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4 The Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt Religious Confession, Freedom Charter, or Another Versailles? Considering the underlying animosities that lingered from the church struggle, the administrative unity achieved at the Treysa conference was a significant accomplishment . The new church leadership, however, enjoyed little respite. Critics from inside and outside the church bemoaned the lack of contrition by church leaders at Treysa. “You should have seen this self-satisfied church at Treysa,” Niemöller rebuked a woman who had carped that he was placing too much blame on the church.1 Some foreign observers came to similar conclusions as Niemöller. Robert Murphy, a political adviser to the American military government and a man sympathetic to the churches, reported to U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, “There is little evidence [at the Treysa conference] that the German Protestant Church repented Germany’s war of aggression or the cruelties visited upon other peoples and countries .”2 Another American with close ties to the Confessing Church, Stewart Herman , concluded after the conference, “It cannot be said that the attitude of the church toward its political responsibility is as yet satisfactory, let alone clear.”3 These sentiments were particularly common among foreign church leaders who in the spirit of Christian brotherhood sought reconciliation with the German churches. Willem Visser ’t Hooft, a Dutch theologian and general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), was one of several foreign churchmen who wanted the churches to lead the way in bridging the gap between former enemies. The first step in this process, they believed, was for the German church leaders to acknowledge their errors and publicly repent. To encourage such an outcome, a small delegation of mostly west- and north-European church leaders traveled to Stuttgart in mid-October 1945 to meet with the EKD leadership council.4 An outpouring of warmth, compassion, and genuine contrition on both sides marked the meetings between the German church leaders and the European delegates from the WCC. This atmosphere of Christian fellowship, along with lobbying by foreign church leaders and Dahlemites on the EKD leadership council, culminated in the council’s issuing the most controversial declaration of guilt in the immediate postwar years. On the morning of 19 October 1945, the EKD council presented the ecumenical delegation with what has become known as the “Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt” (see appendix 4).5 Consisting of six brief paragraphs, the entire document filled just three quarters of a page. The declaration divides easily into two parts: the first part dealt with the Nazi past, and the remaining paragraphs with the postwar future. The first paragraph , one short sentence, merely welcomed the representatives of the WCC to the second meeting of the EKD council in Stuttgart.6 The second paragraph contained the now-famous confession stating that the church was in “a great solidarity of guilt” with the German people. “With great anguish we state: Through us has endless suªering been brought upon many peoples and countries. . . . We accuse ourselves for not witnessing more courageously, for not praying more faithfully, for not believing more joyously, and for not loving more ardently.” The authors do not mention the atrocities perpetrated against Jews or any specific actions by the church, such as its enthusiastic support for Hitler in the early years of the Nazi regime. In fact, before vaguely mentioning German guilt, the declaration spoke of German suªering: “we know ourselves to be with our people in a great community of suªering, but also in a great solidarity of guilt.” And before charging themselves with neglecting prayer, they tout their resistance to Nazism: “We have for many years struggled in the name of Jesus Christ against the spirit which found its terrible expression in the National Socialist regime of tyranny, but we accuse ourselves for not witnessing more courageously . . . .” After this rather ambiguous confession in the second paragraph, the Nazi past was not mentioned again in the declaration. “Now a new beginning can be made in our churches” began the second half of the document. A necessary step in beginning anew was for the churches to “cleanse themselves from influences alien to the faith and to set themselves in order.” They expressed the hope that God would grant the Protestant churches the authority to proclaim his word and encourage obedience to his will. German church leaders expressed joy that a new beginning in Germany meant also the renewal of ecumenical fellowship. They hoped that “tortured...

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