The Grey Book / A collection of protests against anti-semitism and the persecution of Jews issued by non-Roman Catholic churches and church leaders during Hitlers rule

by Johan M. Snoek

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The next statement to be recorded in this chapter was issued by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. This organization represented the great majority of American Protestants. The total membership of Churches affiliated with it was, in 1941-1942: 25,551.560. The Executive Committee of the Federal Council published the following statement in November 1935:

"At a recent meeting of protest against the treatment at present inflicted on Jews in Germany, the Assembly of the Church of England expressed the hope that other Christian bodies would join in this protest. We feel constrained to do so. We are members of churches which have numerous and close bonds of union with the German church. We recognise our indebtedness to the great German preachers and teachers of Christianity, who have done so much to enrich our common heritage from the days of Luther to the present day. After the last war we protested strongly against the limitations to which Germany was subjected by the Treaty of Versailles and made constant efforts for their suppression. For this very reason we consider it our duty to speak equally freely now that Germany is pursuing a policy, which threatens her with moral isolation. We protest against this policy because the treatment of the Jews is unworthy of a great nation. To treat a considerable part of the population as being essentially inferior for racial reasons only, and to impose restrictions on the normal life of persons whose families have lived in Germany for generations, and who have rendered eminent services in the realms of education, art, and government, is to violate the codes of honour and good faith which are the common property of civilized nations. But our reason for protesting goes far deeper. We protest against this policy because the philosophy on which it is based is a heathen philosophy. Founded on a religious interpretation of race, the actual treatment inflicted on the Jews raises far greater problems than any former persecutions of Jews and other minorities, which were founded on political and incidental considerations. It is an attempt of a tribal heathen movement, based on race, blood, and soil, to separate Christianity from its historical origin and a Christian nation from its religious past. All the different branches of the Christian Church are, therefore, in duty bound to protest, not only in the name of the human brotherhood, but also in the name of our Christian faith. [208] <84>

The meeting of protest mentioned at the beginning of this statement was held on November 20, 1935. [209] The response of the Federal Council came very promptly indeed. International contacts between Churches were a factor the importance of which can hardly be overestimated.

Dr. Charles S. Macfarland, the then General Secretary of the Federal Council, had had a personal interview with Hitler in the autumn of 1933. Before accepting Hitler's invitation to call, he was warned that no one was even permitted to mention the Jewish issue to him. Dr. Macfarland, however, had made it clear that he was not going there to discuss Tennyson or Browning and that he would have to be permitted to choose his own subjects. Word came that "His Excellency desired me to talk freely with him". Dr. Macfarland relates:

"I told Herr Hitler that, in my judgment, the German Evangelical Church could not and would not yield itself to his polito-social theory, including his so-called Aryan laws, and that if it did, it would not only cut itself off from the Christian churches of the world, but would cease to be Christian…" [209]

Dr. Macfarland followed up this conversation by correspondence. In one letter he wrote that the near complete hostility of the American people was deeply ethical in nature and could be modified only by two processes:

1. "A constructive measure of justice in dealing with the Jews in Germany, stopping all continuation of the boycott, conferring with leading Jews of high character, and, while still recognizing the social problem involved, endeavouring to secure needed readjustments by friendly measures and, above all, restoring neighbourly good feeling between Jewish rabbis and Christian pastors and among Jews and non-Jews who live side by side… I also hope that, by a final settlement of the Jewish problem which will do full justice, this barrier between the German people and the peoples of the world may be removed." [210] <85>

Apparently Hitler did not underestimate the influence of the American Churches: he replied to Dr. Macfarland's letters, stating that he wished "to promote the unity of the Church", that he accepted one of these letters "in the same spirit in which it was written" and that he thanked Dr. Macfarland for his "candid and sympathetic appeal". [211] On June 2, 1937, however, Dr. Macfarland published an open letter to Hitler, from which we quote the following:

"You especially demarcated the church's "confession" as a sacred ground on which the State could not and would not intrude, and I handed you a memorandum calling attention to the fact that by that confession the church was supernatural, supernational and superracial and that the so-called 'Aryan paragraph' cut right across the confession; that if the church accepted it, it would make a breach between the church in Germany and the 'positive Christianity' for which you declared you stood. As previously mentioned, you replied to later correspondence that you accepted my appeal 'in the spirit in which it was given'. That appeal was for a constructive measure of justice in dealing with the Jews in Germany, stopping all continuation of the boycott, conferring with leading Jews of high character and, while still recognizing the social problem involved, endeavouring to secure needed readjustments by friendly measures and, above all, restoring neighbourly good feeling between Jewish rabbis and Christian pastors and among Jews and non-Jews who live side by side'. And I added: 'I hope that this barrier between the German people and the peoples of the world may be removed'… What now are the results of my continued study and how do they appear in the light of your earnest assurances?… Instead of doing justice to the Jews, you have permitted them to be harassed and despoiled. Your treatment of them has been ruthless, without the slightest appearance of mercy, even reminding one of the infamous edict of Herod in stretching the hand of violence to the littlest child. Your attitude toward the little handful of Jews in Germany and your so-called Aryan and Nordic ideas have had no little effect in confusing members of the Evangelical Church, so that, in this way, you divided instead of fulfilling 'the desire you expressed to me of uniting the church. You undermined the most basic ideal of Christianity, on which unity alone could be secured… I have been reading a paper called Der Stuermer. Not only does it explicitly teach and urge hate-hate-hate, but does it in forms whose viciousness never would be believed by one who had not seen it. The language in this paper is too vile for repetition, and its falsehoods are obvious to any ordinarily informed person who knows Germany. The best that one can say of the illustrations is to hope that they emanate from a disordered, rather than a depraved mind…" [212] <86>