Theologians Under Hitler

by Robert P. Ericksen, Paul Althaus, Gerhard Kittel

What led so many German Protestant theologians to welcome the Nazi regime and its policies of racism and anti-Semitism? In this provocative book, Robert P. Ericksen examines the work and attitudes of three distinguished, scholarly, and influential theologians who greeted the rise of Hitler with enthusiasm and support. In so doing, he shows how National Socialism could appeal to well-meaning and intelligent people in Germany and why the German university and church were so silent about the excesses and evil that confronted them. "This book is stimulating and thought-provoking....The issues it raises range well beyond the confines of the case-studies of the three theologians examined and have relevance outside the particular context of Hitler's Germany....That the book compels the reader to rethink some important questions about the susceptibility of intelligent human beings to as distasteful a phenomenon as fascism is an important achievement."—Ian Kershaw, History Today
"Ericksen's study...throws light on the kinds of perversion to which Christian beliefs and attitudes are easily susceptible, and is therefore timely and useful."
—Gordon D. Kaufman, Los Angeles Times "An understanding and carefully documented study."—Ernst C. Helmreich, American Historical Review "This dark book poses a number of social, economic and cultural questions that one has to answer before condemning Kittel, Althaus and Hirsch."—William Griffin, Publishers Weekly "A highly competent, well written book."—Tim Bradshaw, Churchman

Genres: History, Theology, Germany, Nonfiction, Religion, World War II, Biography

256 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 1985

Reviews

[M.J. Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book about heroes. It is not an easy book to read. Its style is academic and its content is dense. The topic is also one that is not easy.

Eriksen examines the poltical stance of three intelligent, educated academic theologians who allied themselves with Hitler and the Nazi party. Each of these men had been raised with opportunities and attended the finer universities within the German Empire. Each was affected by the war and its aftermath. Each was unable to accept the humiliation of defeat and the abdication of the Kaiser, the treaty and the Weimar republic. Each felt that German Volk was a crucial ethical concept. Yet here the similarities of the three ended. Their theologies and philosophies were different and their personalities could not be more unalike. There was also a difference of response when the individual leaders learned what the Nazis reconstruction of the German nation involved.

This is an excellent book for generating discussion and there are study guides for groups who need guidance to discuss it. It takes some slogging. The introduction lays the groundwork explaining the economics, the politics and the cultural contexts of Germany. The stories of the individual theologians demonstrate various responses to this context. The conclusion is worth the work it takes to get there. It leaves the reader with very intentional questions about humanity and the world.

[Davy Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seems interesting. Have had this book since 1996.
I thought it was more about Bonhoeffer type Nazi resistors. Yet it is about 3 conservative Protestant theologians who supported Hitler.

Not saying Trump could become Hitler, but author-historian Timothy Snyder sees those tendencies. Some saw the same tendencies in FDR (ex Smokescreen by former Democrat Congressman Samuel Pettengill).

It Couldn't Happen Here?
I think it is worth looking for parallels.

At 12% completion I like this book a lot.
It comes from a calm and reasoned position and sheds light on some questions I have had for years.
33% update:
The first guy, Kittel, becomes understandable.
He deservedly served some prison time after the War, and died in his 50s in 1948. He was a well respected Professor with a specialty in Jewish and Old Testament matters, very similar to what his Dad had been. It seems he got carried away with the volkisch mythos to an increasing extent,and was a supporter of Hitler from the beginning. Peer pressure, a desire to please, and career enhancements contributed to what he did. His postwar defense was that he had a chance to influence the Nazi regime from the inside, and he did help to fight the pagan and extreme elements who wanted to dump the Old Testament, etc..
Yet, he kept supporting the regime, even into 1944-45, when the barbaric atrocities began coming to light.
This is an excellent book, and it has held my interest.
40% update.
Althaus doesn't seem as outright Nazi as Kittel. I am only part way into his section. Both guys seem to have more redeeming values than deadly serious clowns like Goebbels and Goring and Rosenberg, and Shicklgruber.
Looking forward to section 3 on the intellectual Hirsch, guessing he was dirtier???
Update 56%.
Althaus was not imprisoned after the War, and this seems fair. He stuck to his Christian beliefs, and did work to act as a moderating influence against Nazi attempts to deify themselves.
Hirsch doesn't come off as particularly evil, in the early stages of his section. He was weakly, and nearly blind. This prevented him from action in WW1. Like Althaus, he subscribed to the Versailles Treaty, stab in the back doctrine. There was an element of truth in this belief.
Hirsch read more deeply than the other two, he grasped Kierkegaard, Fichte, Hegel, Kant, Fuerbach, and even maybe Einstein.
Swiss theologian Karl Barth and Hirsch argued in the 1930s until a rift developed. Part of that rift was over the prophetic stance of pastor and theologian Gunther Dehn (1882-1970), who argued against the Church getting in too deep with the rising tide of rightwing German nationalism, even predicting it would destroy Germany. He stated that distorted idealism was demonic. Barth supported him, Hirsch argued against him.

