Bloodlands: Europe between Stalin and Hitler.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the CBC, gets a lot of criticism for being liberal and so on.  However, I find many of their documentaries, interviews and lectures very enlightening, even if I don't always agree.  Someone might try listening to something on the evening program "Ideas".

(I know only one other person who listens to CBC radio.)
The link below is for an interview with the author of a new book about the second world war titled:  "Bloodlands:  Europe between Hitler and Stalin."  I haven't read it but put it on my Amazon wishlist.

Here is the interview:  http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/2011/02/01/bloodlands/

Here is the book.  It already has 49 superlative reviews, it seems.

Miep Gies died at 100 years old

Miep Gies was the woman, originally from Austria, who brought food to Anne Frank's family during WW II. She also is credited with saving Anne Frank's diary. She says she only did what seemed appropriate at the time. She maintained a website here.

I used to attend Anne-Frank-Elementary-School from grade 1 to 4.

It is a loss that the adults from this time are all getting very old or are gone already. As children we did not want to hear about all the atrocities and sad fates but could not help overhear. It was not always interesting and too upsetting at the same time. But there was no way around it.

I used to be overcome with the ethical dilemmas of it all. To lie or not to lie to save a skin, or your own skin. To sacrifice your own life for another. Are women with children exempt from making such a sacrifice? In Catholic school it seemed like all the literature we studied had to do with the holocaust and also with such dilemmas. Or maybe they just left the greatest impression on me. The one time we went to the movie theater for a field trip was for a film on the holocaust. Of course, we also studied Anne Frank's diary.

Germans have truly beaten themselves up over this over the years. They are honest and conscientious people. It is sad to me when this never comes across in the English media. It is also sad when the whole matter gets treated in a superficial way as explored in the Fabricated Luther. It is also sad that the last witnesses are dying. Yet, we are grateful for their witness and frequent heroism. It is never completely dark.

Where the New Perspective on Paul meets the Fabricated Luther? Witherington on Romans 7

Ok, people help me with this. I cast the Witherington commentary aside, last year, because I was mad about what he wrote about Romans 6 and 7. All wrong, in my opinion, (if it counts). After the the Love Live conference we were sitting together talking amongst many things about Romans.

This below is on Romans 7.14-25 form Witherington's commentary.

There is an ever-growing body of opinion, led by the reassessment of early Judaism offered by E.P. Sanders and his disciples, that Paul could not possibly be describing here the experience of a Jew as a Jew himself would have described it. If we take, for example, Psalm 119 as a sort of transcript of Jewish experience of the Law, Jews delighted in the Law and saw wrestling with the Law and striving to keep its commandments as a joy, even if such practice was always a work in progress. Nor will it do to suggest that Rom. 7:14-25 is how at least a very rigorous Pharisaic Jew, like Paul, would have described his experience under the Law, for in fact Paul tells us in Phil. 3.6 that in regard to righteousness in the Law he was blameless. As Stendhal says, the evidence is that Paul had a quite robust conscience as a Pharisaic Jew. It is true that Phil. 3.6 does not say that Paul was sinless or perfect, only that, according to the standard of righteous behavior the Law required, no one could fault him for being a law-breaker. Blameless before the law and sinless are most certainly two different things. Gal. 1.14 only further supports this reading, for in that text Paul says he was making good progress in his faith and was very zealous and excited about keeping the traditions of his ancestors. Furthermore, as we have said, as a Christian Paul also manifests a robust conscience, not a sin-laden one, if the subject is what he has done since he became a Christian. His anxieties are about and for his fellow Christian, not about his own spiritual state. This becomes especially clear in Romans 9 when Paul will say that he could wish himself cut off from Christ if it would produce a turning to Christ by many of his fellow Jews. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find any mea culpas of any kind in any of Paul's letters when he is describing his experience as a Christian, much less evidence that he saw himself as burdened by the body of death and the bondage to sin. Nor, if Paul when a Jew did not feel like other person described in Rom. 7. 14-25, is there any good reason to suppose that other devout Jews felt this way. It is time to stop reading Rom. 7.14-25 through the lens of Augustine and Luther, not least because it keeps fueling skewed views of both early and modern Judaism, which in turn fuel anti-Semitism.

Really now? The author of the commentary basically does not want to allow that Paul is speaking of himself in Romans 7.  Previously he came up with a fictional rhetorical device that makes this passage the talk of a non-Christian only.

I am sorry, that is turning the passage on its head.

