I am grateful to James F. Harris and Jonathan Sperder for comments on an earlier version of this papwer.

* Throughout this article, I have used the unhyphenated spelling “antisemitism.” In the past years, a number of prominent scholars in the field have begun using this spelling. Donald Niewyk, for example, used “antisemitism,” as do Yehuda Bauer, Richard S. Levy, and Susannah Heschel. Heschel's argument, as that of Bauer, is that the hyphenated spelling suggests that there is such a thing as “Semitism,” which people then opposed. In fact, people like Wilhelm Marr, who coined the term “Antisemitismus,” simply constructed a word to express their hatred of Jews in secular, rather than religious terms. (D. L. B.)

1. Scholars and works that tend to de-emphasize antisemitism include Allen, William Sheridan, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town, 1922–1945 (New York, rev. ed., 1984);Google ScholarBrowning, Christopher, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York, 1992);Google Scholar and Kershaw, Ian, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich: Bavaria, 1933–1945 (Oxford, 1983).Google Scholar See also opening comments by Raul Hilberg and Eberhard Jäckel at the symposium sponsored by the United States Holocaust Research Institute in December 1993, as part of the session. “The Holocaust: Where We Are, Where We Need To Go.” On Christian antisemitism, Stephen T. Katz remarked in a recent interview that, “The Jews survived 1,600 years of Christianity … They almost didn't survive four years of World War II. Something different must have happened.” Quoted in Liz McMillen. “The Uniqueness of the Holocaust,” Chronicle of Higher Education (22 June 1994): A 13.

2. Niewyk, Donald, “Solving the ‘Jewish Problem’—Continuity and Change in German Antisemitism, 1871–1945”, Leo Baeck Yearbook (1990): 369.Google Scholar

3. Quoted in Friedman, Saul S., The Oberammergau Passion Play: A Lance Against Civilization (Carbondale, 1984), 119.Google Scholar

4. A note on terminology: I use “antisemitism” to refer to hatred of Jews and Judaism in general, an antagonism that incorporated racialist, pseudo-scientific, economic, religious, and cultural impulses. “anti-Judaism” implies specifically hostility toward Jews and Judaism based on religious issues, while “anti-Jewishness” suggests cultural prejudices. But such distinctions tend to lose their relevance in the context of National Socialism, and the Christian antisemitism that is the subject of discussion here built on and merged with the older forms of hatred.

5. See figures in Gotto, Klaus and Repgen, Konrad, eds., Kirche, Katholiken und Nationalsozialismus (Mainz, 1980), 121.Google Scholar

6. Notable recent contributions on one or the other confession include Barnett, Victoria, For Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler (New York, 1992);Google ScholarDietrich, Donald J., Catholic Citizens in the Third Reich: Psycho-social Princples and Moral Reasoning (New Brunswick, 1988);Google Scholar and Ericksen, Robert P., Theologians under Hitler: Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus and Emanuel Hirsch (New Haven, 1985).Google Scholar The most influential of the studies that survey development in both the Catholic and Protestant churches in Germany under the Nazis are Conway, John S., The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933–45 (New York, 1968);Google ScholarHelmreich, Ernst Christian, The German Churches under Hitler: Background, Struggle, and Epilogue (Detroit, 1979);Google Scholar and for the early period the authoritative volumes by Scholder, Klaus, The Churches and the Third Reich, vol. 1: Preliminary History and the Time of Illusions, 1918–1934; vol. 2: The of Disillusionment: 1934, Barmen and Rome, trans. Bowden, John (Philadelphia, 1987–1988).Google ScholarPhayer's, MichaelProtestant and Catholic Women in Nazi Germany (Detroit, 1990)Google Scholar brings the two confessions together in a productive comparison of the roles their women and women's, organizations played. Koonz, Claudia, in Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family, and Nazi Politics (New York, 1987) deals with both Protestant and Catholic women as well.Google Scholar

