Free churches in the time of National Socialism

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The history of the free churches in the time of National Socialism is characterized on the one hand by the dilemma that, due to the course of harmonization and the hostility of the National Socialist rulers to the church, the free church institutions between resistance, which would have accepted a ban, and relative freedom in organization, community life and mission had to weigh up. A large part of the municipalities opted for submission to the regime and thus for recognition by the state. Some of the members of the free churches sympathized with the ideas of National Socialism or remained apolitical and conformed. During the war, widespread patriotism led to solidarity with the government. The processing of free church responsibility after the end of the war in confessions of guilt often continues to this day.

Relationship of the free churches to the Nazi state

The free churches looked after the Nazi against takeover special problems: the proposal, a common imperial church to form, worried the lines, since in such a church, the Free Churches had only played a minor role. However, some free churches were also positive about the idea or advocated an amalgamation of all free churches, which would then form a third pillar alongside the Catholic and Protestant churches. The assumption of power itself was positively received everywhere, almost all free churches showed their devotion in statements, newspaper articles and greetings to the government. After it became clear that the Free Churches would remain independent and would receive the corporate rights that had long been sought , there was adjustment and restraint. It was above all important to the free churches to maintain the possibility of evangelizing, as the Baptist Paul Schmidt put it in 1946:

“Time and again, we saw the greater gain in doing gospel ministry for as long as possible and as hard as possible than jeopardizing it early on. The resulting profit appeared to us to be greater than the possible profit of a ban brought about too early. "

The regime also saw ambassadors abroad in the free churches who, in the years before the war, were supposed to dispel fears that Christians in Germany were unfree and that a new war was imminent. A good example of the instrumentalisation is the World Ecumenical Conference in Oxford in 1937. Representatives of the regional churches were prevented from leaving, but representatives of the free churches were allowed to take part and gave a speech in which Hitler's policy was defended. The free churches were largely positive about the annexation of the Sudetenland, the Czech Republic and the annexation of Austria and celebrated Hitler as the “creator of Greater Germany”. Most of the time the Wehrmacht invaded Poland was also celebrated; When further military victories followed, the view prevailed that Hitler was commissioned by God and that the war was therefore divine action.

Baptists and Brethren Churches

The change of power in 1933 was also received with hope among the Baptists : there was talk of the great "turning point in history". A short time later, the Bundeswerk introduced the Führer principle as a preventive measure to bring the regime into line with the federal government, associations and municipalities, which was partially withdrawn in 1936. In 1934 the Baptist World Congress took place in Berlin with the express support of the National Socialists . National Socialist propaganda also used this congress to present itself as a state with absolute religious freedom. The increasing exclusion of Jews from public life was also visible in Baptist communities: Jews were excluded from the communities, isolated in the community , and a separate community for Baptists of Jewish origin was even created in Berlin . But there were also cases in which Jews were supported or helped to escape.

When the Second World War broke out , there were patriotic voices; In the course of the war, however, the Baptists also suffered great losses: many members were drafted into military service and died at the front; Thousands have been driven from their home areas; Many buildings (the seminar in Hamburg as well as the parish halls) were destroyed by the Allied air raids. From June 1941, most of the church press had to be stopped; In terms of church history, the last four years of the war are therefore particularly poor in sources. The evaluation of private sources such as B. personal letters can be particularly instructive. Uwe A. Gieske tried this in the context of his own Baptist relatives. The impression arises that the respective political processes were not the focus of Baptists' attention, but rather their own life situation and that of close relatives; often the effects of the war also came into focus.

A large part of the German Brethren , the “Christian Assembly”, was banned in 1937. The National Socialists justified this with a supposedly anti-subversive attitude, contacts with foreign brother communities and a lack of organizational structure. While some Brethren congregations went underground, most of them joined the Bund Freikirchlicher Christians , founded in 1937 , which merged with Baptist congregations and Elim congregations in 1941 to form the Bund Evangelisch-Freichlicher Gemeinde . In 1942 the new federation was recognized.