Update pg 180, there are really 200 pages. Percentages complete on Goodreads count the notes, glossary, etc..

Hirsch supported the Nazi's while Karl Barth and Paul Tillich opposed them and had to leave Germany. Barth (Swiss) even advised Christians in the Communist East Bloc in 1948 to support their governments. Tillich was far left as well. Since they were on the winning side, they are more admired these days when compared to the 3 slugs covered by this book. However, they worked for communist slavery, more or less. All these theologians stayed somewhat true to their faith, yet all compromised themselves as well.
Tillich accused Hirsch of plagarizing him around the idea of kairos, though Hirsch didn’t use the term. That term is still used in Christian circles today. Have you heard the song Time Has Come Today? Sort of sums up kairos.
I see some disturbing trends of excuse making for Trump (even in the Christian community), I think mostly because of the awful alternatives. Yet some is based on his brazeness, and an ability of John Q Public to swallow a hefty portion of lies. He has a good side and some good policies, no doubt. First thing I remember him saying in the 2016 campaign, is that he was building a wall, and Mexico would pay for it. That felt good, and voters lapped it up. Did it happen? As a Texas resident, I will give him prop's in that the border was better in 2016-2020. Maybe he put up more reckless tariffs against Mexico, and they indirectly did help pay for it? At what cost to the American consumer if he did? You can argue that is a job creator, but I think that is short term thinking. For a President to slap a 50% tariff on China like I heard mentioned as a Trump idea/threat, seems a dangerous step towards a command economy. What if a Democrat President had done that?
[Aug 2024, Harris/Walz],

Also, Trumps ego says the Russia-Ukraine war never would have started if it had been on his watch. I think this is highly questionable, as are a lot of his claims about business acumen and ethics. All this said, I think Establishment hacks like the Bushes and Obamas could drag us into awfully muddy waters too.
I like how Trump seems to jab at the 'Deep State' or whatever you want to call it.
Not a new phenomenon, look what happened on Nov. 22, 1963 and the ensuant coverup.

At least both sides aren't Skull n Bones like W versus Kerry. I still don't feel good about our choices.

This was an excellent book.
Need to find Al Schweitzers Historical Jesus book, though not so sure it will help with anybody's faith.
There was a segment in this book that sickened me a little, pertaining to anti-semites in Germany during the Third Reich era, who tried to disprove Jesus' ancestry as told in the Bible, and to twist tales to support that. Not the 3 main actors of the book.

