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The Grey Book by Johan M. Snoek
J >> Johan M. Snoek >> The Grey Book Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33
The inner tension between the theological view that sees the solution of the
Jewish question in the liquidation of Judaism and the racial view that sees
it in the liquidation of the Jews is clearly expressed in an address delivered
by Stoecker on 8.2.1882 about the danger to the German Reich from Jews in
public life, in which he states:
"We regard the Jewish question not as a religious nor indeed as a racial
question. Although it is at bottom both of these, it appears in its external
form as a social-ethical question, and is treated by us as such. No people
can tolerate the preponderance of an alien spirit without degenerating and
being destroyed? We would not solve the Jewish question radically by force,
but gradually in a spirit of peace and amity... We must keep the wounds
open until they are healed..." [21]
Although Stoecker himself was opposed to the use of force, modern political
anti-semitism, which was to no small degree influenced by him, did not shrink
from advocating violence in its hostility to Judaism, to religion and finally
to Christianity.
A significant contribution in this direction was made by the Darwinian
racial doctrines of Eugen Duehring and his antisemitic disciples. Whereas
Marr had formulated the anti-religious meaning of modern anti-semitism in
ominous terms of the Jewish domination of Europe and especially Germany,
Dühring adopted a so-called constructive approach by suggesting an alternative
to religion and religious culture, namely, race. In his antisemitic writings
after 1880 Judaism serves as the prototype of religion in general, including
Christianity.
The primary aim of this anti-Christian anti-semitism was for Duehring the
struggle against Jews and Judaism, and this also entailed the struggle
against the monotheistic religions and all forces that suppressed what he
called "the instinct of the free, natural life." In his anti-religious
book "Wert des Lebens" (1877), and especially in the third edition issued
four years later, he points out that Christianity as a monotheistic religion
is opposed to life and that all religious systems are nothing but pathological
maladies (ein Stueck weltgeschichtliche Krankheitslehre des Geistes).
Christianity is thus not interested "in ennobling man, but rather in
suppressing his natural instincts" as is evident, for example, in the
"paradox Christian doctrine" of the crucifixion of the flesh. [22] Hence,
it is absurd and hopeless to conduct the struggle against the Jews with
Christian theological concepts borrowed from Judaism, and those Christians
who attach importance to this only deceive themselves for it is plain that:
"...their anti-semitism lacks the primary truth, namely, that Christianity
itself is Semitism, a truth... that must serve as the terminus a quo for
all genuine anti-Hebraism..." [23]
As long as the Christians fail to disavow their Jewish source and their
Jewishness they themselves will be tainted by its anti-natural influence.
But since Christianity is inextricably bound to its Jewish origins, and
even the New Testament is nothing but "a racially Jewish tradition" (eine
rassenjuedische Ueberlieferung), the only hope for struggling humanity is
to throw off once for all this humiliating yoke, meaning the religious
heritage of Jews and Christians alike.
The liberation from the Jewish-Christian heritage, on the one hand, and
the strengthening of the Nordic German race on the other cannot be achieved
through the process of education or civilization but only by means of racial
purity which will cleanse man of religious depravities and restore the vital
sources of his instinctive life. Christianity is inadequate for this struggle
since it is itself ineradicably debased by its complicity with Judaism:
"Those who would cling to Christian tradition are in no position to combat
Judaism effectively. ...An understanding Christian cannot be a serious
antisemite... The Nordic gods are rooted in nature itself, and no millennial
diversion can eradicate them... We here see a vivid phantasy in operation
that is incomparably loftier than the Jewish slave-imagination..." [24]
This basic thesis that racial anti-semitism must also be directed against
Christianity continued to be elaborated from the end of the 19th century
onwards by Theodor Fritsch as well as in a number of journals:
the Antisemititche Correspondenz, which in 1888 became the official organ
of the D.A.P. under the name of Deutsche-Soziale Blaetter, the
Antisemiten-Katechismus which was later called Handbuch zur judenfrage
and, in the early years of the present century, the influential journal
Hammer. The general tendency of this movement was directed against
Christianity as an ecclesiastical institution, sometimes chiefly against
the Catholic Church which was suspected of "ultramontanist" sympathies
for a foreign ecclesiastical power. Christianity was also opposed as a
system of beliefs and practices that tended to debilitate the German
Aryan race in its struggle for existence.
