31 MAY 1945, Page 12

Sut,—I have no wish whatever to be kind, or even

fair, to Luther. But let us be fair to history. Hitler's anti-Semitism does not need Luther ; it can trace its ancestry from the furious Christian anti-Semitism of the Middle Ages, which raged over the Continent and has never quite died. Luther got it in a comparatively mild form. It was not Luther, but a Spanish Inquisitor, who said (and acted on it), " Give me a Jew and I will give you a burnt Jew." As regards intolerance, the Christian Churches have had, till recent times, a shocking record. But the Lutheran record is by no means the worst. Nor was it the worst in anti-Nazi resistance ; no Church in Germany resisted noticeably except where Church matters were affected. There was plenty of magnificent German resistance ; it filled whatever space in the concentration camps could be spared from Jews ; but it w&: mainly lay and democratic.—Yours, &c.,

ROSE MACAULAY.