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APPENDIX 5. To the Christians in England: Bishop Wurm, 14 December 1945
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APPENDIX 5. To the Christians in England Bishop Wurm, 14 December 1945 On November 28th His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury addresses a message to the German People. We, and as we hope many people in Germany, have received this message with great interest and close attention. It is perhaps the first time in history that the Primate of one people has addressed in brotherly terms another people, which has been defeated in war. England is the victor, Germany the vanquished, the English Archbishop speaks to us as a brother. We are filled with joy that, after the long monopoly of political propaganda , the voice of Christianity makes itself heard as well, and we gladly acknowledge it and answer this approach. In his address to the German people His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury makes it clear that the Church of England is well aware of her responsibility and concern for what happens to other nations, including the German people. We Christians in Germany a‹rm and accept in the same way our responsibility and concern for the whole world. Even under the tyranny of National Socialism we refused to abandon this sense of responsibility and concern. It was a deep source of sorrow to us that we could not eªectively prevent the gross ill treatment of other peoples and countries, and we were hated by the National Socialist leaders quite particularly because they were well aware of our condemnation of their misdeeds. The Lord Archbishop is absolutely right when he says that it is not humanly possible to undo the past; what’s done cannot be undone. We know this only too well; we know that our cities would not be lying in ruins now, and our fellow countrymen would not be dying of hunger on the high roads now, and our soldiers would not be languishing in the prison of war camps now, if millions of other human beings had not had to undergo the same suªerings in earlier years. We know that there is no lack of people in other countries that think that whatever happens to the Germans cannot be bad enough. Far be it from us to attempt to make excuses for any active injustice which was done to other peoples, far be it from us to attempt to explain it away. The Christians in England have heard our confessions of guilt, which the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany expressed on the 19th of October 1945 in the presence of our Ecumenical Brothers. We seek for the causes of what was done not only in National Socialism but also in a long history of estrangement from God and of backsliding from Christ, not least in the worldliness which more and more invaded our Church. That is why we are in absolute agreement with His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury that the return to God and His commandments, and the acceptance of the grace which is made plain to us in Christ, is absolute presupposition of any reconstruction in Germany. We are very thankful that the This translation is from Stewart W. Herman, The Rebirth of the German Church (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1946), 275–79. Lord Archbishop declares it to be a definite policy of Great Britain to work for the day in which Germany can again enter the Commonwealth of Nations, and that he proclaims the willingness of Christians in England to help to stem the flood of our outward tribulations. Permit me to speak a word quite plainly about how you, the Christians in England, could help us in our inner tribulation as well. It is with a sense of serious responsibility and concern that we draw to your attention that the victory of the Allied powers was not simply the victory of good over evil. The military conquest and occupation of our country was accompanied by the very same acts of violence against the civilian population, about which such just complaint has been made in the countries of the Allies. What has happened since then in some of the occupation zones in the course of measures of de-Nazification has not always been well calculated to inspire the impression of a higher degree of justice and humanity. The many appeals which have been addressed to the German people to work out its own salvation and lift itself up again from its prone position can only sound a mockery when the last raw materials and...