Already before the fall of the Third Reich, the Allies determined to excise all remnants of fascism from the German public sphere.Footnote 1 The ensuing denazification, fundamentally agreed at the Potsdam conference in July-August 1945, was often severe in the Soviet zone as the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (Sovetskaia Voennaia Administratsiia v Germanii [SVAG]) and their allies in the Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands [KPD])—the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands [SED]) from April 1946—wished to conduct a far-reaching, exemplary process.Footnote 2 Denazification was an instrument to remake eastern Germany by introducing a “cultural renewal” in education, the bureaucracy, legislature, and economy inter alia.
“Anti-fascists,” sometimes but not always in collaboration with the Soviet, British, and American occupiers, propelled spontaneous and unsystematic denazification from April 1945. The state governments in the Eastern zone legislated denazification from July 1945, while the Soviets intervened to radicalize or reinvigorate the process at different stages, especially in late 1946 and early 1947 with the belated but often rigorous application of the Allied Control Commission Directive 24 of January 12, 1946, and from August 16, 1947 with SVAG Order 201.Footnote 3 Under the auspices of Order 201, German communists in the KPD/SED expanded their control to dominate the majority of all appointments to tribunals. By the formal conclusion of denazification in mid-1948, one report stated that 512,990 people had been dismissed from their positions.Footnote 4 A July 19, 1948 document from the Saxon-Anhalt government noted that over 60,000 former Nazi party members or officials in satellite organizations had lost their jobs.Footnote 5
Set against this backdrop, the present article addresses how two Protestant churches in Saxony-Anhalt prosecuted denazification. The former Prussian uniate Church Province of Saxony (Evangelische Kirche der Kirchenprovinz Sachsens [KPS]) and the, also uniate, State Church of Anhalt (Landeskirche Anhalts [LKA]) set their own agenda. The German churches generally enjoyed significant autonomy from the Allied military administrations.Footnote 6 In the Soviet zone, the occupation authorities largely refrained from interference in church affairs, predominantly for reasons of Bündnis- and Deutschlandpolitik.Footnote 7 In spite of—or because of—this freedom, denazification was significantly limited; there was no “new order” after World War II in terms of personnel. Institutional continuity ensured the presence of former right-wing sympathizers, sometimes into the 1960s and beyond.Footnote 8 While a number of pastors eventually were dismissed from office, transferred or placed on probation, the majority of former Nazi party members and/or German Christians remained. One exception was the State Church of Hessen, which was comparatively well denazified with 43.6 percent of all pastors suspended or dismissed.Footnote 9
The German Christian movement, by way of explanation, was a heterodox faction in the Protestant churches during the Third Reich. It was heavily influenced by Nazism, sought a rapprochement with the state, at least initially, and upheld racial prejudices that led to the bowdlerization of the bible, including the removal of the entire Old Testament and the de-judization of sections of the New Testament.Footnote 10 Many German Christians were members of the Nazi party and/or its satellite organizations.
This essay investigates institutional decision-making first. The two churches in Saxony-Anhalt convened denazification proceedings that were limited in scope. The liberal policy of “freedom of religion” in the Soviet zone held, and the occupiers did not sanction any intervention into church affairs despite the agitation of some German communists. The churches vigorously defended their independence against such threats, and their proceedings served to maintain the integrity of the sacred sphere and the Christian witness. Nonetheless, there were differences between the KPS and LKA. Where the Saxon-Anhalt government criticized the KPS's “lenient” denazification, the LKA escaped sanction for similar results. The state's approval or censure was commensurate with its influence in the church proceedings.
The leadership of the Church Province of Saxony rejected government pressure for three reasons: purported quantitative and qualitative differences between church and state conceptions of denazification, and an emphasis on forgiveness. Judgments were ultimately not based on Nazi party membership per se, but rather on membership in the German Christian movement. While some German Christian pastors were also party members, their affiliation to the former was often more damning. It is more accurate, therefore, to describe church denazification as “de-German-Christianization.”Footnote 11
The analysis then turns to examine the success of “de-German-Christianization” in uniting the post-war pastorate and allaying the so-called “church struggle” (Kirchenkampf) between German Christians and their (largely orthodox) antagonists in the Confessing Church (Bekennende Kirche [BK]). The Kirchenkampf dominated the internal politics of most of the twenty-eight state churches (Landeskirchen) under National Socialism. Pastors separated into factions, the most prominent of which were the German Christians, the Confessing Church, and the so-called neutrals. The German Christians held sway in some churches, the Confessing Church predominated in others, and yet in others there was a stalemate.Footnote 12 The discussion moves to the level of the parish, where the case study of an individual pastor in Anhalt, Erich Elster, is instructive regarding the “conversion” demanded of German Christians after the war. It is evident that, while many clergymen reformed, heterodox practices died hard at the grassroots, and “de-German-Christianization” was by no means comprehensive. Although the KPS and the LKA extended “forgiveness” and held events to re-educate and unify the pastorate, there was little unity in either church.
