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5 The Guilt of the Others Bishop Wurm’s Letter to English Christians In dramatic contrast to reactions to the Stuttgart declaration, domestic responses to Bishop Theophil Wurm’s open message, “To the Christians in England,” were warm and enthusiastic (see appendix 5).1 Written two months after the Stuttgart meeting, Wurm’s outspoken critique of the Allies’ occupation policy and his comparison of it to the Nazis’ occupation policy were, for many Germans, long overdue . By challenging the Allies to acknowledge the unnecessary suªering they had caused and were continuing to cause innocent Germans, Wurm came to represent, for many demoralized Germans, the fearless leader who stood up to the enemy. “You expressed exactly what the German people feel and for this the people are deeply grateful,” a man from Düsseldorf wrote in a letter to Wurm.2 Another man declared, “I can assure you that all respectable people stand solidly behind you.”3 A woman whose home had been destroyed by Allied bombs stated simply, “It gave us hope”; and a doctor from Karlsruhe was so elated that he described listening to the letter read on the radio as “the happiest minutes of my life.”4 Repeatedly describingWurm ’smissiveas“manly”and“courageous,”lettersfromhundredsof men andwomenacrossGermanyexpressedprofoundgratitudeforWurm’sintercession. For the men and women who wrote the bishop of Württemberg, the broadcasting of his letter by the BBC in late January 1946 was seen as a turning point for the church and Germany. They expressed a sense of relief that finally a moral and courageous voice had spoken on behalf of the German people and was standing up to the cruel and dehumanizing policy of the Allies. They heralded his response as the new beginning that Germans had been waiting for—not the new beginning or zero hour (Stunde Null) frequently touted in association with the “liberation” of Germany from Hitler’s Third Reich. To the contrary, the new beginning declared by Wurm’s admirers was understood as an end to the years of suªering, deprivation , dishonor, and humiliation caused by the Allied bombardment and occupation . Many Germans viewed Wurm’s stance against the perceived hypocrisy of the enemy and in defense of Christian values and German honor as the first step toward regaining control over their fate and reestablishing their honor. The pronounced emphasis in Wurm’s letter on the guilt of the Allies marked the beginning of a broader campaign among church leaders to shift some of the burden of guilt to the Allies. Representative of this new direction was Hans Asmussen ’s 1946 text, “The Guilt of the Others,” which argued that acknowledgment of German guilt did not preclude the responsibility of church leaders to hold the Allies responsible for their misdeeds.5 Helmut Thielicke, a widely respected Lutheran theologian inside and outside Germany, demonstrated his support for this new direction in his Good Friday sermon in 1947, which touched oª a debate between himself and the reform-minded theologian Hermann Diem, published in 1948.6 Wurm had written his open letter in response to the archbishop of Canterbury ’s message to the German people broadcast by BBC in late November 1945, which many Germans found patronizing and self-righteous.7 In his carefully crafted response, addressed to all Christians in England, Wurm attempted to do the impossible : to guide the German Church between an occupying power looking for genuine signs of contrition and a home population looking for a spokesman to confront their critics. Drafted in mid-December 1945, Wurm’s letter received support from the EKD council after it cut one long paragraph and made other minor revisions . The final draft indicates that he must have feared a repetition of the negative reactions to the Stuttgart declaration more than he feared censure by the Allies . By condemning the expulsion of Germans from the eastern territories, the dismantling of German factories, and the indiscriminate internment of former Nazi Party members, Wurm left no doubt where his loyalties lay. Grassroots responses to Wurm’s letter were the mirror opposite of the responses to the Stuttgart declaration. Although letter writers were now championing the EKD council rather than disparaging it, they addressed the same themes that ran throughout their critiques of the Stuttgart declaration. Recognizing that they now had a sympathetic ear in the person of Bishop Wurm, letter writers launched into tirades against the occupation powers, lambasted Niemöller for preaching about German guilt, accused the rest of Europe of a long history of...

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