Who Needs Enemies? Jews and Judaism in Anti-Nazi Religious Discourse

Abstract

The so-called German Church Struggle has been a subject of scholarly study and popular interest for several decades. For obvious reasons, the minority of Germans who opposed the Nazis in word or in deed have become compelling symbols of courage and resistance, human reminders of the auspicious role religion can play in situations of political crisis. Rarely, however, has the discourse of anti-Nazi resistance been analyzed in terms of its assumptions concerning Jews, their role in Germany, or their historical destiny. When these assumptions are illuminated, it is apparent that despite their opposition to National Socialism and its encroachment in the affairs of the church, Christian resistors to Nazism transmitted concepts of Jews and Judaism that did little to ameliorate, and often exacerbated, the anti-Semitic environment in interwar Germany,