Finally, Christianity was opposed because of its Jewish origins which
deteriorate the whole human race by elevating spirit over body, rational
thought over the wisdom of the senses, abstract ideas over direct and
spontaneous experience, and the discursive intellect over the vital emotions.
In the course of this debate the antisemitic movement displayed a readiness
to reconcile itself to the continued existence of Christianity on condition
that it subsitute the biological values of the Aryan race for its Jewish
origins, as was recommended by the idealogues who made Jesus a member of
the Aryan race - Julius Langbehn, Max Bewer, Houston Stewart Chamberlain,
Leopold Werner, and the German Christians in the days of the Third Reich. [25]
We find the same line of thought pursued by the followers of Duehring,
such as Prof. Paul Foerster, as well as in those circles connected with
the antisemitic journals, such as Heimdall, Freideutschland, Staatsburger
Zeitung, also some of the functionaries connected with the imperialist
Der Alldeutscher Verband, such as Friedrich Lange, the author of the
anti-Christian Reines Deutschtum (1893), and numerous writers, historians,
orientalists, scientists and students influenced by anthropology, materialism
and Darwinism. A popular exposition that reveals the national and Romantic
roots of this ideology appeared in the Hammer (Oct. 1908), and reads in
part as follows:
"What shall we do with a Christ whose kingdom is not of this world? A
Bluecher, a Gneisenau, a Koerner, an Arndt can always be useful for Germany,
but not a Christ. The God who was called upon at Leuthen, Leipzig and Sedan
was not the God of love, nor the God of Abraham. Christ comforts the lowly,
the weak and the sick. We too are sorry for these poor folk and try to
alleviate their condition; but they are of no use to us and to our future.
They only degrade that which we deem to be the highest good - the German
character. Strength, health, the joy of life are what we need. The kingdom
of Heaven can be left to the lowly and the wretched, as long as we possess
the earth. Give the Bible to the sick and the lonely, the shut-ins and the
scholars who wear their faces on their backs!..." [26]
Similarly, the antisemitic propagandist, Dr. Ernst Wachler, writes in the
same journal (Jan. 1911):
"Away with the stones and tales, the doctrines and precepts of Jews as well as
of Christians!... Not only the free-thinkers, but our basic Aryan instincts
demand: the Church with all its trappings must be done away with..." [27]
The available historical sources, including the documents collected in this
volume, clearly indicate that the protests of the Church against the
persecution of the Jews, with its human and ethical concern for their fate,
were an inseparable part of a more comprehensive opposition directed against
the pseudo-messianic and hence anti-Christian character of Nazism. Seen in
this context, the protest of the Church gives rise to a number of historical
and theological questions that require further study. The questions that
arise fall into three groups.
A. To what extent did the secularizing tendencies of the last century, the
rationalistic attacks on religion, the Romantic philosophies, pagan mythology,
Darwinism and the anthropological critique of religion, contribute to the
anti-Christian character of modern anti-semitism?
How did the process of secularization influence the teachings and art of
Richard Wagner, the Christian mythology of Houston St. Chamberlain, Julius
Langbehn, Ernst Bergmann and the movement of the "German Christians", or
the "Mythus" of Alfred Rosenberg? Can modem historiography support the
psychoanalytical Freudian explanation of anti-Christian anti-Semitism in
terms of a revival of vestigial pagan elements which were latent in
Christianity itself, and which consequently revolted against the ethical
Judaic basis of Christianity and against the Jews who were now made
responsible for all that disturbed the Christian conscience?
From the vast literature that has grown up around these problems [28] we see
that side by side with the all-pervasive secularization of life there were
also historical and theological factors embedded in Christianity which
later turned against Christianity itself. Through further study, we might
find in the history of Christianity traditions
that originated in the barbarism of the pagan world, turned anti-Christian
by that very paganism, then continued as anti-Jewish attitudes and policies
on the part of the Christian world - and finally culminating dialectically
into a destructive force that was directed not only against Judaism, but
through Judaism against Humanity and hence also against Christianity. One
of these powerful anti-Jewish elements which rooted in Christianity, and after
having been secularized became an effective means used by totalitarianism
against the Jews as well as against the Jews as the symbol of non-conformism,
as the embodiment of the human quest for a free existence, for the right to be
different and yet to be, is the very concept of Collective Guilt. Its origin
is the idea of guilt for the crucifixion of God who took on Flesh (Matt. 27. 25;
I Thess. 2. 15), a guilt which lies as a heavy yoke on the shoulders of all
the Jews till the end of the days.
