In a vigorous and sharply-worded memorial, ten prominent leaders of the Confessional, or opposition movement of the German Evangelical Church, have condemned the tendency to deify Reichsfuehrer Hitler and attacked enforced hatred of the Jew as anti-Christian.
The 4,000-word memorial, addressed to Hitler himself, strikes at the complete Nazi philosophy and teachings. After outlining the danger of de-Christianization, the destruction of the ecclesiastical system and “de-confessionalizing,” the clergymen have this to say on the National Socialist view of life:
“When blood, race, nationality and honor are thus raised to the rank of qualities that guarantee eternity, the Evangelical Christian is bound, by the first commandment, to reject the assumption. When the ‘Aryan’ human being is glorified, God’s Word bears witness to the sinfulness of all men. When, within the compass of the National Socialist view of life, an anti-Semitism is forced on the Christian that binds him to hatred of the Jew, the Christian injunction to love one’s neighbor still stands for him opposed to it.
“The members of our Evangelical community have to submit to an especially severe conflict in their conscience when, in compliance with their duty as parents, they have to combat the penetration of these anti-Christian ideals in their children’s minds.”
The memorial concludes that “what we have said to the Fuehrer in this memorandum we had to say under the responsibility of our office.” It is signed Muller, Albertz, Bohm, Forck, Fricke, Asmussen, Lucking, Middendorff, Niemoller and Von Thadden.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