Paul's anxieties are only for fellow-Christians-- is the other argument here. Yes, he sounds extremely unselfish in Romans 9, but that does not fit here. Other Christians may struggle, but Paul not? That would make him the ultimate Pharisee, would it not? Also, if Paul's salvation really did not matter, then no body else's does either. Witherington does not see a rhetorical device when he does not want to.

And does this bringing in of "skewed views of early and modern Judaism", which supposedly "fuel anti-Semitism" make any sense here,at all?

No, they don't. Witherington, I submit, as a Methodist, does not like what Paul wrote here. That's all. And Luther and anti-Semitism have to be dragged in here, whether fair or not.

He finishes the chapter with the "Bridging the Horizons":

Paul Achtemeier warns about Romans 7: "Those who seek to preach or teach this passage face the problem of overcoming the weight of the long history of interpretation which has distorted Paul's intention in these verses." On the other hand, in an age of not only biblical illiteracy but also ecclesiological ignorance, not that many people, even in the church, know this history of interpretation. It is not necessary to remove a burden of interpretation that does not exist, but it is important to give a modern audience a sense of caution about over-psychologizing the text and especially about using it as a way to deal with modern psychological dilemmas of moral impotence or schizophrenia or the like. Reading this text through the eyes of Freud is about as unhelpful as reading it through the eyes of Augustine or Luther.

If, however, one can convey the sense of the flow of the text and that it deals with a spiritual crisis in the life of the non-Christian described, then this text could be used in fruitful ways. For example, one could ask: What is the nature of conversion? What happens not only to one's worldview but to one's moral compass and willpower when one is delivered from the bondage to sin? If conversion is not merely a cognitive event, what are its potential benefits vis-a vis one's emotions, will, and conduct? But if one goes down this road, one must also be prepared to talk frankly about the potential tensions in the Christian life, the struggle between inner and outer self, between person and persona, between flesh and Spirit. If one loads too much into one's theology of crisis conversion, one will then have difficulty explaining the struggles of the subsequent christian life.

Honestly, I don't understand this last bit. Is he now allowing for the "struggles of the subsequent christian life" and what does he exactly mean by that? Something other than what Paul wrote, there, obviously, because he supposedly did not write this about himself or the Christian life.

I, for one, am glad that Paul included this: "I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin." He is also talking about himself in the present. Could he be putting it more plainly?

The simul-justus-et-peccator is exactly how this works. Witherington does not like simul-justus-et-peccator. I've asked him. And Luther and anti-semitism have to be brought in, instead of the genius of simul-justus-et-peccator.

Also Paul says: "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from the body of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Again we note the present tense and the first person pronoun. I will not believe that Paul is not talking about himself in the present.

Is Paul already in Christ? Yes. His rescue will not be complete until he is separated from this physical body of death. The struggle remains, no matter his supposed "robust conscience". What is a "robust conscience" anyhow? Your conscience is either clear or not. Which is it? There is no middle thing. Paul is also a sinner and needs to rely on Christ every day of his life. He was strong. He was so strong he needed an affliction to keep him knowing God's grace aright. But God's grace he needed every day.

This is really, really important stuff. If we cannot adopt Romans 7:14-25 as the talk of someone who is in Christ also, we must certainly fall off the wagon to either pride or despair.

The other day, I saw a friend who told me how very guilty she feels about everything in her life. By the time she has gone from communion back to the pew she has already sinned again, she says. And I said, yea, and you even sin when you sleep. She said, yes, she'd done that, too. I explained the simul-justus-et-peccator to her and said that she really will never be in a position where she would not have to rely on the mercy of God, and would she think it would be a good place to be if she did not need it. That made sense to her. She will always and continually need to rely on the mercy of God. That's how it is. But this will come to and end, when this "body of death" is done away with.

Conversation with Man from South America

In Calgary, last week, it became my chore to run an errand that involved riding a shuttle bus with one other person, the driver--a man, not young, originally from South America for about 40 min. (The above is not his real picture, btw.)

He was a real talkative guy, preacher material and he preached. I introduced myself first and he told me a bunch of things about himself right away. By the time we were in the vehicle, we already knew each other's family situations, how many children, grandchildren, how we like the Canadian winters and that I lost a son on an icy road. Being a family man, he was truly sympathetic.

By the time we hit Memorial Drive, he knew about what am doing, not doing, my education, my church involvement.