[Bill Kupersmith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whilst the German theologians who resisted the Nazi state are yet celebrated, especially Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who came close as a Protestant can to being canonized, the names of the German churchmen who embraced Hitler’s regime have mostly perished from the earth and their memorial is not to be found. I’d scarcely heard of Gerhard Kittel; it is his father’s name that figures on the titlepage of the BHS, the still standard edition of the Old Testament. And Paul Althaus and Emanuel Hirsh were new to me. But their careers are still instructive even for Americans, whether they think Donald Trump is King Cyrus, or the Antichrist. Their collaboration with the third Reich took different forms. Kittel was a scholar of the Hebrew sources of the New Testament. His expertise made him a useful consultant on what the Nazis called “the Jewish question” and though he had no active role in the “solution” the Nazis chose, he suffered a term of imprisonment after the war and died not long afterwards. Althaus tried to mediate between the Confessing Church, the German Protestants who rejected Naziism, and the German Christians, who whole-heartedly supported the New Order. Despite his attempts to accommodate Christianity to that New Order and his criticisms of the Confessing Church, Althaus lost faith in the Nazi cause before the war began and his wartime sermons exhibit a growing sense of national guilt. After the war he was cleared by the denazification board and allowed to continue his teaching career. Hirsch is the most fascinating, and perhaps the most opprobrious. He was an expert on Kierkegaard, though you’ll not find his name amongst famous Existentialist theologians such as Tillich and Bultmann, whom Hirsch excoriated as unpatriotic and un-German. You might say that Hirsch made the Kierkegaardian Leap of Faith, but it was a leap into Naziism. Kittel, Althaus, and Hirsch were all deeply attached to the idea of the German Volk, cognate with our word folk and usually translated as people. But there is no American, or British or even French equivalent. Until after the war, for many Germans it had the kind of reverential aura that many Americans give to the word democracy. So if one believed that Hitler was the embodiment of the Volk—the essence of National Socialism—one’s faith in Christ was in danger being subsumed by völkische ideology, as these three churchmen were. One suspects that contemporary hybrid Christians—nationalist, environmentalist or progressive (and the many other such varieties) may have much more in common with their purely secular fellow believers than with other Christians throughout the world.

[Jouke Jong · Rating 5 out of 5]

The depictions of nazi's in modern culture has not been helpful to fully understand what drove many Germans during the rise and rule of Hitler. We are used to seeing nazi's als brutal, half-human scum. The reality is that many nazi's were cultured, intelligent and quite possibly also friendly and helpful. It reminds me of a quote from Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy:

'The people of Krikkit are just a bunch of really sweet guys who just happen to want to kill everybody.'

That reflects the truth of many nazi's as well. Shockingly it also proofs true within the church as this book clearly proves. Many of my late colleagues joined the ranks of one of the most murderous regimes in human history, and they felt supported by the same faith that I hold true.

How to avoid making the same misstakes? How to recognize thought-patterns and behaviour that could lead to a repetition? Obviously present-day budding nazi-theologians would also be wise, cultured and sweet. And most likely would never allow a comparison with nazi-ideology. I think that a 'repetition' of nazi-germany and nazi-theology would bear enough similarities to recognize it in present day world, and more than enough dissimilarities for the supporters to keep a distance.

Based on this book it seems important to note moments when the 10 commandments are actively broken by the state (you shall not kill, steal, or recognize anything or anyone as God which isn't God) , when there is a strong push for nationalism and the 'us vs them' mentality that comes with it. I consider these as signs to worry about.

Conclusion? The gift of discernment is truly something to pray for.

[Peter Larsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ericksen’s Theologians Under Hitler is both an informative and a formative read. The book not only uncovers nuances within the stories of Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus, and Emanuel Hirsch, but also demonstrates the role group identity plays in a person’s political behavior. It is easy for an individual’s commitment to and faith in their community to become a moral blind spot that allows them to see past atrocities perpetrated by those in power. Ericksen’s work is very effective in contextualizing and investigating the stories and writings of these theologians, so that readers are able to comprehend how a moral blind spot of this form develops.

[Reinhardt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book looks a 3 Theologians in Nazi Germany who were supporters of the regime. It reviews their thought leading up to and during the Nazi regime.

The first is Kittel of Kittel‘s Theological Wordbook fame and also a leading expert in ancient Judaism. He did not publicly support Hitler prior to 1933, but in 1933, after the Nazi‘s came to power, he became a party member, whether out of expedience or conviction is unclear. Although he was somewhat anti-Semitic prior to 1933, post 1933 he put some truly distasteful ideas into print. The most famous of which is that extermination is not a solution for the Jewish Question because it is impractical. In the second edition of that work, he added that it is also unchristian.

In 1934 he was selected to be a member of the National Institute for the History of the New Germany and in 1936 Institute for research into the Jewish Question. These prestigious position put him in contact with higher level Nazis. Kittel maintains he was only there to present the Christian point of view, specifically countering the pagan ideas of Alfred Rosenberg.

