• Light Over Germany ?
The Rebirth of the German Church. By Stewart Herman, with an • introduction by Martin Niemoller. (S.C.M. 1Qs. 6d.) 1` This is not a Poor Germany Book . . . written either to insist that the German people are better than you may have thought, or to 'belabour for the satisfaction of the ' All Germans are Nazis ' School the popular thesis that they are even worse than was imagined." The author's disclaimer is as justified as any account of life in post-war Germany can hope to be. Dr. Herman has unique qualifications for writing this book. He was in charge of the American Lutheran Church in Berlin from 1936 to 1942 ; and within a month of the Allied entry into Berlin he was back again and " spent the next months travelling by jeep, command car, army sedan, train and plane all over the prostrate country. In hundreds of instances I was the first civilian to reach various German Church- men with news of the outside world." Beside innumerable.personal contacts, he had access to many important papers, some of which are made available in this volume. The narrative is cool, shrewd and remarkably free from " parson's English." Moreover, the writer makes lavish use of documents which reveal better than anything else could the different German and Allied " types." There could be no better expression of the widespread " tough guy " attitude than the circular sent to German Churchmen who asked for the return of their hells (page iro):
" To ask for the return of your bells., freely given while so many stolen bells remain to be restored, appears to be an act of effrontery of which only a German could be capable . . . to propose the use of transport for moving such ecclesiastical luxuries appears to be an act of callousness of which again only a German could be capable. The partial silence of your church tower may usefully serve as a reminder to the parishioners and yourself of your own personal guilt."
The prime importance of'the book lies in the full and documented justification of Dr. Herman's statement that despite all apostasy and weakness the German Church " constituted the only significant and persistent record of resistance to Adolf Hitler." Its second claim to attention is that it gives an invaluable picture of the complexity of the
German Church situation during and after the Nazis. Those ,who have naively thought of a mass of black Nazi Christians and white "Confessional heroes" will need to check their romanticism and. face an intricate and ever-changing historical pattern. Moreover, in, all periods of history persecution has brought grave strains and stresses —what Mr. Churchill profoundly called the," diseases of defeat "- and these are evident today. When Dr. Herman tells us that "'flue last vestiges of the influence of the ' German Christians' upon Church affairs have been eliminated " we wonder if he has not been too optimistic ; whether the judgement can square with the continued Presence of Bishop Marahrens, with some pertinent criticisms Made by Karl. Barth this autumn, and some bold utterances of younger clergy in Wurttemberg and Berlin. The third value of the book- is that it gives proper place to the presentation of the " Confessing Church " as a " movement of penitence " and to the effect of the historic pronouncement of the whole Evangelical Church in October, 1945. In what is known as the Stuttgart Declaration the Council of Twelve leaders of the Church (all of them confessors, most of them gaol-birds) confessed coram deo and to the delegates of the World Council of Churches that they were bound with their whole people " in a sialidarity of guilt," and that despite all their protests against the Nazis they " accused themselves " for not witnessing more boldly.
Dr. Herman gives an able account of the misunderstandings and opposition aroused by the Declaration, but readers should know that the clue to the debate between Karl,,,Barth and Professor Thielecks and the December declaration of the German Free Churches is that these events follow the Stuttgart Declaration. When that declara- tion was made the Bishop of Chichester said: " That is unconditional repentance." The unfortunate effect of our own Archbishop's message of November is that it appeared to ignore that declaration, While Bishop Wurm's dignified reply provoked only the cheap sneers of a B.B.C. broadcast entitled Wurming his way and a letter from the British Council of Churches of which the less said the better.'
In the interests of historical accuracy it may be said that the 'German Methodist Bishop Melle did not attend the great Ecumenical service described—the German Free Churches went off to a huddle of their own—nor did the Bishop of Chichester speak from the pulpit. Dr. Herman's grim closing chapters deal with physiCal happenings, needs and relief work. They are precisely documented and should be -widely known. The accident (in this connection) of the Allied military victory put the leaders of- the Church struggle into the saddle. Can they stay there? Can the profound and passionate penitence of Niemoller and his friends impress the call to repentance on a German Church provided just now with a thousand excuses for evading the challenge? Can the resistance which pro- duced prophetic figures produce inspired statesmen? _Above all, can the German Church get its message across the gulf which separates all Christendom from the common life of modern man? Something may depend on the behaviour of English Christians, on their ability to think and act rationally, compassionately, urgently. Dr. Herman's book is emphatically not one to be -enjoyed or scoured for sermon fodder ; we may hope that all who read it will have a bad time. Probst Gruber once said that the fate of the German people depends on their learning the connection between the two phrases : " Give us this day our daily bread," and " Forgive us our trespasses." It now seems that on the Allies learning the same lessons must depend, not how history will judge them, but whether there will be any
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