7. See essay by Shaver, Judson, “New Testament Roots of Christian Anti-Semitism,” in Friedman, Oberammergau, xvii.Google Scholar “Event if all the textbooks were ‘corrected,’” Rubenstein, Richard L. his pointed out in a sobering passage, “there would still be the Gospels, and they are enough to foster the threat of a murderous hatred of Jews by Christians”;Google ScholarRubenstein, Richard L., After Auschwitz: History, Theology, and Contemporary Judaism, 2nd ed. (Baltimore, 1992), 12.Google Scholar On the anti-Jewishnedd of Christian tradition, see Littell, Franklin H., “Christian Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust,” in Perspectives on the Holocaust, ed. Braham, Randolph L. (Boston, 1983), 44–45.Google Scholar

8. See two-page copy of flyer, “Juda in der Kirche!,” 13 May 1939, no signature [Thuringian German Christians], United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives (USHMMA), RG 11 (Selected records from the “Osobyi” Archive in Moscow, now called the Center for the Preservation of Historical Documentary Collections), RG 11.001M.11 (Records of the SD-Abschnitt Stettin), Reel 80, Fond 1240, Opis 1, Folder 55, 1.

9. Quoted in Shaver, “New Testament Roots,” in Friedman, Oberammergau, 126. Shaver mistakenly gives Faulhaber's first name as Erich instead of Michael.

10. Quoted in Zerner, Ruth, “German Protestant Responses to Nazi Persecution of the Jews,” in Perspectives on the Holocaust, ed. Braham, 63.Google Scholar

11. See Trachtenberg, Joshua, The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew and the Relation to Modern Anti-Semitism (Hartford, 1943); reprinted 1983, especially 120, 175, 186–87, 217–19.Google Scholar

12. For example, a religious instruction book of 1940 quoted Luther's instructions to “set their synagogues and schools on fire, and whatever will not burn, heap dirt upon and cover so that no human ever again will see a stone or a cinder of it.” “Luther's deusches Christentum,’” no author, in Glaube und Tat: Religionsbuch für deutsche Jungen und Mädel, ed. Fliedner, Friedrich (Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1940), 122.Google Scholar

13. See reference to the new history book, Führer und Völker, including an illustration linking Catholic religious with Communists and Jews under the heading “spiritual poison,” in The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich: Facts and Documents Translated from the German, no editor (New York, 1942), 177.Google Scholar

14. Zahn, Gordon C., “Catholic Resistance? A Yes and a No,” in The German Church Struggle and the Holocaust, ed. Littell, Franklin H. and Locke, Hubert G. (Detroit, 1974), 231.Google Scholar

15. Cited in Persecution, 36.

16. All of these incidents appear in Dietrich, Catholic Citizens, 240.

17. See, for example, Wilhelm Schielmeyer to Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller, 1 December 1933, Evangelisches Zentralarchiv Berlin (EZA Berlin) 1/CA/17; Schielmeyer referred to Luke 17: 20–21; John 18: 36–37; and John 8: 44.

18. See complaint from pastor: copy, Pastor Kittmann to Public Prosecutor, Tilsit, 1 April 1937, Tilsit, 1, Bundesarchiv Potsdam (BA Potsdam), DG III 1937–1939, 345.

19. For a description of the German Christian version of the Gospel of John see the statement by the man responsible for the project: Heinz Weidemann, “Mein Kampf um die Erneuerung des religiösen Lebens in der Kirche: ein Rechenschaftsbericht,” [1942,] 4, Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BA Koblenz) R 43 II/165, fiche 4.

20. See “Eröffnung des ‘Instituts zur Erforschung und Beseitigung des jüdischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben,’” Die Nationalkirche, no. 19 (Weimar, 7 05 1939): 213, EZA Berlin 1/C3/174.Google Scholar A considerable amount of information on the Institute is included in the files of the Provinzialsynodalrat der Rheinprovinz A VI, 2, Archiv der Evangelischen Kirche im Rheinland (AEKR Düsseldorf).

21. Copy of “Bekanntmachung über die kirchliche Stellung der evangelischen Juden vom 17. December 1941”, no. 101, A. 1. 292 a, in Kirchliches Gesetz- und Verordnungsblatt, no. 17 (29 December 1941): 117–18, EZA Berlin 50/576, 40.

