The following is from the testimony of the Rev. Dr. Arthur J. Brown, Chairman of the American Committee on Religious Rights and Minorities and Secretary Emeritus of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, representing the Protestant Churches at “The Case of Civilization Against Hitlerism.”
Let us be clear as to what we are objecting to. What is civilization’s case against Hitlerism? It is not her form of government, not her derrand for equality, not her protest against the restrictions imposed upon her by the Treaty of Versailles. Whatever we may think of these things, we are not here to denounce them.
What we do object to is that Hitler’s praiseworthy effort to rehabilitate and inspire the national life is accompanied by a persecution of Jewish citizens which was utterly uncalled for and which is isolating Germany from other nations, alienating their goodwill, and outraging every sense of justice and humanity.
It is said that the first reports of physical maltreatment were exaggerated. I don’t believe they were. The presumption, in such circumstances, is that many cases were not reported. The evidence of this is clear and based on official statements of government authorities.
We are concerned solely with the question of justice and humanity, the common, inalienable rights of men everywhere, irrespective of race or religion; rights imbedded in the legislation of all civilized nations.
“PERSECUTOR IS ALWAYS WRONG”
It is a grievous thing that, at a time when the world was struggling to emerge from a period of racial hatreds and national jealousies, from which Germany itself has suffered, this outburst should have occurred against a people whose ancestors have been in Germany for a thousand years, who have fought for their native land in many wars and who, in language, loyalty and culture are as thoroughly German as their persecutors. We earnestly hope that the present anti-Jewish policy will soon be abandoned and that the German Government will come to realize the truth of William Penn’s aphorism that, “whoever is right, the persecutor is always wrong.”
We note, too, that the Christian churches of Germany are involved. It is startling to read that pastors and church officers have been deprived of their posts in the church. We are concerned also by the apparent determination of the government to make the German churches subordinate to and the instrument of the State in carrying out a political policy: dispossessing pastors and professors who do not yield the right to liberty in the exercise of their religious duties, and destroying the freedom and integrity of the Christian youth movements of Germany.
I am aware that fear has been expressed that criticism may simply harden the government’s policy and be misrepresented in its censored press as fresh evidence of opposition to Germany upon the instigation of Jews. As friends of the German people, we cannot, however, acquiesce in the assumption that humane and liberty-loving people should fail to protest against injustice lest the perpetrators be hardened in their determination, nor can we admit that it is “a purely domestic matter” which is not the concern of people in other lands. We believe it to be not only the right but the duty of all-thinking men and women to voice their protest against injustice wherever it exists. The question whether protest should be made has been settled by the conscience of mankind.
We appeal to public opinion throughout the nation, and especially to the Christian churches, to express their sympathy with their oppressed brethren in Germany and those in exile from Germany, to voice their protest against the wrongs to which they are being subjected, and to develop everywhere a stronger moral consciousness of the inestimable value of political, economic and religious freedom and the urgent necessity of emphasizing it in these days when the maintenance of this inalienable right is being seriously jeopardized. At this late day must we again resume the struggle for human liberty, the inalienable right of man to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, irrespective of race, color or religion?
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