LUTHER AND HITLER
SIR,—I gather from the review of Mr. Peter Wiener's book on Luther by the Dean of Saint Paul's that Mr. Wiener maintains that " with the ex- ception of a few refugee pastors in Britain, I do not know of any section of the German Protestant Confessional Church whose pastors have re- fused to preach, to serve, to ordain and bless the atrocities and horrors committed by the German armies and their leaders." (I am not sure what exactly the word "ordain " means). I have no precise information about any action that Confessional pastors have taken during the War. But it is important to remember the remarkable memorandum presented to Hitler at Whitsuntide in 1936. In this memorandum they asked the direct question, " Had the attempt to dechristianise the German people which was going forward the co-operation of responsible statesmen or was it being merely permitted? " They pointed to two things. The raising of Blood, Race, People and Honour to the position of an official Weltanschauung intended to replace a " decayed " Christianity was one point. They went on to say that the Evangelical Christian was gravely injured in his loyalty by the fact that there were still concentration camps in Germany, which claimed to be a State founded on law, and that the measures taken by the Secret Police were carried through quite in- dependently of the law courts.
It is often said that the quarrel of the Confessionals with Hitler was purely theological, and not moral. It was both. As clear-sighted Christians they recognised that Hitler's attack on Christian theology involved inevitably an attack on Christian morals, and especially on that reverence for law which has been one of the chief Christian contributions to civilisation. I shall be greatly surprised if it be not found, when the full truth is known, that this stand, in some shape or form, was
maintained by the Confessional Christians. A. S. DUNCAN-JONES. The Deanery, Chichester.
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