This study is important for four reasons. Firstly, many historians have noted that both the Catholic and Protestant churches assumed critical importance in society after the World War II. The churches enjoyed an unprecedented degree of prestige and moral authority, effectively becoming advocates for the people.Footnote 13 According to the census figures of October 1946, over ninety-percent of the population in the Soviet zone identified as “Christian,” subscribing to either the Protestant Church or the Catholic Church.Footnote 14 This statistic, whatever the fundamental nature of individual belief, reveals that Christianity and the Christian churches occupied influential cultural and social stations in the post-war world. Secondly, the Kirchenkampf had nevertheless taken a moral toll on the churches, if it had not obscured the Christian message in toto. The German Christians had dominated the leaderships of the Thuringian and Anhalt churches, for example. In light of this, the churches required denazification to confer credibility and establish their legitimacy as a moral guide for believers. How they dealt with the past was among their sternest and most important tasks.Footnote 15 A church council member in Thuringia remarked that the post-war Church would not be capable of social action if the German Christian issue were not settled expeditiously.Footnote 16 Thirdly, the status of German Christians after the war, and their relationship to members of the Confessing Church, remains under-researched. The German Christians were a significant constituency in the Third Reich and have been the subject of much scholarly attention, albeit uneven. Doris Bergen, Björn Mensing, Rainer Lächele, and Clemens Vollnhals touch on aspects of their legacy in West Germany, but they do not discuss the situation in the Soviet zone, nor do they explore German Christian/Confessing Church relations after 1945 in any depth.Footnote 17 Lastly, there is scant literature on the post-war churches in Saxony-Anhalt, while the methodology adopted here—moving the focus of investigation from the regional to the local level—is rarely in evidence anywhere.Footnote 18 Such an approach allows insight into post-war politics, religion, and mentalité. Surely the acid test for the success of denazification ought to encompass the perspectives of individual German Christians and members of the Confessing Church.
I. Denazification in the Churches
German Christians were prominent in the Protestant churches in Saxony-Anhalt during the Third Reich, and as elsewhere the post-war authorities sought to purify the pastorate. The American and then Soviet occupiers indulged the churches freedom to denazify, and they also blunted the attempts of some German communists to intervene in religious affairs. The Church Province of Saxony, in particular, faced considerable criticism for “lenient” sentences.
The Nazi party member and German Christian Friedrich Peter assumed the bishop's office in the Church Province in October 1933. He swiftly reordered the church according to the “leader principle” (Führerprinzip) and, despite his departure in 1936 following the agitation of Confessing Church members, the German Christians maintained a substantial presence.Footnote 19 In June 1938, German Christians numbered 147 out of 999 pastors, though there was a stalemate during the war given a balance of power with the Confessing Church and the neutrals.Footnote 20 After 1945, the authorities took careful stock, and according to figures supplied in November 1946 by Dr. Kunisch, the head of the Saxon-Anhalt Department for Church Affairs (Abteilung für Kirchenwesen [AKW]), 170 clergymen and officials in church employment had been former party members out of a total population of approximately 1,400.Footnote 21
In the Anhalt church, German Christians dominated leadership positions from an early date.Footnote 22 They had taken control of the church council in 1933, and in 1939 introduced a canon that banned Jewish converts from participating in public worship and partaking in communion. Rudolf Wilkendorf proclaimed himself Church President with unimpeachable powers in 1944. His ally and the head of the pastorate, August Körner, rigorously enforced church discipline and fidelity to the German Christian program. He was, according to post-war testimonies at least, an excitable and combative man who had tirelessly attacked antagonists in the Confessing Church. Approximately one half of the total post-war pastorate had belonged to the most radical German Christian faction, the so-called “National Union” (Nationalkirchliche Einung).Footnote 23
The American occupiers collaborated with Confessing Church and neutral pastors to remove German Christians from leadership positions upon their arrival in Saxony-Anhalt in April-May 1945.Footnote 24 The Anhalt church council passed denazification regulations on October 26, 1945 after distributing questionnaires to clergy and employees, requiring all to declare former memberships and allegiances.Footnote 25 The post-war head of the Anhalt pastorate, Georg Fiedler, requested declarations from former German Christian pastors in two circulars, one dated October 26, 1945, the other November 27, 1945. The intent was to separate “activists” from “nominal” members on the basis of connections to the German Christian movement and the Nazi party. Each individual was required to conform to the new order of the church, to profess orthodox belief as presented in the bible and confession, and to partake in pastoral communion.Footnote 26
Judgments were reached by a commission staffed by four members of the church council and a delegate from each of the four political parties (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands [SPD], KPD, Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands [CDU], Liberal-Demokratische Partei Deutschlands [LDPD]). The tribunal sat twice formally, on November 9, 1945 and February 8, 1946, and additional hearings proceeded when evidence allowed and when individual churchmen returned from Allied captivity. There were three sentences handed down: German Christians who had occupied positions of leadership were to be forthwith released from service; other, less prominent members were to be transferred to another post pending a sincere confession; and, lastly, “nominal” members were to be left in office, also on the condition of a sincere confession.Footnote 27 The November 9, 1945 sitting decreed the removal of seven church employees, including one pastor.Footnote 28 By May 1946, three further churchmen had been discharged, while six others had been transferred to different parishes.Footnote 29
