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The Isolation of the Jews 100 decision, if not the open confession of a true church under the Word of God?≥Ω The newsletter also mentioned the red cards that signified Confessing Church membership. But its emphasis was on their pledge for the ‘‘Renewal of the Church through the Gospel.’’ The other commitment printed on the red cards—to reject the confessionally antithetical Aryan paragraph—had been reduced to fine print. As Wilhelm Niemöller observed after 1945: ‘‘It is an old experience for Christianity: willingness to confess is no guarantee that one is permitted to confess precisely at that point where one would like to confess. Protestant Christianity in 1933 and 1934 would have liked to ‘confess’ this or that. But it was uneasy that it was questioned precisely with respect to the Aryan paragraph. . . . It did not suit Christianity that, in the age of anti-Semitism, it was called to confess the one who ‘has made us both one’ (Eph. 2:14).’’∂≠ ∞∞ The Jewish Question after Steglitz What was left unsaid in Steglitz was not addressed in its aftermath. There would never be much support within the Confessing Church for leading a protest against Nazi racial policies. A few statements, such as the ‘‘Resolutions of the First Synod of the Confessing Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Saxony,’’ appealed to Christians ’ moral obligations toward their neighbors: ‘‘Our neighbor is that person who is dependent upon us in a special way, not only our relative and friend, our employer or employee, but also the stranger whose need God places before our feet. As Christians, we have to practice love irrespective of person and without consideration for our own benefit or injury.’’∞ The Provisional Church Administration, however, was more concerned with putting its own house in order. Preoccupied with establishing its legitimacy, it felt no obligation to show solidarity with the Jews and non-Aryan Christians. This was evident in its September 1935 memorandum ‘‘on the question of Evangelical religious instruction in vocational , middle, and upper-level schools.’’ With respect to the racial question , the memorandum demanded ‘‘the minimum of a minimum’’ of Protestant religious teachers: The Jewish Question after Steglitz 101 Since, according to the doctrine of the Evangelical Church, the natural bonds of race, Volkstum, homeland, and history should be respected and nurtured as a gift from God the Creator, the teacher of religion will pass on to his students, without misgivings, all the knowledge that he has acquired by means of careful study in the questions of racial doctrine. On the other hand, he will reject calmly but resolutely all attacks against the Old Testament, parts of the New Testament, the person of Jesus, the Christian sacraments, and the fundamental doctrines of the church— whether from students, parents, or colleagues—that are based upon the current racial mysticism and racial religion.≤ The churches still displayed a remarkable degree of confidence in the National Socialist state. Prof. Martin Rade, editor of Christlicher Welt, wrote an article about the Nuremberg Laws, ‘‘On the German Jewish Legislation,’’ which reflected the attitudes of many in the Evangelical Church.≥ Depicting the Nuremberg Laws as the basis for a positive solution to the Jewish question, Rade had no reservations about entrusting the Jews and ‘‘half-Jews’’ completely to the state. Since the Nuremberg Laws did not regulate ‘‘public practice with regard to ‘half-Aryans’ ’’ (the law referred only to ‘‘full Jews’’), noted Rade, this unresolved problem had to be solved by the state and the church. The treatment of ‘‘halfAryans ’’ was becoming acute, for example, in the schools. Reich Minister Rust planned to organize special Jewish schools, not only for children belonging to the Jewish religion but for all racially Jewish children. Only here, with respect to ‘‘Jewish Christians,’’ was Rade interested in their inviolable rights. In his view, it was permissible for the state to deal with full Jews in whatever manner it considered proper, but baptized Jews had a claim on state-guaranteed immunity. His argument depended on the illusion that the church would remain safely ensconced in the lee of state-ensured invulnerability, even amid future political and ideological storms. ‘‘Half-Jewish or half-Aryan’’ children baptized as Christians, with ‘‘Christian parents,’’ deserved ‘‘the consideration of the church’’; it was impossible for these children to be sent to a ‘‘Jewish-Mosaic confessional school.’’ Rade deluded himself with the hope that a ‘‘reasonable understanding’’ on this point could be reached with the state. He also expressed confidence that the...

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