To say that Karl Barth opposed Hitler, along with other Christians in Germany during the rise of National Socialism, might appear to be stating the obvious. After all, from what we know from history concerning the activities of Hitler and the Nazi party, we would like to believe that it would be certain that at least the church would have opposed Hitler, even if the larger German population had been seduced into following him by the promise of an economic recovery and political stability.
Sadly, this was not the case, in part because of the liberal, cultural Protestantism that Barth had been revolting against. Hence, in spite of what we might like to assume, support for Hitler extended into the church. Part of what made the German church susceptible to the emergence of a leader like Hitler was the way in which it had been affected by a strongly nationalistic ideology that found much popular support among the German people due to the perceived injustice of the Versailles treaty that had officially ended World War I. This was particularly problematic for the Protestant churches in Germany, and most especially the Lutherans, whose origins were deeply bound up with the emergence and rise of a national German identity. In the popular German mind, Martin Luther was not simply a Protestant church reformer but also a national hero. Right wing nationalists like the Nazi party, as well as others, made use of Luther’s iconic status and co-opted his legacy in support of their own agenda.
The notion of a church that would give specific expression to the particularly German soul and mind was not new, and was increasingly common by the beginning of 1930. As the political power of the Nazi party grew in the early thirties, so too did a group their fervent supporters in the Protestant and Catholic churches who were known as the German Christians. The German Christians were inspired by earlier ecclesial movements that asserted ideas such as the superiority of the German people, need for racial purity, and intense opposition to Communists, Jews, and others who did not share their beliefs. Further, these ideas were not simply limited to the more populist, rank and file sphere of the culture, but were also strongly proclaimed and defended by many of the leading intellectuals in the German universities. The German Christians were officially organized in June 1932 and supported the National Socialist agenda through the founding of a newspaper and other public events.
Hitler knew that the Catholic and Protestant churches made up an enormously important part of German life and he needed to deal with them carefully, but decisively. He reached a concordant with the Catholic Church but realized that Protestant churches would be more difficult to deal since they lacked a central authority. To address this challenge, Hitler proposed the formation of an Evangelical (or Protestant) Reich Church. Hitler demanded in a nationwide radio address that the church support the Nazi Party while the state would guarantee “inner freedom” concerning religious life. However, as soon as the Nazi control of the churches was secure, they began to intervene coercively in the life of the church in order to remake it in the image of National Socialism. Perhaps the most egregious example of this intervention was the adoption of the so-called “Aryan paragraph” which stated that neither non-Aryans nor those married to non-Aryans could by employed by the church. It also called for the exclusion from the church of all Christians with Jewish ancestry, thus making race a specific criterion for church membership.
In response to the emergence of the German Christian movement and the intrusions of the National Socialists in the life the church, an opposition movement emerged that called for a free and confessing church. Martin Niemöller organized the Pastors’ Emergency league, a resistance effort that attracted a large following among church leaders. Swiss born theologian Karl Barth, who was teaching in Germany at the time, directly opposed Hitler and the Nazis himself when he traveled to Berlin to speak at a Reformation festival and delivered an address titled, “The Reformation as Decision.” In spite of the fact that the lecture was not advertised, the hall was packed to hear Barth declare that the Reformation should be seen as the decision to recognize the rule of God as absolute.
At various times there are other alternatives to faith and trust in God that present themselves, such as forms of morality, culture, reason, experience, and tradition. In the present situation the leading alternative was the Nazi state. Allowing any of these to encroach on faith and the absolute rule of God constitutes disloyalty to the spirit of the Reformation and the fundamental Reformation decision. Fortified by this Reformation decision, those who had not already succumbed to the National Socialists had no choice but to offer resistance. At the mention of resistance, a burst of spontaneous and thundering applause broke out for several minutes. On the resumption of his address, Barth told of an old Swiss story of resistance to the Austrian army when one of the Swiss soldiers had called out in encouragement: “smite their spears, for they are hollow!” Barth went on to say that in the light of the rule of God, the spears and threats of the National Socialist “are hollow.” This story from Barth’s rousing address in Berlin became a watchword for the Confessing Church.