The KPS leadership passed legislation to establish a denazification commission in January 1946.Footnote 30 The commission oversaw two tribunals and comprised a chairman and two members (one jurist, one churchman). German Christians in leadership positions were slated for immediate dismissal, though all former German Christians, especially “activists,” were required to stand trial.Footnote 31 As of June 28, 1946, forty-one clergy and thirty-four employees had stood before the church commission and a number of cases were ongoing. Twenty-five pastors had been suspended from their duties temporarily, or relocation to another parish was pending; the commission elected to retain the defendant in office in almost all cases.Footnote 32 By November 1946, nineteen cases remained undecided, while three more had been opened.Footnote 33 According to state figures, the commission discharged four churchmen altogether, transferred six to other posts, relocated thirteen superintendents to ordinary parishes after demotion, placed four pastors on probation, and advised “re-education” courses for approximately ninety others.Footnote 34 The church opened few prosecutions after 1946 despite secular demands, and its administration office, the Konsistorium, formally closed proceedings after discussions with Dr. Kunisch and Saxon-Anhalt Minister President Erhard Hübener on November 28, 1947 and December 15, 1947.Footnote 35
The secular authorities–the Soviet occupiers and the German communists in state offices–certainly disapproved of the denazification results in the churches, and were well aware that former German Christians and Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei [NSDAP] members remained in office. This was the case throughout the Soviet zone, and is perhaps best reflected in a Thuringian report, sent in late 1946 from the head of the Propaganda Section of the Soviet Military Administration in Thuringia to the head of the Information and Propaganda Section of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany:
Under the Nazi regime the [Thuringian] church was completely awash with reactionary elements. Even now scarcely any efforts are being made to cleanse the church of them. The present-day clergy gives an outward show of purging itself of former members of the “German Christians,” the most reactionary part of the former clergy. But as reactionary elements are dismissed, new ones are admitted in their place.Footnote 36
The Soviets did not intervene in Thuringia, or in Saxony-Anhalt for that matter. Concerned with a “unifying” Bündnispolitik and the separation between church and state, which would promote the KPD/SED agenda while also keeping Soviet options open vis-à-vis the West, the proclaimed “freedom of religion” extended to church independence in denazification matters.Footnote 37
Churchmen in the Church Province of Saxony were, nevertheless, compelled to defend their verdicts from communist critiques that pushed for the removal of all “compromised” church officials. In February 1947, Minister President Hübener sent his brother-in-law, the bishop of the Church Province, Ludolf Müller, a personal letter expressing concern at the perceived lack of denazification in the church. He condemned the retention of so many former German Christian pastors, among whom even men who had celebrated Hitler as the greatest Christian who had ever lived. Hübener contended that the reticence to denazify undermined the church's relationship with secular authorities: even officials who had formerly advocated the independence of the religious process had recently come to re-evaluate this opinion.Footnote 38 Just over two weeks later, representatives of both the KPS and the LKA met with Dr. Kunisch to discuss the prospect of trying church cases before secular tribunals. The president of the Konsistorium, Lothar Kreyssig, brusquely rebuffed the proposal and in a subsequent letter alleged that any change in policy would create considerable unrest. He argued that the church leadership had introduced harsh measures, such as the removal of party members from senior positions, out of loyalty to the state authorities and despite fundamental theological reservations. The entrenchment of guidelines on February 15, 1946 was a clear testament to the church's commitment to excise fascist influences, he continued, while the accused had already been tried and verdicts handed down; retrying cases would violate ne bis in idem.Footnote 39
The Saxon-Anhalt Ministry of the Interior continued to put pressure on the leadership of the Church Province. In June 1947, a letter to church hierarchs indicated that action was “urgent,” and the state denazification commission (Säuberungsausschuss) would forthwith investigate church cases.Footnote 40 The Konsistorium responded with alarm: the church must have responsibility for religious life and any intervention would greatly impair church and state relations.Footnote 41 The secular threat again came to nothing, however. There was no interference and prelates rebuffed subsequent complaints.Footnote 42
The Anhalt church did not suffer the same agitation from the state government. In fact, the secular authorities approved the church's denazification process. This was not because the Anhalt church dismissed a greater number of pastors: only one-tenth of former NSDAP members lost their jobs in Anhalt. This was approximately the same percentage as in the Thuringian Evangelical Church, whose denazification policy was subjected to vitriolic censure often.Footnote 43 According to state figures in November 1946, of the twenty clergymen in the Anhalt church who had been party members and the twelve who had been affiliated to Nazi satellite organizations, two had been dismissed, four relocated and two demoted. There were thirty-six other employees of the church who had been party members, and of these one had been fired. This was adjudged a satisfactory result, and the Department for Church Affairs accepted that those who remained in church office were “acceptable” (tragbar).Footnote 44
The participation of representatives from the anti-fascist parties was fundamental to secular approval in Anhalt. The representatives drafted questionnaires for distribution among the pastorate and sat on the tribunal, possessing insofar an important advisory role. The church and state authorities were also in regular contact. A member of the church council, for instance, assured the Department for Church Affairs in September 1945 that the questionnaires had been disseminated and charges were pending.Footnote 45 In a letter dated December 12, 1946, another council member responded to a state missive of November 29 and advised that recent proceedings had acquitted three pastors and two church officials. He provided rationales, including the two officials' positive attitudes to the SED.Footnote 46 In sum, the secular authorities were concerned primarily with participation. This was bloc politics at work in church denazification. The KPD/SED was able to partake in and influence the Anhalt proceedings through representatives on the tribunals. The leadership of the Church Province, on the other hand, did not invite the participation of party functionaries and conducted a wholly independent process.
