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

15. Relief Work

The ‘‘Elimination’’ of the Jews 154 manded the London parish and imposed financial restraints on it—a special sign of the ‘‘interest’’ that Heckel’s office showed in the wellbeing of German pastors who were persecuted because of their ‘‘racial’’ origin.∏≠ On 16 June 1939, the Provisional Church Administration issued an ‘‘order concerning the emigration of non-Aryan pastors or pastors related to non-Aryans, auxiliary preachers, and theologians in training.’’ The order ‘‘emphatically’’ encouraged them to emigrate: Brethren with one or two grandparents who are non-Aryan, or who are related to non-Aryans, must continue to practice their church service in Germany. . . . Should difficulties arise in their exercise of office, then it is the business of the responsible denominational church government to intercede. . . . Should this assistance fail, the brethren are requested to turn to us. Each individual case will be examined carefully by us. . . . Should emigration appear necessary, we will issue the church’s permission for departure. It is recommended that churches abroad accept into their ministry only those brethren who submit a certification that we deem their emigration necessary.∏∞ In England, Bishop Bell of Chichester succeeded in helping approximately thirty non-Aryan pastors find professional employment there.∏≤ Various sources give different numbers of those affected.∏≥ The majority found church positions through the mediation of ecumenical leaders Henry-Louis Henriod, Willem Visser’t Hooft, and Bishop Bell. ∞∑ Relief Work the grüber office Despite Marga Meusel’s efforts, the First Provisional Church Administration of the Confessing Church had not taken a position supporting those affected by the Aryan paragraph, along the lines of the original Emergency League pledge. With the February 1936 dissolution of the first Provisional Church Administration and the establishment of the second Provisional Church Administration, the chances for such a stand improved. Superintendent Martin Albertz, who replaced Bishop Marahrens as chair of the Provisional Church Administration, soon founded the De- Relief Work 155 partment for Christians of Jewish Descent.∞ Albertz’s secretary, Charlotte Friedenthal, was affected by the Aryan paragraph herself and became an enthusiastic coworker. In his efforts to establish and expand foreign contacts, and to link them to proposed aid projects, Albertz received practical and personal support from Pastor Hermann Maas, who had been active in relief work for non-Aryans for years.≤ Maas was probably responsible for Albertz’s first contacts with George Bell and with Prof. Adolf Keller in Geneva.≥ In the summer of 1938, Maas gave a lecture, ‘‘The Confessing Church and the Jewish Question,’’ to leading figures of the Confessing Church in Berlin, arguing that the Jewish question was of central importance to the Confessing Church.∂ In his summary, however, Maas succumbed to antiJewish jargon: ‘‘The church does not need to assure the state of the obvious , such as its agreement with the struggle against corruption; that is beneath its dignity [sic]. But it will fight all the more clearly, surely, and radically against all the cruelties, injustices, lies, and hardships that arise from false motivation in the Jewish question. And it will do penance for its omissions, its silence so far, and its false ‘Yes.’ ’’∑ In the discussion that followed, Maas proposed the establishment of a central relief office. He was willing to direct the office if it were set up in Heidelberg, but the consensus was that a central office needed to be in a more central place. Berlin, where so many non-Aryan Christians had gone anyway, was the obvious location. Pastor Heinrich Grüber was willing to assume the task.∏ Grüber was uniquely qualified. The son of a Dutch mother, he had studied at the university in Utrecht, was fluent in Dutch, and had good contacts with the Dutch community and embassy in Berlin. Even before 1938, he was familiar with the specialized aspects of emigration to Holland .π Now he was to establish the relief measures that Albertz and Maas had demanded for years. The ‘‘Grüber office’’ was not set up ‘‘thanks to Grüber’s initiative’’ but was explicitly commissioned by the second Provisional Church Administration .∫ It was initially tolerated by the Gestapo and other Reich authorities as an agency for the care of emigrants.Ω State authorities were anxious not to furnish additional material for anti-German propaganda overseas by stopping emigration on principle, particularly after the Kristallnacht . Only after the war began were such considerations no longer necessary. The ‘‘Elimination...