It was in the context of these events that the Confessing Church called for a national synod of the German churches to be held in Barmen for the purpose of reiterating their common faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ and declaring that this faith compelled their resistance to Hitler and the imposition of his National Socialist agenda on the church in Germany. In preparation for the meeting in Barmen a theological committee was appointed by the leaders of the Confessing Church to prepare the theological theses for the synod. Barth, representing the Reformed Church, met with two representatives from the Lutheran Church at a hotel in Frankfurt to draft what came to be known as the Barmen Declaration. Barth described the scene by recalling that the “Lutheran Church slept and the Reformed Church kept awake” meaning that while the two Lutheran theologians had a lengthy nap, Barth revised the text of the six statements “fortified by strong coffee and one or two Brazilian cigars” resulting in a finished text by the evening. Concerning his authorship, Barth humbly stated, “I don’t want to boast, but it really was my text.”
From May 29-31, 1934, delegates from all over Germany took part in the first Confessing Synod of the German Evangelical Church. Although Barth was the chief author of the declaration, he did not speak publicly, instead working behind the scenes as part of the theological commission until the declaration was approved on May 31.
The heart of the declaration is found in the six theses set forth in Part II. Each of the theses sets forth one or more quotations of scripture in order to bear witness to the principle that church confessions or declarations are to be understood as an explication and application of scripture in a particular context. In addition, each of the affirmations of the declaration are followed with corresponding denials to affirm that the “yes” of God in the gospel entails a necessary “no” to beliefs and practices that are contrary to Christian faith and life.
The first thesis sets the tone for the rest of the document with its straightforward affirmation: “Jesus Christ, as he is testified to us in the Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God, whom we are to hear, whom we are to trust and obey in life and death.” Of the denials, two that particularly strike at the Nazi regime will be mentioned here: “We repudiate the false teaching that the Church can and may, apart from [its] ministry, set up special leaders (Führer) equipped with powers to rule”; and “We repudiate the false teaching that the state can and should expand beyond its special responsibility to become the single and total order of human life” and that the “church can and should expand beyond its special responsibility to take the characteristics, functions and dignities of the state, and thereby become itself an organ of the state.”
In order to appreciate the significance of the Barmen declaration and its stance against Hitler and the Nazi regime, it is important to remember that opposing the Nazis in 1934 was not a popular decision in the minds of the German people. Many considered such opposition to be something ranging from unpatriotic to treasonous. Hence, what seems so clear and courageous from the perspective of history, was hardly self-evident at the time when viewed from the perspective of German popular opinion. For all of the strength of Barmen however, there was one thing which Barth later described as a failing. Namely, that he had not made the Jewish question a decisive feature in his draft of the document. However, looking back he commented: “Of course, in 1934 no text in which I had done that would have been acceptable even to the Confessing Church, given the atmosphere that there was then. But that does not excuse me for not having at least gone through the motions of fighting.”
Barth’s opposition to National Socialism, his principle role in the authorship of the Barmen declaration, and his stance on the Jewish question, that if someone was not preaching specifically against the persecution and disappearance of the Jews then they were not preaching the gospel no matter what else they might say, all led to his refusal to give an unqualified oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler in the required form on November 7, 1934. Hitler announced that the oath would be required after he had combined the offices of Chancellor and President and had taken them over himself. When Barth heard the news he realized that he would not be able to take the oath in the prescribed form. Hence, when he was ordered to do so by the Rector of the university he made a proposal to be passed on to the appropriate officials: “I did not refuse to give the official oath, but I stipulated an addition to the effect that I could be loyal to the Führer only within my responsibilities as an Evangelical Christian.” His proposal was summarily rejected and he was suspended from his teaching duties at Bonn on November 26. On June 22, 1935 he was formally dismissed from his position by the Minister of Cultural Affairs in Berlin. Within three days of the announcement of his dismissal from Bonn, he was offered a chair in theology at the University of Basle which he immediately accepted bringing his years of teaching in Germany to an end.
John R. Franke is theologian in residence at Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis and affiliate professor of theology at Fuller Theological Seminary as well as the general coordinator for the Gospel and Our Culture Network in North America. He holds a DPhil degree from the University of Oxford and is particularly interested in the formation of individuals and congregations for missional Christian witness. The author of over a hundred articles, reviews, and book chapters as well as numerous books, he has spoken on the relationships between the gospel, church, and culture throughout the U.S. and around the world. His work has been translated into seven languages and he is the editor of three academic book series including the recently launched Studies in Missional Hermeneutics, Theology, and Praxis (Cascade).