22. See Zahn, Gordon C., German Catholics and Hitler's Wars: A Study in Social Control (New York, 1962)Google Scholar; and Zahn, “Catholic Resistance” in The German Church, ed. Locke and Littell.

23. See text from Gröber's sermon in Persecution, 36.

24. Quoted in Lewy, Guenter, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, (New York, 1964), 289.Google Scholar

25. Tal, Uriel, “On Modern Lutheranism and the Jews,” Leo Baeck Yearbook (1985): 204.Google Scholar

26. Quoted in ibid., 207.

27. ibid., 208–9.

28. Manuscript by Schairer, Immanuel B., “Die Weltenglocke tönt. Worte vom Warten der Deutschen Christen,” Landeskirchliches Archiv Nürnberg (LKA Nuremberg), KKU 6/IV.Google Scholar

29. Copy, “Bericht des Gemeindekirchenrats der Apostel-Paulus-Gemeinde Berlin-Schöneberg,” signed Pastor Peters, H. Schmidt, Franz Steller (elders), Dr. Bergmann, lawyer, 3 December 1934, Berlin, 3, EZA Berlin 1/A4/55.

30. Pastor Sommerer's remarks are quoted in copy of Schieder, Protestant Lutheran district superintendent to Protestant Lutheran Consistory, Munich, 30 November 1935, Nuremberg, 1, LKA Nuremberg, KKU 6/IV.

31. See, for example, Bishop von Galen's 1939 pastoral greeting at the end of the Spanish Civil War. Quoted in Zahn, German Catholics, 91.

32. “Aufruf zur Gründung des Evangelischen Bundes zur Wahrung der deutschprotestantischen Interessen,” 15 January 1887, in Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Protestantismus (1871–1945) ed. Kupisch, Karl (Hamburg, 1971): 52–54.Google Scholar For later examples, see “Verhandlungsbericht über die Zentralvorstandssitzung des Evang. Bundes am 5. Oktober 1934 in Breslau” and attachment, “Erklärung aus Westfalen zur Zentral-vorstandssitzung des Ev. Bundes”, Archiv des Evangelischen Bunds in Bensheim (EB Bensheim) S. 500.9.140.

33. Quoted in “Protestantismus und völkische Bewegung,” in Germania (5 September 1924), clipping in BA Potsdam, Reichlandbund Collection (RLB) 1836, 42.

34. On the history of the Protestant League itself during the Third Reich, see Fleischmann-Bisten, Walter, “Der Evangelische Bund in der Weimarer Republik und im sog. Dritten Reich (1918–1945),” in Fleischmann-Bisten, and Grote, Heiner, Protestanten auf dem Wege: Geschichte des Evangelischen Bundes (Göttingen, 1986), 85–163.Google Scholar

35. This point is made explicitly in von Alvensleben, “Denkschrift—Volksgemeinschaft trotz Religionsverschiedenheit,” [31 October 1941], BA Koblenz R 43 II/151/fiche 1, 2–23. Other variations in the wording appear, such as on a German Christian flyer: “One Führer, One Reich, One Volk, One positive-Christian church!” Flyer, no author, “ In diesem Zeichen siegen wirl!”, Des Deutschen Volkes Kirche, no. 1 (12 April 1936): 3, Landeskirchenarchiv Bielefeld (LKA Bielefeld) 5,1/291, 2.

36. “Nach der Einigung zwischen Kinder und Leffler. Die interkonfessionelle Nationalkirche im Marsch,” no author, in “Schnellbrief für Glieder der Bekennenden Kirche,” no. 21 (Berlin-Dahle, 1 August 1935): 1, LKA Bielefeld 5,1/554, 2.

37. Pastor Krüger, Gera, speech quoted in “‘Ein Volk—eine Kirche’—Versammlung der Deutschen Christen im ‘Central-Hotel,’” no author, Göttinger Tageblatt, no. 222, 22 September 1936, 4, LKA Bielefeld 5,1/291, 1.