Methodists

Many Methodists reacted positively to the Nazi takeover because they saw the new government as a bulwark against moral decline and communism . Since the Methodists were often suspected of being “un-German” due to their American origins, many members were afraid of being banned or brought into line. Therefore, the church leaders showed themselves to be loyal and uncritical of the government . Shortly after the seizure of power, devotion was expressed in a greeting to the new Chancellor. The Methodist Bishop FH Otto Melle (1875–1947) played a special role : As chairman of the Association of Evangelical Free Churches , he took part in the World Ecumenical Conference that took place from July 12 to 26, 1937 in Oxford . In his speech he defended National Socialist politics, spoke of the free exercise of religion by the free churches in Germany and of Adolf Hitler's divine mission, and lamented the disunity of Protestantism in the church struggle . Melle was instrumentalized by the National Socialists, who wanted to leave a positive impression abroad through the well-networked Free Churches. In the case of the Confessing Church , the speech led to a rift with the free churches and, after the war, to a tense relationship and allegations. After the war, in December 1945, Melle justified himself and called the blind trust in Hitler's policy a mistake. The Methodist Church made an admission of guilt in late 1945.

Mennonites

After Hitler came to power in 1933, many Mennonite communities and individual members showed approval and expressions of sympathy, as they put their hope in the National Socialists for a deliberalization and solidarity of society against the "moral decline". The agricultural policy of the new rulers also met with approval from many rural Mennonites. In the years that followed, consent often gave way to retreat into apolitical community life. The Mennonites rejected the German Christians and the Führer principle and upheld their community order, but did not distance themselves clearly from National Socialism. There is no known case that a Mennonite refused to do military service after the introduction of compulsory military service. The expulsion from the east of the German Empire at the end of the Second World War hit the Mennonites hard: Many members perished while fleeing or had to look for a new home, for example in the Federal Republic or in South America . In 1995 the Working Group of Mennonite Congregations published a confession of guilt towards the war victims and Jews.

Moravian Brethren

Like other regional and free churches, the Moravian Brethren also welcomed the new era under the National Socialists with great jubilation. When Hitler came to power, for example, the NSDAP organized a torchlight procession in the fraternal community of Neudietendorf ( Thuringia ) together with the SA and Stahlhelm . "The Chancellor's appeal to the German people was broadcast by radio", according to the brotherly newspaper " Herrnhut ", "concluded the uplifting celebration with the singing of the Deutschlandlied." In the brotherly colony of Kleinwelka ( Saxony ), the Brethren offered themselves to the church after the service Reichstag elections in March 1933 "an impressive picture on our church square: steel helmets and military association that had attended the church service with their flags had appeared". The brotherly brass played. The good election result of the NSDAP in Kleinwelka is reason to be thankful, it said in the "Herrnhut". According to the historian Hedwig Richter, however, the uncritical closeness of the Moravians beyond this initial euphoria is remarkable. In 1941, for example, in the weekly newspaper Herrnhut on the “birthday of the Führer” it was said: “Adolf Hitler's path to becoming the leader of the German people and the highest commander in command of the German armed forces is so strange that the generations that will come after us […] are hardly A tangible miracle will appear. ”Membership in the NSDAP was presumably high among the Brethren. In 1946, the Moravian historian Hans Walter Erbe declared the widespread membership in the NSDAP in the Brethren community with a "often downright touching good will [n] that is spread among us with a certain serious naivety. I am thinking, for example, of the old sisters in the nurses' house who became party members with genuine conviction ”.

Role of the free churches in the church struggle

The relationship between the free churches and the regional churches had already been shattered before the Third Reich . The free churches were often defamed as sects or because of their Anglo-Saxon origin "un-German" in contrast to the "German" regional churches . These prejudices also contributed to the fact that the free churches enthusiastically welcomed the change of power in order to avoid any doubts about their national justification. When later the church struggle between German Christians and the Confessing Church broke out, the free churches behaved neutrally and supported neither one side nor the other. The speech of the Methodist Otto Melle from the free church delegation at the Oxford Conference in 1937 caused massive irritation. So reports Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze , who since 1933 in Swiss exile lived and stood on the side of the Confessing Church, about the speech:

“The intervention of the German Methodist Bishop made an extremely embarrassing impression. The way in which a German Protestant desolidarized himself towards the German Protestant churches, judging himself and blaming them all, all of this towards the suffering and persecuted, was felt as severe tactlessness. "

Jews as a topic in free churches

During the Nazi era, Jews were an important abstract topic for the free churches, but also a concrete one - for example when a Jew wanted to be baptized in a free church. In 1936 a Mennonite conference decided against " accepting mixed race into our congregations". There was a similar caution with the Moravian Brethren in 1939. The Baptist Hans Luckey noted at the end of 1941: “Bloody drama. We Christians among the spectators. ”This note is a possible reference to information about the extermination of the Jews. In any case, the feeling of powerlessness is expressed here.

