The Nazi Quest for an Aryan Jesus

Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus

Volumn 2, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 55-89

  Head, Peter M ^a  

^a Tyndale House   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Gerhard Kittel; History of New Testament scholarship; Jesus Seminar; National Socialism and Jesus; Quest for historical Jesus; Walter Grundmann

Indexed keywords

EID: 61949203915     PISSN: 14768690     EISSN: 17455197     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/147686900400200103     Document Type: Review

References (134)

1. H.R. Trevor-Roper [Introduction], Hitler's Table Talk 1941-44: His Private Conversations (trans. N. Cameron and R. H. Stevens; London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1953, 2nd edn 1973), p. 721. This discussion took place on the evening of 29-30 Nov. 1944 and contains the last recorded table talk of Hitler. The notes were typed up on 30 Nov. 1944 and a facsimile of this typed paragraph is given in the frontispiece of the book
2. H. Rauschning, Hitler Speaks: A Series of Political Conversations with Adolf Hitler on his Real Aims (London: T. Butterworth Ltd, 1939), pp. 57-58 (from 1933). A lengthier quotation is given below (see note 50)
3. So also M.D. Johnson, 'Power Politics and New Testament Scholarship in the National Socialist Period', Journal of Ecumenical Studies 23 (1986), pp. 1-24 (11 n. 31)
4. dependent upon M. Paldiel, Dualism and Genocide: The 'Religious' Nature of Hitler's Antisemitism (PhD dissertation, Temple University, 1982; Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1983), pp. 219-20
5. Cf. George Santayana's commonly cited aphorism: 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it' (Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense [New York: Scribner's, 1905], p. 284)
6. For a recent protest at the effects of such labelling, but which thereby reveals the extent to which such labels have become common parlance, see S.E. Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals (JSNTSup, 191; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000)
7. See G. Theissen and D. Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (ET; Louisville, KY and London: Westminster John Knox, 2002), pp. 95-112, for a helpful discussion of the key elements of this period (the view of history in the dialectical theology, the scepticism of the form critics, and the approach of Bultmann), which also fails to mention the material to be discussed here
8. N.T. Wright, 'Jesus, Quest for the Historical', ABD, III (1992), pp. 796-802; here from p. 798
9. Cf. also N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996), pp. 3-124 (the 'No Quest' period is dealt with very briefly on pp. 21-23). Wright nevertheless argues that E. Käsemann's 'New Quest' was advocated against the backdrop of the discredited approaches of the Nazi period: 'Käsemann had in mind, undoubtedly, the various Nazi theologies which had been able, in the absence of serious Jesus-study in pre-war Germany, to construct a largely unJewish Jesus', p. 23
10. C. Marsh, 'Quests of the Historical Jesus in New Historicist Perspective', BibInt 5 (1997), pp. 403-37 (414)
11. W.P. Weaver, The Historical Jesus in the Twentieth Century, 1900-1950 (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999). Weaver argues that 'our usual views of the "Quests" of the historical Jesus do not do justice to the actual history' and that the common typology (i.e. Old Quest, No Quest, New Quest etc.) reflects 'a distinctively German perspective' (pp. xi and xii)
12. Weaver, Historical Jesus, back cover
13. A. Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. First Complete Edition (ET; ed. J. Bowden; London: SCM Press, 2000), p. 277 (here with reference to Chamberlain's Worte Christi, see below); a little earlier Schweitzer had remarked that 'at the present day the Germanic spirit is making a Jesus after its own likeness' (p. 275)
14. Both of these passages are quoted in A.T. Davies, 'The Aryan Christ: A Motif in Christian Anti-Semitism', Journal of Ecumenical Studies 12 (1975), pp. 569-79
15. M. Casey, 'Where Wright is Wrong: A Critical Review of N.T. Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God', JSNT 69 (1998), pp. 95-105, quotation from p. 96
16. cf. Wright's 'Theology, History and Jesus: A Response to Maurice Casey and Clive Marsh', JSNT 69 (1998), pp. 105-12, esp. pp. 105-106 on Casey's idiosyncratic use of 'hermeneutical circle'
