| IV. Conclusion |
| Nazi policies in the Warthegau |
| The main points and the foundation of this essay, insofar as they are true to scripture, are derived from spiritual truths inaccessible to the natural mind unaided. This means that they are not subject to falsification or empirical verification - it does not mean that they are unreal, as if positivism and materialism were valid philosophies and anything beyond them is unreal. The fact that fundamental issues of life and faith are not empirically verifiable is due not to the unreality of said issues. It is due to the inherent limitations of the human mind. The material world is much more subject to our control and so can be tested and analyzed sufficiently to meet the extremely shallow and limited criteria of proof set by the proud, complacent, and self-satisfied materialists. Spiritual truths, however, are too far beyond the limited reach of the paltry human mind to be susceptible to manipulation, control and experiment. |
| For this reason it is possible to go around and around in endless discussions about these subjects, and be no closer to a conclusion than one was at the beginning - unless someone is sincere enough in their search for an understanding of the subject to be swayed by contrary arguments and evidence, which does sometimes happen. There are so many different points that could be made, and so many possible responses to those points, that an essay of this type must of necessity seem inadequate. It is not meant, however, to be definitive or exhaustive. It is meant to state and clarify a basic position. |
| I have had to rely a great deal on some sources without the ability to verify them in every detail. If there are any errors of fact or detail, they should be pointed out and corrected, but should not be seen as fatal to or detracting from the main points. These main points, as I have said, are dependent on and derived from principles of faith. I don't mean to imply that the arguments should be exempt from criticism or refutation - I mean rather that minor historical inaccuracies, if there are any, can be pointed out and corrected without detracting from the main points. |
| Those who have determined from the outset that they want to reject a certain point of view can always find a reason to do so. A few peripheral logical flaws or misstatements of fact that do not affect the heart of the argument can be used as an excuse to avoid a line of reasoning that is uncongenial. There is so much subjectivism involved in these questions, especially on the part of secularists or foes of Christianity who pride themselves most on their objectivity. For this reason, it seemed useful to devote a part of the conclusion to an examination of what the Nazis actually did. |
| Hitler and the Nazis were masters of deception. They were adept at disguising, concealing, lying, and made many statements (not only about Christianity) that can be misleading if taken at face value. If, however, we look not only at their words (though their words reveal more than enough) but also at their deeds, we can see that Naziism was a deadly enemy of Christianity. To demonstrate this - as opposed to merely asserting it - it is helpful to look at Conway's detailed study of what he called "a model Nazi region" [p. 292] - the Warthegau in occupied Poland. All quotes in this section are from that source. |
| Wartheland was a region of Poland that had belonged to Germany before 1919. Given to Poland after the war, it was officially restored to Germany (as Conway relates) by a decree of Hitler in October 1939. Officially designated Reichsgau Wartheland, it was referred to as the Warthegau. An SS Obergruppenfuhrer named Arthur Greiser was given the task of re-Germanizing the territory. In the words of Conway, "Greiser's ambition was to make the Wartheland a model Nazi Gau...The Warthegau was to become 'the training ground for the Nazi ideology' and the 'model for the whole party' " [pp. 311-312]. Part of a speech by Greiser marking his second year in office is cited verbatim: |
| ...Here in the virgin territory of the German East, we are all offered the chance of the new reconstruction of the State, which will reflect the principles of National Socialism in all aspects of public life, or at least will come nearest to it. As a result we have the exhilarating feeling that the work of reconstruction which has been laid on our shoulders is today providing the start of a reform for the whole Reich that will be implemented later [p. 311]. |
| Since Hitler said in a speech in 1922 that he was a Christian, and because he used such words as "providence" or "god" on occasion, and because he had promised to support the church in Germany and work with it, someone might assume that the church in the Warthegau came under the special protection of the Nazi party, and was given all sorts of advantages. This was not the case. Most of the Polish Catholic clergy were ordered exterminated or expelled by Himmler. Bormann decreed that the Concordat with the Vatican did not apply. Greiser reported directly to Himmler or Bormann, and his policies were not the result of personal whim. |
| The initiative for church policy in the new Gaus henceforward came directly from the Nazi party chancellery in Munich...for the first time the separation of Church and State was proclaimed as official Nazi policy, in accordance with Bormann's plans first expressed to the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces and later repeated in his circular of June 1941 [p. 314]. |
| Conway cites documents from Bormann asserting that Hitler personally approved government policies toward the churches in the region. These policies were aimed at eliminating or drastically restricting the influence of the church. The Catholic Church was harshly dealt with. Contacts with the Vatican were forbidden; church properties were confiscated; confirmation classes were regulated and limited; all religious instruction was banned in the schools, and all religious activities were confined to church buildings. Church membership was forbidden for people under the age of 21; school teachers were forbidden to be church members; Nazi party members were forbidden to be church members. Church services on Good Friday were forbidden "on the grounds that 'the Party also has its Good Friday - 9 November 1923; it also has its martyrs - those who died for the Movement; it also possesses its altar - the Feldherrnhalle in Munich' " [pp. 321-322]. This prohibition was defied: "on this matter the churchmen refused to be coerced. So many gathered outside their locked churches on Good Friday morning that the Gestapo was obliged to withdraw its prohibition, and in the following years the services were allowed to proceed without intervention" [p. 322]. One will search the history books in vain for instances of liberals, secular humanists, socialists, agnostics, or atheists publicly defying orders of the Nazi government for the sake of their cherished values of tolerance and diversity. |
| In October 1941 the few remaining parish priests were arrested by the Gestapo and hundreds were sent to Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and other camps: |
| According to figures recorded in a German Foreign Ministry document, of the 681 regular and 147 monastic priests in the diocese of Posen, no less than 451 were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps, 120 were expelled to the territory of the Government-General in central Poland, 74 were shot or died in concentration camps, 32 were refused permission to carry out their ministry, 24 fled abroad, and 12 were missing [p. 324]. |
| These were not wartime abuses only, but matters of policy: |
| Hitler's decision to allow the Gauleiters a free hand in the ideological 're-education' of their territories, placed the territories wholly in the hands of the Nazi extremists without possibility of appeal. In August 1943 the German Catholic bishops in their annual pastoral letter stigmatized the increasing persecution of the church as intolerable and the conditions in the Warthegau as approximating to 'an almost complete suppression of Christian religion'. With growing apprehension they expressed fear that conditions there were, as many Party representatives had exultantly proclaimed, the 'prelude for the future status of the Church in Germany itself' [pp. 324-325]. |
| Because of their allegiance to a foreign power, Catholics were particularly obnoxious to the Nazis, but Conway details many oppressive measures taken against the Evangelicals as well. This brief overview of Conway's detailed study omits many harassments, persecutions, and evils. He cites a Nuremberg document pertaining to Czechoslovakia: "Venerable high ecclesiastical dignitaries were dragged to concentration camps in Germany. It was a common sight on the roads near the concentration camps to see a priest dressed in rags, exhausted, pulling a cart, and behind him a youth in SA uniform, whip in hand" [p. 297]. It is necessary to avoid feelings of hostility and contempt for those who assert that the Nazis were Christians - pity is a more suitable response to their ignorance or even in some cases blind malice. |
| More comments not about the Warthegau only, but about Poland, are instructive: |
