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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
The volume of literature on the Kirchenkampf is expanding at an accelerating rate. Several bibliographical articles have already appeared, the most recent of which is by the Canadian scholar, John S. Conway. Of the 63 titles of books, articles, and collections discussed by Conway, 47 were published in the 1960s. Nearly all studies of the Kirchenkampf either defend or criticize the church in varying degrees. Most of the older accounts, as Conway points out in the introduction to his own comprehensive study, were written by clergymen and historians who actually participated in the Kirchenkampf. These scholars selected those facts which demonstrated that the church steadfastly, if not always effectually, opposed National Socialist tyranny in word and deed. The larger volume of Protestant works emphasized the activity of the Confessing Church, while the unaccountably smaller number of Roman Catholic accounts focused upon particular bishops and priests who protested courageously and suffered imprisonment or martyrdom. During the past ten years, however, a small group of mostly younger historians have published works sharply critical of the Roman Catholic Church in particular. These historians, the most prominent of whom are Gordon Zahn, Hans Müller, and Guenter Lewy, assert that the Roman Catholic Church failed to exert the kind of moral and political leadership which might have mitigated the horrors of National Socialism.
1. Conway, John S., “Der deutsche Kirchenkampf,” Viertteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 17 (10, 1969), 423–449.Google Scholar
2. Conway, John S., The Nasi Persecution of the Churches 1933–1945 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968).Google Scholar
3. See Conway's introduction, op. cit. With the exception of Friedrich Baumgärtel's Wider der Kirchenkampflegenden (Neuendetteelsau, 1959), no one has yet written a full-length study devoted exclusively to the shortcomings of the Protestants. Unlike Roman Catholic participants in the Kirchenkampf, however, at least a few of Hitler's opponents in the Protestant Church are inclined to be self-critical. In 1964 Bishop Hans Lilje wrote: “The lack of objective appraisals prevents the development of a careful and precise evaluation of the Kirchenkampf and obscures what should be our spiritual condemnation. Only a few have had the courage… to acknowledge publicly that the church lost the Kirchenkampf” (Klügel, Eberhard, Die lutherische Landeskirche Hannovers und ihr Bischof 1933–1945 [Berlin: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1964], v).Google Scholar
4. Zahn, Gordon, German Catholics and Hitler's Wars (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1962)Google Scholar; Müller, Hans, Katholische Kirche and Nationalsozialismus (Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1963)Google Scholar; Lewy, Guenter, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964)Google Scholar. Zahn's work was one of the first major scholarly critiques of the German Roman Catholic hierarchy. He focuses upon the Roman Catholic response to Hitler's foreign policy, charging that the bishops failed even to consider the question of “whether or not the Hitler war effort met the conditions set for a ‘just war’” (p. 68). The individual German Roman Catholic, according to Zahn, was never “led to believe that the regime was an evil unworthy of his support” (p. 72). Müller's work is a collection of documents which clearly indicates the hierarchy's willingness to support National Socialism from 1930 to 1935. Like Zahn, Lewy attacks the German episcopate, but his indictment is broader in scope, covering both foreign and domestic policies from the early 1930s to 1945. Lewy's critique is especially harsh, since it is based largely upon documents found in the archives of several German dioceses.
5. Müller, xxii.
6. Ibid., xxiv.
7. Zipfel, Friedrich, Kirchenkampf in Deutschland 1933–1945 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter and Co., 1965)Google Scholar. Zipfel did not consult collections available in the Bundesarchiv at Koblenz or in the U.S. National Archives in Washington. Furthermore, as one of the works sponsored by the Historical Commission for Berlin, Zipfel emphasizes events in the capital city. Consequently, his study is somewhat less balanced and comprehensive than Conway's. Lewy also makes use of National Socialist sources, but only those relating to the Roman Catholic Church. No comparable account of the Protestant Church and National Socialism has yet appeared.
8. Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (Washington, 1946), II, 255 (hereafter cited as NCA).Google Scholar
9. Zipfel, p. 155.
10. Hauptamt, S.S., Unterrichtsmappe SS. und Polizeiwesen (Berlin, 1944), p. 66c.Google Scholar
11. Ibid., p. 6c. The S.D. worked closely with the Gestapo. Leaders of both agencies were trained in the same special S.S. leadership schools. The territorial units were coterminous, and officials of both groups often occupied the same office building. As the two most important branches of the R.S.H.A., all personnel of the Gestapo and S.D. were directly responsible to Heydrich through his personal representative in each territorial unit, the Inspector of the Security Police and the S.D.
12. Boberach, Heinz, Meldungen aus dem Reich (Berlin: Hermann Luchterland, 1965), xxvi, xxvii.Google Scholar
13. Kersten, Felix, The Kersten Memoirs 1940–1945 (London: Hutchinson, 1956), p. 212.Google Scholar
14. Ibid., p. 213.
15. Boberach, xxviii.
16. U.S. National Archives, Records of the Reich Leader S.S. and Chief of the German Police, Microcopy T-175, Roll 267, Frame 2762298 (hereafter cited as National Archives, T-175).
17. National Archives, T-175, Roll 409, Frames 2932603–05.
18. NCA, VI, 417–418.Google Scholar
19. Uunger, Aryeh L., “The Public Opinion Reports of the Nazi Party,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 29 (Winter, 1965-1966), 565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
20. National Archives, T-175, Roll 271, Frames 2766976–77. Unless otherwise indicated, all S.D. reports cited were issued from SD-Hauptaussenstelle Bielefeld.
21. This S. D. appraisal is confirmed by at least three scholars. Stewart Herman, who had been in Germany until early 1942, writes: “The core of Protestant opposition had not been shattered by the summer of 1939, but both pastors and people had lost a good deal of spirit” (Herman, Stewart, It's Your Souls We Want [New York: Harper and Row, 1943], p. 174)Google Scholar. Lewy and Conway describe the church's loss of strength as a result of earlier compromises with National Socialism. “The Church had no eyes for Hitler's Blood Purge of 1934 and barbarities of the concentration camps; with varying degrees of enthusiasm she had supported all of his earlier aggressive moves. She was in no position, politically, or intellectually, to oppose him…when he plunged the world into a war…” (Lewy, p. 223). Conway writes: “The whole sorry process of accommodation and compromise that had gone on since 1933 now reached its logical conclusion when, in the face of Hitler's attack on Poland in September 1939, the Churches stood dumb and confused, unable to raise a voice of protest, spiritless and without initiative” (p. 231).
22. National Archives, T-175, Roll 265, Frames 2759350–54. The regime created the Gottgläubige classification in order to accommodate those who still retained a belief in God but wanted nothing to do with the organized church. Party members were urged to register as Gottgläubig after cancelling church membership, for, according to Bormann, , “National Socialist ideology presupposes a religious view which, of course, has no relation to a church or confession” (Berlin Document Center, U.S. National Archives, Miscellaneous Non-Biographic Material-Schumacher Collection, Microcopy T-580, Roll 40 [hereafter cited as BDC/Schumacher, T-580].)Google Scholar Bormann's sentiments reflected those contained in Point 24 of the 1920 program of the N.S.D.A.P.: “The Party… represents the standpoint of ‘positive Christianity’ without binding itself confessionally to a particular faith” (quoted in Cochrane, Arthur C., The Churches' Confession under Hitler [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962”, p. 221)Google Scholar. The Deutsche Christen, a schismatic group of Protestants who sought to syncretize Christianity and National Socialism, proclaimed in a 1932 manifesto that they subscribed to “positive Christianity” and placed themselves at the disposal of the N.S.D.A.P. in the “fateful struggle against Marxism and its Christian social fellow travelers” (Cochrane, p. 222). The Party never officially defined positive Christianity, using the term chiefly for propaganda purposes, but the Deutsche Christen took it quite seriously. One of their spokesmen, Professor Cajus Fabricius, offered an extended explanation in a work entitled Positive Christianity in the Third Reich (Dresden: H. Püschel, 1937)Google Scholar. In this and similar publications, positive Christianity was said to involve a life of courageous action and self-sacrifice and a disavowal of miracles and dogma. Fabricius retained a belief in