II. The Animating Principles of “De-German-Christianization” in the KPS
It is tempting to posit that the histories, and in particular the past affiliations, of tribunal members predicted the leniency of the churches' denazification in some measure. To wit, given the sentences handed down, one might assume that former Nazi party members and/or German Christians occupied influential post-war positions on the tribunals or in the church leadership. This was not the case, however. Church hierarchs in Anhalt and the Church Province oversaw denazification, and several had firm connections to the Confessing Church. In Anhalt, Pastor Georg Fiedler handled pastoral and theological matters, and his remit extended to denazification. Fiedler had guided a parish in Dessau during the Third Reich, and led the Confessing Church training facility (Predigerseminar) in Dessau until its dissolution in 1937.Footnote 47 Another church council member and pastor, Martin Müller, had been the chairman of the “Pastors' Emergency League” (Pfarrernotbund) in Anhalt in 1933, and from 1934 to 1945 had been the chairman of the Anhalt leadership council (Bruderrat) of the Confessing Church.Footnote 48
In the Church Province, Bishop Müller and Konsistorium President Kreyssig loomed large, and their influence on the formulation and execution of denazification policy is unmistakeable. As revealed by correspondence discussed in the previous section, Kreyssig mediated the church's interests and dealt frankly with the state authorities; time and again, he defended the church's lenience with former German Christians. He had been no party member, nor a Nazi sympathizer, nor a fence sitter. Born 1898 in Flöha, Saxony, Kreyssig served in the World War I, trained as a lawyer, joined the Confessing Church in 1934 and remained active in it during the Third Reich. He was a judge in Brandenburg from 1937 and confronted Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler about euthanizing the mentally ill in 1940.Footnote 49 He retired to his farm at Hohenferchesar in Brandenburg two years later, and returned to public service in 1945 as a judge in Potsdam before accepting the presidency of the Konsistorium the following year.Footnote 50 Bishop Müller too had been active in the Confessing Church. Born 1882 in Kalbe (Milde), he assumed the superintendence of Eichsfeld in 1927 and joined the Bruderrat of the Confessing Church in 1933. He was suspended from his superintendence one year later on account of vocal opposition to Nazism. Imprisoned briefly in 1937, he remained in the Confessing Church through to the end of the war. As a pastor, he did, nonetheless, give the oath of allegiance (Treueid) to Adolf Hitler in 1938 after initial reluctance. This seems a decision calculated to ease political pressure, and particularly one intended to plane disruptions to parish life. It is difficult to read much further into the oath-taking, and surely too much to invest it with explanatory power for the KPS's mild denazification.Footnote 51
Instead of personnel, therefore, three considerations ensured that the Church Province of Saxony rejected state involvement and prosecuted “lenient” denazification: it alleged both quantitative and quantitative differences between state and church processes, and emphasized forgiveness within the church. Firstly, the Church Province presented itself as an opponent of National Socialism. Lothar Kreyssig described the church not only as the sole institution to avoid “co-ordination” (Gleichschaltung) with the Nazi state, but also as the singular source of effective “active and passive” resistance. He understood the entire period of the Third Reich as a “self-purification” in a letter to the state government:
Denazification, an instrument of internal purification, actually began with the Kirchenkampf in 1933, and the unresolved 12 year struggle led to a complete separation of spirits [the German Christian movement and the Confessing Church] . . . The church in 1945 had [therefore] already experienced a 12 year process of self-purification.Footnote 52
As noted above, Kreyssig was living evidence for Christian resistance to Nazism and the persecution that some had endured at Nazi hands. The end of the Third Reich and the German Christian movement was moreover in one sense “self-purification” insofar as it left the Confessing Church to direct post-war Protestantism. The German Christians, further, had not secured the upper hand in the KPS as in other churches. Only a few German Christians remained faithful until the bitter end: almost all had renounced the movement and Nazism at least outwardly. The chaff had been stripped away; the grain remained.
On this basis, the leadership of the Church Province posited a quantitative distinction between the church and state processes. The Konsistorium questioned the Interior Ministry in July 1947: “after the enemy's victory in 1945, where is the secular administration that had, like the church, comprised scarcely more than ten percent of party members?”Footnote 53 The claim that Christians had resisted the Nazi state also led to the impression that the two were antagonists; National Socialist elements in the church had subverted the essence of Christianity, and the church process was thus “factually” and “legally” different from secular denazification.Footnote 54
Secondly, there was a theology of church and state that assumed a qualitative difference between religious and secular denazification. With some understatement Bishop Müller admitted that results of the church's proceedings might yield different outcomes to measures adopted in the secular sphere. He indicated that resolutions might even go beyond state regulations given that the clerical leadership viewed the responsibilities of clergy to the population as much greater than those of bureaucrats.Footnote 55 Religious considerations must take precedence over worldly standards. According to a letter sent to the Interior Ministry in July 1947, prelates allowed the state overall, titular supervision of denazification, but the church would remain independent, holding forth the Christian gospel as its touchstone.Footnote 56 The church owed fealty to God alone, and it was not concerned with placating secular government.Footnote 57 Kreyssig opined that the state could not guide the church's course because it did not have the best interests of the religious community at heart. He asserted that no political pressure could force clergymen to act contrary to the dictates of their own conscience.Footnote 58
The emphasis of the church was, then, on “purifying” the pastorate of former political “activists.” The KPS—and the LKA—implicated former German Christians, while party members (almost all designated “nominal”) often escaped censure.Footnote 59 Where secular denazification was predicated on NSDAP membership, the process among the pastorate focused on former German Christians. In this sense, denazification was actually “de-German-Christianization.” The corruption of the Christian gospel provided the basis for indictment in the KPS. An “active” German Christian had publicly harmed the gospel by his propagation of heterodoxy and by his neglect of the pastoral “obligation to love.”Footnote 60
Party membership was often excused if the defendant had served the Church faithfully in some measure. This was no exact science and, in a letter to Minister President Hübener in early 1947, Müller admitted that it was difficult to know what was the appropriate evaluation method. He acknowledged that the ideas of Nazism had found significant resonance in the heady days of 1933 and 1934. Any pastor may have joined the Nazi Party to achieve laudable goals, including the evangelization of the German Volk.Footnote 61 Many “faithful” pastors had indeed viewed National Socialism as a vehicle for realizing long-standing Christian hopes for re-Christianization.Footnote 62 This “evangelizing” intent was often accepted as a mitigating circumstance, as was a literal interpretation of Romans 13 (regarding obedience to authority) and an affiliation to the “Berlin German Christians” (who were considered more moderate than the Nationalkirchliche Einung).Footnote 63 It was also held that many pastors had been deceived in their earnest belief in the veracity of Point 24 of the Nazi party program, which postulated the party resided on the foundation of “positive Christianity.”Footnote 64 The anti-Semitic implications of this stipulation carried little importance. In sum, Müller allowed considerable leeway to and had a certain understanding for former party members and/or German Christians: “they are generally not the worst people, those who sought to surpass traditional religion and to attain and uphold new possibilities for the Christian message.”Footnote 65 So it was that a pastor who was a former party member would only be prosecuted if he or she had “damaged” the church community, not for NSDAP membership in and of itself.
