A Review of the Annual Scholars Conferences by Franklin H. Littell, 12/1/01 [Several colleagues have asked me for the story of what has been known for years as "the Annual Scholars' Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches." What follows is based on my records and generally identifies repeaters only on their first appearance. (Some in the core group present or preside every year.) When we started, and for two decades, the ASC was "the only game in town;" it was held during the spring semester. During 2000, however, there were more than 30 Holocaust conferences issuing calls for papers in the USA alone. Unlike our conference of academics and churchmen, some were very well financed and almost all were centered in the Holocaust as a purely Jewish event. The fundamental error in this monologue lies not in emphasizing the uniqueness of the SHOAH, which they also frequently fail to do, but in ignoring the implications of the Holocaust for contemporary Christianity.] The beginnings of my public work on the Holocaust and the Kirchenkampf are found in the period when I was a Religious Affairs officer in the American occupation of Germany after World War II. I lectured widely on these topics, as also on the problem of antisemitism, and wrote many occasional items for journals and newspapers in Germany and the United States. Three published scholarly papers are worth noting, for they were important in enlisting colleagues and locating future participants in what became the series of Annual Scholars' Conferences*. The idea of an American initiative in the study of the Church Struggle with Nazism came to me in August of 1959. The occasion was a conference at Tutzing Academy in Bavaria, called by the Kommission zur Geschichte des Kirchenkampfes im Dritten Reich under the chairmanship of Kurt Dietrich Schmidt of Hamburg. I arranged payment of the costs of the gathering by the Franz Lieber Foundation in Bonn, of which I had been Director,1953-58. Among those also present were Wilhelm Niemoeller, Eberhard Bethge, Arthur Cochrane (The Church's Confession under Hitler), Juergen Glenthoej of Denmark and Alfred Wiener of London (founder of the great Holocaust collection). Upon my return I started expanding my list - begun in 1952 - of colleagues in the field; my "T-list" now numbers c. 5,000 in several dozen countries. In the fall semester at Emory University I taught my first graduate seminar on the German Church Struggle. (A precis of this story is given by Marcie Littell in her paper on the History of Holocaust Education in the United States at Yad Vashem's First International Conference on Holocaust Education (14-17 October 1996), cf. conference report, pp.9-22.) *"The Protestant Churches and Totalitarianism (Germany, 1933-1945," in Friedrich, Carl J., Totalitarianism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954), pp. 108-19 - a paper at an international conference at Harvard; "Die Freien Kirchen, die Sekten, and das Widerstandsrecht," in Pfister, Bernhard and Hildman, Gerhard, eds., Widerstandsrecht und Grenzen der Staatsgewalt (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1956), pp. 59-67 - a paper at a Catholic/Protestant consultation in Tutzing; "Die Bedeutung des Kirchenkampf es fiir die Okumene," in Franz Lieber Hefte Number 3 (Autumn, 1959), pp. 32-48 - a public lecture at Franz Lieber Haus, Bonn. A Review of the Annual Scholars Conferences 1 Lecturing widely on the Church Struggle and preaching frequently on Christendom's abandonment of the Jews, from 1960 on I occasionally heard use of the words "Holocaust" and "Shoah." The student chaplains on large campuses, where the encounter between the Hillel Foundation and the Student Christian Movement was important, were especially receptive to the call for re-thinking and re-working the Christian/Jewish relationships. The founding of the Association for the Coordination of University Relatious Affairs came in 1959, under the sponsorship of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. A decade later there was enough ferment in the faculties, and considerable pressure from the Jewish and Christian campus chaplains, to risk an academic conference. The following Conference summaries are comprehensive through 1995, by which time the event had taken its basic shape as a voluntary effort of academics and lay people. "Old-timers" in the core group are mentioned only when they present papers, although they frequently serve as chairmen or moderators. Newcomers are noted the first time they appear on the conference program. • 1970: The first conference was held in 1970: "The German Church Struggle: What Can America Learn?" Hubert Locke was Conference Coordinator and I served as Chairman and keynoter. There were 9 major lectures, plus papers presented in topical seminars. In my opening address ("Church Struggle and Holocaust") I brought the Church Struggle and the Holocaust together for the first time in a public conference, arguing that the tragedy of the Jewish people and the crisis in Christendom must be studied by Jews and Christians