the God of Christianity but held that He had revealed himself most fully in the German people and their leader. (See also Gericke, Fritz, Der neue Glaube [Stuttgart: G. Truckenmüller, 1943].)Google Scholar In 1939 Fabricius was arrested for as serting that the Christian reputation of the Party was being damaged by dangerous free-thinking elements. (See Conway, pp. 59–60.) Even Himmler, however, continued to encourage his S.S. men to register as Gottgläubig rather than glaubenslos, when they cancelled church membership. By 1939 well over half of those in the S.S. Leadership Corps had withdrawn from the church, while the figure within the rank and file membership was approximately 25 per cent. Of those retaining church membership, 51 per cent were Protestant and 23 per cent Roman Catholic (BDC/Schumacher, T-580, Roll 41). The percentage of the total population outside the church had risen from 2 per cent in 1933 to 5 per cent in 1939. Among this 5 per cent, 2,745,843 were Gottgläubig, while 1,208,000 were glaubenslos (Das Reich: Deutsche Wochenzeitung, July 13, 1941, p. 8). Those who had withdrawn from the church were no longer required to pay the church tax or to enroll their children in religion classes in the schools.
23. BDC/Schumacher, T-580, Roll 42. Individual frames in this valuable collection are not numbered. It includes Bormann's Rundschreiben on church affairs and letters of Gestapo and other N.S.D.A.P. officials relating to specific matters of church policy.
24. National Archives, T-175, Roll 265, Frames 2759341–44.
25. For a full account of National Socialist policy in the area of religious education see Helmreich, Ernest C., Religious Education in German Schools (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
26. Berlin Document Center, U.S. National Archives, Hoover Collection of Documents, T-581, Roll 50. Like the Schumacher collection, individual frames in the Hoover Collection, hereafter cited as BDC/Hoover, T-581, are not numbered. It contains public opinion reports, similar to those of the S.D., submitted by Party officials to the offices of several Gauleiter. The territory from which these reports originated is not given.
27. National Archives, T-175, Roll 258, Frames 260–61.
28. National Archives, T-175, Roll 265, Frames 2759153–54.
29. BDC/Schumacher, T-580, Roll 41.
30. National Archives, T-175, Roll 265, Frame 2759155.
31. National Archives, T-175, Roll 265, Frame 2759156.
32. National Archives, T-175, Roll 265, Frame 2759242.
33. BDC/Schumacher, T-580, Roll 41.
34. Beckmann, Joachim, ed., Kirchliches Jahrbuch für die evangelische Kirche in Deutschland 1933–1944 (Gütersloh: C.Bertelsmann Verlag, 1948), pp. 460–462.Google Scholar
35. National Archives, T-175, Roll 260, Frames 2752779–81. Although the regime never revised laws governing the acquisition of religious literature by members of the armed forces, the supply of such literature was significantly reduced in 1941. In October, 1940, Max Amman, head of the Reich Press Chamber, prohibited the publication of special religious pamphlets for the military. (Hermelink, Heinrich, Kirche im Kampf [Tübingen: R. Wunderlich, 1950], p. 532.Google Scholar) The church suffered a more serious blow in June, 1941 when Amman, “in order to free men and material for the all important war effort,” ordered nearly all remaining 400 Catholic and Protestant periodicals to suspend publication. (Niemoller, Wilhelm, Die evangelische Kirche im Dritten Reich [Bielefeld: L. Bechauf, 1956], p. 287.Google Scholar) The position of chaplains, however, was not affected by this substantial reduction of religious literature. Although Göring had virtually eliminated the chaplaincy from the Luftwaffe, elergymen continued to serve army and navy men with a minimum of restrictions until the end of the war. (Zipfel, pp. 228–229.) In the army the Protestant Church in particular enjoyed the support of many German generals. Field Marshall Walter von Brauchitsch, for instance, reminded Keitel in 1940 that Protestant ministers and their sons were displaying unquestionable loyalty to the fatherland “in the good German pastoral tradition.” He urged Keitel to work for the suspension of all restrictive measures against civilian clergymen, provided they had not been involved in subversive activities before the war. A continuation of hostile action toward the churches, wrote Brauchitsch, “will serionsly undermine the morale of the army's many loyal pastors and pastors' sons” (U.S. National Archives, Grosscurth File, Microcopy T-84, Roll 229). Hitler removed Brauchitsch in 1941, but many sympathetic generals and officers remained until the collapse in 1945.