Thirdly, the ideas of forgiveness and rehabilitation framed denazification. It was crucially important to Müller that each individual decide to part ways with Nazism and/or the German Christian movement and recognize his former “diabolical shackling.”Footnote 66 Forgiveness followed penitence in almost all cases, and the church sought to retrain “compromised” churchmen. The KPS review commission preferred “reconditioning,” and many pastors—who “elsewhere would have been dismissed”—were permitted opportunities to prove themselves.Footnote 67 The hearing itself provided a forum for dialogue between the defendant and members of the church council, and the verdict was an act of “pastoral care” premised on the common good. Individual repentance was required, and this was enough to maintain the credibility of the clergy and the Christian message.Footnote 68 At heart, therefore, the process was founded on a theology of public responsibility. As Kreyssig wrote to Kunisch in July 1946, it was essential that the community received orthodox teaching faithful to scripture in the wake of Nazism and the theological corruption wrought by German Christians.Footnote 69 The greatest priority was the cure of souls who had been led astray, and the “broken trust” between churchmen and their communities had to be overcome as soon as possible.Footnote 70
The rehabilitation of former German Christians was attempted through seminars and teaching programs. There were four training seminars for sixty churchmen in Wernigerode and Hauteroda in early 1946, each lasting two weeks, and a training conference in Gladigau in the Altmark from August 30 to September 1, 1948 that all former German Christian pastors were required to attend.Footnote 71 These events offered participants both theological and practical guidance that conformed to Martin Luther's rules of oratio (prayer) and meditatio (meditation). The third, tentatio (struggle), had been embodied in the Kirchenkampf, which the Provost of the Altmark evaluated as forgotten by most in a report dated April 17, 1949.Footnote 72 This representation reveals just how anxious the church was to close the book on the past and focus on the practicalities of pastoral service.
The Anhalt church council, too, placed considerable import on organized meetings for former German Christians. These gatherings were likewise obligatory and considered an urgent initiative for the revitalization of the pastorate.Footnote 73 One such retreat was held in Stecklenberg in January 1947. More overtly than in corresponding events in the KPS, content was offered from a “clear Confessing Church point of view” that aimed to convince German Christians of their “false path” (Irrweg) and of the need to change.Footnote 74 The speakers, who included Georg Fiedler, dwelt at length on the theme of solo Christo (Christ alone), as they identified “religion without Christ” as the tentatio of the twentieth century. Underlying this emphasis was a reliance on Martin Luther's 95 theses and the resolutions of the Confessing Church at Barmen in 1934. It is not surprising that the Anhalt church council sought legitimacy from the founder of Protestantism—also the architect of a German triumph—as well as the Barmen Declaration, itself understood as testament to church resistance in the Third Reich. As Fiedler maintained, the theological work of the pastorate was to be guided by “Mission Barmen.”Footnote 75
Apart from elaborations on the form of the liturgy and advice regarding sermon preparation, for example, one lesson expounded on the Fall of Man related in Genesis 3. In this, Fiedler drew the conclusion that the Fall was the consequence of Adam and Eve's aspiration to equality with God; grace though, he went on, was available to humankind through the sacrifice of Christ, the “second Adam.” Fiedler later sermonized on the temptations of Christ relayed in Matthew 4 and the representation of the Apostle Paul's vision and his “thorn” in 2 Corinthians 12. The application of these messages—the conceit of humankind with its delusions of self-aggrandizement, its weakness and the possibility of redemption through the sinless Christ—could not have been lost on the audience. The idea of strength in weakness, in particular, as expressed in 2 Corinthians 12, struck a keen contrast with the German Christian conception of a militant church grafted to the stem of a strong state. Fielder in fact expressed prayer as the only weapon in combating Luther's concept of Anfechtung.Footnote 76 For the church authorities in Saxony-Anhalt, the touchstone of the success of these seminars was mere attendance, which tacitly implied the participants' acceptance of the churches' theological agendas, and this, in addition to the submission of declarations in the Anhalt church, was the extent of obligations incumbent upon former German Christians.
