Britische Presse und Nationalsozialistischer Kirchenkampf. Eine Untersuchung der "Times" und des "Manchester Guardian" von 1930 bis 1939 by Markus Huttner (review)

128book reviews Britische Presse und Nationalsozialistischer Kirchenkampf. Eine Untersuchung der"Times"und des "Manchester Guardian"von 1930 bis 1939By Markus Huttner. [VeröffentUchungen der Kommission für Zeitgeschichte , Reihe B: Forschungen, Band 67] (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh . 1995. Pp. 814. DM 108.00.) For the past thirty years pubUcations on German CathoUc contemporary history have been appearing with impressive regularity in the magnificently produced "Blue Series" of documents and monographs. The Commission for Contemporary History, under the sponsorship of the doyen Konrad Repgen of Bonn, has succeeded in printing a large number ofworks either by his pupUs or their pupUs, including many dissertations of extraordinary thoroughness and length, of which Huttner's is the latest. AU of them are splendidly edited; the scholarship is exemplary and exact; the footnotes, bibUographies, and indices first rate. The problems begin with the author's and the sponsor's perspectives and the shortcomings these impose. German church history is alas! stiU written along denominational Unes. Interdenominational cross-fertilization is regrettably absent. Each group appeals primarily to its own miUeu. Who else would be willing to pay the enormous price of these volumes, which in any case are presumably heavily subsidized for pubUcation ? This bias is rather obvious in the present work, which arose out of an examination ofhow the two leading British newspapers reported on the events of the German Church Struggle. Huttner's careful analysis of the Nazi repression of the CathoUc Church, and how this was revealed in the British newspapers , gives us only half the story, despite the feet that he knows, and we know, that British readers were far more concerned about the persecution endured by the Protestant communities, especiaUy the Confessing Church. WhUe such limitations may be acceptable for a Ph.D. dissertation, the one-sidedness of this large volume comes over as unbalanced, even though exhaustively researched and presented in an exceUently scholarly fashion. After several lengthy opening chapters showing how quickly the newly appointed Minister of Propaganda, Goebbels, asserted control over the German press and sUenced any reports on oppositional movements, Huttner then turns to the actual course of events, which he foUows chronologicaUy from 1933 to 1939, when British reporting perforce had to stop. He shows how the correspondents of the Times and the Manchester Guardian succeeded in evading Nazi censorship, and indeed demonstrates that they were exceedingly weUinformed , principaUy because of theU shrewd choice of insider contacts. Not much escaped their notice. But we in feet learn Uttle new about the actual course of the Church Struggle, which has aU been extensively documented in postwar years. The most interesting features of this huge tome are Huttner's comments on the differences in perception and interpretation adopted by the two main correspondents , Norman Ebbutt of the Times until his expulsion from Germany m 1937, and F. A. Voigt ofthe M.G. ,who early on retreated first to Paris and then to book reviews129 London, but maintained his close interest in German church affairs. Ebbutt interpreted the Church Struggle mainly in poUtical terms, and stressed the internal conflicts between sections of the churches and the Nazi bureaucracy, whose conflicting plans Ui any case made for a chaotic and wayward poUcy. Ebbutt beUeved rightly that Hitler was not much interested in the detaUs ofthis campaign, but none of the Nazi hierarchy were pleased by the critical tone of his reporting, especiaUy of such scandalous events as the arrest and trial of Pastor Martin Niemöller, which aroused enormous antipathies in Britain. By contrast , Voigt saw the Church Struggle, particularly the CathoUc Church's defense of its traditional position in society,far more in ideological terms, as a vital chapter in the attack on European civüization by the wUd forces of popuUst totaUtarianism . His aim was to draw the world's attention to the Nazis' dictatorial brutaUty and, as fer as he could, to strengthen the faithful inside the Third Reich by championing the cause of their resistance. This was very much the line adopted by CathoUc exUes, such as Heinrich Bruening or Father Muckermann, whose idealization of German CathoUcism saw only browbeaten but loyal CathoUcs confronted with the revolutionary zealotry and paganism of the Nazis. As a...