| Immediately after the military victory of September 1939, Himmler, in his capacity as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of the German People's Community (Reichskommisar fur die Festigung deutscher Volkstums) laid claim to the new 'fief' of Poland and promptly instigated measures to consolidate the power of the SS within it. By the forcible suppression of all national institutions, by the 'Germanization' (Germanisierung) of cultural associations, and by the reduction of the population to the status of slave labor for the German Reich, any sort of resistance would be rendered impossible...systematic executions of members of the Polish intelligentsia and ruling classes were carries out... |
| From the first the Catholic Church was one of the main targets of this policy of annihilation. The SS was given a free hand in a reign of terror against both clergy and laity...In West Prussia, out of 690 parish priests, at least two-thirds were arrested, and the remainder escaped only by fleeing from their parishes...by the end of 1940 only twenty priests were left in their parishes - about three per cent of the number of parish priests in the pre-war period. |
| The much smaller Evangelical Churches in Poland were treated with equal ferocity [pp.295-296]. |
| Is it reasonable to assume that the Nazis would go to so much trouble to exterminate the Jews, and then leave the bearers of Jewish values unmolested? Or does anyone believe that after a victorious war Hitler would have shut down the death camps and things would have returned to normal? Fortunately, we do not have to consider the prospect of a Nazi victory at length, as God would never allow such evil to triumph, but there is evidence that Hitler was waiting for the end of the war to deal with the churches once and for all. In connection with this, a final quote from Conway is in order: "In the Warthegau, the model Nazi region that had been carved out of conquered Polish territory, the apotheosis of Nazi Church policy can be seen. The draconian measures introduced there can leave little doubt of what would have happened elsewhere had Hitler been able to carry out his frequently repeated threat 'after the war, to deal decisively with the churches' " [p. 292]. |
Response to a Holocaust survivor |
| In a short but succinct online essay entitled "Holocaust and Christianity" [www.kimel.net/christi.html], Alexander Kimel quotes the profound question by Saul Friedlander given at the beginning of this website: "Does Christianity bear a historic responsibility for the Shoah, or should Nazism be considered as a fundamental revolt against the 'Judaeo-Christian' interpretation of the sense of human life and history? Any answer to these questions cannot but leave unresolved questions and continuous doubts." |
| Mr. Kimel, himself a survivor of those evil days, asserts that the answer to both questions is "Yes." In his view, Naziism was a revolt against the Judaeo-Christian understanding of life, but Christianity also bears a "historic responsibility" for the crimes of the Nazis. The anti-Christian character of Naziism is clear to Mr. Kimel, as it should be to anyone who has a rudimentary understanding of the teachings of Jesus and the apostles, and who does not misinterpret isolated quotes from Hitler and his henchmen. Nevertheless, he asserts in the opening paragraph that anti-Semitism "fueled by teaching of the churches numbed the conscience of the perpetrators and bystanders [and] secured their cooperation or silence, and this made the Holocaust so devastating." |
| Concerning the first part of Friedlander's question, much has been said already in this essay about the unchristian character of Hitler and Naziism, and its secular origins have been examined in detail. I believe the consciences of the perpetrators were not "numbed" by Christianity, but rather destroyed and thoroughly perverted by the secular teachings we have examined. They believed that what they were doing was good and beneficial to humanity - this attitude came from trends exemplified by Wagner, Haeckel, and Nietzsche, who positively gloried in evil. Mr. Kimel does make an interesting observation which reinforces a point that has been insufficiently understood by many (and might have profitably been discussed at more length in my essay): the extent to which Naziism was itself a new religion. An excerpt from Mr. Kimel's essay is useful here: |
| Hitler wanted to establish a new religion, with himself as the prophet. Felix Kersten, Himmler's confidante, found a variety of religious books in Himmler's library, and Himmler explained to him "I am to prepare a new Nazi religion. I am to draft the new Bible, the Bible of the faith...The Fuhrer has decided that, after the victory of the Third Reich, he will abolish Christianity throughout Great Germany, and establish the faith on its ruins. The latter will preserve the idea of God, but it will be very vague and indistinct. The Fuhrer will replace Christ as the Saviour of humanity. Thus, millions and millions of people will say only Hitler's name in their prayers and a hundred years from now nothing will be known but the new religion, which will endure for centuries." |
| This vague and indistinct God would agree very well with the God or the World Spirit posited by Hegel, Haeckel, and the German romantic and idealistic "philosophers" who predominated in the century and more preceding the Holocaust. Also, Hitler's self-glorification foreshadows "the man of sin," "the son of perdition" who will be revealed in the end times. As Paul writes in a letter to the Thessalonian church, he "opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." |
| If someone wanted to be captious he could dismiss Kersten's account, but the religious qualities of Naziism are or should be evident even if this one source should unexpectedly prove to be unreliable. "Germany is our God and Hitler is our Messiah" was the Nazi attitude. They looked upon themselves as a new chosen people and derived hope, meaning, and purpose in life from their new faith. The Nazis devised baptismal rites, altars, ceremonies, rituals, and high holidays to deepen the faith, as Conway demonstrates in scholarly detail. |
| In dealing with the second aspect of Friedlander's question, Mr. Kimel's analysis is less adequate. It is true, as he said, that with the help of the "Bystander Nations" a much greater percentage of Jews could have been saved. The active cooperation and also the passive indifference of the local populations greatly facilitated the implementation of the Final Solution. There is however a serious flaw in labeling the Bystander Nations as "Christian," like Mr. Kimel does. The mere fact of having been born in Poland or Croatia or Denmark does not make one a Christian. They are Christians who through faith in Christ have received the Spirit of Christ, and walk (however imperfectly) in the light of Christ. This is not my personal face-saving definition or evasive tactic. Paul says in Romans as plainly as language can express, "Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his," and "as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." The Spirit of the man who allowed himself to be killed, who forgave his enemies, used no weapons other than words of eternal truth, and forbade his disciples to fight on his behalf has nothing to do with evil or sin of any kind. |
| Of course, anyone can claim to have the Spirit of Christ, and we cannot always tell who is the false Christian and who is the immature Christian troubled for a while by sin - but while Christians remain fallible people, to refrain from torture and murder, not to mention mass murder, is not beyond our power. One can point to the millions of American Christians who never harmed a Jew and never wanted to, to the millions of Jews who have lived in America and other countries with a now dying Protestant background in peace and prosperity. |
| A biblical definition of Christianity excludes many who claimed to be Christian, went to church, and observed the outward forms of religion as ordained by worldly ecclesiastical power structures (Catholic or Protestant). Many religious activities however are very far removed from the teaching and practice of the New Testament. Before we assess the degree of Christian responsibility for the Holocaust, we need to recognize that there are radically differing definitions of the word "Christian" that have greatly confused the issue. There is the biblical definition, and there is the world's definition. The latter is based on outward appearance. Using this definition, the degree of Christian complicity in the Holocaust is greater. Many people with the name of Christian had no understanding of the message of forgiveness of sins and salvation for Jew and Gentile alike through Christ. They did treat the Jews in an unchristlike and unbiblical way - but even so it is not reasonable to blame the failure of the bystanders to help on a tradition of unchristian anti-Semitism. |