To some degree, nonetheless, the KPS leadership at least was disingenuous in pressing the priority of Christian forgiveness. “Forgiveness” certainly preserved the integrity of the pastorate as the threat of state intervention loomed large, and it also ensured that the church could meet its pastoral obligations with as much manpower as possible. Denazification was not the most important post-war consideration of the KPS, or the LKA for that matter. Instead, the emphasis of the post-war churches was internal unity and the Christian mission to the German people.Footnote 77 The dual concerns of “public credibility” (öffentliche Vertrauenswürdigkeit) and pastoral care were foremost.Footnote 78 While the KPS authorities argued that the “purification” of clergy was a central component in ensuring that the church offered a legitimate moral witness to the wider community, the reality was that there were insufficient replacements, and dismissals would have left communities without clerical succor.Footnote 79 One way to do this was to keep pastors in office and offer “re-education.” Kreyssig admitted as much in June 1946 when he stated that the lack of pastors in the church imposed limits on the sanctions available to the tribunals and the oversight commission.Footnote 80
It is apparent, following from this, that the differences between church and state denazification were not as clear as prelates represented them. As in the churches, the secular process was not always governed by strict ideological imperatives. For instance, state involvement in and endorsement of the LKA proceedings, via political party representation on the tribunal, revealed that both institutions were open to tactical compromises. Otherwise, for the purposes of secular denazification, the initial state definition of “active” and “nominal” former NSDAP members throughout the Soviet zone was ambiguous at best, and functionaries sometimes eschewed a comprehensive purge.Footnote 81 As in the churches, there was often an insufficiently qualified, experienced, or trained cadre to assume specialized postings vacated by former NSDAP members. This was especially true in education in 1945 and 1946. By December 31, 1946, 3,810 former party members remained in Saxon-Anhalt classrooms (of a total 16,009 teachers). While Soviet intervention ensured that many of these former NSDAP members did eventually suffer denazification measures, other sectors of public life remained untouched.Footnote 82 The medical system and logistics sector were virtually unaffected, and many economic and financial experts escaped sanction, as did former party members in prominent law and order positions.Footnote 83 The SED also rehabilitated and re-employed a significant number of former party members in the late 1940s.Footnote 84 The KPD/SED was primarily interested in control, the establishment of socialist hegemony and social re-ordering, even if it meant restraining comprehensive denazification. This expediency mirrored some of what was happening in the churches.
III. “De-German-Christianization” in the Parishes
The Anhalt church's approach to the Nazi past was somewhat different from that of the Church Province of Saxony. As well as training seminars that emphasized theological re-orientation, the church council demanded declarations from all pastors who had had some connection to the German Christian movement or Nazism. In a limited sense, it at least acknowledged that the church had fostered the German Christians and divided pastorate, and it sought to overcome this division through an appeal to the Christian conscience of clergy.Footnote 85 Where the Church Province focused on the public presentation of the Christian message, the Anhalt church averred transformation in the pastorate from the inside out, if only among former German Christians.
The case of Erich Elster was typical of “de-German-Christianization” in Anhalt. Elster's experience encapsulated the adjustments required of many German Christians in the post-war church.Footnote 86 Elster was born on January 17, 1890 in Zerbst, a small administrative centre in Anhalt. In 1914, he was drafted into the German Army and he served with distinction until the armistice in 1918.Footnote 87 After hostilities, Elster passed the first theology examination in Dessau and was formally ordained in 1920 after the second examination.Footnote 88 Elster took over the care of two communities in the area of Dessau, Ziebigk and Auferstehung, in 1928.Footnote 89 He remained in office at Auferstehung until 1961.
The vivid memories Elster accrued on the Western front during World War I informed the rest of his life. His affinity for militarism and staunch belief in Germany's destiny compelled him to become one of the first German Christian pastors in the Anhalt church.Footnote 90 On August 6, 1933, at the inauguration of a new Auferstehung church council, the elders and Elster entered the church in uniform accompanied by swastikas and the tolling of bells. The interior of the chapel was transformed into a nationalist shrine with a large Iron Cross displayed prominently above the altar. Elster was also a poet: he dejudized hymns and composed verse, including the “Oath of Allegiance” (Treuschwur), which was published in a 1935 collection and which—couched in militaristic rhetoric—professed obedience and loyalty to Hitler.Footnote 91
Elster supported both the German Christian movement and National Socialism throughout the 1930s. In May 1936, he published an article in the Anhalter Anzeiger on the near-death experience of Carin Göring, Hermann Göring's wife. He identified it as an intervention of God for Germany's sake.Footnote 92 Elster pronounced the church oath of allegiance to the Führer two years later, as was compulsory for all Anhalt pastors.Footnote 93
From 1939 to 1945, Elster was lieutenant of the reserve and chaplain to Wehrmacht members stationed in Dessau.Footnote 94 His only entry in the pastoral record for 1941 cast a nostalgic look back upon the Nazi seizure of power in 1933: “Adolf Hitler gave us a new, strong Germany. But then ensued satanical hate: England and Judah did not want it.”Footnote 95 The last years of the war had a telling effect on Elster: his marriage fell apart in 1944, his health deteriorated and he applied for a transfer out of Auferstehung.Footnote 96 The request was rejected and Elster never left the parish.Footnote 97 His only son, the twenty-four-year-old Hans-Joachim, fell in action in April 1945.