His antisemitism took on an increasingly racial tone to line up with the leading science of the day. Previously, his anti-Semitism was of the religious type, along the lines of Martin Luther. He was also opposed to Jewish secular culture. His proposed solution to the Jewish Question was guest status. He opposed assimilation. In this view, he had the support of Jews who did not want to assimilate into German culture. The existence of a `Jewish Question` went without saying at the time.

He also supported the Aryan paragraph as applied to the churches which required Jewish pastors to be removed from German churches. He wanted a moderate implementation of the policy, and supported baptized Jews as Christians, but to get in step with culture, they couldn’t be allowed to lead German congregations. It would be harmful for the Church’s mission in Germany.

The book spends a considerable amount of time reviewing the defence Kittle prepared for himself when he was arrested by the French after the war. The defence document Kittle prepared is almost entirely without corroboration so seem of little value in determining his true intentions.

The next theologian whose case is examined it Paul Althaus. A Luther expert and a moderate, if a Nazi support can be called moderate. He was a conservative, a nationalist, and an orthodox Lutheran. For the most part, he defended traditional interpretations of the Bible.

Althaus was not a supporter of the German Christian positions, which in his mind were (and are) heretical. He advocated a third way between the confessing Church and the German Christian movement. In fact, he was proposed as a candidate who would be acceptable to both the confession church and the German Christian movement.

Althaus became disillusioned with Hitler a few years before the war. He made no statements in support of the regime or its policies after 1937. He didn‘t speak out against the regime in any way for obvious reasons.

The final theologian is Edward Hirsch. Hirsch is without doubt the strongest supporter of Nazism among acclaimed theologian. Although Nazism doesn’t have a strong intellectual foundation, it swept through universities and was popular with most students and claimed a number of world renowned intellectuals as supporters, Hirsch among them. He was probably the world’s leading Kierkegaard expert of his day, so a scholar of some renown.

During the Weimar period, Hirsch was active in nationalistic politics. Like many Germans, he thought the Treaty of Versailles was a travesty and Germany should never have signed it. The signer betrayed Germany. He was against democracy as a weak form of government (cf. Plato). He didn‘t support the Nazi party until 1932, but in 1932 he endorsed Hitler for President.

Hirsch had a thoughtfully reasoned philosophy and theology based on a combination of Hegel‘s idealism and Kierkegaards existentialism. Theologically and philosophically he was nearly identical with Tillich, but politically they split into mirror images. Tillich split left to revolutionary socialism, Hirsch right to national socialism, both on similar grounds.

Hirsch was more theologically liberal than Althaus, supporting the idea of an Aryan Jesus. An idea that seems beyond preposterous now, but had serious intellectual support at the time. Consciously following in the footsteps of the liberal theologians who remade Jesus into their own image by dropping passages that didn‘t support the preferred picture and highlighting passages that reinforce the proposition. It is easy to remake Jesus, and for that matter Paul, into an anti-semite using select passages as representing the `historical` reality.

Hirsch was also a faculty dean and he used those powers to actively oppose the confessing church (The breakaway church supported by Barth, Bonhoeffer and Niemoller). He often turned in names to the state security apparatus.

All these theologians were supporters of the church and saw themselves as strong Christians who stood against the more pagan elements of the Nazi party. They all felt that If there weren‘t at the table to contribute to the discussions, the party, and hence Germany, would be paganized. They traded the traditions of the church for relevant and influence.

It is difficult to see how Christian theologians could support the Nazi party. But to be clear, none of them supported the policy of extermination and when they started to hear rumblings of what was happening in the east in 1942, they were horrified.

It is not unlike the liberation theologians attraction to Marxism long after it was clear what the real world implications were. It is always a temptation for Christians, Churches, and Theologians to bend the truth to make it more politically palatable, but when truth is sacrificed for political expediency, the outcome is hellish. This book presents a balanced look at how this happened in three case studies. The information is invaluable, but the organization and plan of the book could be improved.

[Alex]

An enlightening read with plenty of mostly German resources to follow-up on.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This will be a long review because the book interested me so much so the tl;dr version is: a fascinating, if dense, study about three German theologians who supported Hitler to a greater or lesser extent during the days of the Third Reich. Not for everyone, but very important anyway.

