A Church Undone: Documents from the German Christian Faith Movement, 1932-1940

by Mary M. Solberg (Translator)

Overview

Decades after the Holocaust, many assume that the churches in Germany resisted the Nazi regime. In fact, resistance was exceptional. The Deutsche Christen, or German Christians, a movement within German Protestantism, integrated Nazi ideology, nationalism, and Christian faith. Marrying religious anti-Judaism to the Nazis racial antisemitism, they aimed to remove everything Jewish from Christianity.

For the first time in English, Mary M. Solberg presents a selection of German Christian documents. Her introduction sets the historical context. Includes responses critical of the German Christians by Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781451464726
Publisher:	1517 Media
Publication date:	04/01/2015
Pages:	486
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Mary M. Solberg is associate professor of religion at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. She is the author of Compelling Knowledge: A Feminist Proposal for an Epistemology of the Cross (1997). She teaches on the life and work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the conduct of the churches in Hitler"s Germany, and the Holocaust, as well as contemporary theologies and health care ethics.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments xi

List of Images xv

Introduction Mary M. Solberg 1

1 The Original Guidelines of the German Christian Faith Movement Joachim Hossenfelder 45

2 The Aryan Paragraph in the Church and Responses Various Authors 53

3 Theological Existence Today! Karl Barth 81

4 What the German Christians Want for the Church Emanuel Hindi 101

5 The History of the "German Christian" Faith Movement Arnold Dannenmann 121

6 The Handbook of the German Christians (1933): German Christian National Church Union 163

7 The Jewish Question Gerhard Kittel 201

8 Our Struggle Joachim Hossenfelder 229

9 Speech at the Sports Palace in Berlin Reinhold Krause 249

10 Declaration of the National Bishop Regarding the Events in the Sports Palace Ludwig Müller 263

11 Outline of German Theology Friedrich Wieneke 267

12 German Christians: A People's Book A Guide to Today's Faith Movement Conscantin Grossmann 293

13 The German Community of Christ The Path to the German National Church Julius Leutheuscr 321

14 Christ in Germany's Third Reich The Nature, the Path, and the Goal of the German Christian Church Movement Siegfried Leffler 337

15 Political Christianity On the Thuringian "Gentian Christians" Paul Althaus 365

16 God's Word in German The Sermon on the Mount, Germanized Ludwig Müller 383

17 What Do the German Christians Want? 395 1 IS Questions and Answers Otto Brökelschen 395

18 Freedom of Conscience Wolf Meyer-Erlach 421

19 Jesus and the Jews! Organization for German Christianity 433

20 The Godesberg Declaration and Responses: Various Authors 443

21 Who Is Jesus of Nazareth? Walter Grundmann 453

Bibliography 471

Index 497