17. The reflections of the Jesus Seminar are focused in R.W. Funk, R. Hoover and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Macmillan, 1993; San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1997)
18. but also important are the preliminary papers and reports voting included in Forum (Old Series, 1985-94); subsequently also Robert W. Funk and the Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998)
19. also a focal point in this debate has been J.D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperSan Francisco, 1992)
20. Responses have been many and varied and are not our concern here, see B. Witherington, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995)
21. L.T. Johnson, The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996)
22. B.A. Pearson, 'The Gospel According to the Jesus Seminar', Religion 25 (1995), pp. 317-38 (cited from the updated version available at www.ucsb.edu/fscf/library/pearson/seminar/js7.html; accessed 17 May 2000)
23. Cf. further 'An Expose of the Jesus Seminar', Dialog 37 (1998), pp. 28-35 (esp. p. 33 for the same sentiments in practically the same words)
24. He goes on a bit later on the same page: 'In our post-Auschwitz humility, when Christians want to continue to claim the ultimacy of Jesus, it is the ultimacy of the God of Jesus that they are affirming, not another God who supersedes the God of Israel'. S. Freyne, 'Galilean Questions to Crossan's Mediterranean Jesus', in W.E. Arnal and M. Desjardins (eds.), Whose Historical Jesus? (Studies in Christianity and Judaism, 7; Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1997), pp. 63-91 (all from p. 91)
25. Cf. Freyne's other contributions on this subject: Galilee from Alexander the Great to Hadrian: A Study of Second Temple Judaism (Wilmington, DL: Michael Glazier and Notre Dame University Press, 1980; repr. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998)
26. Galilee, Jesus and the Gospels: Literary Approaches and Historical Investigations (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan; and Minneapolis: Augsburg-Fortress, 1988)
27. 'The Geography, Politics and Economics of Galilee and the Quest for the Historical Jesus', in B. Chilton and C. Evans (eds.), Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the Current State of the Research (Leiden: Brill, 1994), pp. 75-124
28. 'Jesus and the Urban Culture of Galilee', in T. Fornberg and D. Hellholm (eds.), Texts and Contexts. Biblical Texts in their Textual and Situational Contexts. Essays in Honor of Lars Hartman (Oslo: Scandinavia University Press, 1995), pp. 597-622
29. R.A. Horsley, 'Jesus and Galilee: The Contingencies of a Renewal Movement', in E.M. Meyers (ed.), Galilee Through the Centuries: Confluence of Cultures (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999), pp. 57-74 (here from p. 58)
30. Archaeology, History, and Society in Galilee: The Social Context of Jesus and the Rabbis (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity, 1996)
31. For the most recent treatment see M.A. Chancey, The Myth of a Gentile Galilee (SNTSMS, 118; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). This attempts a critique of the view that Galilee was predominantly or substantially Gentile from the historical and archaeological evidence. It makes no attempt at any broader ideological critique, and Grundmann and the non-Jewish Jesus school are mentioned only briefly on p. 15
32. A. Bein, 'Modern Anti-Semitism and Its Place in the History of the Jewish Question', in A. Altmann (ed.), Between East and West: Essays Dedicated to the Memory of Bela Horovitz (London: East and West Library, 1958), pp. 164-93 (esp. 164-67)
33. R.S. Levy, The Downfall of the Anti-Semitic Political Parties in Imperial Germany (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1975)
34. For Stoecker see esp. R. Gutteridge, Open Thy Mouth for the Dumb! The German Evangelical Church and the Jews 1879-1950 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1976), pp. 4-12
35. U. Puschner, 'Adolf Stoecker', Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexicon 10 (1995), pp. 1507-511 (online at www.bautz.de/bbkl)
36. For Treitschke see Gutteridge, Open thy Mouth, pp. 12-17
37. L. Poliakov, The History of Anti-Semitism. IV. Suicidal Europe, 1870-1933 (5 vols.; trans. G. Klin; Littman Library; Oxford: OUP, 1985), pp. 21-22
38. A. Frenken, 'Heinrich von Treitschke', Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexicon 11 (1997), pp. 442-44
