I began looking into and reading about Bonhoeffer immediately after the elections last November. I was tired of feelig all the “partisanship” and thought I should apply my energies more sepcifically to the church and the kind of people we are called to be. I bought the DVD “Bonhoeffer”, got “A Testament to Freedom” (Essential writings of Bopnhoeffer) and a few other collections and explorations of Bonhoefer’s theology. This past month, I’ve been reading roughly 500 pages of the 1000 page Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography. IN these I have been learning about the extent to which the German church was predominantly behind Hitler as a “solution” to the renewing of Germany, still reeling over its defeat in World War I and suffering under the agreement of the Treaty of Versailles.

Steven Martin’s production “Theologians Under Hitler” focused on three prominent German theologians who supported Hitler: Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus, and Emmanuel Hirsch. I was able to attend a screening of it at Immanuel Baptist Church in Nashville on Tuesday this week. MY friends at the Baptist Center for Ethics hosted the event, and Larry Hollon of UMCom moderated a panel discussion afterwards.

Even though the film was focused on the kind of “theology” which developed into a “rationale” and “support” for the Nazi German state, I was a bit surprised there was not more coverage of Bonhoeffer’s perspectives on the work of these theologians. Bonhoeffer was basically mentioned only one brief time, when the Confessing Church was mentioned when the Barmen Declaration was written in response to the widespread association of the German church’s best hope with the Nazi regime.

But the coverage and analyses of these theologians under Hitler was in itself fascinating. I suppose I’m getting the best of both worlds as I can read of the Confessing Church and Bonhoeffer’s ideas in Bethge’s Bonhoeffer bio.
I plan to purchase a copy ASAP. I’d also like to find the book it is based upon.

It was announced that the film will also be shown on PBS on the 68th anniversary of Kristallnacht (November 9) (“The Night of Broken Glass”) when Synogogues wsere burned and/or ransacked, and Jesish businesses vandalized and destroyed, which has historicaly been recognized as the first obvious outward signal of the brutality of the Nazi treatment of the Jews.

The constant topic of conversation in the film in interviews and after the film in discussion was the questi on “How could such a thing happen, and how do such things become “excusable” and “undetectable”? The major theme was the sense of pride in the people; the Volkskirche, which was a deeper concept than what is attached to “the people” today. It was more of a “unit spirituality”; loyalty to which was given a God-like status. This appeal to the Volkskirche was a constant theme of the Reich, and the “German Christians” (Deutsche Christen) was widely assumed to be the only legitimate mode of religious expression. I know that many “American Christians” who absolutely hit the roof when it is suggested that they may be treading dangerously close to the path of Nationalistic Deification. After all, “in this day and age, such things couldn’t happen”. The question is thus: Even if a Replay or the same “such things” may not be forthcoming, exactly what kinds of things are possible, given the right amount of fear, disinformation, appeal to “control” and to “common sense” that can be used to justify ever more extreme and harsher measures to combat some perceived evil; this is the eery paralllel that I draw between the Radical Nationalism of today’s American church, and the “Reich Church” and its “Deutsche Christen theology”, which Gerhard Kittel , Emmanuel Hirsch, and Paul Althaus help to craft.