Juden, Christen, Deutsche, 1933-1945: 1935 bis 1938 (2 v.)

Vol. 2, pt. 1 describes reactions of the Protestant Church, especially the Confessing Church, to Nazi antisemitism. The Church was anxious to defend its own autonomy, and avoided opposing the regime on issues such as the status of the Jews. The main issue was the status of some 100,000 non-Aryan Christians. Individual Church workers, such as Marga Meusel in Berlin and Parson Hermann Maas in Heidelberg, extended help to these people. In many places they were segregated and denied the services of the Church; non-Aryan ministers and church organists were forced to resign. After the Confessing Church split, the more anti-Nazi branch protested to the Führer's office against the persecution of the Jews (June 1936). In the aftermath, several members of the Confessing Church were arrested, among them Friedrich Weissler, a non-Aryan, who was executed in Sachsenhausen. Christian theologians, such as Gerhard Kittel, used their scholarship in support of Nazi racism. Pt. 2 traces Nazi anti-Jewish measures from the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws to the eve of the "Kristallnacht" pogrom. Non-Aryan Christians were equally affected by these measures, and were not entitled to assistance by either the German or the Jewish social services. Until 1939 they attempted to organize self-help organizations, but the regime put an end to these efforts. They were taken over in December 1938 by the "Büro Pfarrer Grüber". Heinrich Grüber, an Aryan, obtained the backing of the Confessing Church and established a network of cooperating ministers in all parts of Germany. Traces the fate of many individual non-Aryan Church workers.