WELL! HE! is a kind of Catholic, but only to honor his mother. He has all these beefs about the church, etc. I always tell these disgruntled Catholic's that they would make very good Lutherans. But that's not what he wanted to hear.

No, no, no, when Jesus Christ comes, and he will come for sure (!), we will know by sure by his DNA (???) says the man. Christ will get his DNA checked out and we will know. Says I that's not what we're told how we'll know. Anyhow, make a long story short, Jesus Christ will be some kind of revolutionary setting up a brand new world on this earth. But he is not God and there is no eternal life, says he vehemently, after I inquire of him.

Says I, that's not what he said, and revolutionaries and Utopian dreams this world has also seen plenty of. I am going with a bunch of stuff from Uwe Siemon-Netto now. I pick on all his communist favorites, and how they all set up their own dictatorships and elite systems. How we can certainly work on improving our systems, but Christ's own kingdom is not of this world and he said so.

That was one thread. One other one had to do with all the badmouthing of Christianity he is always listening to on these rides, but really the Bible is a book of love, says he. There was a Muslim rider who told him about how everything a Christian believes the Muslim believes, too, that God is the same and Christ is the prophet, etc. but then he flips it around and says that the Christian God is really bad and punishes, and the apple in the garden all had to do with sex, and God demolished Sodom and Gomorrah, and all that is unjust, and God kills here and there and everywhere, and the crusades were bad, and the inquisition was bad, and now the poor Muslim gets blamed for 9-11, when it's really God's doing.

Somehow, he had absorbed this idea that God is to blame for everything and man for nothing, which needed to be countered. Human beings are always killing, yes, sometimes in the name of various religions, but more often in the name of no religion. A dozen atheist dictators killed 140 million civilians in the last century along (Truth Project). Etc.

Then he tells me about some "controversial" book that is coming out of South America, something to do with the Jews, etc. blah, blah, I interrupt him, we're almost back now, he talked for at least 80% of the time, and time for this non-sense to get a final reply. I picked up on his idea of the Bible being a book of love, and that it is we who are to be blamed and it is wrong to blame God, that Christ died for the forgiveness of sins, and what is changed are hearts not governements, that he said so himself, and that he promised everlasting life through him.

Then we were at the door and he wished me a good day, and I him. He did not seem entirely happy with me. He did say it was a good conversation and that I had listened to him.

May the Lord, make it so some good.

What this exchange makes me wonder is how many Christians would actually say something against all this non-sense and anti-Christian rhetoric. Are we in touch with what goes on in other people's minds? Are we ready? Do we need to prepare better? Do we need to learn and practice more apologetics? How much? How have things changed from the books we used to learn from regarding cults and other religions? Do we need additional confessional material that deals with all these other attacks?

From the blogging, I think, I can carry on a conversation like this without raising the blood pressure.

On the other hand, in talking with Martin, I wonder how much the RC church is involved in hardening poor people in South America, if it is implicated in a lot of oppression. Martin thought it might be. There are some cultural things, which we may not be aware of.

In any case, I keep running into people who are very sour on the Catholic church, and they, like some ex-Mormons, now don't want to have anything to do with a biblical Christ or the Christian church, which is terribly sad.

When I got back, and told my sister-in-law about this encounter she wondered how I get into these conversations and how on earth do you figure out what to say. It's really not that difficult, once you reveal anything about what you yourself think and believe or you mention Christ, or ask them questions about themselves. You have to have it in your mind, that you would like to have this conversation. This one, however, was dropped into my lap. Deal with it, Brigitte. But generally, it's easier with non-Canadians. Canadians can be non-controversial in the extreme. I'd rather talk with a hot South American revolutionary than deal with bland nothingness.

Interview with Uwe Siemon-Netto

Interview with Uwe Siemon-Netto on the White Horse Inn on Oct.18,2009.
http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/The_White_Horse_Inn/archives.asp?bcd=2009-10-18

Uwe Siemon-Netto in Calgary on "two kingdoms doctrine".

Communications from LCC. Would be neat to attend, since we've been reading his book.

Lutheran scholar at University of Calgary

LCMS Lutheran, Uwe Siemon-Netto, a journalist for 52 years, Lutheran scholar and founding director of the Center for Lutheran Theology and Public Life (CLTPL) will speak at the University of Calgary’s 2009 Peter Craigie Memorial Lecture, Tuesday, October 6, at 7:30 p.m. in the Husky Oil Great Hall, Rozsa Centre. His lecture Voters as priests—the Lutheran Paradox will explore the Lutheran ‘two kingdoms doctrine’

that provides sharp distinctions between the secular and spiritual realities in the lives of every Christian.