36. Beckmann, pp. 465–466.
37. National Archives, T-175, Roll 272, Frame 2768538.
38. National Archives, T-175, Roll 408, Frame 2932105.
39. National Archives, T-175, Roll 270, Frame 2766308.
40. National Archives, T-175, Roll 272, Frame 2768450.
41. National Archives, T-175, Roll 264, Frame 2758875.
42. Occasionally defiance in military hospitals, where restrictions were similar, went beyondurging patients to request the visit of a clergyman or singing religions songs in the wards. The S.D. reported that a nun in a military hospital insulted Hitler in the presence of an S.S. man and told a soldier about the euthanasia program that had been cancelled in 1941 after vigorous protests by clergymen. The soldier reportedly replied: “If German people are being treated like that, I am going to throw away my rifle.” The nun was summarily dismissed by the chief doctor. (National Archives, T-175, Roll 270, Frame 2766368.)
43. BDC/Schumacher, T-580, Roll 42.
44. National Archives, T-175, Roll 408, Frames 2931728–29.
45. National Archives, T-175, Roll 265, Frame 2759912.
46. National Archives, T-175, Roll 264, Frames 2757696–98. An S.D. agent reported that the Roman Catholic population of the village of Dahl displayed great sympathy for a Polish worker executed for having had sexual relations with a German girl. For refusing to construct the gallows a carpenter became a hero. “The people cross themselves when they pass the execution site, say prayers for the victim, and believe that his soul will haunt the community” (National Archives, T-175, Roll 270, Frame 2766212).
47. National Archives, T-175, Roll 264, Frames 2757699–700.
48. National Archives, T-175, Roll 264, Frame 2757701.
49. National Archives, T-175, Roll 272, Frame 2768464.
50. BDC/Hoover, T-581, Roll 50.
51. National Archives, T-175, Roll 270, Frames 2766104–05.
52. National Archives, SD-Aussendienststelle Aachen, T-175, Roll 410, Frames 2934255–56.
53. National Archives, T-175, Roll 265, Frame 2759286.
54. The rubrics, addresses, and songs for each Catholic Youth Festival held during the war are found in Roth, Heinrich, ed., Katholische Jugend in der NS-Zeit (Düsseldorf: Hans Altenberg, 1959).Google Scholar
55. National Archives, SD-Absehnitt Koblenz, T-175, Roll 272, Frame 2769118.
56. Great Britain: Ministry of Economic Warfare, Military Intelligence Research Section—Enemy Documents Section, Germany Basic Handbook, Administration (London, 1944), p. 169Google Scholar. This handbook, which unfortunately is available in few libraries, contains a wealth of encyclopedic information on National Socialist Germany. It was written to serve as an instruction manual for those officials who would be involved in the occupation of Germany. This useful volume was a combined effort of British and American intelligence.