It was applied to social life by various Church Synods (such as Elvira in 306,
Clermont in 535, Orleans in 538, the Lateran Councils of 1179 and 1215) with
their succession of repressive measures and harassments directed against the
Jews. It culminated under the influence of blood libels in the late Middle
Ages (Andreas of Ryn p. 1462, Simon of Trient 1475) [29], and in Modern
Times (Tisza-Esslar, Korfu, Xanten, Polna, Konitz) - down to the days of
the Third Reich. By using the very pattern of a Collective Guilt, the
Christian projected on to the Jew the frailties common to all human beings.
This mechanism enabled the Christian to see his own weakness reflected in
the Jew so that by persecuting the Jew, moreover by exterminating him, the
Christian could obliterate his own image as a sinner, and cleanse his
conscience from the burden of guilt.
These patterns of thought and conduct, these models of generalization,
projection and prejudice that originally were established by Christianity
with respect to the Jews - to what extent were they now employed by the
Nazi regime against Humanity, as well as against the Church itself
whenever the racial antisemites attacked its ethical Judaic basis?
B. The second group of questions concerns the problems as to whether the
survival of the Jews on the one hand, and their ultimate Christianization
on the other, are both indispensable to Christianity.
Since the promise made to the Jews in the Old Testament (Gen. 22 .18;
II Sam. 7. 12; Isaiah 7.14), will be fulfilled or perhaps superseded by
those of the New Testament (Rom. 9-11) when the Jews return in penitence
and acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, it seems that the Christian concern
for the fate of the Jews, even in the days of the holocaust, is unavoidably
accompanied by an interest in his salvation. Alas, his salvation is
conceived by the Christian in terms that are unacceptable for the Jew as
long as he wishes to adhere to Judaism as a religion, a people and an
unfulfilled eschatology.
As we study the documents before us in their total historical context
including parts not directly relevant to the very protest and therefore
not printed in this volume, we are impressed with the following fact;
while the Church raised its voice against the persecution of the Jews
out of human motives, as well as in the hope of thereby strengthening
its own members, the traditional, dogmatic concept of the Jew continued
to be dominant. According to this view the persecution of the Jews
constitutes an error, not only for reasons of humanity, but mainly
because persecution prevents the Jew from seeking redemption among his
persecutors. It prevents the Jew from turning to Jesus as the Messiah
and from seeking in the New Testament that salvation which not only is
promised him, but without which Christianity itself is doomed to remain
unfulfilled. From the theological point of view regarding the right of
Judaism to exist, the Church in its protest against the Nazis reverted
to the original attitude of Luther, as expressed in "Das Jesus Christus
eyn geborener Jude sey" of 1523. When Luther protested against the
anti-Jewish policy of the Church, claiming that the Church treated the Jews
"als waren es hunde", and that under such circumstances he himself would:
"...ehe eyn saw geworden denn eyn Christe", this very protest was also not
based on an acknowledgment of the right of Judaism to exist as an independent,
autonomous religion. The motive that inspired this protest was the hope that
Christianity would mitigate the persecution of the Jews and apply to them
instead the Christian Commandment of love and tolerance, as written by Luther:
"...Ob etliche halsstarrig sind was ligt daran? Sind wyr doch auch nicht alle
gute Christen...". In that case, and only in that case, Christians might be
hopeful that the Jews would return in penitence and believe in the salvation
brought to them by their own Messiah.
Against this historical background [30] it seems that even during the Holocaust,
Christianity continued to identify the Jew not in his own, authentic, terms,
but according to the classical traditions. The Jew is one who persists in the
impenitent rejection of Christ, but must be saved, for it is the Jew who has
to complete the eschatological process of the Heilsgeschichte. Therefore Jews,
and especially converts, have to be rescued from racial discrimination.