Sidetracked 2

The stories I learned last Sunday were these:

My friend's father was one who had refused to join the Nazi party. The consequence of this was that on the day that war was declared, he was called up to army duty as among the first ones. There were three factors that show that it was not his turn to go yet: his age, his having a family with four small children, his being a farmer. Still, he was sent among the first ones. So now, we also know one thing that could happen to you if you did not join the party.

My friend said, that the entire town/village went to church throughout the era and was not intimidated that way. The pastor was very good and not a Nazi. In fact he was a graduate of the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada seminary,(which is quite a co-incidence, since my friend now resides in Edmonton).

As already mentioned, I had asked her about the knowledge of what was going on with the Jews and she said they had not known, but some things were also withheld from children, like herself. In 1944, some Jews were housed in a large place in town while on route to somewhere. They were in dreadful condition. The farm women came to bring bread, but were turned away by the soldiers. They then proceeded to bring it anyways telling the soldiers to go ahead and shoot them, which they apparently did not do. Someone in their town has written about about these kinds of events in a book, which my friend possesses.

The end of the war was terrible for this town. The French soldiers were delayed in their area because the front was not moving. These soldiers were from all over the world, including Tunisia and so on. The raping, pillaging and murdering was horrendous and lasted for several weeks until they moved on. My friend described this in detail. These are things she remembered herself. The local doctor aborted the babies conceived in this fashion. The doctor was a woman who prayed that God would forgive, but the events had been too horrible. All these things seem to be known around town.

When my friend's father returned from the war he was incensed to hear about this. What kind of army would allow such things, he said. He contrasted this with the German taking of France, which was civilized. I suppose the troops he was with did not do things like that.

One more story from her. Her husband to be, he once was my pastor,later on, of course, never joined the Hitler youth. His father simply said: "You are not going. On Sunday morning you go to church, not to Hitler youth." The Nazi's always tried to supplant the church by staging their own gatherings at the same time.

Totalitarian Regimes 2

This is what happened to you, if you refused to fight Hitler's war. This story is well known because Franz Jaegerstaetter is up for beatification by the Roman Catholic church.

Franz Jägerstätter (in English also spelled Franz Jaegerstaetter) was born in Sankt Radegund, Austria, a small village near Salzburg and Braunau am Inn. He was the illegitimate child of Rosalia Huber and Franz Bachmeier. The child was first brought up by his grandmother, Elisabeth Huber. Franz's natural father was killed in World War I when he was still a child, and when his mother married, Franz was adopted by her husband, Heinrich Jägerstätter.

In his youth, Franz had gained a reputation for being a wild fellow, but, in general, his daily life was like that of most Austrian peasants. In 1933, he fathered an out of wedlock daughter, Hildegard Auer.[1]

In 1936, he married Franziska Schwaninger, a girl from a nearby village, and they went to Rome on their honeymoon. A Catholic by birth, he experienced a religious awakening - apparently about the time of his marriage – and later served as sexton of his parish church.

When German troops moved into Austria in 1938, Jägerstätter was the only person in the village to vote against the Anschluss. Although he was not involved with any political organization, and did undergo one brief period of military training, he remained openly anti-Nazi, and publicly declared he would not fight in the war.

After many delays, Jägerstätter was called to active duty in February, 1943. By this time, he had three daughters with his wife, the eldest not quite six. He maintained his position against fighting for the Third Reich, and was imprisoned, first at Linz, then at Berlin. After a military trial, he was sentenced to death and subsequently executed by guillotine on August 9, 1943, aged 36.

Sidetracked

Ok, we were going to write more about the Fabricated Luther. We got to what kind of pressure my Grandfather was under and we did not finish his story. There are so many stories to tell.

At a 75th birthday on Sunday, I fished out someone else's WW II stories, which were also interesting. The people who are getting old now are the ones who were children when the war was over. They relate stories of people who were older than they, their parents' or their husband's stories. Soon we won't be able to speak with that generation any more.

What else my grandfather told was that after the war he was dismissed from his service because he had worked in the finance department and therefore had been forced to be a party member. The military government let them all go en mass, and then sent them to a tribunal where they could clear their names if possible. He brought in his witnesses and got a very favorable evaluation, only getting labeled as "Mitlauefer", i.e. not an active promoter of Nazism. Then this process was repeated via a more strict evaluation and his evaluation turned out even better than the less strict process, he was pleased to report. He could prove that he had been faithfully attending church and Bible study and not been an active Nazi. He explains when and where this exactly happened. He must have received his final and favorable judgment in Erbach/Odenwald. Thus he was "de-nazified" by the military government.