57. National Archives, T-175, Roll 266, Frame 2760739.
58. National Archives, T-175, Roll 266, Frame 2760741.
59. National Archives, T-175, Roll 266, Frame 2760745.
60. National Archives, SD-Abschnitt Koblenz, T-175, Roll 272, Frame 2769062–64. In Aachen the S.D. also accused clergymen of encouraging parents to oppose the program. Attempting to verbalize the people's sentiments, the agent wrote: “If it is God's will that we die, we want to die together. We have hardly anything left, and now the government wants our children. That is the last straw! That is what the Bolsheviks do. Look how far we have gone in Germany!” (National Archives, SD-Aussendienststelle Aachen, T-175, Roll 410, Frame 2934409.)
61. National Archives, SD-Absehnitt Dortmund, T-175, Roll 270, Frame 2766403.
62. National Archives, T-175, Roll 262, Frame 2756543.
63. Bishop Wurm, for instance, wrote to Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Prick in July, 1940, protesting euthanasia. The bishop was morally outraged, to be sure, but he also reminded Frick that the regime's program of euthanasia was reprehensible in light of the concern showed by victorious German soldiers for the unarmed, women, children, wounded and sick, even in France,”a country which “has done us much harm.” Killing the innocent and defenseless, wrote Wurm, “is a thought… worthy of a Clemenceau, not of a German” (NCA, M-152, Suppl. A, 1221). The sermons of another well-known protester, Bishop Galen, also contained patriotic passages, some of which were used by the National Socialists in their campaign to enlist volunteers for 8.8. units recruited in occupied countries (Lewy, p. 31). In a letter to the parishes of the archdiocese of Freiburg in February, 1941, the Vicar General mentioned extensive church contributions to the war effort, such as the donation of cloisters and other buildings for the care of refugees and the wounded and monetary gifts to government charities. He added that “the church could have done much more had it not been so tightly restricted by the regime” (U.S. National Archives, Records of the National Socialist German Labor Party, Microcopy T-81, Roll 185, Frames 0334431–37).
64. For a brief account of the church's response to euthanasia see Conway, pp. 267–272; NOA, Suppl. A, contains an interesting set of documents, 1049–1062; Galen's sermon is found in Portmann, Heinrich, Bishof Graf von Galen Spricht! (Freiburg: Ver1ag Herder, 1946)Google Scholar; Dörner, Klaus, “Nationalsozialismus und Lebensvernichtung,” Vierteljahrshefts für Zeitgeschichte, 15 (04, 1967), 121–153Google Scholar, is a detailed account of the entire euthanasia program.
65. National Archives, SD-Abschnitt Dortmund, T-175, Roll 270, Frame 2766923.
66. BDC/Hoover, T-581, Roll 50. The question of responsibility for the murder of thousands of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest near Smolenak in 1940 is discussed in Werth, Alexander, Russia at War 1941–1945 (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1964), pp. 606–612.Google Scholar
67. National Archives, T-175, Roll 262, Frames 2755168–70.
68. National Archives, T-175, Roll 271, Frame 2767008. The same report quotes a soldier as saying: “As soon as peace comes, I will use my bayonet against the rascals (Halunken) of the Party.”
69. National Archives, T-175, Roll 271, Frame 2766984. The same report also contained two other examples of soldiers' letters. A son who had rejected the church and had long since ceased to pray requested his mother to send a rosary: “Experiences at the front have opened my eyes and taught me the power of prayer” (Frame 2766999). A particularly popular, although somewhat maudlin letter described the experience of a German soldier devoutly praying his rosary. Because he was praying he did not see an approaching Russian soldier. Upon seeing the rosary, however, the Russian immediately laid down his rifle and embraced the German (Frame 2766999).
