The Historiography of the Holocaust

The German Churches and the Holocaust 299
Hitler and, to varying degrees, his antisemitic policies. Ericksen compared their
biographies and showed the parallels in their intellectual backgrounds and
their antisemitic writings. Most importantly, he presented them as products of
Christian theology, not as monstrosities created by the exigencies of the Nazi
regime. Unresolved issues regarding Church–state relations and theology’s relation
to society produced formulations that opened the door to a Christian embrace
of central Nazi doctrines. For Ericksen, the fact that these theologians embraced
Hitler signifies the success of Nazi propaganda, but also the problematic state of
Protestant theology.
Ericksen’s book is not only an indictment of the three men, but also an
important demonstration that the ‘radical’ ideas of the DC were not products
of isolated fanatics, but could be found within the mainstream of German
Protestantism, at the universities and among highly respected and influential
theologians. More recently, Manfred Gailus has investigated the infiltration
of the DC in local church congregations. Focusing on Berlin churches, long
thought to have been allied with the Bekennende Kirche (BK – Confessing
Church), particularly with Martin Niemöller and the radical ‘Dahlemite’
faction of the BK that he represented, Gailus gives us a radically revised
picture of German Protestants. Gailus’ results present a story of Nazi ideology
infiltrating the Protestant Churches and the Protestant social milieu. Countering
a church history tempted to stress only a few heroes, he shows that the
Churches were ‘overwhelmed by their own fascination with the ideas of
1933’, and concludes that the terms ‘Christian’ and ‘Nazi’ were most certainly
not mutually exclusive, as some post-war defenders of the Church would
have it. 8
The confessing Church
The Kirchenkampf (church struggle) within the German Protestant Church is
sometimes mistakenly understood as the Protestant Church’s resistance to
National Socialism. In fact, the term refers to an internal dispute between members
of the Bekennende Kirche and members of the Deutsche Christen (German
Christians) for control of the Protestant Church. The conflict had little to do with
campaigning against Nazi antisemitism or the Holocaust, but focused instead
on whether the Church should participate in the overall Nazi Gleichschaltung
of German society.
While scholars of the Holocaust may interrogate the Church’s teachings on
anti-Judaism and responses to Nazi antisemitism, scholars tend to focus on the
Nazi treatment of the Churches and their role in society. John Conway’s The
Nazi Persecution of the Churches (1968) was one of the first and remains the
standard text on the topic in English. 9 Conway broke with the post-war tradition
of adulating the BK and instead pointed to examples of collaboration, as
well as opposition, on the part of church figures. He rejected the image of the