| Like many others, Mr. Kimel fails to take into consideration the fact that if many people did not do anything to help the Jews, this was to a great extent the result of apathy and self-centeredness, or of fear and the instinct for self-preservation. During Stalin's left-wing secular dictatorship countless people were taken away, and their own relatives, friends, and neighbors said and did nothing. Was this because centuries of Christian teaching taught them to look on their friends and family members as less than human? Or was it because they wanted first of all to survive? During the Soviet occupation of Poland the Russians took away people in the middle of the night, many of them, and what (not to mention total strangers) did their friends, relatives, and neighbors do? Nothing. Was this because of centuries of Christian antisemitism, or was it because they did not want to be taken away themselves? Nazi retribution was swift and severe, and many people who are so quick to point their fingers at the Christians who did nothing would also themselves do nothing if helping others meant a very great degree of risk. True, such behaviour was direct disobedience to the teachings of Christ, who said "fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." If more Christians had been so fearless the situation would have been much different, but it is impossible to follow the teachings of Christ if you consider the bible to be full of mistakes, myths, and legends, and are not even sure if Christ said the words or not. We should also mention the many liberals, humanists, newspaper reporters, college professors, and left-wing socialists who said and did nothing. This is only human nature. This is not changed by the Holy Spirit if the Spirit is absent to begin with. |
| Mr. Kimel's argument also fails to take into account the radical differences between Poland on the one hand, and Denmark, Norway, and Holland on the other. The Germans themselves were more careful in western occupied Europe as they knew the whole climate was very different there. Recognizing that some Poles did help Jews and others did nothing to harm them, while some in the Nazi-occupied west fully cooperated with the Germans, the fact remains that there was a huge difference between those regions in public attitudes toward the Jews. Why do people so often point to the vicious and primitive behaviour of Eastern Europeans who didn't know Christ from the man in the moon, and conclude that Christianity is very bad, while ignoring or glossing over the much different situation in the Protestant countries? Surely if antisemitism was endemic to Christianity, the Dutch and the Scandinavians should have been just as bad as the Poles or worse. As was said before, did any Danes launch pogroms to kill Jews who returned after the war like some of the Poles did? What if the problem was not with Christianity, but with Poland, or with Polish Christianity? |
| Lest it seem that I am trying only to exonerate the Christians, let us look again at their many faults. One was gullibility. As Conway states so well: |
| ...large numbers of Protestants were willing to accept at its face value Hitler's promise at the Nuremberg Rally of 1935 that the Party had no intention of waging war against Christianity. They assumed that Hitler had decided to repudiate the revolutionary views of his radical followers in Church matters just as he had sacrificed Roehm in favour of the regular Army. It was all part, they believed, of the process of his evolution from being merely the leader of an extremist political movement to becoming the statesman of Germany [p. 135]. |
| Many people like Neville Chamberlain and a large part of the British diplomatic and media establishment assumed as late as 1938 that Hitler was an honorable man who could be trusted. True, the Germans as Christians should have been more knowledgeable, but this relates to the second point - how many of them had long since abandoned biblical Christianity? The very essence of the theological liberalism that reigned in so many churches and seminaries was conformity to the world. It is here that the church was most to blame in helping to pave the way for Hitler. By abandoning biblical Christianity the Christians cast away their spiritual armor, their swords, shields, helmets, and breastplates, and so were defenseless against the powers of evil. Their house was not built upon the rock of Christ. It was built upon the sand of human wisdom, and when the storms came and the floods rose, it collapsed. |
| We must also blame a dead and lifeless orthodoxy. Too many Christians had a form of knowledge and were theologically conservative, but lacked the power and life of the Spirit. Moreover, as members of a state supported church, even intellectually orthodox Lutherans had for far too long been accustomed to relying on the state rather than on the Lord for their protection. This made it harder for them to understand the difficult spiritual truth that the answer to Germany's many political and economic problems was faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to his teachings. They were more concerned about recovering territories lost in WWI or about political stability and military might than they were with the Sermon on the Mount, and hence were ripe for deception. |
| Another fault of the Christians (using the term very loosely) was cowardice. Fear of death and excessive clinging to life which are contrary to biblical teachings. Nevertheless, most people in their analyses of these questions overlook the extent to which Hitler ruled by fear and terror. It would take a very brave man indeed to speak out when he knew that even a casual remark could lead to Sachsenhausen or the torture chambers of the Gestapo. |
| As for the Christians who enthusiastically supported Hitler; who believed that the Germans were the master race; who took pleasure in the sufferings of the Jews - I deny that such were Christians at all. They were enemies of Christ, enemies of God, pitiful evildoers who will find on the day of judgement that merely having the name of Christian means nothing at all. |
| But, Mr. Kimel goes on to posit a more direct link between Christianity and Naziism. He asserts that "Almost all perpetrators arose from Christian culture and some of them were devout Christians." This does not agree well with his previous assertion that Naziism was a revolt against Christianity - but he gives some examples to support his assertion: |
| ...the commandant of Auschwitz Hoess was a devout Catholic, Tiso the President of Slovakia was a Catholic priest. In many camps the killing was suspended on Sundays, so that the murderers could attend Church services. At no time were the killers censured by the religious authorities or denied the last rites in time of their execution. |
| As to being denied last rites, that ceremony is a human superstition that has no biblical basis and no spiritual significance whatever. It is a sign of the corruption of the church, not of Christianity. If even the worst mass murderer's sins were cleansed by the blood of Christ, he had no need of last rites. If his sins had not been cleansed by the blood of Christ, ten thousand last rites administered in the Vatican by the "pope" himself would confer no benefit whatever. |
| When it comes to killers being censured by the religious authorities, both Gilbert [p. 73] and Conway [p. 375] relate the story of one pastor who spoke out against the persecution of Jews a week after the Kristallnacht. He denounced it as a crime, said that this unchristian injustice would bring God's punishment on Germany and quoted a bible verse, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." He asserted that the seed of hatred would bring a terrible harvest. Not long after that he was attacked by a mob, beaten, denounced as a "slave of Judaism" and a "traitor to the people," and thrown in prison. |
| Many of the religious authorities had no real faith in Christ to begin with. If they did, it would take heroic courage such as few possess to lodge a protest that would change nothing and result in the severest consequences. Yet, a very few did have such courage. Gilbert mentions Theophil Wurm, "Bishop of the Evangelical Church in Wurtemberg" who protested the injustices of the German government in 1943 and warned "A day will come when we will have to pay for this" [pp. 590-91]. In December 1943 Bishop Wurm wrote to the State Secretary of the Reich Chancellery. In Gilbert's words: |
| This time he made explicit reference to the 'final solution'. 'We Christians,' he wrote, 'consider the policy of exterminating the Jews as a grave injustice and of fatal consequences for the German people. Our people see the suffering imposed on us by the air raids as an act of punishment for what was done to the Jews' [ibid.]. |
| Gilbert does not relate the consequences of this letter. Perhaps it was covered up by a sympathetic functionary (more and more people were having doubts about Hitler by that time, thanks to the Allied Air Forces). Perhaps he was visited by the Gestapo and taken away. Needless to say, his protest had no observable effect. Gilbert also relates other incidents. For example: |
| In Oslo, on November 11 [1942], while the deportation of several hundred Jews was being prepared, the Norwegian Protestant bishops issued a public protest: 'God does not differentiate between peoples,' they declared, and went on to oppose all laws 'in conflict with the Christian faith'. That month, 531 Norwegian Jews, men, women, and children, were deported to Birkenau. More Norwegian Jews were saved than were deported [p. 499]. |
| In Finland also, as Gilbert relates: |
| Following protests by the minority Social Democratic Party, several Lutheran ministers, and the Archbishop, the Finnish Cabinet which in August 1942 had deferred to Himmler's pressure while on a 'private unofficial holiday visit' to deport the Jews from Finland to Germany, refused to agree to any further deportations [p. 534]. |