The Old Testament view of the Jews as "people of God" was about the fundamental view, a firm belief also in free churches. However, this consideration did not exclude interpreting the political processes of the Nazi era as God's actions and assuming that God wanted to lead the Jews back to the promised land in this way. This consideration was found in the Pentecostal movement.

On the occasion of the wedding of a Jewish Christian Baptist in 1936, the Reich Church Ministry demanded a statement, whereupon the federal government spoke out against discrimination against Jews:

"We do not consider it wrong that we treat the few Christian Jews in our congregations like members of the congregations and treat them equally at the Lord's Supper table as well as at the wedding age."

Roland Fleischer collected numerous references to the fate of Jewish Baptists during the Nazi era. On the one hand, they experienced help from their Baptist siblings, and on the other hand they experienced demarcation.

The Moravian Brethren was often asked to help persecuted Jews. But she always strictly refused this request.

Austria's Free Churches and National Socialism

Since the Anschluss in March 1938, Austria belonged to the Greater German Reich. In the years before that, the events in the German Reich could be observed and assessed from a distance.

In Austria (or in the Ostmark, as the country was officially called from 1938 onwards) there were only a few free church communities at that time. Due to the fragmentary sources, their attitude can only be traced in fragments. The small size of the Free Churches was due to the oppression practiced here for centuries; Free churches were only able to establish themselves here late and only expand slowly. Of the five unions that were jointly recognized by the state as free churches in Austria in 2013 , only two were represented at the time: The activities of the Pentecostal congregations , which had been established since the 1920s, were banned in 1936 (as were those of Jehovah's Witnesses ), and they were only constituted after the war again (today Bund Freie Christengemeinde - Pentecostal Church in Austria ). The Baptists were resident in Vienna with a single - since 1869 formally independent - congregation.

Since 1929 Arnold Köster was a preacher of the Viennese Baptist Congregation, born in Wiedenest and previously a preacher in Cologne . Many critical statements from him about National Socialism have come down to us in writing. Some of his articles appeared in the journal of the German Baptists, The Truth Witness , for example: Swastika and Soviet Star. Mark of the Antichrist ? (1932). In it, Köster described both signs as anti-Christian because yes

"The symbol of the Antichrist is the sign of man, ie that sign in which man believes in himself and proclaims himself as - God."

In a lecture on the subject of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Man and Son of God (in Vienna 1943) Köster directly called on people to turn away from National Socialist ideology:

“One can expect from a National Socialist who drank this worldview and who has absorbed the whole complex of ideas that come from certain books - from him one cannot expect that he will recognize Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God! He is incapable of doing this unless he lets this whole world of thought smash him; then his conscience is free to look at Jesus. "

Köster was an exception, both in comparison with Austrian pastors and, for example, with German Baptist pastors.

The Methodists were then represented by several congregations in Austria. Hinrich Bargmann, then superintendent, dealt with the Jewish question in 1933, prompted by the events in the German Reich. First he stated: “The Jewish people were, is and will remain under special divine providence.” In addition, he sees in the biblical story also clues for a viewpoint critical of Jews, in that the disobedience of Jews is shown.

A fundamental hermeneutical discussion arose between Bargmann and Köster during the Nazi era within the framework of the Vienna Evangelical Alliance . Bargmann urged hermeneutical caution, while for Köster the interpretation of the Bible was a prophetic process; Köster wanted to interpret Bible statements on the basis of a prophetic insight into current events. Bargmann, on the other hand, wanted to stop at what clearly emerged from the Bible.

Judgments by Baptists outside the German Empire

There were also many Baptists among the Germans living in Eastern Europe. The journal Anabaptist-Bote , published between 1930 and 1942, contained political assessments by Köster as well as those by Johannes Fleischer, Baptist preacher in Bucharest. His political judgments are even more concrete than those of Koster, and they contain criticism of several tendencies of the National Socialist government.

The Baptist Messenger also brought a report from the World Baptist Congress in Atlanta, USA in July 1939 . There, the representatives from the German Reich expressed themselves positively about the freedom they had in their homeland and about the trust placed in them by the government. On the other hand, the North American Baptists had clear reservations about the situation in the German Empire.

Due to the close ties between British and continental European Baptists, British sources are informative for the situation in (other) European countries; on the basis of these sources, Bernard Green wrote a book on the European Baptists and the Third Reich. Green lectures on the informative report by the British Baptist Leonard Champion about his years of study in Germany (1931–1934).

