CHANGING GERMANY
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—I agree with your correspondent, Mr. Burns, that " on the whole " the Hitler regime- in •Germany has been " an enor- mous success." I know a number of outstanding churchmen, Protestant and Roman, in Germany ; none of them would deny this ; for all patriotic Germans are thankful for what Hitler has done for Germany.
When, however, Mr. Burns suggests that the Church conflict is at bottom political, he is most misleading. The Church struggle is, indeed, " political " in the (new) German sense, but not at all in ours. In the judgement of many English churchmen the Confessional Church is almost fanatically non-political. But in Germany today " politics " means not merely political programmes and measures, but a complete and all-embracing " philosophy of life." Christians are required to accept the National-Socialist Weltanschauung, with its myth of Race and Blood, its almost exclusive glorification of the military virtues, its anti-Senfitism; and its identification of Right with the will of the Party. The Christian Church, however little it be politically minded, cannot, accept this " philosophy of life "—nor, as I suppose, could Mr. Burns the democrat.
The paganising of all State institutions, especially the school4, and the persecution of the Church, both Protestant and Roman, proceed apace. The struggle is religious. Let anyone who doubts this read the sermons of Pastor Niemoller recently published by Messrs. Hodge and Co.—Your obedient servant,
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