| This is not meant to whitewash the overwhelming cowardice and silence of the churches, not to mention their open support of Hitler - it is to state that such behaviour is not derived from the New Testament. The behaviour of those who spoke out for the truth at the risk of their own lives was derived from the New Testament. Others also tried to do something. Conway mentions a man named Lichtenberg, the Catholic Provost of Berlin, who on the day after the Kiristallnacht "led his congregation in prayer for the persecuted non-Aryans among the German community. His action immediately made him a marked man, and destined him to suffer imprisonment and finally death for his courageous act" [p. 223]. He also tells of an Evangelical Pastor Gruber, "who established an office in Berlin where Christian Jews could receive advice and assistance in escaping from the country, until he himself was arrested in December 1940" [ibid.]. The churches were silent out of fear, or out of unbelief and ignorance of the Gospel message. These are human faults that are not derived from the New Testament, but from fallen and sinful human nature. |
| Returning to Mr. Kimel's essay, he asserts that "In many camps the killing was suspended on Sundays, so that the murderers could attend Church services." If this did in fact occur (and Mr. Kimel is mistaken in referring to Hoess as a devout Catholic, so he may be wrong here as well), I would like to point out that nowhere in the entire New Testament is Sunday worship specified or commanded. There are many commandments, not about worshipping on this or that particular day, but about showing God's love to the world and about walking in the straight and narrow way of Christ. As has been said before, it is clearly stated that murderers, fornicators, and evil doers will not be admitted into the kingdom of heaven, no matter if they go to church on Sundays, Tuesdays, or 365 days a year and twice on Christmas. An unbeliever is not to be blamed too much if he thinks people who go to church on Sunday are Christians, but this is the world's definition, not the bible's definition of a Christian. Jesus did not say in the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are the vicious and brutal evildoers who go to church on Sunday." He did say "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy" - from which one can reason that the unmerciful will not obtain mercy. |
| Concerning Tiso, the President of Slovakia, if anyone's priestly robes cover an evil heart full of cruelty and void of God's grace this will bring him a heavier condemnation on the day of judgement. As to Hoess' Christianity, a detailed online article gives ample information about this. Looking at the article - "A Mass Murderer Repents" by John Jay Hughes [http://theology.shu.edu/lectures/massmurder.htm] - we can see some significant information that sheds light on the crimes of the Nazis and on the relationship of those crimes to Christianity. All quotes in this part are from that source. |
| Hoess, who after the war was interviewed at length by psychiatrists and wrote his memoirs, did have a Catholic upbringing - and how many people have received Catholic upbringings without becoming criminals? However, he lost faith in priests when he felt that a priest had betrayed his confession, according to the above-mentioned website: " 'My faith in the holy profession of priesthood was smashed and doubts began to stir within me,' Hoess wrote. 'After this incident I could no longer trust any priest.'8 He changed confessors and soon stopped going to confession altogether." According to the same article, he refused to take training for the priesthood and formally left the church in 1922. So much for the legend of his devout Catholicism. Not long after that he joined the Nazi Party. |
| In 1923 he was imprisoned for murder. "In the third year of this term he suffered a severe mental and physical breakdown. 'With all my power I tried to pull myself together, but I just couldn't fight it. I wanted to pray, but all I could manage was a sad, fearful mumbling. I had forgotten how to pray; I could no longer find the way to God.... I believed that God didn't want to help me any more because I had left him. My official withdrawal from the church in 1922 tortured me.' " He found faith in the Nazi ideology however, and stated in his prison memoirs "I believed that the National Socialist ideology [Weltanschauung] was the only one suited to the German people." The article summarizes this ideology as follows: |
| Its racial component, however, was consistent and (in every sense of the word) simple. This theory was rooted not in revelation, like the Catholicism he learned from his father, but in nature. All of nature - plants, animals, humanity - was engaged in perpetual struggle. Only the strong survived. Humanity's strong races must dominate the weaker ones, therefore, and keep themselves racially pure. Admixture of blood with weaker races was fatal. |
| Aryans, the creators of culture, were at the top of the Nazi racial pyramid. Beneath them were culture-bearers: Slavs and Asians. Their role was to provide slave labor for the culturally creative Aryans. Beneath both were the destroyers of culture, the Jews: humanity's parasites, who dragged everyone down. History was the record not of class warfare (as in Marxism) but of racial warfare. Germany had lost the First World War because it had allowed Jews to become assimilated, thus committing the cardinal sin of racial bastardization. The renewal of Germany's national life proclaimed by Adolf Hitler could come about only through a return to racial purity. If this meant enslavement of non-Germans and eradication of Jews, so be it. Struggle was the law of life. Only the strong survived. "The SS was, in my opinion, the most energetic defender of this ideology," Hoess wrote in his prison memoirs, "and the only one capable of leading the German people back to a life more in keeping with its character." |
| Hoess went on to state that he did not hate Jews, but was motivated by ideology. While there is no need to try and peer into the foul morass of his brain too deeply, this is very possibly true. If one kills cockroaches, lice, or other vermin one does not feel hatred against them - it is merely a matter of hygiene. This is one aspect of the Holocaust that needs to be considered more carefully - the extent to which the Nazis were sadists and criminals, but also sincerely believed that the Jews were not humans and that the world was better off without them. This is not to minimize the strong criminal element in Naziism - obviously criminals would be attracted to a movement that would baptize their criminal instincts and (in a Nietzschean re-evaluation of all values) call their criminality good and allow it free reign. |
| Captured after the war, Hoess did not display deep and sincere repentance. In his prison memoirs he wrote: |
| I am now as I was then, as far as my philosophy of life is concerned ... still a National Socialist. A person who has believed in an ideology, a philosophy, for almost twenty-five years and who was bound up with it body and soul cannot simply throw it away just because ... the National Socialist state and its leaders acted wrongly. In fact, criminally and through their failure our world collapsed and the entire German people have been plunged into unspeakable misery for decades into the future. |
| In other words, the National Socialist ideology was true, but the leaders acted wrongly. He further added, "Today I realize that the extermination of the Jews was wrong, absolutely wrong. ... The cause of anti-Semitism was not served by this act at all, in fact, just the opposite. The Jews have come much closer to their final goal." This is something other than deep remorse and recognition of wrong-doing. It only questions the effectiveness of extermination as a tactic. |
| In his letter to his wife, Hoess showed evidence of further progression (to what extent he was sincere is unknowable) and wrote: |
| Based on my present knowledge I can see today clearly, severely and bitterly for me, that the entire ideology about the world in which I believed so firmly and unswervingly was based on completely wrong premises and had to absolutely collapse one day. And so my actions in the service of this ideology were completely wrong, even though I faithfully believed the idea was correct. Now it was very logical that strong doubts grew within me, and whether my turning away from my belief in God was based on completely wrong premises. It was a hard struggle. But I have again found my faith in my God. |
| Exactly what sort of a faith this might have been is not clear. Yet, in spite of the fact that he had sunk to such indescribably dark depths of criminality, Hoess still felt the need of a priest and of the church. He asked to see a priest and was visited by a Jesuit from Cracow. They talked for several hours. "At the end of this conversation Hoess made a formal profession of Catholic faith, thus returning to the church he had left a quarter-century before, and made his confession. The day following Fr. Lohn returned, with the sacristan of the local parish church, and gave Holy Communion to Hoess, who knelt in the middle of his cell, weeping." Perhaps he felt sorry for himself, or had a real glimpse of the dark misery of his life, who knows? |