As was standard practice, the post-war Anhalt church council sent an observer to visit one of Elster's services at Dessau-Ziebigk on August 12, 1945.Footnote 98 The evening liturgy was reportedly well organized, and the chapel and altar had been beautifully adorned. Elster sermonized about perseverance in trial, and the observer wrote that Elster had spoken from personal experience and this had had a “manifestly touching effect” upon the congregation. There were purportedly no German Christian influences.Footnote 99 This was precisely what the church council wished to hear. Three months later, Georg Fiedler wrote to Elster on the occasion of his twenty-fifth ordination anniversary. He imparted best wishes and blessings, though he warned Elster to refrain from his former “subjectivism” and predilection for “military things.”Footnote 100
The Anhalt council also required Elster to submit a declaration delineating his past and present relationship to Nazism and the German Christian movement. Elster explained, in a missive of November 14, 1945, that he had “internally” separated himself from German Christian thought once he had recognized that it could not hinder the “terrible collapse of our Volk.”Footnote 101 The statement did not include enough detail for the council and it requested another submission. In his second letter, dated March 12, 1946, Elster claimed that he had entered the movement not to seek the realization of the NSDAP program, but rather to work toward the “religious renewal and church unification” of the German people. Elster wrote that Nazi officials had made his pastoral work increasingly difficult, and his enduring membership was anchored by the belief that it would “one day” work out for good. He judged: “that was a grave mistake on my part.” Whilst Elster differentiated between Nazis and German Christians, he admitted some complicity and located the cause of the German collapse in the folly of National Socialists who had abandoned love and patience, abolished justice, and heeded no objective moral standard. The German Christians, with their church-political program, were likewise “torn” alongside National Socialism into collapse. Elster stated that he knelt before God's judgment; he professed his loyalty to the new church council in Dessau and pledged to preach the gospel of the “free grace” of Jesus Christ.Footnote 102
This process from German Christian in the Third Reich to post-war “penitent” was replicated in cases throughout the Anhalt church as many pastors, at least externally, reformed to the satisfaction of the church council, albeit often with little remorse.Footnote 103 At Gernrode, the visiting Kreisoberpfarrer—a senior pastor with authority for one of the five districts of the LKA—observed with surprise that the new liturgy was in service with the prescribed, orthodox Christian creed. The sermon also contained no signs of German Christian theology and the pastor enjoyed great support from a large congregation of approximately 165 people. The clergyman had reportedly devoted himself anew to the duties of community and chapel life, leading bible studies, classes for confirmation candidates, religious instruction, and children's church. He worked with various lay helpers, was active in church music, and regularly visited parishioners' houses. The Kreisoberpfarrer advised, in any case, that the pastor still had much to learn. This was only the dawn of “new sight” and success depended on the pastor's adaptation from the “combat unit” (Kampfgruppe) to the local community, from ideology to theology and from the Third Reich to the “Kingdom of God.”Footnote 104
A number of former German Christian pastors failed to reform to the satisfaction of the church authorities.Footnote 105 In a circular dated August 17, 1945, the Anhalt council noted that German Christian thought remained in local communities, and the pastorate was warned against propagating politics.Footnote 106 In November 1945, the German Christian songbook, Großer Gott, wir loben dich, was apparently still in use in the Cörmigk parish, and Fiedler requested its immediate removal. Footnote 107 In late 1946, Köthen Kreisoberpfarrer Karl Windschild paid a visit to Pastor K. at the Church of St. Martin. There too Großer Gott, wir loben dich remained and the nationalistic message of the book was reportedly apparent throughout the church service. The liturgy did not follow the form prescribed by the Anhalt council, and the sermon lacked a focus on Jesus Christ. The local church council (in addition to Pastor K.) did not realize the error, and Windschild wrote that it could not distinguish between heterodoxy and orthodoxy; it did not recognize the theological “destruction” perpetrated by German Christians.Footnote 108 Pastor K. was certainly popular among his congregation—the service was well attended and the sermon made a good impression on parishioners. Windschild nonetheless directed Pastor K. and the St. Martin's church council to conform to the post-war liturgy and remove the songbook immediately. Fiedler also wrote to Pastor K. and the council, reiterating the aim of reform: to create a new Heimat in which people could reside as the children of God. The Anhalt council was subsequently compelled to release a circular on December 20, 1946 reminding pastors to discard Großer Gott, wir loben dich, and Pastor K. was soon displaced to another parish, much to the discontent of the St. Martin's community.Footnote 109
There was German Christian residue in the Church Province of Saxony as well. Minister President Hübener informed Müller in early 1947 that a pastor had conducted evening vespers according to the German Christian rite. The bishop doubted the source and not his churchman, however. Officially, he found the allegation disconcerting as it gave the impression of “careless” denazification, and he declared that the incident was “improbable” given the scope of the church process.Footnote 110 This posturing aside, Müller directed a report to the church oversight office in Berlin in May 1948 and admitted the enduring though diminishing occurrence of German Christian practices.Footnote 111 It seems that Müller was rather duplicitous in this instance; he was concerned primarily with presenting a front to the state authorities as he spoke greater truth within the church.
Despite these instances of reversion to (or obduracy in) German Christian practices, Christian orthodoxy ultimately triumphed in Saxony-Anhalt, but this did not ensure the unity of the pastorate. The Anhalt council called for an armistice between former combatants of the Kirchenkampf so as to hold discussions without “reciprocal denunciation.”Footnote 112 Yet, while the churches sought to foster community between former German Christians and Confessing Church members, there were ongoing conflicts in some areas and little détente.Footnote 113 A number of Confessing Church members and neutrals resented the continuing involvement of German Christians despite the best efforts of members of the KPS leadership who attempted to forge pastoral unity (and of whom some were also BK). One problem was that the proclaimed “victory” over the German Christian movement ensured that the often-hyperbolic mythology of resistance to Nazism was popular among the post-war pastorate, and Confessing Church membership became a device to secure primacy in all manner of affairs, just as anything redolent of German Christians became anathema.Footnote 114 One pastor, for example, requested that Müller intervene in an internal dispute with his superintendent by putting an end to this “struggle against me as a pastor of the Confessing Church.”Footnote 115 Individual job applications often cited involvement in the Confessing Church. The so-called “BK-Gemeinde” in Wernigerode sought a pastor who was a member of the Confessing Church. At least one refugee pastor applied, stressing his membership in the Confessing Church and the persecution this allegiance had incurred during the Third Reich.Footnote 116
Some Confessing Church pastors not only opposed former German Christians, but all non-BK Christians. A dispute in the Weferlingen district arose in late 1945 about the election of a new superintendent.Footnote 117 The local Confessing Church pastors did not want a former neutral to occupy the post, let alone a former German Christian. Only a BK clergyman would do, yet the majority of clergymen in the district—comprised of former neutrals and German Christians—were expected to (and did) elect a neutral.Footnote 118 In response to the question of whether there was a Confessing Church pastor suitable for the post, influential Groß Möringen pastor Helmut Schapper stated that there were indeed many who would have been suitable, but the church leadership in Magdeburg had prevented him from appointing one.Footnote 119
Above all, there were concerns about the retention of German Christians in pastoral office. In August 1945, Confessing Church members in Halle requested that the church leadership order the suspension of the former German Christian pastors serving at St. Marien and St. Johannes.Footnote 120 A pastor complained that one of them had even been the regional superintendent.Footnote 121 The former superintendent remained. Another complaint reached Müller on January 3, 1946. The author, a different pastor, stated that it was intolerable that so many former German Christians remained in the church, preaching and continuing on as if nothing had happened. Something had to be done.Footnote 122 In July 1946, further, the pastor at the Marienkirche in Halle drafted an answer to the question “why, and why still the Confessing Church?” He argued that there must be a split in the church: Christ had privileged John, Peter, and James among the twelve disciples, and later there had been a dispute in the early church that saw Paul part ways with Peter. Applying this lesson to 1946, then: division was necessary if the legacy of the past was to be overcome and the missionary spirit of the church revived.Footnote 123
On the other side of the divide, a number of former German Christians complained of their treatment by other pastors. In one instance, a churchman in Naumburg wrote to Bishop Müller in May 1948 and alleged personal attacks instigated by Confessing Church clergy. These men continued to label him a “Nazi” and a “nationalist” and ostracized him accordingly.Footnote 124The leadership of the Church Province did little in response to these remonstrations. Hierarchs concerned themselves with balancing the interests of all factions in the church body. They wished to remain above the divisions of the German Christian movement and the Confessing Church, even though several of them belonged to the latter.