During the war, we've already heard, he claimed his rights under "reasons of faith and conscience" to refuse certain types of activities. Among things he refused to do was to report on "Volksgenossen", that is to spy on the rest of the population and file reports. He had to do something for the party, which he chose to do in the "Luftschutz", which has apparently something to do with getting people in an out of air raid shelters. He also chose not to quit the church which most of his colleagues did.

The main repercussions were that he had to keep reporting to the human resources, why did or did not do what he did, which I am sure was nerve wracking for him. But Dr. Wert kept giving him decent evaluations. The most high up personnel chief, "ein strenger Nazi", a very strict Nazi, however, never returned any greetings of his and ignored him altogether.

After the war and his de-nazification evaluation he was given work in Wiesbaden at the Staatshauptkasse.

That's all I have on that. I would have been curious to know if they knew about the "final solution" and if there were any Jews in their area who were taken away. The lady I talked to on Sunday said that they did not know because there were no Jews where they lived (country close to Pfortzheim). Except in 1944 there was a transport through their town where some of the townspeople brought them bread though they were threatened to be shot for doing so.

The "Fuehrer" promises protection of conscience. Transcript and translation of previous post.

That only took a minute. Grandpa Willy speaks nicely and slowly.

"Und ich hab' mir immer diesen Vorhalt gehabt--'aus Glaubens--und Gewissensgruenden' --denn der Fuehrer hat ja immer betont, es soll keiner darunter leiden, dass er 'aus Glaubens--und Gewissensgruenden' nicht die Satzungen der Partei einhalten konnte."

"Da bist du also..." "Langsam...jetzt... Wir mussten das immer unserer Personalbehoerde bei der Oberfinanzdirektion begruenden warum wir nicht in der Hitlerbewegung mitarbeiten."

in English

"... I always used the provision-- 'for reasons of faith and conscience'-- because the Fuehrer always stressed that nobody should suffer because of the fact that he could not keep the statutes of the party due to 'reasons of faith and conscience'".

"Therefore you did..?" "Hang on (slowly)... Now... We always (repeatedly) had to give account to human resources at the Higher Finance Directorship why it was that we were not actively contributing to the Hitler-movement."

Interesting here is the way that he finagled his way through quoting the "Fuehrer" himself. I should translate the rest of this section. There are another 20 sentences in this part of the story.

What really blows my mind, however, how Hitler coaxed co-operation by giving this proviso when everyone was expected/forced to become a member of the party--that "none should suffer consequences because of issues due to faith or conscience".-- Wasn't that nice. We should trust the bastard even though we are being forced to join his party in this one-party state.

At least it helped Grandpa get through it. He had stated at the outset that he was a Christian and intended to remain one. He thus became a member of the party (required in his line of work in the finance department, 1938) but steadfastly refused to help advance the "movement" citing "reasons of faith and conscience", which he had given at the outset. We can see from the rest of the story, (not yet translated) that he suffered some repercussions from this, but nothing overly traumatic. Some became his enemies and some his friends. Maybe the finance department was a good place to be, since there were mostly just numbers to deal with, I would expect.

Whether he should have refused to become a member and lose his job instead, I don't want to analyze here. If he should have gone out and carried placards and had himself killed, or whatever people could have done and what would have happened, I don't know.--I can only imagine the anguish. He did not have the best nerves, was kind and soft(and short and chubby),(the polar opposite of a hard, nasty man), was conscientious(he was a bureaucrat after all), not to mention he did take his faith seriously. He also had four little children. My mother was two years old.

What strikes me here--this is what I am trying to get at--is the propaganda machine of the Nazi's who try to look good via promises of protection of the conscience. How very trustworthy of those pushing you around. There is some deep irony to this.

"Aus Glaubens--und Gewissensgruenden"--for reasons of faith and conscience

Reviewing an interview with my grandpa; you can practice translating this by yourself for the moment.

If you've got it you may write it in the comments. This is a test. :) That'll save me 20 minutes tomorrow. His Hessian dialect is not very strong. You can do it. His name was Wilhelm. Born 1899. He lived to be 87, I believe.

I was surprised by this statement. It shows something about how the Nazi's operated.