| The article states that Hoess wrote the letters to his wife and children on the same day. The letter to his children contains no deep Christian sentiment. Eternal life, God's love and acceptance, the power of Christ's blood to wash away sin, genuine repentance - all are glaringly absent. On the next day he wrote the following statement to the state prosecutor: |
| My conscience compels me to make the following declaration. In the solitude of my prison cell I have come to the bitter recognition that I have sinned gravely against humanity. As Commandant of Auschwitz I was responsible for carrying out part of the cruel plans of the "Third Reich" for human destruction. In so doing I have inflicted terrible wounds on humanity. I caused unspeakable suffering for the Polish people in particular. I am to pay for this with my life. May the Lord God forgive one day what I have done. I ask the Polish people for forgiveness. In Polish prisons I experienced for the first time what human kindness is. Despite all that has happened I have experienced humane treatment which I could never have expected, and which has deeply shamed me. May the facts which are now coming out about the horrible crimes against humanity make the repetition of such cruel acts impossible for all time. |
| Most notably, he asks the Poles for forgiveness but not the Jews. He also expresses the hope that God will forgive him, which is very far from the glorious biblical assurance "that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God" and does not in and of itself prove any serious religious commitment. The blood of Christ is sufficient to atone even for sins such as his, and it would have been a glorious victory of God's grace if Hoess could have found real repentance and saving faith in Christ. Hoess however never referred to any significant experience of the risen Christ and his love and forgiveness. But, it is not necessary or possible for us to discern exactly what went through that pitiful creature's mind in his last days. We can say that his actions and his words prior to his last days show him to have been anything but a devout Catholic. |
| Much more could be said in response to Mr. Kimel's article, but it has already been said elsewhere in this essay. There is however one more point that should be addressed. It pertains to the assertion that Naziism arose out of a Christian culture. Conway seems to provide some confirmation of this in his book on the persecution of the churches. One passage is so significant for an understanding of the Nazi government's attitude toward the church that it merits repetition at length: |
| The outbreak of war brought a change in Nazi Church policy. The preoccupation of the authorities in mobilizing the German people behind the war effort necessitated the abandonment of policies likely to lead to internal strife or tension, and, since Church matters were considered of minor importance in comparison with the large issues now at stake, a truce was called in the church conflict. Hitler himself, fully alive to the need for national unity, commanded that 'no further action should be taken against the Evangelical and Catholic Churches for the duration of the war,' and ten months later he ordered the suspension of all non-essential measures that might lead to a worsening of relations between the Churches and the State and Party. |
| The Nazis had to reckon with the fact that, despite all Rosenberg's efforts, only 5 percent of the population registered themselves in the 1939 census as no longer connected with the Christian Churches: 3.5 per cent declared themselves to be 'God believers' (gottglaubig) and another 1.5 per cent atheists. The remaining 95 per cent of the eighty million people of the greater German Reich were still registered as members of the Catholic or Evangelical Churches, and even the majority of the three million Nazi Party members still paid the church taxes and registered themselves as Christians. The united support of all these millions of German Christians was needed for the war effort if Hitler's plans for Germany were to be fulfilled...Even Goebbels, with his notorious record of anticlericalism, switched to the view that there should be a complete cessation of activities against the Church, being now convinced, as frequent entries in his diary show, that the church question would be best left in abeyance until the war was over. |
| This is not the place to list the long catalogue of Nazi abuses that proved Hitler's feigned respect for Christianity to have been just one more of his many lies. Harassments, persecution and imprisonments of pastors, severely limiting church activities, strict surveillance, pressure on young people to forsake church activities, hostile statements about Christianity in the press, confiscation of church property, vandalism, beatings, loss of legal rights and privileges - these and other tactics were common. Gilbert even cites an instance in which Christians were accused of the ancient blood libel in an issue of Der Sturmer [p. 43]. These were the tactics that the Nazis felt inclined to moderate for the time being. An examination of what actually occurred, as opposed to speculating on quotes, is sufficient to demonstrate the relationship of Naziism to Christianity. |
| Viereck also studied and understood the situation of the churches in Nazi Germany. He described the attempts "to detach youth from Christian influences" [p. 258] and stated that: |
| Christianity's crime is that it teaches peace and love instead of war and hate. Ley tries to detach the labouring classes from Christianity, and Schirach the youth. The courageous Protestant Manifesto of August 1936 protested: "In the training camps the conception of the world contained in the Rosenberg Mythus frequently is taught....The Christian population of Germany notes with great perturbation that it is being ridiculed and scorned in every way in the press, theatres, lectures, and mass meetings for its faith in the will of Jesus Christ"... |
| At the University of Munich, against the will of both professors and students, young Nazi officials, anti-church disciples of Rosenberg, gave "compulsory lectures" at which students were forced "neatly to write down" and learn the following "fighting song": |
| "The old Jewish shame is at last swept away; The black band of rascals [Catholic priests] rages on. German men, German women, beat the black band to a jelly. Hang them on the gallows...Ravens have been waiting. |
| "Plunge the knives into the parson's body. We'll be ready for any massacre. Hoist the Hohenzollerns high on the lamp-post! Hurl the hand-grenades into the churches!" |
| In 1938 a young Nazi broke into a church at Neuhausen and smashed the baptismal font and the altar crucifix. The church demanded punishment. The trial was held before a Nazi court. His defense was that he intended to make a habit of smashing baptismal fonts at every chance. Verdict: not guilty [pp. 258-259]. |
| Admittedly, the Christians were exceedingly stupid to think that the venom directed at the Jews would never affect them with their Jewish values, but their blindness and complacency were the result not of biblical teachings, but of ignorance of bible teachings and a lack of the Spirit of Christ. This Spirit of Christ is not given to those who deny the fundamentals of the faith, who have been deceived either by a dead and lifeless orthodoxy or by a false and deceitful liberalism. As to the "courageous Protestant Manifesto of 1936," it does not seem like much in comparison to the terrors of the Holocaust, but some explanation might be useful. |
| The Confessing Church was a group of Christians that did not oppose Hitler overtly, and did their best to demonstrate their loyalty to the state, but still attempted to resist "German Christianity" and preserve some form of a real Christian message. They did protest the nazification of the church, and issued a pamphlet The State Church is here! In 1936 the leaders of this wing of the church protested to Hitler directly. As Conway relates: |
| Politely but unflinchingly, the memorandum drew Hitler's attention to a number of crucial points. First, he was asked whether the attempts to 'de-Christianize' Germany were to be regarded as official policy, in contravention of his previous promises. Secondly, the Nazi policy of 'positive Christianity' was refuted as theologically unsound. Thirdly, a strong protest was lodged against the arbitrary police measures which had destroyed the Church's autonomy. Fourthly, the State was accused of deliberately interfering with the Church's work by closing the Church schools and by limitations placed upon the Church in press, radio and public education work. In section five the memorandum roundly declared that |
| "If Christians are pressed to adopt an anti-semitic attitude as part of the National Socialist ideology, which will incite them to hate the Jews, then this is against the Christian commandment to love one's neighbor." |
| And again: |
| "The Evangelical conscience, which feels itself responsible for people and government, is hardest of all hit by the fact that in Germany, which calls itself a law-abiding state, concentration camps can still exist and the activities of the Gestapo are not subject to any legal scrutiny" [p. 162]. |