Okay, onward. First some general comments:

1. The author, Robert Ericksen writes with a deep knowledge of the theological issues and philosophical theories of German culture in the 19th and 20th centuries and to some extent assumes the reader does as well. Unless you have some idea of the issues yourself, this book will be tough to get through.

2. The author never really takes the time to ask what a "Christian" theologian is. He seems to think that anyone who comes from a Christian background and does theology is, ipso facto, a Christian. To my way of thinking this is a major flaw of the book. The damage done by the kind of "theology" that influential German theologians were doing in the 19th and 20th century (including these three) is well illustrated by Eta Linnemann's testimony which you can read here: (https://gracevalley.org/teaching/eta-... - and I encourage you to read because historical-critical theology has led a lot of people directly AWAY from Christian faith - for a current example read anything by Bart Ehrman.)

3. The book is interested in asking the question, "How did these three theologians end up supporting a political philosophy that, as we know from history, was the furthest thing from the example of Christ?" [A question, which, ironically enough we are also asking in our current era in America, so the book has contemporary value]. Mr. Ericksen has some ideas about how this happens, but I fear due to so-called "scholarly distance," he doesn't really get to the heart of the issues. He nips around the edges well, but I felt that, in the end he didn't really "solve" the issue, but perhaps it isn't solvable anyway.

The three theologians were:

1. Gerhard Kittel who "carved an important niche for himself in the world of Nazi scholarship on the Jewish question. In doing so he created a theological foundation for Nazi oppression of the Jews, yet he somehow was able to reconcile this work with his Christian and academic values."

2. Paul Althaus whose choice of a middle ground "placed him well within the orbit of Naziism, and he welcomed and supported Hitler at least until the late 1930s."

3. Emanuel Hirsch who was "a conscious apologist for Naziism within the German state."

Mr. Ericksen points out several things that he believes inclined these three to support Hitler, among other things:

1. They all came from conservative, traditional, German values, including an emphasis upon law and order, and as Mr. Ericksen points out: "each of them envisioned an ideal Germany in which authority, obedience and nationalistic unity would produce community."

2. They were all highly influenced in their views by the German experience in World War I and the failure and trauma of the Weimar Republic.

I was specifically interested in how their support of Hitler intersected with the Christian faith since it seems that Hitler's views were so diametrically opposed to Christianity. Here Mr. Ericksen is pretty good in his analysis, and, given our contemporary situation, we would do well to absorb. He writes of Mr. Kittel:

"He adds the common, though in retrospect incredible, judgment that he took it [Naziism] for a Christian moral renewal. On the surface this judgment seems to have placed inordinate faith in Hitler's promise that the party stood for "Positive Christianity." Mein Kampf was ignored. Alfred Rosenberg was ignored. The one explanation which clarifies this widespread misconception is that Christianity became confused with such a large package of cultural factors that it was no longer distinguishable on its own. Christianity was German culture. Christianity was middle-class morality. Christianity was respect for authority. Christianity was law and order. Christianity represented an established class in its opposition to turmoil from the left."

One might be forgiven for thinking that, insert "American" for "German," the author was writing about contemporary American culture.

It's not like some theologians didn't understand what was taking place. Mr. Ericksen quotes part of a speech by Gunter Dehn where he criticizes the too close connection between Christianity and Nazi philosophy. Dehn says: "It could be that the church of today stands on the threshold of a most difficult struggle with modern nationalism, in which her very existence will be endangered...Distorted idealism is demonic. It is simply not true that this fanatical love of fatherland, which in my view is colored by religion but actually disassociated from God, really helps the fatherland. On the contrary, it will lead the fatherland into destruction."

And so it did. Again, one might be forgiven for mistaking this passage for the situation in contemporary America.

Contrast Mr. Dehn's point with this quote from Emanuel Hirsch from 1933: "No other Volk in the world has a leading statesman such as ours, who takes Christianity so seriously. On 1 May when Adolf Hitler closed his great speech with a prayer, the whole world could sense the wonderful sincerity in that."

Ouch. That particular point did not age well, and I don't think I need to point out its close connection with our contemporary situation either, at least I hope I do not.

