Reichsbishop Ludwig Mueller, the Nazi church dictator, has launched a drive against Catholics and Protestants in order to force them to join the Nazi church. He has also openly declared war on Jewry and is calling on the Christian world to help the Nazis crush the Jews.
Reichsbishop Mueller told a church meeting that it is the intention of the Nazis to create a single Christian state church.
“What we want is a church free from Rome,” declared the Nazi church dictator. “The goal for which we are fighting is one state, one people, and one church. If any one cannot join us in this church, cannot fight as we do for the Third Reich, he must be quiet or step aside. If he doesn’t, I shall force him to.”
Regarding Jews, the Reichsbishop said:
“The Jews always killed whoever told them the truth, and finally even Jesus.
“For the first time one nation has dared to wage war against Jews. We Christians are bound to keep together in this battle, even if we are compelled to suffer privations for half a year.”
The “spiritual” head of the Nazis, favorite of Adolf Hitler, is threatening to employ force in dealing with Catholics and Protestants who refuse to be servile to the Nazi church dictatorship, to the Nazi regime. Many priests and pastors have already been placed in concentration camps, and now the Bishop of Wuerttemberg, Dr. Theophil Wurm, has been imprisoned, held in “protective custody.”
This is the Nazi brand of Christianity, the mailed fist behind the crucifix, the very antithesis of the teachings of Jesus.
The Nazi Reichsbishop then goes still further and openly declares war on the Jewish people, appealing to the Christians “to keep together in this battle” against Jewry. He boasts that Nazi Germany is the first nation that has dared to “wage war against the Jews.”
And in justification of this war declaration, he says that “the Jews always killed whoever told them the truth, and finally even Jesus.”
This Nazi “Christian,” who mocks and violates the spirit of Christ by his words and deeds, now revives the long-exploded myth that the Jews crucified Christ, even though it was for centuries established that crucifixion had never been a Jewish penalty for any guilt and that Jesus was crucified by the Romans, who were at the time the invaders and masters of Palestine. In the name of the Prince of Peace, the Nazi Reichsbishop now declares war on the Jewish people.
It was pointed out long ago that the Nazi discriminations and persecutions directed against the Jews are unlike the anti-Jewish policies employed during the Inquisition or during the regime of the last two Czars of Russia.
The Hitlerites have been waging war against Judaism and against all Jewry, not merely against the Jews of Germany. Now Hitler’s “Christian” church has given its blessings to the perverted and bloodthirsty rulers of Germany, spurring them on to intensify the war against the Jews.
Of course, it is known that the Nazi Reichsbishop is but a puppet and tool of Hitler. But the fiction of religious sanction is now introduced in justification of Nazi cruelty and barbarism.
The Nazi Reichsbishop has apparently forgotten what happened to Spain and to the pogromist autocracy of the Czars. The end of the Nazis is sure to be the same. Only it will come more swiftly and more ruthlessly.
The war declaration against Jewry by the Nazi church in the name of Christianity is the most brazen affront to true Christianity the world over. It is a challenge which true Christianity cannot afford to ignore if civilization is to endure.
The Christian world must give its unmistakable answer to the Nazi dynamiters of civilization.
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.