| Other concerns were expressed, including the personal glorification of Hitler. The protest was sent to Hitler privately - whether or not they believed Hitler would actually take the whining of contemptible little parsons seriously is unknown. It is possible they were naive enough to imagine that their words would carry some weight. Hitler ignored the memorandum, but it was published first in the Swiss press and then elsewhere abroad. At this point the confessing Church leaders, wilting before charges of conspiring against Germany, immediately backed down. They disowned the man who authorized the publication in Switzerland - one Dr. Weissler, who was arrested by the Gestapo and killed in Sachsenhausen - and eagerly sought to prove their loyalty to the state. A watered down version was issued, but it was rejected by some "Bishops" who then declared their total support for the Fuhrer in his struggle against Bolshevism. Conway suggests that the response of the government to this was mild because of a desire to avoid internal controversies during the Olympic Games [p. 165]. |
| Conway also mentions attempts by the Catholics to protest the increasing pressure put on the church by the government. "By the end of 1936, after repeated protests by Cardinal Bertram to the Reich Chancellery had all been ignored, an appeal was made for more forceful assistance from Rome" [p. 165]. A Papal Encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge (With Burning Sorrow) was smuggled into Germany and read from Catholic pulpits throughout Germany. This Encyclical referred to violations of the Concordat - which someone attacking Christianity mistakenly said that Hitler honored - and spoke against Nazi policies toward the church. Catholics were encouraged to give their first loyalty not to Hitler, but to Christ, the Church, and Rome. According to Conway, "Hitler was furious...On Hitler's direct orders, the Encyclical was treated as a call to battle" [p. 166.]. |
| Copies were seized, its publication was forbidden, and pressures on the church were increased. But still there were those who shrank from a radical break with the Catholic Church, arguing that such a move would serve only to confirm the Pope's proclamation of the irreconcilable opposition of Catholicism and Naziism. Despite the unwelcome challenge to Nazi authority contained in the Encyclical, the fact remained that the policies of the Nazi Party in all matters save those of purely ecclesiastical concern were receiving the enthusiastic support of millions of German Catholics. A policy of retaliation might only exacerbate tension. The Encyclical ought therefore to be ignored and the suggestions for revoking the Concordat should be dropped [pp. 166-167]. |
| Conway then quotes Rudolf Hess to the effect that gradually drawing people away from the church was a more effective tactic and states, "For reasons of expediency, therefore, the Nazis refrained from a head-on-clash with the Catholic Church relying instead on an intensified attack against all Church activities in order to limit its influence on the German people [ibid.]. |
| None of this is meant to demonstrate the heroism of the church or the bravery of the Christians in speaking out against Hitler. It is meant to demonstrate the real situation of the church in Germany. This relationship was not one of cordiality between two allies. Hitler's promises to support the church, his appeals to Christians for support, his careful avoidance of overtly anti-Christian statements in public, all of these were part of his normal practice of deception that is recognized in every other area. Only his statements about Christianity and the church are taken at face value by those who are looking for any chance to discredit Christianity. |
| But, we are left with Conway's statement that 95% of Germans were still registered members of the churches. This does make it seem as if Germany were very much a Christian country, but Jesus said "Do not judge by outward appearances, but judge righteous judgement." We need to recall Gasman's account of Ernst Haeckel, who for years was an outspoken advocate of his own creative interpretation of Darwinism and an open foe of Christianity, yet did not formally resign his church membership until he was nearly eighty years old [p. 59]. He stated, and is quoted directly by Gasman, that he stayed in the church in spite of his convictions, in order to avoid offending family and friends. |
| Apart from the spinelessness of church leaders who would allow Haeckel to be kept on the membership roles, this indicates that church affiliation, decided by the parents and confirmed by the idle ceremony of infant baptism,, was a powerful emotional and cultural factor even if the Christian religion had no doctrinal significance. The bible, which plainly teaches that the church is to be composed of believers, knows nothing of helpless infants being brought into the church by their doting parents. This church affiliation on the part of people who did not believe in the bible and did not follow its teachings is a direct denial of the New Testament. |
| Of course, we cannot know what percentage of those people were serious Christians, but it is certain and sure that in the 1920's and '30's, 95% of the German people were not saying that "Aryan racial supremacy is contrary to the bible. It says in Acts that 'God has made of one blood all nations of men.' " As Hitler was rising to power, 95% of all Germans were not saying "It profits nothing to be a blond-haired blue-eyed Aryan if you die without having your sins cleansed by the blood of Christ and are condemned to an eternity separated from God." If anyone had said "As Christians our home is in heaven. We are just passing through this world temporarily and do not have much need of a 'Fatherland,' " their opinions would not have been well-received. Moreover, much of this 95% explicitly backed the Nazi regime's war efforts in a manner that was far-removed from the Spirit of Christ. |
| The bible teaches obedience to the authorities - it does not teach enthusiasm for their evil deeds, nor does it forget that obedience to God comes first, and obedience to the state has limits. Conway documents how the German Evangelical Church leaders and the Catholic Bishops prayed for God's blessing on the Fuhrer and on the Fatherland in the just war, the just invasion of Poland - despite the fact that some information about the Nazi atrocities in Poland and persecution of Catholics in Poland was known to German Catholics, having been broadcast by Vatican radio. Fortunately, for the purposes of this essay, there is no need to excuse, condone, or explain away such behaviour - it is only necessary to state that it has nothing whatever to do with New Testament Christianity. One will search the New Testament in vain for any instance of the leaders of the early church supporting and praying for God's blessing on Rome's invasion of neighboring territories. The early Christians were willing to die for their faith - would that there had been more such Christians in Germany. A few thousand Christians who asserted openly that Naziism was false and then suffered and died for their beliefs would have had an impact far beyond their numbers. But, it is easy to piously intone the bible verse "To die is gain" in a Sunday school class, and quite another thing to live it. |
| Yet, in the interests of objectivity, it is worth recording that Viereck asserted that Germany under Hitler "is still a Christian country today" [p. 302]. This of course supports the contention that Christianity was in some way involved with the Holocaust, but if we do not take statements at face value, and instead examine them, we find that Viereck's substantial insights into the 19th-century origins of National Socialism did not automatically translate into a correct evaluation of the then present situation (his book was published in 1941). |
| This is a common phenomenon. There are many who can sit in the library and do research, and become quite knowledgeable about the history and culture of a given country - be it Nazi Germany or Russia or Iran. They can even learn the language and spend some time in the country, but still reveal a profound lack of understanding of the actual situation and be unprepared for unexpected developments. How many experts on the Soviet Union for example spent many years studying the country and could talk about it at length and with great expertise, but were nevertheless completely unprepared for its unexpected collapse? How many experts on the Middle East or Asia have had learned and scholarly opinions that proved to be completely wrong? Some people who have a lot of facts about the Middle East in their heads actually believed that the death of Yassir Arafat was an opportunity for peace, and waited for the Palestinians to set up a legitimate government! They are still waiting. |
| Viereck in the same passage of the book makes a number of statements that reveal him to have been an expert on some (not all) of the philosophical origins of National Socialism, but less than expert in his analysis of the current situation. For example, he believed that there was opposition to Hitler's anti-church policies from "such powerful ruling circles as the Prussian army officers of tough and devout Protestant tradition" [ibid.]. Perhaps it is to his credit that he did not cover up his mistake after more information became known. People who do not have to speculate from afar with inadequate information about a closed country can see from the historical record that the Prussian officers were for the most part obsequious and spineless, and submitted to the most outrageous orders without demur. Others enthusiastically supported the Fuhrer in his dreams of world dominion and adhered to his racial theories with mindless devotion. |