39. See also I. Schorsch, Jewish Reactions to German Anti-Semitism, 1870-1914 (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1972)
40. E. Dühring, Die Judenfrage als Rassen-, Sitten- und Culturfrage. Mit einer weltgeschichtlichen Antwort (Karlsruhe and Leipzig: H. Reuther, 1881)
41. Poliakov, History of Anti-Semitism, IV, p. 23
42. On Lagarde see Gutteridge, Open Thy Mouth, pp. 19-21
43. cf. Bein, 'Modern Anti-Semitism', pp. 190-93
44. L. Poliakov, The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe (ET E. Howard; London: Chatto & Windus Heinemann for Sussex University Press, 1974), pp. 307-309
45. R.W. Lougee, Paul de Lagarde, 1827-1891: A Study of Radical Conservatism in Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), esp. pp. 144-49, 151-54
46. Poliakov writes: 'he revered Jesus only as a man, born among the stiff-necked race of Semites through some mysterious decree of the Deity, and whose genius was expressed in his "not-wanting-to-be-a-Jew"', The Aryan Myth, p. 308
47. Esp. P. de Lagarde, 'Die Religion der Zukunft', pp. 22-23
48. For the broader picture see P.L. Rose, Revolutionary Antisemitism in Germany from Kant to Wagner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990)
49. For all these themes in Wagner see M. Brearley, 'Hitler and Wagner: The Leader, the Master and the Jews', Patterns of Prejudice 22.2 (1988), 1-20
50. Davies, 'The Aryan Christ', pp. 575-77 for discussion of Chamberlain
51. According to Shirer, Chamberlain was the first intellectual in Germany to see a great future for Hitler (Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, pp. 104-109)
52. On 8 November 1924 Chamberlain sent birthday greetings to Hitler, the 'great simplifier': 'May God, who gave him to us, preserve him for many more years for the glory of the German Fatherland'. K.D. Bracher, The German Dictatorship: The Origins, Structure and Consequences of National Socialism (Middlesex: Penguin/Peregrine, 1978), p. 165
53. cited from W. Goerlitz and H.A. Quint, Adolf Hitler: Eine Biographie (Stuttgart: Grueben, 1952), p. 234
54. Chamberlain, Foundations, p. 202
55. 'The term Jew is applicable to a definite, remarkably pure race, and only in a secondary and very inexact sense to the members of a religious community' (Chamberlain, Foundations, p. 207)
56. (citing Leo Tolstoy, Works, vol. 89 [ed. V.G. Chertkov; Moscow, n.p.], pp. 50-52)
57. H.S. Chamberlain, Worte Christi (München: F. Bruckman, 1901, 1903, 1908, 1911, 1915 [2×], 1919, 1924, 1935, 10th edn, 1941)
58. Friedrich Delitzsch (son of Franz Delitzsch), was a respected academic Assyriologist (Professor in Leipzig, Breslau then Berlin, from 1899). F.W. Bautz, 'Friedrich Delitzsch', Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexicon 1 (1990), pp. 1251-52
59. F. Döllinger, Baldur und Bibel (Nürnberg: n.p., 1920): this book includes a letter (!) from the procurator of Judea, Publius Lentulius to the emperor Tiberius in which Jesus is described as having the features of a blond (Aryan) hero (Poliakov, The Aryan Myth, p. 379 n. 249)
60. Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament as Talmud und Midrasch, V (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1922)
61. Mein Kampf, p. 52
62. Mein Kampf cited here from H. Kohn, 'National Socialism', Encyclopedia Britannica, XVI (1962), pp. 159-62; from p. 160
63. Tracing the origin and motivation for Hitler's opposition to Jews and Judaism has been a major interest among historians. There does not seem to be a consensus; some argue that the destruction of the Jews was basic to Hitler's whole political and military policies: the war was designed to enable the extermination of Judaism; others describe a more functional development (see M.M. Marrus, The Holocaust in History [Toronto: Lester & Orpen Denny, 1987])
64. H. Rauschning, Hitler Speaks, pp. 57-58 (see note 3) (also cited by L. Thornton, 'The New Light: German Christians and Biblical Distortion during the Third Reich [antisemitism in gospel translations]', Fides et Historia 18 [1986], pp. 32-43, at p. 42). The quotation continues: 'What's to be done you say? I will tell you: we must prevent the churches from doing anything but what they are doing now, that is, losing ground day by day. Do you really believe the masses will ever be Christian again? Nonsense! Never again. That tale is finished. No one will listen to it again. But we can hasten matters. The parsons will be made to dig their own graves. They will betray anything for the sake of their miserable little jobs and incomes.'