working in collaboration. By then Elie Wiesel had published the American edition of Night and Raul Hilberg had published the first edition of his The Destruction of the European Jews, and the number of students of what was coming to be called "the Holocaust" was growing. There were now a few Christian scholars in America working on the Kirchenkampf. The proposal that the inter-faith dialogue should be deepened by bringing together scholars of the SHOAH and the Kirchenkampf was innovative, and has not yet found universal acceptance. A number who were presenters and/or participants at the inaugural conference at Wayne State University in Detroit have continued as an ASC core group for more than three decades. Glancing at the program I note the names of founders Eberhard Bethge, John Conway, Peter Hoffmann, Burton Nelson, Richard Pierard, Richard Rubenstein and Elie Wiesel. Ferdinand Friedensburg (former Mayor of Berlin) and Wilhelm Niemoeller (historian of the Church Struggle) were among the the participants from overseas. • 1971: an interdisciplinary seminar on "Church Struggle and Holocaust." Site: Wayne State University. Chairman and Host Chairman: Littell & Locke. 7 lecture/discussions. Yehuda Bauer of Hebrew University and Emil Fackenheim of the University of Toronto ("Jewish Faith and the Holocaust") both gave lectures. A Review of the Annual Scholars Conferences 2 Among others at the 1971 Conference were Lyman Legters (U of Washington) on "Karl Marx, Antisemitism, and Eastern European Jewry," John Jay Hughes (St.Louis University) on "Prophet Without Honor: Hans Asmussen and the Church Struggle," and Wayne Andrews (Wayne State U) on "Nietzsche's Protest." • 1972: a Scholars Conference on "German Church Struggle and the Holocaust." Site: Wayne State University. Chairman and Host Chairman: Franklin Littell & Hubert Locke. 8. lecture/discussions. Roy Eckardt (Lehigh U) spoke on "The Churches, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust." Among others were Eva Fleischner of The Grail on "German Christian Theology and Judaism," Uriel Tal (Tel-Aviv U) on "The Last Chapter in the Pre-Holocaust History of German Jewry," Beate Ruhm von Oppen (St.John's College) on "The Case of the White Rose," Hans Tiefel (College of Idaho) on "Use and Misuse of Luther During the German Church Struggle," and Manfred Wolfson (U Bonn) on German Rescuers of Jews in the Nazi Era." • 1973: an informal meeting of a core committee was held on the future of the project (Annual Scholars Conference and publications). The Annual Scholars Conference moved to New York, meeting for several years under the sponsorship of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. My colleagues from the Religious Affairs staff in American Military Government in Germany were now a substantial sector of the New York NCCJ staff. They had enlisted me to become, alongside my seminary and university teaching, Consultant on Higher Education, a capacity in which I travelled widely to help develop campus dialogue groups, 1958-83. • 1974: "Anti-Semitism and Church-State Conflict in the Third Reich, 1933-45." Site: NYC. Chair: Franklin Littell. 10 presentations, with 6 respondents, and a panel of 5 on "The Experiences of German Jewry." Lectures by Yaffa Eliach (Brooklyn College) on "Teaching the Holocaust," by Ruth Zerner (Lehmann College) on "Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Jews," by Leonard Swidler (Temple U) on "Max Metzger, Blood Witness," by Robert Wolfe (National Archives) on "Putative Threat to National Security as a Nurnberg Alibi for Genocide," by Michael Ryan (Drew U) on "Some German Protestant Theological Reflections on Jews and Judaism since 1945," and by Armin Boyens (Hofheim/Taunus) on "The Churches and Hitler's Policy of Extermination of the Jewish People." • 1975: "Some Perspectives on the History and Theology of the Holocaust." Site: NYC. CUNY Graduate Center joined the NCCJ as co-sponsor. 9. lecture/discussions, 6 panelists (Sybil Milton of Leo Baeck Institute), Nora Levin of Gratz College, Eva Fleischner of Montclair State College, Henry Friedlander of CUNY:Brooklyn College, Michael Ryan of Drew U, and Franklin Littell of Temple U) - in a session on "Continuing Work on the Meaning of the Church Struggle and the Holocaust." A Review of the Annual Scholars Conferences Lectures by Mary Alice Gallin (College of New Rochelle) on "Universities in the Weimar Period", Henry Huttenbach (CCNY) on "Church Morality vs. Church Politics", Violet Ketels (Temple U) on Odon von Horvath, Michael Wyschogrod (CUNY:Baruch College), Charles Foster (Committee on Atlantic Studies) on "The Impact of the Niirnberg Trials on Post-War Germany," and Rob't Everett ("James Parkes and the Quest for a Christian Theology without Anti- Semitism") . An evening program centered on a new Holocaust film: "The 81st Blow," shown at the Magno Preview Theatre. #ln 1975 there was also held the first conference in Germany on the Holocaust and the Churches, at Haus Rissen near Hamburg under the auspices of the International Council of Christians and Jews.