| Viereck was equally mistaken in saying that the majority of Germans were still, in spite of Hitler, a "deeply civilized" people [p. 301]. The deeply civilized people in Germany who did not like Hitler kept their mouths closed and did what they were told. They had no interest in going to Sachsenhausen or Dachau, with a few rare and very heroic exceptions. Some people who would be surprised at Viereck's assertion that the Germans in 1941 were "deeply civilized" and would question his judgement, would seize on his statement on the following page that Germany was a Christian country and reflexively respond, "Aha! I knew it all the time!" So deceitful is the human mind, and so eager to hear what it wants to hear. Perhaps Mr. Viereck was so concerned about avoiding wartime hysteria and condemning all Germans that he went to the opposite extreme. Of course he did not have access to the many documents and records available today - though much material was available about the metaphysical roots of Naziism and this he studied in depth and presented with real scholarship. |
| Any standard history of Germany in the Weimar era shows a glaring absence of a vital Christian presence. This shows the worthlessness of church affiliations on the part of those who maybe had fond memories of childhood but no real commitment to the New Testament. Anyone who surveys the Volkish movement as described by Mosse, or the other deep secular trends personified by Nietzsche, Haeckel, and Wagner, can easily see that Germany was very far from being a Christian nation. 18th-century Prussia was much more strongly Christian (though far from the ideal of course) and there was no need for false and ugly modern ideologies then. |
| Anyone who reads about Berlin in the 1920's and concludes that Germany was a deeply Christian country plainly does not even know what Christianity is. If one surveys the leading German "philosophers," painters, poets, writers, and composers of the period from 1800 to 1933, was even one of them a serious Christian according to the biblical standard? Did Kant and Hegel believe that the bible was the inspired and infallible word of God, and that salvation from sin and eternal life in paradise came only through faith in Christ and being cleansed by his blood? Their vain and useless pseudo-philosophies contributed to the Holocaust by helping to tear down the historic Christian faith which alone would have been strong enough to recognize the lie of Naziism and withstand it. Beethoven, Schiller, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, Thomas Mann, Bert Brecht, Nietzsche, Haeckel, Wagner, Marlene Dietrich, Lotte Lenya, Oswald Spengler, movie stars, poets, thinkers, cabaret singers, all the bubbling foam of a worldly society - where were the Christians? Even the "pastors" and "theologians" in Germany's leading churches and seminaries had abandoned the Christian faith. There has never at any time been a genuinely Christian country, but if one had to nominate a country for such an honor, it would not be Germany in the 19th and early 20th centuries. |
Paul's letter to the Romans |
| No matter what or how much is said, many people will continue to form superficial judgements on these questions. They will see photographs of church dignitaries smiling and shaking hands with Hitler; they will read comments supporting Hitler by "theologians" and "pastors"; they will see a few god-words uttered by Hitler and his followers; they will look at some statements of individual Christians that are by no means representative of biblical teaching; they will ignore the many liberals and secular thinkers, including socialists and humanists, who fell into Hitler's arms and luxuriated in the caresses of the new faith; they will ignore the deep secular currents that dominated German intellectual life from Kant and Hegel on - and they will conclude that Christianity was to some extent responsible for the Holocaust. |
| Some of that is due to simple ignorance. This can be dispelled by knowledge. To a greater extent, unfortunately, it is the result not merely of well-intended ignorance but of deliberate aversion to the Christian religion. The idea that we are accountable to God, that we will be judged, that we are guilty of sin, that forgiveness of sins and eternal life comes through Christ's sacrifice on the cross - these and other basic teachings are anathema and folly to the natural mind. For this reason, every pretext must be seized on to discredit these unwelcome truths. This is why some will hunt for every clue linking Christianity to the Holocaust but will ignore the secular and atheist crimes of Stalin, Lenin, and Mao. If the abuse and perversion and rejection of Christianity discredits that religion, good - if the excesses of the Communists discredit atheism and secular attempts to arrange society without reference to the laws of God, never mind. This intellectual cowardice and hypocrisy on the part of those who pride themselves on their intelligence and "openness" to all of the latest lies and abominations would be vexing, were it not for the fact that as a Christian I have a living hope of a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. When Christ returns with great power and glory to judge the world, then all of the errors, misunderstandings, and misrepresentations concerning the nature of his person and his teachings will be dispelled. |
| If one really wants to understand the relationship of Christianity to Naziism, it is not enough to look at a few photos or cut and paste some quotes. It is necessary to look at what actually occurred in the Third Reich. With a little knowledge, the deep antipathy between Naziism and biblical Christianity is perfectly evident. It is also necessary to look at the environment out of which Hitler emerged. He was not a child of the Protestant Reformation, or of Roman Palestine, but of a deeply secularized Germany with many currents overtly hostile to Christianity. All of his basic ideas had been expressed long before he ever became known. Finally, it is necessary to look at the bible itself. What does it actually teach, and to what extent is the bible to blame for those who miss its main points and refuse to obey it? |
| In all of the attempts to understand the relationship of the Holocaust to Christianity, it is doubtful that anyone has ever carefully read Romans while looking for light on the issues that have been discussed in this essay. If we study this vital statement of the essentials of Christian belief, we can see more clearly, in the sacred light of its eternal truths, the real nature of the relationship between Hitler and the apostles, and between Satan (the father of lies and murder) and Christ, the Saviour of the human race and the Prince of Peace. |
| The opening chapter states that the grace of God brings with it "obedience to the faith." To have the mind of Christ, to walk as Christ walked, doing to others as we would have them do unto us, showing the love of God that is the fulfillment of the law - these things we Christians cannot do perfectly, but we can do them to some extent. Certainly it is in our power to refrain from torturing and killing people, if the Spirit of Christ is a reality in our lives. |
| Next, we see Paul's desire to share the good news of forgiveness of sins and eternal life to all, Jew or Gentile. This should be the attitude of the sincere Christian. Did the Jews sin in rejecting Christ? Many people of all nations and races have rejected Christ and do reject him. Paul then goes on to describe God's anger at unrighteousness and ungodliness. That men "became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened" is a clear and succinct description of National Socialism and the evil folly of Hitler. Then there is a long list of sins and wickednesses - some that apply to the Nazis are: unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, murder, deceit, malignity, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. Paul concludes that those who do such things are worthy of death. |
| This is the most insightful description into the inner and secret nature of National Socialism ever written - it also describes Wagner, Haeckel, and Nietzsche well. Truly, "Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes." Paul then goes on to describe the wrath of God that will come upon such evildoers. God "will render to every man according to his deeds." This promises that "tribulation and anguish" will be "upon every soul of man that doeth evil...For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." The world hates this message and stops its ears, but when the death camp commandants and guards, not to mention Hitler himself, and all of those who in any way persecuted the Jews, stand before God on the day of judgement, then it will be seen beyond doubt that God is just, and evil does not go unpunished. This we know by faith in the word of God and in the reality of the unseen world yet to come. |