Dealing with the Nazi era after 1945

Official statements from church leaders

Official statements on the behavior and responsibility of the free churches or even on confessions of guilt came late on the part of the church leaders . In the immediate post-war years, justifications for adapting to the regime , blaming the victorious states and complaints about the “catastrophe of the collapse of the German people” dominated. With the Stuttgart Declaration , a new phase of reflection on their own guilt began in the free churches. In December 1945 the Methodist Church first issued a statement in Frankfurt am Main , in which the church council was shocked by the crimes of the National Socialists, pleaded guilty and called for penance and prayer. Overall, the leadership of the Free Churches held back in the post-war period in dealing with the Third Reich. In 1984, at the festive meeting for the 150th anniversary of the German Baptist congregations, the Federation of Evangelical Free Churches publicly declared its guilt:

“[…] Much injustice has been done in our people and by our people. Shame and sadness fill us, especially when we think of the persecution and mass extermination of Jews. Because of this guilt of our people, we remain dependent on God's forgiveness. [...] But we have not publicly connected with the struggle and suffering of the professing church and we have also failed to clearly resist the violations of divine commandments and ordinances. It bends us that we as the German federation have often succumbed to the ideological seduction of that time and have not shown greater courage to profess truth and justice. [...] "

In 1997, the Federation of Evangelical Free Churches confessed to its guilt towards the Jewish people.

