Quakers and Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (review)

60Quaker History counter example. Given the focus of this journal, readers will naturally wonder whether Underwood contributes substantially to our understanding of Quakerism. As the author himself points out, the early Quakers have been copiously studied. In this volume, however, readers will find a review of their major theological positions, filtered through criticisms made against them by an importantrival religious movement. The work, while helpful, is farfrom the perfection that early Quakers hoped possible in this life. Carla Gardina PestanaOhio State University Quakers andNazis: Inner Light in OuterDarkness. By Hans A. Schmitt. Columbia: University of Mssouri Press, 1997. xiii+ 296 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. $29.95. Hans Schmitt chose to have his title to read '"Quakers and Nazis,' not 'Quakers against Nazism'." (p. 215) Quakers, he argues, were "convinced that there is good in all of us," and sought to , "mobilize virtue" wherever they found it. (p. 103) I expected to read about Quakers helping those Schmitt awkwardly terms "non-aryan Germans." He used this label because , after Kristallnacht in November 1938, Quakers specialized in victims who were no longer Jewish yet not church-affiliated and, consequently , ignored by other religious charities. Schmitt will not use the word "Jew" as a racial term. Quakers helped a minimum of 1,135 emigrations, though Schmitt thinks the notional figure 6,000 is more correct. Nor did Quakers confine themselves to abetting flight: They spiritually succored young refugees whose educations had been disrupted in Germany by founding the Eerde School in the Netherlands. Schmitt describes the seven years of the school's existence in affectionate yet critical discussion. Such stories commemorate heroic Quaker efforts at a time and in a place which, as Schmitt several times reminds us, defied the simple moral claims made by those born later. This reminder provides context for the most surprising part of Schrnitt's discussion. Quakers not only worked with Nazis to help Nazism's victims. They also tried to support the families of Austrian Nazis jailed after the attempted coup of July 1934 and worked— with little success—to help Nazisjailed in Memel by Lithuanian authorities. Friends also channeled German government funds to ethnic Germans, and someCzechs, in pre-Munich Czechoslovakia. This meanthelping Germany do what it could not do itself. This information is new and important. Schmitt acknowledges that this Quaker-Nazi collaboration seems problematic , and, in his brief chapter five, admits that Hitler exploited Quaker Book Reviews61 appeasers like Lord Hurtwood and George Lansbury. Schmitt starts his concluding section with a startling admission: "This book . . . has rested on no conceptual framework, and the events it describes confirm no consoling maxims and point to no comfortable prescriptions ensuring a better future." (214) This seems evasive. Perhaps there are no simple, edifying truths to infer, but is it really all right to reach toward light and (unintentionally) abet darkness? I also wished that Schmitt, who knows the sources so well, more fully explored the Nazis' partial toleration of the sect. (54, 74, 124) Were the Nazis contemptuous, admiring, or cynical? Who used whom? Because the book is a commemoration of Quaker works in a tragic time, these questions are especially urgent. Schrnitt's monograph is otherwise exemplary. Clearly written, it begins with an uplifting description of the sect's early history in Germany, followed by a chapter on Quaker relief in post-World War I Germany. The main story appears in chapters four through six. These recount Quaker efforts between 1933 and 1945. A final chapter provides an impression of Quaker tasks after 1945 and abriefconclusion. Much of Schrnitt's narration is original: He worked diligently and imaginatively in Quaker archival funds in the U.S., Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Germany. The resulting detail alone makes the book valuable to historians interested in Quakerism and Nazism, both of which appear here in unfamiliar perspective. Robert SouthardEarlham College Women against the Good War: Conscientious Objection and Gender in the Second World War. By Rachel Waltner Goossen. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. xiii + 190 pp. Illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. Cloth, $39.95; paper, $15.95. In 1 941 the first Civilian Public Service (CPS) camp opened in Patapsco, Maryland. Altogetherone...