38. Kapferer, Friedrich, “Die dem heutigen Denken möglichen Aussagen über den Urgrund des Seins,”Google Scholar circular of German Christian National Church group, Schwein, (8/9 January 1943), EZA Berlin 1/A4/565.

39. Cited in report Riedel to Protestant Lutheran Superintendent Kulmbach, 27 March 1944, Kulmbach, “Betreff: Bericht über DC-Gemeinde in Kulmbach,” 1, LKA Nuremberg LKR II 246/Bd. IX.

40. See Sperber, Jonathan, Popular Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Princeton, 1984), 233–40.Google Scholar On the fate of the movement in the Third Reich, see Thierfelder, Jörg, “Ökumene der Bedrängten—Die Jahre 1933 bis 1945,” in Evangelisch und ökumenisch— Beiträge zum 100-jährigen Bestechen des Evangelischen Bundes, ed. Maron, Gottfried (Göttingen, 1986), 194.Google ScholarMicklem, Nathaniel refers to the “abortive Katholisch-nationalkirchliche Bewegung” founded at the end of 1935 by Pastor Hütwohl with its headquarters in Essen, and says it “came to nothing”. Nathaniel Micklem, National Socialism and the Roman Catholic Church (London, 1939), 137.Google Scholar

41. Micklem, National Socialism, 209–10.

42. Special edition of Deutsches Christentum (4 September 1938), quoted in Karl Scheuermann, “Der Stand der völkisch-religiös-kirchlichen Auseinandersetzung,” in idem, Aufruhr wider Gott! Der Deutschglaube und die Wahrheitsfrage (Göttingen, 1935), 9.Google Scholar See also flyer, “Deutsche Christen (Nationalkirchliche Einung),” untitled, advertising upcoming address of pastor Friedrich Kapferer, 14 November 1938, in a school in Hildesheim, on “Geeinte christliche Kirche deutscher Nation”. BA Potsdam DG IV 1938–43, 208.

43. Excerpts from Archbishop Hauck'speech with commentary are provided in Dippold, “Monatsbericht der Regierung (Dezember 1934),” 9 January 1935, Ansbach, , in Die kirchliche Lage in Bayern nach den Regierungspräsidentenberichten, 1933–1943, ed. Witetschek, Helmut, vol. 2, Regierungsbezirk Ober- und Mittelfranken, Reihe A: Quellen, vol. 8, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Zeitgeschichte, ed. Repgen, Konrad (Mainz: 1967), 45.Google Scholar

44. See Ziegler, , “Monatsbericht der Regierung (Oktober 1937),” Speyer, 9 November 1937, in Die Kirchliche Lage in Bayern nach den Regierungspräsidentenberichten, 1933–1943, ed. Prantl, Helmut, vol. 5: Regierungsbezirk Pfalz, 1933–1940. Series A: Quellen, vol. 24Google Scholar, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Zeitgeschichte, ed. Morsey, Rudolf (Mainz, 1978), 212.Google Scholar

45. “Declaration,” untitled, signed Weirich, Hymmen, Pastors Niemann, Adler, Hochdahl, and Krahn, April 1933, Münster. LKA Bielefeld 5,1/687,2.

46. “Die Irrlehre der Thüringer Deutschen Christen, die neue Grundlage der Kirche?,” no author, in report, “Wie die Ausbildung unserer zukünftigen Pastoren aussieht wenn Thüringer Deutsche Christen Theologie Professoren werden,” [dated in ink “Anfang 1937?], 3. LKA Bielefeld 5,1/291,1.

47. “Nationalkirche?,” Protestant League 1937, no. 105, EB Bensheim S 500.0.136.

