Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich by Doris L. Bergen (review)

BOOK REVIEWS499 ways denied that he had any influence over Hitler; on the other hand, he always claimed that his presence in the government was intended to moderate Hitler. Did he really think that he was serving the Fatherland and not the Nazis? If so, it is a good indication of how far German conservatism had degenerated. Rolfs makes this very clear. On at least two occasions Papen thought that he was reinterpreting the work of Bismarck, which is ludicrous. Rolfs obviously believes that Papen's anxieties about his church were authentic and that he negotiated the 1933 Concordat with the Vatican with the best of intentions. Papen's life had a few redeeming features. His most courageous act, it should be noted, was publicly to protest against Nazi abuses of power in June, 1934. While in Ankara he and the papal nuncio, Angelo Roncalli, facilitated the passage to Palestine of thirteen hundred Jewish children who otherwise would have been sent to concentration camps. However, the most important thing to remember about Papen was summarized by the Chief Counsel for the United States at Nuremberg, Robert H. Jackson:"Franz von Papen, pious agent of an infidel regime, held the stirrup while Hitler vaulted into the saddle, lubricating the Austrian annexation, and devoting his diplomatic cunning to the service of the Nazi objectives abroad" (p. 437). It is unfortunate that such a thorough piece of scholarship contains so many minor errors. Most are probably typographical.The first sentence of the book says that William //was proclaimed Kaiser in 1781. A few pages later Papen is concerned with German "nationalists" in Mexico, when the author certainly means nationals. Rolfs quotes someone who described Papen as "being a Catholic in wolf's clothing. . . ." Surely, it was the other way around. Most troubling is that the pages cited in the index do not always correspond with the pages in the text. The University Press of America should encourage a more careful proof reading of its books. David Owen Kieft University ofMinnesota Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich. By Doris L. Bergen. (Chapel Hill.The University ofNorth Carolina Press. 1996. Pp. xy 341. $39.95 hardcover; $16.95 paperback.) In post-World War I Germany there were a good number of groups within the Protestant Land Churches "preaching religious renewal along nationalist, völkisch lines" (p. 5).Among the strongest of these movements was one in the Land Church ofThuringia led by two young pastors, Siegfried Leffler and Julius Leutheuser. Other groups joined, and their movement came to be called German Christians, a name often held to have been suggested by Hitler.The church elections which took place in 1933, shortly after Hitier came to power, gave the German Christians a golden opportunity to gain control of many congregations and other church offices. People who had never bothered to vote in church 500BOOK REVIEWS elections went to the polls, and the German Christians won two-thirds of the votes.The German Christians did not withdraw from the established churches, and which church party would control the churches became an important aspect of the Kirchenkampf. The German Christians sought to promote a synthesis of the church and the National Socialist movement.To this end they tried to "dejudaize" the church. It was maintained that Jesus was not of Jewish heritage. Jewish phrases were deleted from the OldTestament, which was often set aside. New hymnals were brought out, and the author has quite a bit to say about German Christians and church music. The volume is organized on a topical basis with eleven chapters.The titles of some of the chapters will give an idea of the way the material is presented. There are chapters on "The Anti-Jewish Church"; "The Antidoctrinal Church"; "Non-Aryans in the People's Church"; and "Catholics, Protestants and Dreams of Confessional Union." The German Christians wanted one National Church, which obviously would have to include Catholics.The Catholics, however,were not ready for such a recruitment, and the author has little to report on attempts to achieve a German Christian/Catholic rapprochement. While the German Christians were a vital part of the church conflict during the Hitler...