65. Rosenberg (1893-1946) was a member of the Nazi party before Hitler and was the official ideologue of the party (from 1934-41 he was responsible for the spiritual and philosophical education of the NSDAP). In July 1941 he was appointed Reichsminister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. He was found guilty of Crimes Against Humanity at Nuremberg and was executed on 1 October 1946 (the report from Nuremberg is available at various places on the web, e.g. www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/Rosenberg.htm). A.R. Chandler, Rosenberg's Nazi Myth (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1945)
66. R. Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology (London: B.T. Batsford, 1972)
67. F. Nova, Alfred Rosenberg: Nazi Theorist of the Holocaust (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1986)
68. Cited from R. Pois (ed), Alfred Rosenberg: Selected Writings (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), p. 82
69. cf. also Cecil, Myth of the Master Race, p. 93 (attributing Mythus [Munich: Hoheneichen, 1930], p. 114)
70. Pois, Rosenberg: Selected Writings, pp. 114-15
71. cf. Cecil, Myth of the Master Race, p. 84 (attributing Mythus, p. 74)
72. H. Iber, Christlicher Glaube oder rassischer Mythus: die Auseinandersetzung der Bekennenden Kirche mit Alfred Rosenberg's 'Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts' (Frankfurt: P. Lang, 1987)
73. V. Büttner, 'The Jewish Problem Becomes a Christian Problem', in D. Bankier (ed.), Probing the Depths of German Antisemitism: German Society and the Persecution of the Jews, 1933-1941 (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000), pp. 431-59
74. Johnson offers a good survey of different reactions in his 'Power Politics and New Testament Scholarship in the National Socialist Period'; cf. also I. Kershaw, 'The Persecution of the Jews and German Popular Opinion in the Third Reich', Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (1981), pp. 264-74
75. O.D. Kulka, 'The Churches in the Third Reich and the "Jewish Question" in Light of Secret Nazi Reports on German "Public Opinion"', Miscellanea historiae ecclesiasticae 6.4 (ed. R. Lill, 1984), pp. 490-505
76. and more seriously, E. Hirsch, Das Wesen des Christentums (Weimar: Deutsche Christen, 1939), pp. 158-65 (to which Grundmann, as we shall see, makes repeated reference)
77. See especially S. Heschel, 'Nazifying Christian Theology: Walter Grundmann and the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Church Life', Church History 63 (1994), pp. 587-605 (Heschel is working on a monograph on Grundmann)
78. very recently also P. von der Osten-Sacken, 'Walter Grundmann - Nationalsozialist, Kirchenmann und Theologe; mit einem Ausblick auf die Zeit nach 1945', in Peter von der Osten-Sacken (ed.), Das missbrauchte Evangelium; Studien zu Theologie und Praxis der Thüringer Deutschen Christen (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2002), pp. 280-312
79. A. Rosen, '"Familiarly Known as Kittel": The Moral Politics of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament', in N.A. Harrowitz (ed.), Tainted Greatness: Antisemitism and Cultural Heroes (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), pp. 37-50 (37)
80. R.P. Ericksen, Theologians under Hitler: Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus, and Emanuel Hirsch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985)
81. G. Kittel, Jesus und die Rabbinen (Biblische Zeit und Streitfragen, IX/7; Berlin: Edwin Runge, 1914)