48. Quoted in Micklem, National Socialism, 8.

49. For more information regarding the redistribution to ethnic Germans of goods seized from Jews, see 12 pp. copy of “Eidesstattliche Erklaerung, Edgar Hoffmann,” 3 September 1947, Institut für Zeitgeschichte (IfZ Munich) NO 5125. Additional detail can be found in an eight-page report, “D. Einzelfragen des Osteinsatzes,” signed Greifelt, SS-Brigadeführer, for the Reichsführer SS, Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums; and Dr. Winkler, head of the Haupttreuhandstelle Ost, [undated, but probably late 1940]. IfZ Munich NO 5149. See also Lumans, Valdis O., Himmler's Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933–1945 (Chapel Hill, 1993). 195–98.Google Scholar

50. See, for example, presentation by Pastor Polednik, in “Bericht über die 50. Jahreshauptversammlung des Evangelischen Bundes Sachsen-Anhalt in Naumburg (Saale), 12–14. Juni 1938,” 7, EB Bensheim 3.05.19; and Wilhelm Staedel, “Die Volkskirche der Siebenbürger Sachsen. Vortrag, gehalten im Rahmen der ‘Kulturwoche,’ welche im Herbst Herbst 1960 von der Landsmannschaft der Siebenbürger Sachsen in Zusammenarbeit mit ihrem Patenland Nordrhein-Westfalen veranstaltet worden ist,” 1, BA Koblenz, Nachlass Staedel (NL 252)/18.

51. Copy, Generalkommissar in Reval to Reichskommissar in Riga, 21 August 1943, USHMMA, RG—18.002M (Latvian Central State Historical Archive, Riga), Reel 2, Fond R69, Opis 1A, Folder 6, 173.

52. Der Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, signed in Vertretung, Müller, SS-Grüppenführer, “An die Reichsleitung der NSDAP—Hauptamt für Volkstumsfragen,” 18 April 1944, Berlin, BA Koblenz R59/65/fiche 1/25–27.52.

53. Lumans, Himmler's Auxiliaries, 29.

54. “Polen und die Judenfrage,” no author, in Glaube und Heimat, 8 March 1936, Nr. 10. Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts Bonn (AA Bonn) R 82089.

55. Szwajger, Adina Blady, I Remember Nothing More: The Warsaw Children's Hospital and the Jewish Resistance, trans. Darowska, Tasja and Stok, Danusia (New York, 1988), 10.Google Scholar

56. Wells, Leon Weliczker, The Death Brigade (The Janowska Road) (New York, 1963), 125.Google Scholar

57. Heilbrunn, Stefania, Children of Dust and Heaven: A Collective Memoir ([Johannesburg] 1978), 75.Google Scholar

58. Staedel to Beyer, 23 April 1963, 3, BA Koblenz, NL 252/no. 13.

59. See BA Koblenz, NL 252, throughout.

60. Copy of Lammers, Chief of Reich Chancellery, to Governors of Sudentengau, Warthegau, Danzig-West-Prussia, Vienna, Lower Danube, Upper Danube, Steiermark, Kärnten, Tirol and Vorarlberg, and Salzburg, RK. 601 Bg, 25 September 1941, BA Koblenz R 4311/152/fiche 3, 103–4.

61. Der Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, signed I. V. Müller SS–Gruppenführer, to the Höheren SS– und Polizeifürer im Generalgouvernement—SS Obergruppenführer Krüger, 16 January 1943. BA Koblenz R59/65/fiche 1/28–29.

62. Der Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, signed I. V. Müller, SS–Grüppenführer, “An die Reichsletung der NSDAP—Hauptamt für Volkstumsfragen—z. Hd. von SS–Brigadeführer Cassel,” 18 April 1944. BA Koblenz R59/65/fiche 1/25–27.

63. Edelmann, “Wesen und Aufgabe der Feldseelsorge,” 1941, Bundesarchiv—Militärarchiv, Freiburg i. Br. (BA-MA Freiburg), RH 15/282, 22–36.

64. ibid.

65. Edelmann, OKH/AHA/Gruppe S, “Anstellungs- und Beförderungsbestimmungen für Wehrmachtpfarrer,” [1940], 1, BA-MA Freiburg, N282/v.8.