Reflection within individual communities

In addition to dealing with the leadership of free churches or free church associations, there was also dealing with the past in individual parishes. One possible approach to researching this approach is the evaluation of commemorative publications on the occasion of community anniversaries; With a view to dealing with the Nazi era, more than 300 commemorative publications from Baptist congregations were examined. The evaluation of such commemorative publications requires careful attention to the source, especially if you want to use them as sources for events during the Nazi era. It is not clear from the outset whether a certain peculiarity often encountered in festschriften enables a statement to be made about the behavior of Baptists during the Nazi era, or rather about the later handling of this period. For example, an adaptation to Nazi requirements is rarely mentioned in these commemorative publications. This could be an indication that such an adaptation was seldom made, or that such an adaptation that was often practiced was subsequently suppressed.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Zehrer: Evangelical Free Churches , 1986, p. 11.
  2. ^ Zehrer: Evangelical Free Churches , 1986, p. 20.
  3. ↑ Zehrer: Evangelical Free Churches , 1986, pp. 16-17.
  4. ↑ Erich Geldbach: Free Churches - Heritage, Design, Effect , p. 164.
  5. ↑ Zehrer: Evangelical Free Churches , 1986, pp. 45–48.
  6. ^ Zehrer: Evangelical Free Churches , 1986, p. 58.
  7. ^ Zehrer: Evangelical Free Churches , 1986, p. 61.
  8. ^ Günter Balders: One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism - 150 Years of Baptist Congregations in Germany , p. 90.
  9. ↑ Günter Balders: One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism - 150 Years of Baptist Congregations in Germany , p. 91.
  10. ↑ Günter Balders: One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism - 150 Years of Baptist Congregations in Germany , p. 94.
  11. ↑ Günter Balders: One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism - 150 Years of Baptist Congregations in Germany , p. 101.
  12. ↑ Uwe A. Gieske (Ed.): Diabo & Lüllau: "Hopefully Hitler will not disappoint us". Letters, pictures, reports from a family of preachers. 1925-1960 . WDL-Verlag, Berlin 1999.
  13. ↑ So Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer in his review of the book by Gieske (ed.): Diabo & Lüllau: "Hopefully disappointed ..." , 1999, in: Theological conversation. Free Church Contributions to Theology 28, 2004, pp. 119–124. There also methodological information for the evaluation of such sources.
  14. ^ Wilhelm Bartz: Free Churches in Germany - History, Doctrine, Order , pp. 107-108.
  15. ↑ a b 1933-1945: The Baptists in the Third Reich on baptisten-goettingen.de (accessed on October 15, 2016)
  16. ↑ Erich Geldbach: Free Churches - Heritage, Design, Effect , p. 163.
  17. ↑ Michael Diener: Staying on course in stormy times . Walter Michaelis (1866–1953), A Life for Church and Community Movement. Brunnen Verlag, Giessen 1998, ISBN 3-7655-9422-9 , p. 508 .
  18. ↑ Voigt: Freikirchen in Deutschland , 2004, pp. 181–182.
  19. ↑ Voigt: Schuld und Versagen , 2005, pp. 82–86.
  20. ↑ Diether Götz Lichdi: The Mennonites in past and present , pp. 190–191.
  21. ↑ Diether Götz Lichdi: The Mennonites in past and present , p. 192.
  22. ↑ Diether Götz Lichdi: The Mennonites in past and present , p. 199.
  23. ^ "Neudietendorf", in: Herrnhut, April 24, 1933, p. 61.
  24. ^ "Kleinwelka", in: Herrnhut, March 14, 1933, p. 92 f.
  25. ↑ Hedwig Richter (2009): Pietism in Socialism. The Moravian Brethren in the GDR. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, p. 56.
  26. ↑ "On April 20", in: Herrnhut, April 20, 1941.
  27. ↑ Quoted from: Hedwig Richter (2009): Pietism in Socialism. The Moravian Brethren in the GDR. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 53.
  28. ^ Voigt: Freikirchen in Deutschland , 2004, pp. 166–169.
  29. ^ Zehrer: Evangelical Free Churches , 1986, pp. 145f.
  30. ^ Dietrich Meyer on the Brethren, in Heinz: Freikirchen und Juden , 2011, p. 73 and p. 279f.
  31. ↑ Andrea Strübind on the Baptists, in Heinz: Freikirchen und Juden , 2011, p. 151.
  32. ↑ Gottfried Sommer on the Pentecostal movement, in Heinz: Freikirchen und Juden , 2011, p. 133.
  33. ^ Strübind: unfree free church , 1991, p. 264, 2nd edition 1995, p. 269.
  34. ↑ Roland Fleischer: Baptists of Jewish origin in the Nazi era. Fates, relationships, backgrounds . In: Theological Conversation 36, 2012, pp. 107–128. Over 40 fates are documented in the archive of the journal Theologisches Dialog : http://www.theologisches-gespraech.de/archiv?start=63
  35. ↑ Hedwig Richter (2009): Pietism in Socialism. The Moravian Brethren in the GDR. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 52.
  36. ↑ The article appeared in the WZ on September 11, 1932, the lecture was given on March 4, 1943. See Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer : Public Criticism of National Socialism in the Greater German Reich. Life and worldview of the Viennese Baptist pastor Arnold Köster (1896–1960) (= historical-theological studies of the 19th and 20th centuries ; 9). Neukirchen-Vluyn 2001.
  37. ↑ Helmut Nausner: The Episcopal Methodist Church in Austria in the first half of the 20th century and its attitude to Judaism and National Socialism . In: Communications of the Study Community for the History of the Evangelical Methodist Church, NF 19 (1998) 1, 28–43
  38. ^ Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer: Jews and Free Churches in Austria. The attitude of the free churches in Austria at the time of National Socialism, illustrated above all by the example of the preachers Arnold Köster (Baptist) and Hinrich Bargmann (Methodist) . In: Daniel Heinz (ed.): Free churches and Jews in the “Third Reich” (= church - denomination - religion ; 54). V&R unipress, Göttingen 2011, pp. 311–330, there 316–318: “Hermeneutic discussion about the biblical reference to the present”.
  39. ↑ Roland Fleischer: Fleischer, Johannes. In: BBKL 19, 2001, Col. 410–416 and Johannes Fleischer in the BEFG's Historical Lexicon .
  40. ↑ An Anabaptist Bote of October 1939, pp. 2-4: Impressions from the 6th Baptist World Congress .
  41. ^ Bernard Green: European Baptists and the Third Reich . Baptist Historical Society, o. O. (Didcot) 2009. This book deals in particular with holdings on James Henry Rushbrooke, the Baptist World Alliance and the European Baptist Federation.
  42. ↑ Green: European Baptists , 2009, pp. 33–45. Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer criticizes in his review of Green's book (in the yearbook for Evangelical Theology 24, 2010, pp. 370–372) that Green tries to present an overall picture of the European Baptists of that time on this limited source basis.
  43. ↑ a b Zehrer: Evangelical Free Churches , 1986, p. 169f.
  44. ^ Zehrer: Evangelical Free Churches , 1986, pp. 170f.
  45. ↑ Hans-Joachim Leisten: Like everyone else. Baptist congregations in the Third Reich as reflected in their Festschriften (= Free Church Contributions to Theology; 16). WDL-Verlag, Hamburg 2010.
  46. ↑ This is what Leisten tries to do, as the main title of his book suggests: Like everyone else (by this Leisten means that the Baptists behaved similarly to the general population).
  47. ↑ See on this and on further source-critical considerations: Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer in his review of the book of Leisten: Wie alle other auch , 2010, in the yearbook for Evangelical theology 25, 2011, pp. 348-350.