. 3, 1933 pg. E1)
Reich Bishop Ludwig Mueller, picked by Adolf Hitler to
"nationalize" religion in Germany, was to have been consecrated today
as head of the German Evangelical Church. The ceremony will not take
place. Back of that slip in the Nazi program lies the development of
the first real fight in Germany against the National Socialists' scheme
of effecting a "totalitarian" State in which every factor of life was
to be subjugated to the one purpose of a State coordinated into a
machine.
In other words, the German Lutherans have given Herr Hitler his
first jolt. In the face of growing opposition to his efforts to crush
religious beliefs into a Nazi form the Chancellor has now decided that
the results of his efforts to "nazify" religious faith in the Reich
represents simply a church dispute in which the State leaders of the
country should not try to take a part.
The effort to reshape religion in Germany is being undertaken by
the German Christians, who belong to the Lutheran Church, but who are
all Nazis. Their head is Bishop Mueller. The German Christians, in
turn, are divided into extremists and moderates. The extremists would
do away with the Old Testament, revise the New Testament. They wish to
make a Nordic church... They would look upon Jesus Christ not as a holy
figure but as an historical figure. In the long run, they would force
all Germans, except Jews, into a German National Church, based not on
Christianity but the consecration of the virtues represented by the
Nazi political faith.
[...]
Certainly it is to the Lutheran pastors that credit goes for being
at a crucial stage the only Germans to stand up against the
steam-rolling tactics fo the Nazi regime. ...the Nazi attempt to take
Christianity out of the church found that the German church has
defenders of a nerve and determination which marked none of the
political leaders whose parties passed almost without effectual protest
under the crushing advance of the National Socialists.
[...]
The whole world will watch the fight of the 4,000 pastors who do
not wich Dr. Goebbels to rewrite the Bible, revise the Ten Commandments
or edit the Lord's prayer. There are left disciples of Martin Luther
who will not yet admit that, in the words of Dr. Rosenburg,
Christianity is the "product of a moribund civilization of weary
Mediterraneans."
_______
As I noted before, the resistance of "organized religion" caused
Einstein to comment:
Having always been an ardent partisan of freedom, I turned to the
Universities, as soon as the revolution broke out in Germany, to find
the Universities took refuge in silence. I then turned to the editors
of powerful newspapers, who, but lately in flowing articles, had
claimed to be champions of liberty. These men, as well as the
Universities, were reduced to silence in a few weeks. I then addressed
myself to the authors individually, to those who passed themselves off
as the intellectual guides of Germany, and among whom many had
frequently discussed the question of freedom and its place in modern
life. They are in their turn very dumb.
Only the Church opposed the fight which Hitler was waging against
liberty. Till then I had no interest in the Church, but now I feel
great admiration and am truly attracted to the Church which had the
persistent courage to fight for spiritual truth and moral freedom. I
feel obliged to confess that I now admire what I used to consider of
little value.
--Albert Einstein, as cited in:
(The German Churches Under Hitler: Backround, Struggle, and Epilogue
By Ernst Helmreich
(Detriot: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1979) :345)
________
An interesting contrast,
A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every
district-all studied and appreciated as they merit-are the principal
support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty.
--Benjamin Franklin as cited in: (America's God and Country
By William Federer :246)
Compared to,
13. The National Church demands immediate cessation of the
publishing and dissemination of the Bible in Germany.
(The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
William L. Shirer
(Simon and Schuster) 1990 :240)
More historical comparisons at:
http://mynym.blogspot.com/2005/11/separation-of-church-and-state.html
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