66. OKH to Dohrmann, 29 April 1936, BA-MA Freiburg, RW 12 1/2, 46.

67. See Zahn, German Catholics, 56.

68. Qutoed in ibid., 154.

69. The Evangelisches Feldgesangbuch (Berlin, 1939).Google Scholar

70. Stahn, “[Wesen und Aufgabe der Feldseelsorge,’ Vortrag am 9. Dezember 1940 beim Kriegspfarrerlehrgang im OKH,” BA-MA Freiburg, N282/v. 11.

71. An outstanding account of relations between Jews and Catholics in Germany's first decades is Uriel Tal, “The Kulturkampf and the Status of the Jews in Germany,” in idem, Christians and Jews in Germany: Religion, Politics, and Ideology in the Second Reich, 1870–1914, trans. Jacobs, Noah Jonathan (Ithaca, 1969), 81–120:Google Scholar See also Grieve, Hermann, Theologie und Ideologie: Katholizismus und Judentum in Deutschland und Österreich (1918–1935) (Heidelberg, 1969), for an analysis of the next phase;Google ScholarBlackbourn, David, “Roman Catholics, the Centre Party and Anti-Semitism in Imperial Germany,” in Nationalist and Racialist Movements in Britain and Germany before 1914, ed. Kennedy, Paul and Nicholls, Anthony (London, 1981), 106–29;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Dietrich, Catholic Citizens, 233–34.

72. Here too, useful background comes from Uriel Tal, “Protestantism and Judaism in Liberal Perspective,” in idem, Christians and Jews in Germany, 160–222.

73. I am grateful to Professor Susannah Heschel for bringing this fact to my attention.

74. Schweitzer, Albert, “Preface,” in Hochhuth, Rolf, The Deputy, trans. Richard, and Winston, Clara (New York, 1964), 7.Google Scholar

75. Zahn, German Catholics; Lewy, The Catholic Church; Littell, Franklin H., The Crucifixion of the Jews, (New York, 1975);Google ScholarProlingheuer, Hans, Wir sind in die Irre gegangen. Die Schuld der Kirche unterm Hakenkreuz, (Cologne, 1987);Google ScholarGerlach, Wolfgang, Als die Zeugen schwiegen. Bekennende Kirche und die Juden, (Berlin, 1987)Google Scholar; Trutz Rendtorff, “Schuld und Verantwortung 1938/1988. Gedanken zum christlichen Umgang mit der Vergangenheit,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, no. 1 (February 1989): 109–24.

76. See, for example, Kershaw, Ian, “The Persecution of the Jews and German Popular Opinion in the Third Reich,” Leo Baeck Yearbook (1981): 284.Google Scholar

77. See Lewy, Catholic Church, 315.

78. Excerpted copy, Rönck, President of the Thuringian Protestant Church, to Muhs, State Secretary, Ministry of Church Affairs, 30 December 1943, Eisenach; sent to Lammers's office, 2 December 1944, BA Koblenz R 43 II/172, fiche 5/210–12.

79. See discussion in Dietrich, Catholic Citizens, 224–33.

80. Franz Bergmann to Deputy Chief Command of the Sixth Military District, Chief of Staff Division, Münster, 8 September 1941, Neheim-Ruhr, Ba-MA Freiburg, RH 14/ 46, 47.

81. For examples of Protestant dealings with the issue, see circular “Beschwerde des Kirchmeisters Schröer,” 1 August 1935, LKA Bielefeld 4,55/B/22,4. See also Pastor Walter Vogler to Superintendent Clarenbach, 26 May 1940, Welver-Hamm (Westphalia), LKA Bielefeld 4,55/A/46. For reference to Catholic issuance of baptismal certificates, see Zahn, , “Catholic Resistance?,” in German Church Struggle, ed. Littell, and Locke, , 226.Google Scholar

82. See Dietrich, Catholic Citizens, 237.

83. “Erklärung der kirchlich-theologischen Sozietät in Württemberg vom 9 April 1946,” signed Diem, Christian Berg, Heinrich Fausel, Kurt Müller, Paul Schempp, 1, LKA Bielefeld 5,1/686/1.