70. Witetschek, Helmut, “Der gefälschte und der echte Mölders Brief,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 16 (01, 1968), 61–64.Google Scholar
71. National Archives, T-175, Roll 262, Frame 2756532.
72. The British inteffigence agent, Sefton Delmer, had learned from a captured Luftwaffe officer that Mölders, shortly before his death, had written a letter to a Roman Catholic clergyman, who had read it to a group of young people at a youth rally. The actual Mölders letter was not critical of the regime, but it did reflect the pilot's deep religious conviction. Delmer very cleverly worded the forgery so that it contained no direct reference to National Socialism or its leaders, but only a description of the powerful impact of Mölders' Christian witness upon skeptics and seoffers. The letter was thus quite credible. Both letters are reprinted in Witetschek's article, pp. 64–65.
73. NationalArchives, T-175, Roll 271, Frame 2766002.
74. National Archives, SD-Absehnitt Dortmund, T-175, Roll 270, Frames 2766401–03.
75. BDC/Hoover, T-581, Roll 50. Another joke in the report is uutranslatable because of a play on the word erhaiten: “Gott, erhalte Himmler, Goebbels, Ley! Heydrich hat er schon- erhalten. Waun erhlilt er these dreli”
76. National Archives, T-175, Roll 258, Frame 604.
77. National Archives, T-175, Roll 262, Frame 2756538.
78. National Archives, SD-Absehnitt Dortmund, T-175, Roll 270, Frame 2766400.
79. Conway, p. 273.
80. NCA, PS-3701, VI, 410.Google Scholar
81. Conway, pp. 447–448. Since the regime placed nearly all German clerical prisoners at Daehau during the war, this figure represents an approximate total of Roman Catholic inmates. The number of Protestaats imprisoned is not available, but it was undoubtedly much smaller. Since the majority of Protestant pastors under the age of forty-five were in military service, they had less opportunity to violate regime restrictions. Most Roman Catholic clergymen were exenkpted from mifitary conscription, partly because of a concordat provision which the regime chose to honor.
82. National Archives, T-175, Roll 262, Frame 2756543.
83. The S.D. often charged Party and government officials with incompetence and lack of dedication. Two examples will illustrate. Because of a shortage of uniformed police in the villages, local mayors were responsible for preventing Poles from worshipping with Germans. Yet, the mayors frequently issued passes to the Poles so that they could leave the camps on Sunday morning. The S.D. was sharply critical and urged the mayors to dispense with such practices forthwith (National Archives, T-175, Roll 264, Frame 2757698). In April, 1942, an S.D. agent called attention to the bureaucratic tangle involved in the legal process of cancelling church membership. He reported that the county courts, the regular police, Party officials, the registry office, the mayor, and even some local pastors were processing the necessary application forms. The agent claimed that some of these officials were “deliberately obstructing church withdrawal. There is a desperate need for uniformity and a minimum of bureaucratic difficulties” (National Archives, T-175, Roll 258, Frames 2756453–55).
84. National Archives, T-175, Roll 271, Frame 2766020.
85. For detailed accounts of pseudo-religious activities within the Party see Gamm, Hans-Jochen, Der braune Kult (Hamburg: Rütten and Loening, 1962)Google Scholar, and Müller, Hans, “Der pseudo-religiöse Charakter der nationalsozialistisehen Weltanschauung,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 6 (06, 1961), 337–352Google Scholar. Short accounts in English are found in Conway, pp. 140–157, and Herman, pp. 30ff. The revival of ancient Germanic religious practices and worship of Wotan were stressed by several folkish groups, particularly that founded by General Ludendorff and his wife Matilda. (See Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Gutachten des Instiuts für Zeitgeschichte “Munich: Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 1958.) Hitler had repudiated folkish beliefs already in Mein Kampf, but he frequently used folkish rhetoric in order to arouse emotional fervor among the masses. He also saw that the religious aura which the folkish groups placed about their Führer might enhance his own political power. Hence these groups received at least the tacit support of the N.S.D.A.P. leadership, although, as Conway points Out, “those who were primarily interested in the pursuit of power … could not summon up much enthusiasm for dawn ceremonies to mark the summer solstice” (Conway, p. 151).