82. See L. Siegele-Wenschkewitz, 'The Relationship between Protestant Theology and Jewish Studies During the Weimar Republic', in O.D. Kulka and P.R. Mendes-Flohr (eds.), Judaism and Christianity Under the Impact of National Socialism (Jerusalem: Historical Society of Israel and the Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 1987), pp. 133-50
83. NSDAP No. 3,243,036; joined 1 May 1933, according to R.P. Ericksen, 'Christians and the Holocaust: The Wartime Writings of Gerhard Kittel', in Y. Bauer (ed.), Remembering for the Future. III. The Impact of the Holocaust and Genocide on Jews and Christians (Oxford: Pergamon, 1989), pp. 2400-414; at p. 2413 n. 18
84. C.K. Barrett, 'Hoskyns and Davey', in Jesus and the Word and Other Essays (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1995), pp. 55-62, at p. 59
85. cf. G.S. Wakefield, 'Biographical Introduction' to E.C. Hoskyns and F.N. Davey, Crucifixion - Resurrection: The Pattern of the Theology and Ethics of the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1981), pp. 1-81, at p. 65
86. See Johnson, 'Power Politics', pp. 16-18, for a summary. Kittel discussed the option of annihilation but argued against it on practical grounds: 'Ausrottung of Jewry by violence is not worthy of a serious discussion: if the systems of the Spanish inquisition and the Russian pogroms did not manage it, it will certainly be impossible to achieve in the twentieth century' (cited from M. Weinrich, Hitler's Professors [New Haven: Yale University Press, new edn, 1999], p. 42)
87. Kittel recommended a status of non-citizenship for Jews. Notably the published form was dedicated to 'My Confederates on the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Union of German Students (Verein deutscher Studenten) at Tübingen' - a patriotic group founded under the influence of Stoecker and Treitschke (Gutteridge, Open Thy Mouth, pp. 17-18, p. 33 n. 62)
88. A summary of Kittel's lecture 'The Rise of Judaism and the Rise of the Jewish Question' at the opening of this research group on 19 Nov. 1936 is provided by L. Siegele-Wenschkewitz, 'Christian Responsibility and Guilt in the Holocaust [G. Kittel, W. Grundmann, German theological faculties]', in Y. Bauer (ed.), Remembering for the Future. III. The Impact of the Holocaust and Genocide on Jews and Christians (Oxford: Pergamon, 1989), pp. 2717-27, esp. 2720-22
89. Kittel contributed many articles to the Forschungen zur Judenfrage, the journal edited by Walter Frank which published the work of the research group referred to above. See Ericksen, 'Wartime Writings'
90. W.F. Albright, 'Gerhard Kittel and the Jewish Question in Antiquity', History, Archaeology, and Christian Humanism (New York: McGraw Hill, 1964), p. 229 (essay originally published in 1951)
91. cf. also 'The War in Europe and the Future of Biblical Studies', in H.R. Willoughby (ed.), The Study of the Bible Today and Tomorrow (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947), esp. p. 165
92. This perspective was promoted by M. Weinreich, Hitler's Professors: The Part of Scholarship in Germany's Crimes against the Jewish People (New York: YIVO, 1946), ch. 7
93. and is shared by Ericksen, Rosen, 'Moral Politics' and many others
94. cf. also M. Rese, 'Antisemitismus und neutestamentliche Forschung: Anmerkungen zu dem Thema "Gerhard Kittel und die Judenfrage"', Evangelische Theologie 39 (1979), pp. 557-70
95. For a more positive assessment see J.R. Porter, 'The Case of Gerhard Kittel', Theology L/329 (Nov. 1947), pp. 401-406
96. J.S. Vos, 'Antijudaismus-Antisemitismus im Theologischen Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament', Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift 38 (1984), pp. 89-110