| Paul then goes on to say that Jews and Gentiles are all under sin - "There is none righteous, no, not one." This states that the Jews are sinners, but I am a sinner as well, and "all the world" is "guilty before God." This truth alone destroys the corrupt hallucination of Aryan supremacy - and which pastors were sharing these life-saving truths with the lost and misguided German people? Any one who did so after 1933 would have had a very short-lived ministry. Romans also presents Abraham as a model and an example of strong faith, and demonstrates Christianity's deep relationship with Judaism. The Nazis easily recognized and were overtly hostile to the strong Jewish element in Christianity and Conway gives evidence of Nazi ideas that were identical to Nietzsche's: "The New Testament is a Jewish fraud...The Bible is the continuation of the Talmud... Christianity is a substitute Judaism; the Jews contrived it...Christianity is simply the mask of Judaism..." [pp. 226-227]. |
| To complete a brief review of Romans as it relates to the Holocaust, there are two main aspects that bear on this discussion: one has to do with the behaviour expected of a Christian; the other has to do with the Jews and God's purpose for them. Concerning the first of these, it is beyond the scope of this conclusion to list the many exhortations and commands to holy and righteous living. It will be objected that many Christians have failed to live up to these commands, but it should be recalled first, that there have been countless millions of Christians who never participated in a Crusade or a pogrom and never wanted to; second, that those who are walking in the Spirit of Christ are fallible and err, but hatred and murder should at all times be far from them. This is a simple standard that myriads of Christians have attained to. Also, there are false Christians, deceiving even their own selves. These have an outward appearance of Christianity but are strangers to the gospel of Christ. We cannot always sort them out, but God can and will do so - we can say with confidence that wicked evil-doers are very far removed from the Christian message. |
| Paul exhorts believers, who by faith have received the Spirit of Christ, to "walk in newness of life." We are to be "made free from sin," and hence are "servants of righteousness" - "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace...Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Those who are of Christ and in Christ should "Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good...Recompense to no man evil for evil...If it be possible, as much as lies in you, live peaceably with all men...Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.""Love works no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." |
| Those who sincerely try to live by these rules, not by their own virtue or will-power but with the help of God's Holy Spirit granted through faith in Christ, will certainly fall and err and fall short in many ways, but if the Spirit of Christ is so conspicuously absent as to leave them still in bondage to sin and evil of the worst sort, it is reasonable to question if their outward appearance of Christianity is not merely a vain and useless deception, void of the Spirit and void of truth. Whether or not they will become straightened out eventually, or if they will perish in their iniquity is impossible for us to know. |
| As to God's plan and purpose for the Jews, that has already been discussed somewhat in the second part, but it merits further description (it being recalled that Christians are to show the love of God to all, Jew or Gentile, no matter if this or that interpretation of God's plan for the Jews subsequent to the death and resurrection of Christ is the correct one). |
| In the opening chapters of Romans, writing after the resurrection of Christ and after the granting of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Paul says that the gospel of Christ "is the power of God unto salvation...to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." He then refers to the final judgement and says that God's wrath will be "upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile," but that there will be "glory, honour, and peace, to every man that does good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile." This states that God's special plan and purpose for the Jews abides after the resurrection of Christ. This is troublesome to those who do not really understand the riches that are available to them in Christ. They do not understand the extent to which the barrier between Jew and Gentile has been broken down, so that they can participate fully in the blessings of God on an equal basis with the children of Abraham. They feel jealous, resentful, and insecure if God deals with the Jews in a certain way, and insist for personal rather than for scriptural reasons that God is not supposed to deal with the Jews in a distinct way any longer. |
| Of course, when it comes to salvation from sin, we must all come before God individually and on the same basis. God is not a respecter of persons, and no Jew will be entitled to special treatment on the day of judgement merely because he was physically descended from Abraham. Nevertheless, if God has some special purpose for the Jews as a nation to fulfill as part of his divine scheme for the world, this should not cause resentment and jealousy on our part but praise and thanksgiving. More to the point, Paul states that "he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly" - that Jews who do not believe in the one whom God has sent, Jesus Christ, are Jews physically, but not spiritually. Those however who have true and saving faith in Christ and have received the Spirit of Christ are baptized into the faith of Abraham and are his spiritual heirs. Thus sincere and spiritual Christians are truly descended from Abraham. |
| Nevertheless, even the physical Jews who are without Christ still have some spiritual significance, "chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God." In a later passage he speaks of the Jews as having the glory of the Old Testament covenants, law, service, and promises, the people to whom Christ came in the flesh. This is poles apart from Hitler's and Nietzsche's hatred of Jews as destroyers of humanity. Paul also describes at length and in detail his feelings about the Jews, his own nation. Needless to say, he did not express hatred of the Jews as Christ-killers, but considered himself as the chief of sinners. He says nothing about the shoutings of a small mob being binding upon all Jews for all time, nor does he express the idea that he is a messenger of God's wrath to punish the people who rejected Christ. This sort of cursed and ignorant evil-doing is very far removed from the Gospel of Christ as revealed to Paul. |
| On the contrary, Paul expresses not wrath and bitterness, but sorrow for his kinsmen, the Jews, who are separated from the love of God in Christ. His heart's desire for them was that they should be saved. It is not a contradiction to offer God's love and mercy to all, but still have a special concern for one's own relatives, friends, or kinsmen. He goes on to say of the Jews that God has not cast away his people. Their fall has led in some way to the salvation of the Gentiles, but if their fall has been riches to the Gentiles, how much more will their restoration be riches to the Gentiles? If their casting away has led to the furtherance of the Gospel among the Gentiles, "what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?" |
| Paul then goes on to warn the Gentiles that have been grafted on to the tree of faith as wild branches, while the Jews, the natural branches have been broken off. He exhorts and warns the Gentiles not to be high-minded against the Jews, but to fear. If God "spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he spare not you." Christians are to consider the alienation of the Jews from God's grace with humility and fear, and with love and compassion - and they are warned, that if they do not continue in the goodness of God they also will be cut off, as were the Jews. Then, at some point, when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, the Jews also will be restored through saving faith in Christ. |
| Thus, their suffering and their lostness are part of the divine plan - and while others have different interpretations of these passages, there is no question that hatred of the Jews is contrary to the bible's message and plain teaching. Those who have wrought cruelty and evil in the name of Christ will be given a proper reward for their works. |
| A reasoned consideration of these and yet more factors should lead to the conclusion that the horrors of the Holocaust were a uniquely modern phenomenon, having their deepest roots (humanly speaking) in modern secularism as it manifested itself in the German context. The qualification "in the German context" is necessary, as modernism in and of itself does not lead to Naziism, though it does lead to many other horrors and evils. |
| Naturally, some will disagree with these assertions, but the final truth of this and all other questions will be manifested when Christ returns with power and great glory, and the secrets of men's hearts are revealed. The verses of a psalm provide a fitting close: |
| ...thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple. Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face. For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue. Destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee. But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee. For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield |
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