Moreover, since Judaism continues to be an integral part of Christianity,
the very notion of the Jews as a race can have no basis whatsoever in
Christian theology. [31]
This has been stated as early as September 1933 by the theological faculty
of the University of Marburg in its statement against the "Arierparagraph".
Similar statements were issued by theologians such as Rudolf Bultmann and
the members of the Bekenntnis der Vaeter und die bekennende Gemeinde (Betheler
Bekenntnis), 1934 [32]. Thus, even at the height of Nazi persecution and in
times of the extermination of the Jews, the Church would not acknowledge
Judaism as a religion in its own right and on its own terms, but insisted
that a Jew who became a Christian was merely fulfilling his predestined role;
such a Jew did not leave his faith, he returned to his true faith.
It is most symptomatic and instructive to note that in the controversy
between Heinrich Vogel, one of the leaders in the protests against the
persecution of Jews and the author of the "65 Theses of Protest" (March 1933)
and Friedrich Gebhart, a spokesman of the "German Christians" and the author
of the "Reply to the 65 Theses" (May 1933),
both sides, despite their theological and political contradictions adhere to
the same traditional Christian view that the Jews are in a state of rejection
(Verwerfung). One view holds that the Jew can abrogate his old covenant with
Jehovah and step over to the side of the Redeemer; the other holds that the
derelict Jew is beyond salvation and the redeeming influences of the Church,
that Ueberzeuging cannot overcome Zeugung, that the Vollendung of Judaism in
Christ should be turned into the Endloesung of Jewish existence. Both, however,
despite the far reaching differences and contradictions between them, deny the
Jew the right to live on his own terms and according to his own autonomy.
This approach to the Jewish question on the part of those who protested
against the persecution of the Jews was not confined to the Bekennende Kirche
in Germany. Even the Dutch Church, in the early forties, did not deviate from
its theological tradition. A typical illustration is to be found in the
Pastoral Letter written by the General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church
(Sept. 1941), a document that will go down in history as a striking witness
to spiritual integrity and moral courage. Although the Letter emphasizes the
fact that the New Testament is dependent on the Old Testament (Deut. 6, 4-5;
Mark 12, 29-31) and that the love of one's fellowman also applies to the
treatment of the Jew (Lev. 19, 18; Matt. 22, 39), it defines Judaism as a
religion that is destined to disappear by being redeemed through and in
Christianity. Again, this is in keeping with Christian tradition which holds
that the metaphysical status of election and the promise of eschatological
salvation as given to the Jews in the Old Testament are fulfilled in Jesus
who is "...the fulfilment of all God's promises to Israel, the true king of
this nation sent by God..." [33]
Hence, the document continues, having rejected Jesus as the redeemer,
the Jews are still sunk in sin: "...Israel did not recognize Him, but
rejected Him... In this way they hardened their hearts against the grace
of God... They are no longer Israel in the original sense of the lord,
they are 'Jews' now. A Jew is a man of Israel who rejects Jesus Christ,
and thus is to us a sign of human hostility to the Gospel..." [34]
The Church that protested Jewish persecution by the Nazis with such courage
and religious conviction still finds it indispensable to advocate conversion
as the only solution to the problem of Jewish stubborn existence, an
existence which equals infidelity:
"...The true destiny of the Jewish people lies in its Conversion to Christ,
by joining the Christian Church. The Jew remains a Jew in the bitter sense
which this word has for him first and foremost; the Jew cannot free himself
from himself, as long as he does not come to Christ..." [35]
Are there any pronouncements of the Church that offer a Christian-Jewish
relationship other than that of conversion? [36] Is there a possibility that
the Church may acknowledge the inherent right of self-determination for
the Jew, so that he could retain his identity and not seek to "free himself
from himself?" This "bitter sense" of the Jew the Church spoke about even
when protesting against Nazism, is it indigenous to Judaism or rather the
result of the social and political conditions in a Christian world?
Similar questions arise when we read the documents in Appendix I which do
not deal with the period of the Third Reich but with the period after the
Second World War. In these documents we find a number of explicit statements
by eminent Christian theologians condemning anti-semitism. But even here we
find no acknowledgment of the right of Judaism to exist on its own terms.