97. K.-P. Adam, 'Der theologische Werdegang Walter Grundmanns bis zum Erscheinen der "28 Thesen der sächsischen Volkskirche zum inneren Aufbau der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirche" Ende 1933', in L. Siegele-Wenschkewitz (ed.), Christlicher Antijudaismus und Antisemitismus: theologische und kirchliche Programme Deutscher Christen (Frankfurt: Haag & Herchen, 1994), pp. 171-99. Siegele-Wenschkewitz also notes that the theological faculty at Leipzig drew up an exhaustive response to the 28 Theses which concluded that they 'contradict in important points not only the letter but also the spirit of the confessional books' ('Christian Responsibility and Guilt in the Holocaust', p. 2723)
98. W. Schenk, 'Der Jenaer Jesus; zu Werk und Wirken des völkischen Theologen Walter Grundmann und seiner Kollegen', in Peter von der Osten-Sacken (ed.), Das missbrauchte Evangelium; Studien zu Theologie und Praxis der Thüringer Deutschen Christen (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2002), pp. 167-279
99. Heschel, 'Nazifying Christian Theology', pp. 591-93 for details
100. Cited in Heschel, 'Nazifying Christian Theology', p. 593
101. dependent on D. Bergen, One Reich, One People, One Church: The German Christian Movement and the People's Church, 1932-1945 (PhD dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1991), pp. 119-20
102. Cf. also L. Siegele-Wenschkewitz and C. Nicolaisen (eds.), Theologische Fakultäten im Nationalsozialismus (Arbeiten zur kirchlichen Zeitgeschichte, 18; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993)
103. Siegele-Wenschkewitz, 'Christian Responsibility and Guilt in the Holocaust', p. 2722, drawing on L. Wenschkewitz, 'Politische Versuche einer Ornung der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirche durch den den Reichskirchenminister 1937 bis 1939', in H. Brunotte (ed.), Zur Geschichte des Kirchenkampfes Gesammelte Aufsätze, II (Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Kirchenkampfes, 26; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), pp. 121-38
104. Gesetzblatt der deutschen evangelischen Kirche 5 (6 April 1939), p. 1 (Herschel, 'Nazifying Christian Theology', p. 591)
105. For contemporary responses to the Declaration and the founding of the Institute see S. Herschel, 'Making Nazism a Christian Movement: The Development of a Christian Theology of Antisemitism during the Third Reich', in B.R. Rubenstein and M. Berenbaum (eds.), What Kind of God? Essays in Honor of Richard L. Rubenstein (Studies in the Shoah, 11; Lanham, NY and London: University Press of America, 1995), pp. 159-74, esp. 162-63
106. The place of Beseitigung ('disposal', or 'removal', sometimes 'Eradication') in the title of the institute is somewhat disputed (e.g. Marshall), see S. Heschel, 'Nazifying Christian Theology', p. 594, for brief discussion and defence of Eradication as part of official title and aims of the institute. See further: P. von der Osten-Sacken, '"Die grosse Lästerung"; Beobachtungen zur Gründung des Eisenacher Instituts und zeitgenössische Dokumente zur kritischen Wertung seiner Arbeit sowie zur Beurteilung Walter Grundmanns', in Peter von der Osten-Sacken (ed.), Das missbrauchte Evangelium; Studien zu Theologie und Praxis der Thüringer Deutschen Christen (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2002), pp. 313-47
107. A. Henze, 'Walter Grundmann and the Institut zur Erforschung und Beseitigung des jüdischen Einflusses auf des deutsche kirchliche Leben', in R.P. Ericksen (ed.), German Professional Groups and the Holocaust (forthcoming)
108. 6,000 copies were published through the Deutsche Christen publishing house in Weimar (Herschel, 'Nazifying Christian Theology', p. 591)
109. cf. Johnson, 'Power Politics', pp. 7-8 for a briefer extract
