And the Witnesses Were Silent: The Confessing Church and the Persecution of the Jews

5. The Pastors’ Emergency League

45 ∑ The Pastors’ Emergency League Inspired by the Bonhoeffer-Niemöller declaration to the National Synod, opposition to a church Aryan paragraph grew steadily. Under Niemöller ’s guidance, the opposition founded the Pastors’ Emergency League in October. It was governed by a Council of Brethren; its ‘‘constitution’’ was based on the Emergency League pledge: To the best of my ability, I acknowledge my responsibility for those who are persecuted for the sake of this confessional position. Through this commitment, I attest that the application of the Aryan paragraph in the church is a violation of the confessional position.∞ The early drafts of the Emergency League pledge reveal the theological development of this solidarity. With its vow ‘‘not to neglect prayers of intercession for the brethren, and, wherever possible, to render assistance to them in their distress,’’ the first draft expressed solidarity with persecuted non-Aryans between the lines.≤ The second draft, which came from a Westphalian congregation, cited 2 Sam. 16:17: ‘‘Is this your kindness to your friend? Why did you not go with your friend?’’≥ It listed ‘‘Ten Commandments of Holy Scripture’’ as the foundation for the Emergency League pledges; Matt. 22:37–39—the commandment to love one another—was the third commandment. Yet there were already indications that this challenge was too great for most Christians. ‘‘General public sentiment’’ kept most from recognizing how virulent and destructive the Aryan paragraph’s challenge to Christian conscience really was. Those who resisted the Aryan paragraph were more threatened by their church than by the state: in midNovember 1933, church authorities twice dismissed (and subsequently reinstated) pastors Martin Niemöller, Eitel-Friedrich von Rabenau, and Kurt Scharf.∂ At a meeting of the Reich Directorate of the German Christians on 27 October, Reich Bishop Müller emphasized the importance of merciless enforcement of the Aryan paragraph.∑ Two weeks later, the German Christians’ rally in the Berlin Sports Palace finally aroused opposition among those who had been silent. The rally was an early turning point in the church struggle. Before an enthusiastic crowd, German Christian leaders openly called for the deletion of the Old Testament from the The Defamation of the Jews 46 Bible and an ‘‘Aryan’’ revision of the New Testament and Protestant liturgies . For the first time, many Protestant leaders realized how radical the German Christians really were; German Christian membership dropped dramatically after the rally. Even at the Berlin rally, however, it was ‘‘remarkable that it was not this resolution [that is, the demand for an Aryan paragraph and for the establishment of a separate church for nonAryans ] that provoked the greatest furor, but the preceding speech by regional party chairman Dr. Reinhold Krause.’’∏ People throughout Germany worked to rescind the Aryan paragraph in the church. A group of Breslau clergy declared ‘‘that Protestant Christians of foreign blood may not be excluded from the communion of an Evangelical church.’’π In a statement that did not explicitly mention the Aryan paragraph, Karl Barth challenged the notion that the Reformation corresponded to German national character: ‘‘It was, and is, as suitable or unsuitable for the Germanic race as it is for every other race.’’∫ The United Evangelical parish in the town of Unterbarmen condemned the Aryan paragraph as worldly, since it disregarded baptism and violated ordination.Ω The Reformed congregation in Oberfischbach resolved that ‘‘a church Aryan law contradicts the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit.’’∞≠ Individuals spoke out as well. In November, Karl Bernhard Ritter from Marburg offered another version of a Pastors’ Emergency League pledge; somewhat sharper than Niemöller’s version, it condemned the Aryan paragraph as ‘‘an especially flagrant violation of Scripture and confession .’’∞∞ Systematic theologian Heinrich Vogel published ‘‘Eight Articles of Evangelical Doctrine,’’ in which he condemned ‘‘the banishment or deprivation of the rights of Jewish Christians,’’ since it was ‘‘not . . . the Jews alone, but all peoples of the world, even we Germans, . . . [who are] implicated in the cross of Christ.’’∞≤ The Holy Spirit, wrote Vogel, could not be tied to ‘‘the principle of racial politics.’’ Yet even those who opposed the Aryan paragraph were not free of antiSemitic sentiment. No one epitomized this as clearly as the cofounder of the Emergency League, Martin Niemöller. As a decorated World War I hero and outspoken patriot, Niemöller seemed almost predestined for the conflict between German patriotism and Christian faith that he faced under Nazism. After 1945, he was one of the few veterans of the Kirchenkampf who showed courage and honesty in facing...