To those Church circles that raised their voices in protest this totalitarian structure of the Nazi regime presented a double threat to the very existence of the Church. First, the pseudo-religious and pseudomessianic character of Nazism was calculated to weaken the Church from within and to mislead the Christian community, especially its youth. It became increasingly clear to these circles that the Nazi racial doctrine - which Hitler and also the "Deutsche Christen" had called positive Christianity in their first formulation as early as 5 May 1932 - constituted a kind of additional gospel of messianic redemption that ostensibly strengthened Christianity as an institution and as a religion of revelation. Secondly, this pseudo- messianic and pseudo-religious authority that the Nazi regime arrogated to itself was able by means of its repressive measures to curtail the influence of the Church and even to reduce it to silence. This danger was perceived at an early date by the "Bekenntnissynode der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirche" in its Botschaft (Part I, par 2, 5) adopted by the Conference held in Berlin- Dahlem 19-20 October 1934, which stated: <II> "The National Church that the Reich's bishop has in view under the slogan: One State - one People - one Church, simply means that the Gospel is no longer valid for the German Evangelical Church and that the mission of the Church is delivered to the powers of this world…. The introduction of the Fuehrer principle into the Church and the demand of unconditional obedience based upon this principle are contrary to the Word of Scripture and bind the officials of the Church to the Church regiment instead of to Christ… [3]
Towards the end of the period that is dealt with in the sources collected in this volume, in the year 1943, we also meet with a clear expression of the Church's opposition to this pseudo-religious and pseudo-messianic character of Nazism in the "Pastoral concerning National Socialist Philosophy" that was sent in Holland:
… to parochial church councillors to give them the necessary basis for their opposition in the struggle against National Socialist ideology, and especially against the intangible, but all the more dangerous religious ideas and expressions of National Socialism which will exercise an influence even after the war."
In its penetrating analysis of the totalitarian character of Nazism this
Pastoral observes:
"…It is not surprising that National Socialism has the power to become the religion of the masses, and its assemblies to take the form of a kind of popular worship in which a great deal of latent religious emotion is released…. In carrying out its ministry the Church must therefore make its work in this connection even more definite in character, and must tell its members very clearly and resolutely that what is at stake here is the first commandment: Thou shalt have no other gods besides me…!" [4] <III> This pseudo-religious and pseudo-messianic character of Nazism was by no means accidental or the product of mass hysteria induced by some skilful propagandists. It was rather an ideological structure that was consciously given definite patterns and developed within a conceptual system in accordance with its own laws of logic. In this development the traditional theological concepts of Christianity were retained but given an altogether different meaning. Values that had previously been regarded as relative in the culture of Christianity and of the West now became absolute; and values that had formerly been considered absolute, being interpreted as metaphorical or visionary, became relative. Phenomena with an imminent historical essence were lifted to a meta-historical plane. Means were converted to ends, and ends were endowed with absolute authority in so far as they sanctified the means. In this manner the fundamental concepts of religion were not invalidated nor the integrative functions served by these concepts impaired, such as those cohesive factors that hold together the social structure and ensure its normal functioning. The Nazis retained these concepts and their functions as a legitimate part of their racial theory and, after depriving them of their authentic historical content, turned them into political expedients to be used in their attack against humanism, religion and Christian values. Basic theological concepts such as God, redemption, sin and revelation were now used as anthropological and political concepts. God became man, but not in the theological Christian sense of the incarnation of the Word: "…and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…" (John 1. 14) or in the Pauline conception of the incarnation of God in Christ in whom "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Colossians 2. 9). In the new conception God becomes man in a political sense as a member of the Aryan race whose highest representative on earth is the Fuehrer. This change in the essential meaning of the concepts God-man is, from the standpoint of cognition, effected by converting the relative into the absolute and, from the standpoint of theology, by transferring the Pauline conception (Ephesians 4. 24; Colossians 3. 10) from the plane of metaphysics and eschatology to that of nationality rind politics. <IV> It was this radical change from Christian doctrines to pagan myths that aroused the Churches to express their protest against Nazism, and also against the persecution of the Jews, in the above Pastoral of the year 1943:
"And there is now a return to the worship of life and power by accepting and exalting the old Adam as the original and eternal MAN. There is an attempt at self-salvation - the old Adam is not crucified with Christ (Rom. 6. 6) but by his very own inmost strength achieves a new life and a heightened vitality…" [5]
Similarly, the theological concepts of sin and redemption were transferred to a legal category of administrative regulations that demanded outer conformity and inner obedience. The traditional conception of sin and redemption that was common to all currents of Christian thought held that man's redemption, and hence eschatological existence, depends on his faith: "the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ… since all have sinned and… they are justified by grace… through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus…"(Rom. 3. 22-24). In the totalitarian Nazi regime the concepts sin and redemption were used as means by the State or the Party to convert man into a loyal subject whose allegiance is assured by his constant fear not only of violating some concrete ordinance or governmental decree but simply of just deviating from the official ideology. The Christian belief that man could be saved through faith in the forgiveness of Jesus who died for his sins, "so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin" (Rom. 6.6), was transferred from the theological to the secular, political plane. Even the comforting assurance of the believer that his sins shall be forgiven and that he shall be found worthy of the purifying influences of grace could now be gained only by the individual's complete identification with the State, the Party and the superior Aryan race. An instructive illustration of this shift from theology to ideology is to be found in the circular letters (Rundschreiben) and in the speeches of the Reichsorganisationsleiter Dr. Robert Ley, for example in his words of 26. June 1935:
"Strength through joy (Kraft durch Freude) is the embodiment of National Socialism. <V> Over against sin we put discipline, over against penitence pride! Over against the weak and their infirmities we put strength… " [6]
This doctrine was not mere Aryan propaganda; it became an integral part of school studies and was systematically inculcated into the minds of the young. The following is an example of a dictation given in 1934 to the third grade of an elementary school:
"Just as Jesus redeemed mankind from sin and hell, so did Hitler rescue the
German people from destruction. Jesus and Hitler were persecuted; but whereas
Jesus was crucified, Hitler rose to be Chancellor… Jesus worked for
heaven, Hitler for the German soil…" [7]