IV. Conclusion
The most prevalent post-war evaluation of the Christian Church in Nazi Germany made a clear dichotomy between German Christians and their Confessing Church antagonists. The churches throughout the Soviet zone probed this past and dismissed the most visible and militant German Christians from positions of leadership in the immediate post-war period. The Church Province of Saxony determined to walk its own path: the church was responsible to the “living God” and not to the state.Footnote 125 The procedure in Anhalt was entirely different. Church leaders allowed representatives from the political parties to sit on the tribunal, and the council liaised closely with state authorities. The result was that the secular administration in Saxony-Anhalt approved the process in Anhalt even though the same proportion of pastors lost their positions there as in Thuringia, where there was considerable conflict. In most cases, still, the churches' self-purification was “lenient” in comparison to secular denazification, and the SVAG pursued no punitive measures; this detachment was an extension of Soviet Bündnis- and Deutschlandpolitik.
The mild denazification was founded on several considerations. Firstly, the authorities of the Church Province asserted that the Christian Church in general had been a bastion of resistance to National Socialism, and there were therefore fewer NSDAP members in church ranks. Following from this, secondly, denazification within the church was predicated on the “otherness” of the Christian Church, and ultimately religious considerations were of the utmost importance. The churches were primarily concerned with eliminating the corruption and politicization of the Christian gospel perpetrated by German Christians. They therefore undertook “De-German-Christianization” processes that were not much concerned (in and of itself) with former Nazi party cardholders. This was entirely different to secular verdicts founded on party membership. Thirdly, both the KPS and the LKA adopted the theological concept of forgiveness as their underlying precept and sought to “re-habilitate” the pastorate, largely through retreats and meetings. The virtue of this forgiveness was that it often renounced serious consequences and covered all manner of sins in keeping former German Christians in office. Of not inconsiderable importance was that light denazification ensured the churches could present themselves as “justified,” especially the KPS, while they sustained a Christian witness and presence among the population. More thorough denazification would have not only exploded the idea of church resistance in the KPS, but would have also quickly exhausted replacements for the dismissed clergy. The Protestant churches in Saxony-Anhalt placed a premium on pastoral unity that promoted the Christian gospel among the populace.
This expediency tracked secular denazification, of the health and logistics sectors for instance, where many former party members remained in lieu of qualified substitutes.Footnote 126 Thus, neither church nor secular trials were invariably predicated on and executed according to immutable ideological imperatives; there were certain tactical compromises in the interests of authority, continuity and social re-organization. Where the Church Province favored denazification largely informed by a theology of public responsibility, the Anhalt Church additionally pushed introspection among former German Christians, introspection that would lead to individual recognition of responsibility for pursuing a “false path.” The LKA averred transformation from the inside out in this way. Like Erich Elster, a great many former German Christians were “re-educated” and “re-conditioned.” Some former members persisted with German Christian practices, nonetheless, and “de-German-Christianization” was an ongoing process during the period of the Soviet zone. Most communities throughout Saxony-Anhalt, it seems, had no problems with retaining and accepting former German Christian pastors, and some even disputed the removal of their churchmen, such as in one Halle parish, in Diemitz and in Frankleben. The rapport between shepherd and flock in these communities was established through personal contact, and the flock paid little attention to former political and/or theological sympathies.Footnote 127 Yet, regardless of whether former German Christians reformed or not, pastoral unity was a myth because the Saxon-Anhalt pastorates were divided deeply. A number of Confessing Church members continued to wage a Kirchenkampf well after 1945.
In conclusion, church policy was assailed from within and without chapel walls: from remonstrations in the pastorate to communist agitations. Some Confessing Church members did not forgive German Christians as the church tribunals did, and there was a terrible irony in their post-war struggle: fortified on the ostensible moral high ground, they sought mastery of the KPS and the LKA pastorates and the subjection of their (former) antagonists. Prelates had provided the forum for this conflict by positing forgiveness and placing the emphasis, firstly, on the church's presence among the German population—and this required as much manpower as was available in the difficult post-war environment—and, secondly, on the preservation of the church's institutional integrity vis-à-vis the state. As much as prelates wished to focus on the present, some clergy could not dismiss the past so easily.
