In the Imperial period (1880-1914/18), Protestant Church leaders strongly advocated for the Prussian monarchy and actively girded Germans for war as did most Protestant leaders across western Europe at that time. Most Germans were Protestant and in Thuringia they made up an overwhelming majority of the population. Most churches presided over districts drawn across their city maps. They estimated the numbers of people living in their districts from anywhere between 12,000 and 18,000 individual souls. They saw themselves as important administrators for those areas and supported many civic efforts and relief programs. Even before the First World War, many churches found themselves strapped for the necessary resources. In 1918/19 most churches experienced a wave of members leaving and found themselves surrounded by more and more non-believers, smaller alternative Christian communities like the Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists and Baptists, and hostile elements in the new communist movement. Still, between 300 and 500 people regularly attended services and those numbers doubled for the church holiday services.
I found a few sermons and church bulletins from ministers in Erfurt and Magdeburg (in Saxony-Anhalt). Protestant ministers never seemed to be too far away from talking about fear and that gives me an important view to how a few ministers expressed fear and and how they offered ways for Germans to deal with those fears. The number one fear was for one's soul and then for the souls of other believers around the reader or listener. They also discussed the fear of death and how to deal with death, but also questioned the way the Prussian state would order Germans to commemorate death, reminding their public about death as a religious form of sacrifice or eternal damnation.
The first sermon also imagines a hostile world and paints a picture of a type of community that I find interesting for its vision and how it would later influence newer forms of political culture in Germany in some interesting and important ways. The second source is a set of excerpts from a sermon and bulletin from another pastor in Erfurt. He reacted to Germany in the wake of its defeat in the First World War and preached a path for Germany's renewal through a Christian spiritual re-awakening at a time when Germans were pulling apart their society.
The last record that I shall add soon comes from among the church archives of Magdeburg in northwest neighboring Saxony-Anhalt. From these materials, I can see how German Christians battled Confessing Christians for control over local churches, their pastorships and teachings. The source I want to show you is one minister's report of his Gestapo interrogation. Those records reveal how German Christians terrorized local religious communities in the 1930s and how the Protestant church focused its resistance along these lines of Christian tradition. That said, I am still perplexed by how Christians could not muster the courage to protest the racial transformation of Germany. I think one of the keys to answering that questions may lie in the first source below and what happened to the vision of Germany as a diverse form of civil society.
1875: Imagining Germany
On May 24, 1875, the pastor from the Regler Church in Erfurt, Dr. Baerwinkel, gave a sermon at the Ulrich Church in Halle a./S. for a meeting of the Evangelical Union. His church published an edition and one copy ended up in the EZA records for the Regler Church.
What I found most interesting was how Dr. Baerwinkel talked about the kind of place his listeners should make. He invoked a story from the Old Testament book of Nehemia 4, 1-9
We are of one opinion that the city of God we would like to build must have walls. It is necessary to give this city a mighty border so that one knows how far this territory reaches and where foreign lands begin. It must be a wall so solid that the foxes cannot find a way. Yes, this city of God, our church, must become a mighty fortress and a free place for everyone who calls out in the name of the Lord and seek shelter within its walls, but also a powerful place of arms for the battle against the unbelievers and the amoral of the world.
[...] our task here is the same as it should be in focus everywhere: proclaim the word of God, toil with our hands in the realm of God, practice the actions of the good Samaritan, take care of the sick or call sinners to repent. The is the same task we are given when we hear the sermon or fold our hands in prayer for our soul's salvation.
What I find interesting is that fortress-mentality that can almost seem ubiquitous in central Germany in the form of inscriptions on church architecture or in the verses of the Luther hymn, "A mighty fortress is our God". Even more striking to me is the reading of the Old Testament. This city of God is for believers. That does not necessarily preclude Jews, but it views everyone else as enemies. It is at once a militant and a compassionate vision of Germany. What happened to these visions are strands in my analysis for the 1920s.
1921: The German soul is sick
The second source comes from Pastor Kohlschmidt of the Augustiner Church. Pastor Kohlschmidt appears to heave been a prolific writer. The first excerpt is from his sermon, "Be at peace", in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Martin Luther Day, which the church subsequently published in a local newspaper as a three part series. Pastor Kohlschmidt's sermon captures the sense of Germany's catastrophic loss in the wake of the First World War and the feeling of occupation by foreigners, most likely the French, but possibly others, maybe Jews or communists. Pastor Kohlschmidt believes that Germans have accepted the materialism of England and France, which in turn has fractured German society much like 400 years ago during the religious wars. So Pastor Kohlschmidt invokes Luther as the German hero and admonishes Germans to turn to Jesus Christ in order to help heal Germany's sick soul. For example, Pastor Kohlschmidt writes:
[...] 400 years have passed by since that memorable day. We write the year 1921, a year not of salvation but of disaster; a year and a time of calamity […] what kind of salvation do we need? Just like 400 years ago, we are a divided people. Back then, foreigner sat upon the throne. The foreigners are now more than ever our masters.
[…] Materialism, despite Kant and Fichte, has almost stifled the German mind. Materialism has mechanized work and flattened thinking. And it has led into a form of dogmatism […]. It has atomized society and mocked reverence. It has turned duty into egotism, truth into perjury and morality into fornication […] And so it has happened as it had to happen. If Luther were to make his way from
Poor German people! Other people say that today who call for salvation and offer themselves as saviors. Economic reform, socialization, school reform, new philosophy! […]
This is about the soul of our people, not our minds or our hands. Our soul is sick and therefore our ways of thinking, our entire writing and endeavors. […] Be at peace! That is how Luther advised us 400 years ago. This peace is not something that the world can give us; only he who bore the burdens of humanity, Jesus Christ!
1925: Totenfest: commemorating death and dealing with fear
In a second piece from an Augustiner Church's bulletin from 1925, Pastor Kohlschmidt talks about the holiday commemorating the dead. According to Pastor Kohlschmidt, this festival did not always exist in Germany. Over one hundred years earlier, Kaiser Wilhelm Friedrich III had ordered Prussians to remember those who had sacrificed their lives in the wars against Napoleon. Here, Pastor Kohlenschmidt claims that Germans have forgotten the origins of this festival, but asserts a deeper meaning behind the notion of death than simply dying for a nation state's wars on earth. Pastor Kohlschmidt invokes the fear of death without salvation and admonishes his readers that they really should be more concerned with where they end up in the afterlife. For example, he writes:
Is that really the deepest meaning of Totenfest? Are we allowed to say that dying means becoming blessed? No, the Holy Scriptures says that only those who die in the Lord are blessed. How many have died and have not wanted to know about the Lord while living? How often is the inscription, “Here rests in the Lord”, only an untrue form of speaking? More true is the word:
“Who acts according to my word,
To him I open the gates of peace;
Who transgresses against me, will not find what he seeks!
I come knocking at your door.”
Just who felt this fear of damnation is unclear. The churches presided over districts with populations in the tens of thousands, but only 300 to 400 regularly attended services. So on the one hand, the fear of damnation may not have had that much of an affect on Germans. On the other hand, however, there were significant groups of practicing Christians and that will influence their views of Germany, the Weimar Republic and the idea of Germany's renewal through religious practice.
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