“The protest handed to the ‘Führer’ by Protestant military chaplains in November, 1937 [wrote one correspondent], which showed them in the light of true ‘Protestants,’ was an expression of rebellious contradiction. It was imposing in its keen directness and showed more vivid signs of life than the Nazis ever expected from this ‘enemy.’ The chaplains objected to the naming of three enemies of National Socialism and consequently of Germany in Nazi camps. The three main enemies were designated repeatedly as Judaism, Freemasonry and Christianity. Since 1934, some thirteen hundred of the entire eighteen thousand pastors of the Reich had been brought into prison or into concentration camps. One high functionary of the Party, on the occasion of a recent Party meeting in Halle, referred to Jesus Christ as ‘this swine.’ School teachers had repeatedly called Jesus a ‘Jewish tramp’ in the classroom. Young teachers had asked their pastors for help because they had not been permitted to speak of Jesus in the sense of the Holy Scriptures, even when they were supposed to be instructing in religion. The military priests went so far as to express doubt as to the Nazi holy of holies — namely, success in the coming war — in case, of course, that they persisted in their anti-Christian campaign. It was impossible for true Christians to be in that accord, necessary to success, for anyone systematically drilled into referring to Christ as a swine and a tramp. And the whole war propaganda would surely fall on deaf ears, since an essential part of the German people would not believe a word of what was said to them, after this battle with the Church.”
Here is an enemy whose life is left!
One little girl of the village of Niederdondeleben was to be confirmed. Her teacher, the village pastor, wrote the following words into the child’s album:
To the Fatherland, not the Party! Service to the Fatherland makes one great and free; Service to the Party, narrow and small, untruthful and unjust. The Fatherland needs strong characters; the Party fears and hinders them. By so much as the Fatherland means more to you than does the Party, so much more does your compatriot mean to you than a co-member of the Party. In remembrance of Dr. Müller, Pastor, Niederdondeleben.
The Black Corps (organ of the S.S.) in its issue of September 23, 1937, which has “by chance” glanced at the poetry album in question, quotes from it, and remarks: “At the moment, Dr. Müller is under arrest and in training to become a martyr.” It goes on to suggest that fathers look into the albums of their impressionable daughters to see if they cannot find some “snotty pastor’s verses therein!”
This is, again, the first circle, the smallest, and least attacked limit of the family. But parents who, for their part, are under the Hitler Youth, have to obey. Their wishes and justified interests are ignored; and the parents play possum, too, and cannot be called a real enemy.
The New York Times of November 30, 1937 relates a story of Draconic punishment typical of the force with which penalties are given in the Reich. The parents here were members of a society of Bible students in Waldenberg, in Silesia, and were both accused of having infected their children with pacifist ideals and of influencing them against the Nazi regime. The father declared in court that he exercised no influence whatsoever upon his children, and the answer given him was that whether or not his statement was true, the atmosphere in the home of Bible students could not be anything but poisonous for children; no one could live in it without becoming an enemy of the State. The father admitted a previous conviction for having failed to send his children to some National Socialist school festival. He assured the court that the children had not wanted to go. But the court’s opinion was that this in itself showed the harmful effect of the parents’ influence, and handed down the following verdict:
“Law, in the service of racial and national interests, confides the care of the children, only under certain circumstances to the parents-Namely: if the children are brought up as the nation and the State decree. It is above all important to enlighten the children, so that they be aware that they, too, are part of a mighty nation, whose citizens are inseparably bound together by unanimity of opinion in all decisive questions. Anyone who raises children in such views as are likely to place them in opposition to the racial and national popular unity has failed to fulfill the conditions under which the education of his children has been entrusted to him. For reasons of general weal, such people will be forbidden to continue the upbringing of their children. The only chance of rectifying this lies in the complete separation of the children from the parents.”
And so the children were taken from their parents, not for a crime proved or committed or even contemplated, nor for expressed opinions, but solely because the atmosphere of such a home could not bring these children of Bible students up to revere the State. And the one offence, an old and trival one, was raked up to stand against the family.
One thing is clear, from the angle of the men in power: an example had to be made. All parents had to be warned; surely, from now on, everyone who had children would avoid Bible groups and pacifist ideas.