Nor do we find such acknowledgment in the special declaration of a group of
theologians, during the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches
which convened in Evanston in 1954, entitled "Hope of Israel" [37]. In this
declaration a systematic attempt is made to renew relations with
Judaism since"... to be a member of the Christian Church is to be involved
with the Jews... and the people of the New Covenant cannot be separated
from the people of the Old Covenant..." [38]
Jews, however, are still regarded as candidates for salvation on Christian
terms, so that even in this enlightened document - a document which was
composed years after the wholesale extermination of the Jews by the Nazis -
theologians find no other solution but "...to hope for the conversion of the
Jewish people..." [39].
Moreover, when these circles in the Church desire for reasons of conscience
and remorse to express "...the grievous guilt of the Christian people towards
the Jews throughout the history of the church...", they find no better way to
express their deep sorrow than to revert to the "Findings of the pre-Evanston
Conference of the American committee on the Christian Approach to the Jews"
(Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, August 8-11, 1954) which states that '... the Church
cannot rest until the title of Christ to the Kingdom is recognized by His own
People according to the flesh...'" [40].
Another typical example of this attitude is the proclamation of the Joint
Committee of the World Council of Churches and the International Missionary
Council, after its Consultation at the Ecumenical Institute, Bossey, Sept.
12-18, 1956. An attempt was made to elevate the missionary activities of the
Church, to seek the salvation of the Jews by the power of the spirit only:
"...Our hope for the Jews does not mean that we can calculate the time or
define the nature of the coming of Christ in his Kingdom... We may find a
further warning against too precise speculation with regard to the Second
Coming of Christ..." (Ch. III, par. c, d.). [41] In conclusion, however, the
Joint Committee could not help adding a declaration which for the Jew makes
any authentic dialogue meaningless if not impossible: "... The Jewish people
will not find their true destiny until they return and acknowledge Jesus as
Christ and Lord" (Cf. Chap. IV, 6) [42].
C. The third group of questions that arise from reading the documents and
require careful study, deal with the actual situation as it existed during
the Nazi regime. Were the protests of the Church effective, in rescuing Jews
and then in strengthening the spirit of resistance, or even the religious
feelings among Christians? Were the protests raised at the right time and
under the proper circumstances, to mitigate the persecution or to postpone
the annihilation of the Jews? Was the protest the most useful means of
rescuing Jews, or would it have been more helpful for the Church to keep
quiet so that it could devote itself more to actual underground activities
- but, then, could the Church keep quiet? Was the Church, in its protest,
ready to endanger its members as well as their relatives for the sake of
an effective anti-Nazi struggle, or did the protest function as a Catharsis,
relieving the members of the Church from the burden of moral responsibility
towards the persecuted? Did the protests create a new, perhaps even a
revolutionary non-conformist stand of the Church over against political
power? How was the protest of the Church related to the concept of obedience
to the existing regime, as expressed in Paul's Letter to the Romans Ch. 13,
and in Luther's "Von weltlicher Obrigkeit wie weit man ihr Gehorsam schuldig
ist" 1523? Finally, what was the reaction of the Jews who were persecuted,
and especially of those Jews who lived in free countries and who might have
been expected to exert themselves to save their brethren? Did they endanger
their personal safety to rescue their fellow-Jews and display a deeper sense
of responsibility towards them than the Church?
This collection of sources, by concentrating on only one aspect of the
entire interrelationship between Christianity and Judaism during
the period of the holocaust may confuse the reader in thinking that the
Protest was the prime characteristic and policy of the Church regarding
anti-semitism, the persecution of the Jews and their extermination. The
author of this book, the Rev. Johan M. Snoek, is correct in bringing to
our attention that the Protest must be viewed as one and only one aspect
of the position of the Church and of the Christian world as a whole
during the Nazi regime. A collection of sources on the Protest of the
Church does not preclude the fact that there existed other positions
among Christians; the position of cooperation with antisemites, whether
it was active or passive, direct or indirect, with knowledge of without,
whether voluntary or
through coercion. This volume does not attempt to research the entire
and definite historical and theological position of the Church during
the Holocaust. Its purpose is to bring light upon one aspect, which until
now has not been sufficiently investigated. By having gathered these
documents, and by having placed them before us in their historical and
geo-political order, a major contribution has been made towards a more
balanced and varied understanding of this period.
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