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The German Lutheran Church and the Rise of National Socialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Hans Tiefel
Hans Tiefel
Affiliation:
Associate professor of philosophy and religion in the College of Idaho, Caldwell.
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Extract

The attempt to arrive at a balanced and objective understanding of the relationship between the German Protestant church, which is predominantly Lutheran, and the rise of National Socialism is an almost impossible task today. For what we now hear about the Protestant church of the thirties tends to be written by those who were vindicated by the turn of events, while those who supported Hitler and National Socialism have tended to remain silent, understandably enough. The flood of books and articles by the Confessing Church gives the misleading impression that the stand of the church toward the Nazi state was one of resistance and opposition. Instead, the main Protestant response to Hitler and to the nationalistic forces he represented ranged from inactive indifference to over-whelming support. The Confessing Church, which did display a courageous though not always consistent opposition, at best never spoke for more than about one tenth of all Protestant Christians.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , September 1972 , pp. 326 - 336
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1972

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References

1. This article is a synopsis of one of the chapters of a book in preparation: A Testing of Christian Ethics: Law-Gospel Ethics and the Rise of National Socialism. We have limited the discussion to dominant Protestant responses to National Socialism in this essay. The Roman Catholie response is a topic in itself which has been treated at book length. Also in an article of this length we cannot state the positions of the various Lutheran theologians as fully as in a longer study, but the statements chosen are representative and characteristic of the respective positions.

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