Between the Swastika and the Sickle: The Life, Disappearance, and Execution of Ernst Lohmeyer. By James R. Edwards

Abstract

This biography is an absorbing and intriguing endeavour to rescue the life and writings of a German theologian from public oblivion. Lohmeyer was a prominent theologian of the early part of the twentieth century who rose to be rector of Breslau university in the early 1930s and when forced out of that post by Nazi colleagues was transferred to Greifswald. After military service he was reinstated at Greifswald in 1945 but then arrested by the Soviet police in 1946 (cf. JTS, os 50 [1949], p. 72 and ns 2 [1951], p. 183) and not heard of until 1957 when his death was confirmed by the Soviet Union. He was rehabilitated in 1996. James R. Edwards is the Bruner-Welch Professor of Theology at Whitworth University and has written a detailed account of Lohmeyer’s life and theological legacy. The intriguing interest lies in how Edwards first became interested, and then absorbed,...