86. N.S.D.A.P. Hauptkulturamt der Reichspropagandaleitung, Die neue Geineinshaft, March, 1943, p. 18.
87. Ibid., p. 18. The realization of the Volksgemeinschaft, a classless society of one people united by common racial bonds, was a prominent feature of National Socialist ideology. In the view of the N.S.D.A.P. leadership, the war would solidify racial bondg. “Future generations,” wrote Hitler, “will certainly regard the irrevocable establishment of the Volkskcmeinschaft as the most important result of this war” (Die neue Gemeinschaft, 03, 1940, p. 1).Google Scholar
88. N.S.D.A.P. Hauptkulturamt der Reichspropagaiidaleitung, Die neuc Geineinschaft, March, 1940, pp. 3–4.Google Scholar
89. Parents were encouraged to give inexpensive gifts to the celebrants and to tell stories about their ancestors. “Such stories will make the children proud… The celebration should be bursting with joy and happiness rather than with food and drink. Parents and children should be especially close on this day” (N.S.D.A.P. Die Parteikanzlei, Vertrauliche Infor'mationen, #11, 03 15, 1943, p. 128).Google Scholar
90. In order to create a more intimate atmosphere, Party- officials were encouraged to hold more ceremonies so that there would be smaller audiences and fewer participants. Then “it will be possible to see the mothers and fathers looking to the front with beaming eyes as their sons and daughters step forward to speak the words of consecration and to receive the handshake and smile of the Hoheitstrager” (Verfrauliche Informationen, #8, 02 26, 1943, p. 94)Google Scholar. Other specific suggestions included issuing personal invitations to parents and participants at least two months in advance and devising certificates “more attractive than those of the church, which, despite the paper shortage, is able to give a beautifully decorated confirmation certificate” (BDC/Hoover, T-581, Roll 50).
91. BDC/Hoover, T-581, RoIl 50.
92. National Archives, SD-Abschnitt Frankfurt, T-175, Roll 272, Frames 27688931–33.
93. A bulletin from the Party Chancery in 1941 contained the following declaration:“The memorial service for the war dead must be so impressive and solemn that the entire population will regard it as the most sacred of all National Socialist ceremonies” (Vertrauli.che Inforinationen, 39/431, September 9, 1941).
94. Die neue Gemeinschaft, 08, 1943, p. 229.Google Scholar
95. National Archives, T-175, Roll 264, Frame 2758836.
96. National Archives, T-175, Roll 264, Frames 2758838–41.
97. U.S. National Archives, Records of the National Socialist German Labor Party, Microcopy T-81, Roll 21, Frame 19976.
98. National Archives, T-175, Roll 262, Frame 2756772. In view of Hitler's scorn for the nebulous and mystical ideas of folkish thought, the S.D. 's suggested alterntive to the church's promise of eternal life has a curious ring: “With the Germanic idea that a man lives on in his deeds and in his kinship (Sippe), one might be led to question the old Christian idea of life after death. In the same context we should stress the honor and loyalty of those who have given their lives for the perpetuation and strengthening of the Volksgemeinschaft, thus providing strength and guidance for all our people, but especially for our youth… With such ideas we can satisfy the people's need for a religion in time of war” (National Archives, T-175, Roll 271, Frame 27767026).
99. National Archives, T-175, Roll 266, Frames 2761108–10. Participation in Party services for the military dead was not compulsory, but often N.S.D.A.P. officials held mass services for all those killed in action from a particular area.
100. National Archives, SD-Abschnitt Frankfurt, T-175, Roll 272, Frame 27688313.
101. National Archives, T-175, Roll 271, Frame 27767020.
102. National Archives, T-175, Roll 271, Frame 27767020.
103. National Archives, T-175, Roll 266, Frame 2761111.
104. Steward, John, ed., Sieg des Glaubens(Zurich: Thomas-Verlag, 1948), p. 21.Google Scholar
105. National Archives, T-175, Roll 262, Frame 2756776.
106. Quoted in Cochrane, p. 207.