110. The ethos is chillingly similar to the ethos of the Wannsee Protocol, the proceedings of the secret meeting in January 1942 which prepared for 'the final solution of the Jewish question' and which called for both the forced expulsion of Jews from the individual sectors of life of the German people (Lebensgebiete); and the forced expulsion of Jews from the living space of the German people (Lebensraum). See, e.g., R. Hilberg, Documents of Destruction: Germany and Jewry 1933-1945 (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1971), p. 90
111. Verbandsmitteilungen des Institutes zur Erforschung des jüdischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben, Eisenach, Nr 2/3 (1940), p. 37
112. Weinrich, Hitler's Professors, p. 63 (facsimile of original on p. 246)
113. cited from S. Heschel, 'When Jesus was an Aryan: The Protestant Church and Antisemitic Propaganda', in R.P. Ericksen and S. Heschel (eds.), Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), pp. 68-89 (here from p. 69)
114. (Leipzig: G. Wigand, 1940, 1942, 1943); see Siegele-Wenschkewitz, 'Christian Responsibility and Guilt in the Holocaust', p. 2727 n. 22, for complete list including monographs published under the aegis of the Institute. See also Herschel, 'Making Nazism a Christian Movement', p. 164, for titles of some lectures
115. On these see especially D.L. Bergen, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1996)
116. 'Eine Übersetzung und Verdeutschung der in den drei ersten Evangelien verwendeten alten Jesustradition sowie des Johannesevangeliums' (W. Grundmann, Jesus der Galiläer und das Judentum [Leipzig: G. Wigand, 1940], inside back cover)
117. Bergen, Twisted Cross, p. 163
118. (himself dependent upon an unattributed article: 'The Germanisation of the New Testament by Bishop Ludwig Müller and Bishop Weidemann', Friends of Europe 64 (1938), pp. 25-30)
119. From the Preface: L. Müller, Deutsche Gottesworte (Weimar: Deutsche Christen, 1936), cited here from Thornton, 'New Light', p. 34
120. H. Weidemann, Das Evangelium Johannes Deutsch (Bremen: H.M. Hauschild, 1936), cited from Thornton, 'New Light', pp. 37-38
121. Deutsche mit Gott: Ein deutsches Glaubensbuch (Weimar: Deutsche Christen, 1941), p. 46 (cited from Heschel, 'When Jesus was an Aryan', p. 73)
122. Vos, 'Antijudaismus-Antisemitismus im TWNT', p. 95
123. cited from Rosen, 'Familiarly Known as Kittel', p. 46
124. Summarized in Johnson, 'Power Politics', pp. 8-11
125. cf. also Heschel, 'Making Nazism a Christian Movement', pp. 166-67
126. This issue is also addressed in Grundmann's article, 'Das Messiasproblem', in Germanentum, Christentum und Judentum, II (1942), pp. 381-412
127. W. Grundmann, Die Gotteskindschaft in der Geschichte Jesu und ihre religionsgeschichtlichen Varaussetzungen (Studien zu Deutscher Theologie und Frömmigkeit, Band 1; Weimar: Verlag Deutsche Christen, 1938)
128. Aufnahme und Deutung der Botschaft Jesu im Urchristentum (Studien zu Deutscher Theologie und Frömmigkeit, Band 3; Weimar: Verlag Deutsche Christen, 1941)
129. 'Um 150 v. Chr. ist also Galiläa von Juden im eigentlichen Sinne frei' (p. 169)
130. 'Sie wurden wohl ihrer konfessionellen, aber nicht ihrer völkischen Zugehörigkeit nach Juden' (p. 170)
131. J. Forstman, Christian Faith in Dark Times: Theological Conflicts in the Shadow of Hitler (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992)
132. Herschel, 'Making Nazism a Christian Movement', p. 169
133. cf. also 'When Jesus was an Aryan', pp. 81-84
134. Cf. the interesting paper by D. Georgi, 'The Interest in Life of Jesus Theology as a Paradigm for the Social History of Biblical Criticism', HTR 85 (1992), pp. 51-83