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A Comparative Study of the German Christians, the Confessing Church, and the Mennonites

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A Comparative Study of the German Christians, the Confessing Church, and the Mennonites THE POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS OF THE TWO KINGDOMS DOCTRINE IN THE NAZI PERIOD: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE GERMAN CHRISTIANS, THE CONFESSING CHURCH, AND THE MENNONITES JEREMY ROBERT KOOP A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAMME IN HISTORY YORK UNIVERSITY, TORONTO, ONTARIO OCTOBER 2011 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-88680-9 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-88680-9 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. Canada Dissertation Abstract This dissertation investigates Protestant and Mennonite responses within Germany to National Socialism, and given the real potential for, but lack of, institutional church opposition to the regime, examines whether theological precursors helped determine patterns of Christian political decision-making during the Nazi era. It further examines the extent to which these theological formulations were particularly Lutheran. As a point of comparison to mainline German Protestantism, the study questions how we can account for the ambiguous and at times ironic reactions within a free church community like the German Mennonites, which possessed a unique, albeit complicated, history of nonresistance and political nonparticipation. Examining the political-theological positions adopted by Emanuel Hirsch, Karl Barth, and Benjamin H. Unruh towards the emerging regime - supporting, opposing, or maintaining an ambiguous middle-ground - this dissertation argues that the ways in which German Protestant theologians related to specific Lutheran theological formulations - the doctrine of the two kingdoms and natural revelation in particular - significantly informed their political reactions to the temptations and dangers presented by National Socialism. The theological work of these prominent leaders of the German Christian movement, the Confessing Church, and the German Mennonites respectively, further demonstrates the inseparability of theology from politics before, during, and in the aftermath of the Third Reich. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction. 1. Chapter One: The historic origins of the Two Kingdoms Doctrine. 24. Luther's Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. 27. Historic appropriations of Luther's thought. 36. Chapter Two: Emanuel Hirsch, natural revelation, and volkisch theology. 53. Nationalism and the Protestant churches. 59. The challenge of National Socialism. 67. The origins of Hirsch's political theology. 75. The impact of defeat and Hirsch's developing volkisch theology. 96. Volk and race. 110. Hirsch's turn to National Socialism. 122. Chapter Three: Karl Barth and the theological rejection of National Socialism. 132. The First World War and Barth's theological impasse. 138. A new direction. 143. The basis of a theological dispute. 150. The dispute intensifies. 160. Barth's political theology. 179. The Barmen Declaration and Barth's repudiation of natural revelation. 192. Barth's theological rejection of National Socialism. 207. Chapter Four: Benjamin Unruh, Mennonite pragmatism and theological 228. ambiguity. The challenges of nationalism and Mennonite assimilation. 240. The destruction of the Mennonite commonwealth. 250. Anticommunism and Germanic identity. 261. Mennonites and the Third Reich. 275. Pragmatic and theological foundations of support. 282. Unruh's engagement with the regime. 293. The Rundbriefgemeinschaft. 303. Conclusion. 318. Bibliography. 332. v Introduction. In August 1947, the Council of Brethren of the Evangelical Church - reform- minded leaders within German Protestantism - issued what has become known as the Darmstadt Statement in an attempt to come to terms with the church's position under National Socialism, and forge a new path forward. Highly contentious, the "Statement by the Council of Brethren of the Evangelical Church of Germany on the Political Course of Our People" essentially expounded in specific political terms issues that church leaders had only skirted in the Stuttgart Declaration two years prior. Months after the Second World War ended, an international delegation from the World Council of Churches initiated a visit with German church leaders, and pressed them for a statement.1 Intended for a foreign audience, the ensuing Stuttgart Declaration acknowledged the pain caused by the church and the German people, expressed as "solidarity of guilt". Despite its admission, the declaration was unsatisfactory in numerous respects, failing to refer specifically to National Socialist policies and crimes, or the church's political sympathies. Instead, the declaration put forth that the church had stood against the ideology that resulted in National Socialism, but had not believed, prayed or loved as it ought to have. Insofar as German Protestantism had failed, the declaration presented these shortcomings as religious failures. 1 See: Matthew D. Hockenos, A Church Divided: German Protestants Confront the Nazi Past (Bloomington, 2004). 2 The text of the Stuttgart Declaration is included as an appendix in: John Anthony Moses, The Reluctant Revolutionary: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Collision with Prusso-German History (New York, 2009), pp. 259- 60. The Evangelical Church in Germany did not present an official statement regarding the "Jewish Question" until April, 1950. 1 Even though vague, the Stuttgart Declaration was met with resistance, perceived by many Germans as an admission of collective guilt. And whereas reform-minded church leaders looked for answers for the church's behaviour under National Socialism at the institutional level, emphasized institutional guilt, and sought public confession, conservatives generally focused on individual guilt and human sin. Instead of structural change, conservatives stressed the forgiveness of God's grace.3 Conservatives, therefore, differentiated between political guilt and the church's guilt, which they considered to be of a religious nature.4 Now in 1947, the Council of Brethren sought to deal with the specific political underpinnings of Protestantism's political acquiescence, with an obvious vision to the church's future political orientation.5 The Darmstadt Statement began by outlining the need for absolution "from our common guilt, from our fathers' guilt as well as our own". Thus the Council of Brethren was both admitting guilt which implicated the present church, but also the church's historic failures. In particular, Darmstadt indicted the historic embrace of both domestic power politics and foreign policy founded on militarism, which, it argued, paved the way for National Socialism and the "unrestricted exercise of political power".6 3 Hockenos, A Church Divided, pp. 63-70. 4 Hockenos, A Church Divided, p. 92. 5 See: Matthew D. Hockenos, "The German Protestant Debate on Politics and Theology after the Second World War", in Dianne Kirby, ed., Religion and the Cold War (New York, 2003), pp. 37-49. 5 The text of the statement is found as an appendix in: Matthew D. Hockenos, "The German Protestant Debate on Politics and Theology after the Second World War", in Dianne Kirby, ed., Religion and the Cold War (New York, 2003), pp. 46-7. 2 The statement continued by confessing that the church had erred by aligning itself with both political and economic conservatism. Economically, the church had categorically rejected the impulses of Marxism, which ought to have reminded the church of its obligation to social justice. Politically, the church's conservatism had propped up the governing status quo and negated the legitimacy of forcing political change: "We have denied the right of revolution; but we have condoned and approved the development of absolute dictatorship".7 Beyond its implications for the Evangelical Church in Germany's relationship to its
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