Mr. Ericksen gives three warnings at the end of his book, lessons learned from theologians who ended up supporting Hitler, and from the German culture of the 1930s and 1940s. Two of them are especially important:

1. "A Christianity...in which, for example, the love of Christ cannot be readily perceived, should arouse our suspicions."

2. "A second warning in the German church experience lies in its failure to distinguish adequately between Christian values and German values, between inherently Christian concerns and inherently patriotic concerns."

Again, notice the close connection to our contemporary situation.

Mr. Ericksen points out that, as any student of history would recognize, the impetus for a situation similar to the rise of the Nazis can come out of any crisis, be it economic, like the failure of the Weimar Republic, or cultural, as we may be seeing in our own American situation. He then asks whether or not when we are faced with something like the rise of the Nazis, we will be sufficient for the hour, or as he puts it: "Will we avoid being the Kittel, Althaus or Hirsch of our time?"

History would imply that only a few of us will, most of us will not.

[Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent examination of three conservative theologians who, through different paths with several similarities, came to enthusiastically support Nazism and Hitler. For all three, the loss of WWI was a betrayal, though some did not fully accept the stabbed-in-the-back view; the Weimar era with its pluralism was a time of decadence and moral crisis, and democracy a tyranny of the majority; Jews were an "other" and unwelcome influence not just in Germany but for any nation, any Volk; and the Volk was a potent organising principle stronger than the individual, for which Luther's own Germanness represented a sort of special blessing of God's bestowed to Germans and German Protestant Christianity.

I started this book, the first theological work I've read, attempting to understand why ~80% of American Evangelical Christians have gone all in for Trump. I cannot say that I found an answer, but reading this carefully researched and reasoned book provided some insights, and its final paragraph is worth getting to:

The scenario to fear, then, is one in which a combination of crises makes life difficult. ... If this is coupled with a meaningful attempt to follow democratic principles, to allow true freedom and give a true political voice to the plural groups within society, beware. Then we will hear calls for toughness, for law and order, for national unity. We will be tempted to sacrifice some democratic principles and civil rights for national wellbeing. ...

[Brian Elswick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really an excellent book and very timely though published in 1985. It is a very academic book and part 3 felt cumbersome but overall I would recommend it to any person willing to think a little deeper about theology/orthodoxy and its relation to political thought and action. I read this book after listening to an interview of the author recently on the Uncommentary podcast. That interview is a good introduction to the book.

[Renee]

(Found on a list of recommended Bonhoeffer books while reading his letters from prison.)

[Bob Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do theologians fall under the influence of a tyrannical demagogue? This is the question that Robert P. Ericksen seeks to answer in Theologians Under Hitler. Ericksen chooses three prominent theologians to focus on: Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus and Emmanuel Hirsch. These three represent three strains of theologians who supported Hitler before and during the war.

Gehard Kittel is best known for his Theological Wordbook of the New Testament. He was a student of Jewish culture and its influence in early Christianity. However, he held deeply anti-Semitic views that came out once Hitler came to power. Some of his work became the foundation for Nazi philosophic reflections against Jews. Ericksen however, also provides counter-evidence and suggests that Kittel was a deeply conflicted person.

Paul Althaus provides an example of a more middle ground. Althaus prominently caught up in the romanticized conservative views popular in Germany during this time. He viewed the threats to Germany as the urban, liberal lifestyle popular during the 1920s and sought to reverse them. National Socialism provided a flawed, but competent vehicle that sought to bring back conservative and traditional morals and values to the German people. Out of the three, Althaus also appears to be the one who changed his mind after 1943, once the horrors came to light.

Emmanuel Hirsch provided the philosophical and theological background for the Nazi war machine and he represents the most radical strain of this. He argues that Germany is weak and must be made strong again. He believed that God had a certain plan for the German people and that war can be chosen if the people are willing to shed blood for it. Karl Barth dismissed Hirsch as a radical nationalist, thinking of Germany above all things. Hirsch sold out the gospel for the gospel of Christian (German) nationalism and never changed his positions on the subject.

Overall, this book is a great history book, but is also a great warning for any country that might be tempted to go down the Nationalist path again.

Grade: A

[Paul Womack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most helpful as a study of theology and history.

[Araiya C · Rating 3 out of 5]

i wish just once someone would write about hirsch without glorifying him