A Church Undone: Documents from the German Christian Faith Movement, 1932–1940 by Mary M. Solberg (review)

In selecting, translating, and introducing over twenty documents composed by members of the pro-Nazi "German Christian Faith Movement," Mary M. Solberg has filled a significant gap in the English-language literature concerning both the German Church Struggle (Kirchenkampf) and the religious dimension of the Holocaust. Asking "What were they thinking?" Solberg concludes that the German Christians constructed a powerful myth "that complemented, strengthened, and served National Socialist goals" (p. 3). They were "true believers, not only in Jesus Christ, but also in Adolf Hitler and his Nazi revolution," whose work enabled other Germans to understand life in the Third Reich "as fully compatible with their Christian faith" (p. 13).

In her introduction, Solberg outlines her rationale for selecting documents, which includes chronology, key issues, and diverse authors and document types (pp. 27–31). She also reflects on what these sources can teach about the momentum of antisemitism, the power of public discourse, Christian self-identity, and the power of cultural context to shape the church (pp. 32–41).

In terms of the Protestant Church Struggle, A Church Undone enables scholars and students to study the words and ideas of the (mostly) men who are often known simply as the enemies of Karl Barth, Martin Niemöller, and the Confessing Church. Solberg has selected an illuminating mixture of theological, church-political, and popular texts, many by prominent figures like Ludwig Müller, Joachim Hossenfelder, Reinhold Krause, Emmanuel Hirsch, and Gerhard Kittel. They envision a new church order in which German Protestantism would be remade in the image of National Socialism, reordered as a unified Reich Church ruled by an authoritarian Reich Bishop. (Solberg settles for the more muted terms "National Church" and "National Bishop.") As a vigorous Volk church, membership would be based on German blood, ministry directed solely to the racial community, and ultimate authority vested in the Nazi regime (pp. 48–50, 109–14, 400–04).

One striking aspect of this vision was the invocation of Martin Luther, as in "The German Prophet," a section in "The Handbook of the German Christians" (1933) written by Anna Ilgenstein-Ratterfeld. In this short biography, she describes Luther as a Führer struggling against the "mixed-blood" emperor Charles V. When he nailed his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg church door, "the hammer blows echoed like the strokes of a bell ringing the beginning of a new era. The German soul had freed itself from the Roman straightjacket. … The German eagle stretched out its wings and … awakened the German people." These obvious allusions to Nazi Germany were then made explicit. Even as Martin Luther had "fashioned the German Reformation and with it freed the core of the German soul, just so Adolf Hitler, with his faith in Germany, as the instrument of our God became the framer of German destiny and the liberator of our people from their spiritual misery and division" (pp. 179, 185, 187, 189, 195–98).

In terms of the Holocaust, A Church Undone reveals how deeply hostile German Christians were towards Jews, whom they sought to exclude from both the German church and racial community. As Reinhold Krause proclaimed in his 1933 Sport Palace speech, "The Jews are certainly not the people of God." He then added, to enthusiastic applause, "If we National Socialists are ashamed to buy a necktie from a Jew, then we should really be ashamed to accept from a Jew anything that speaks to our soul, the most intimate matters of religion" (p. 258). Similarly, and also in 1933, Gerhard Kittel argued that "the baptism of a Jew does not affect his Jewishness." Just to be clear, he added, "the converted Jew does not become a German" (p 222). Several authors argued Jesus was not ethnically Jewish, including Walter Grundmann of the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Church Life (pp. 408–09...