Protestantism and the Reconstruction of Constitutional Democracy in Germany, 1933-1968
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Faith for This World: Protestantism and the Reconstruction of Constitutional Democracy in Germany, 1933-1968 The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Bloch, Brandon Jack. 2018. Faith for This World: Protestantism and the Reconstruction of Constitutional Democracy in Germany, 1933-1968. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:41128499 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Faith for This World: Protestantism and the Reconstruction of Constitutional Democracy in Germany, 1933-1968 A dissertation presented by Brandon Jack Bloch to The Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of History Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts May 2018 © 2018 Brandon Jack Bloch All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Peter Gordon Brandon Jack Bloch Faith for This World: Protestantism and the Reconstruction of Constitutional Democracy in Germany, 1933-1968 Abstract This dissertation analyzes the transformation of Protestant political thought and practice in Germany between the 1930s and 1960s. It follows a generation of theologians and lay intellectuals who coalesced around oppositional networks under National Socialist rule and then participated in West German politics after 1945 as jurists, parliamentarians, and church leaders. I examine an ideological shift that facilitated the consolidation of postwar democracy on the ruins of Nazi dictatorship. Whereas Germany's Protestant churches served as bastions of anti- republican nationalism during the interwar Weimar Republic, postwar Protestant thinkers emerged as leading defenders of the West German constitution. Bridging intellectual, political, and legal history, the dissertation argues that the rapprochement of Protestant intellectuals with West German democracy reflected their own role in shaping the postwar political and constitutional order. The catalyst for this transformation was a series of exchanges between theologians and lay Protestant jurists, which commenced under the Nazi regime and continued in a public sphere organized by the postwar Protestant churches. Protestant jurists drew on contemporary theological innovations to challenge both legal positivist doctrines that reduced law to the will of the state, as well as natural law theories that aimed to derive law from a set of permanent moral norms evident to human reason. The first part of the dissertation examines the origins of a Protestant defense of constitutional democracy during the turbulent years spanning the consolidation of Nazi dictatorship, the Second World War, and the postwar Allied occupation of Germany. Protestant intellectuals affiliated with the Nazi-era Confessing Church called into question a disjuncture iii between spiritual and worldly authority, while also eschewing contemporary appeals by the Catholic Church for an international legal order grounded in natural law principles. The dissertation's second part describes how Protestant jurists and church leaders marshaled theological innovations of the Nazi and early postwar years to intervene in debates about West German constitutional law during the 1950s and 1960s. Confessing Church veterans criticized the deployment of natural law discourse by the ruling Christian Democratic Union in the service of conservative social legislation and Cold War politics. Instead, they suggested that ideals of religious tolerance, freedom of conscience, reconciliation, and the right of resistance, rooted in Protestant traditions, provided a basis for common political life in a constitutional democracy. By constructing a narrative of the Protestant origins of democracy, postwar Protestant politicians and intellectuals obscured the limitations of Protestant opposition against National Socialism, while developing an ideological and legal framework for linking religious pluralism to Christian culture that has continued to inform German politics. iv Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ vi Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................... xiii Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Natural Law and the Ethics of Protestant Opposition in Nazi Germany .................37 Chapter Two: Postwar Justice and the Origins of Protestant Rights Theories in Occupied Germany .............................................................................................................................91 Chapter Three: Institutionalizing Protestant Ethics: Families, Schools, and the West German Basic Law.........................................................................................................................168 Chapter Four: To Obey God Rather than Men? Conscientious Objection and the Revaluation of Resistance ........................................................................................................................230 Chapter Five: The Law of Reconciliation: German Protestants and International Law in a Divided World .................................................................................................................289 Chapter Six: Rechtsstaat or Revolution: Protestant Intellectuals and the New Left in 1960s West Germany ...........................................................................................................................343 Epilogue: Reinventing Protestant Germany.................................................................................409 Glossary of Names .......................................................................................................................431 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................435 v Acknowledgements That works of scholarship are never written alone is a truism, but I am privileged to acknowledge the many individuals without whom the research and writing of this dissertation would not have been possible. I am indebted first and foremost to my adviser Peter Gordon, who served as a sounding board for my earliest, inchoate ideas for this project and provided invaluable feedback on chapter drafts. Peter's commitment to producing intellectual histories of the highest standards of rigor and integrity served as a source of inspiration for my work, and his questions about the incomplete secularization of modern political thought can be heard in the background of these pages. In addition, I have been privileged to work with a committee of outstanding scholars in modern German and Central European history and the history of human rights. Alison Frank Johnson has been a source of sage counsel about all matters of academic life during my career as a graduate student, and her meticulous reading of my work has done much to sharpen my thinking and writing. I conceived of this project before Samuel Moyn published Christian Human Rights in 2015, but it proved fortuitous that he moved to Harvard just as I was commencing research. His scholarship and guidance have helped me to think through difficult methodological issues of linking intellectual and political history, and to situate my work in ongoing debates about Christianity and rights. Charles Maier commented on numerous draft chapters and, as many dissertation writers before me have recognized, has a penchant for asking the hard questions that push novice historians toward deeper insight and self-awareness. Finally, Doris Bergen generously agreed to join my dissertation committee in the project's final stages, providing an eye-opening reading of the full manuscript and an expert's view on the blurred lines between religion and nationalism in twentieth-century German history. vi The research and writing of this dissertation have relied on support from numerous sources. The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard provided a congenial environment for completing the dissertation during the past year, as well as funding through the Krupp Foundation at both the research and writing phases. I am especially grateful to Elizabeth Johnson and Aida Vidan for their work to create opportunities for graduate students at the Center. My graduate student colleagues in modern European history, including Colleen Anderson, Max Botstein, Josh Ehrlich, Ben Goossen, Gili Kliger, Jamie McSpadden, and Matthew Sohm, have shared their expertise on domains of European history that go far beyond my own knowledge. In particular, Jamie McSpadden helped me navigate the landscape of German archives during my initial research forays, while Ben Goossen shared insights on pacifism and confessional identities based on his scholarship on German Mennonites. At Harvard, I have also participated in an intellectual