Fabricated Luther/ Fabricated German/ Shirer

More than anything else, Shirer’s most vivid first impressions of the citizens of the New Germany had to do with the unquestioning loyalty with which many of them supported the Nazis as Hitler rebuilt a formerly defeated, chaotic country. Shirer realized that while in the recesses of their minds lived the fear of the Gestapo and of the possibility of being sent to a concentration camp if they resisted the regime, it seemed that the Nazi terror affected the lives of relatively few Germans. After 1918 the Socialists and Communists had enjoyed considerable support, yet within a year of Nazi rule most of their followers happily kept their political sympathies to themselves—even as Hitler broke the once-strong unions and replaced them with a mock Labor Front. At first the nation’s churches heralded the rise of Hitler as the bringer of a restored moral order. By the time the Catholic archbishop of Munich and the Protestant Martin Niemoeller caught on to Nazi plans to replace Christianity with Teutonic paganism, however, it was too late. And, few Germans protested the savage disenfranchisement and killing of Jews.

Shirer concluded that most Germans did not sense that they were being duped or oppressed by a tyrannical leader. Hitler embodied their deepest hopes for regained national pride and prosperity. While they had known political turmoil for a decade and a half under the idealistic Weimarer democrats, under the Nazis they found an unshakeable stability. After fifteen years of recurrent, unbelievable inflation and unemployment, the Germans seemed willing to pay almost any price for a solid Reichsmark and the promise of full employment. Perhaps most importantly, Hitler offered the masses a break from an unwanted past. In exchange for hard work and the loss of personal freedom, the Nazis guided the nation toward a surrealistic dream of German cultural—if not political—dominance over what many saw as a mediocre world. Under Hitler, the German eagle soared once again.

What??????

Perhaps--in the beginning many did not catch on. Still--how can he say something like this:

"Shirer realized that while in the recesses of their minds lived the fear of the Gestapo and of the possibility of being sent to a concentration camp if they resisted the regime, it seemed that the Nazi terror affected the lives of relatively few Germans."

Is he joking? Shirer, it seems to me had too privileged a position, attended too many Hitler rallies, mixed too much with the brass, watched too many women swoon (as he describes in other places).

I have always felt that the average North American and even the British have no idea what is was like to live under a totalitarian regime. They have been blessed and they are blissfully ignorant, not speaking the languages of oppressed people. I also think our new atheists have no clue what it is to live under atheist dictatorships. No clue. When I was a child we saw documentaries every week covering human rights abuses behind the iron curtain, dissidents sent to psychiatric hospitals, learned about people getting shot trying to cross the border... In fact, go to any website chronicling persecutions and human rights abuses in different countries. See what can be learned.

The "fear of the Gestapo and the possibility of being sent to a concentration camp" lives in the "recesses" of one's mind? Do you really think that is possible?-- Such fear becomes the dominant thing in one's mind, it does not exist in the recesses.

I spent one weekend in Communist East Germany. The feeling of oppression was continuously with us, beginning with the hassles and machine guns at the border, to making sure the neighbors did not see things or you might get reported, to never-ending bureaucracy of having everything checked and stamped and checked and stamped again. It was nightmarish. It affected our traveling group physically. When we were back across the border, we felt an incredible sense of relief. Oppression and terror do not live in the recesses of your mind.

If someone is going to shoot you or put you in concentration camp are you going to resist them? Let me see that threat live in the "recess" of your mind. Let me see you go forward boldly. Did we see Shirer do something for the all different groups that were getting harassed and hauled off? No, when he learned that the Gestapo was building a case against him, he left the country. Ah. Was there fear only in the recesses of his mind? I don't mean to blame him. But perhaps he could have understood different parts of the population better.

The ethical dilemmas presented to average people were horribly profound. You will not understand them from Hitler rallies. And you will not get a complete picture from living in Berlin.

I can see what Siemon-Netto means by cliche thinking.

Fabricated Luther/ William Shirer

Today, I realized why I found Sienmon-Netto's book so hard to read over the summer. It is the same reason I found it hard today to survey John Toland's tome on Hitler. It is all far too upsetting. It put me in a terrible mood for the entire day. The suffering, the totalitarianism, the loss of life, the idiocy of mankind, the evil, the manipulation, the pride, the insanity... It takes a toll, just thinking about it.

Seeing that William Shirer is referenced numerous times in the index and Goerderle never, made me look up all the passages where Shirer is mentioned. He was the American correspondent who was personally present at many pivotal events. He was an eye-witness for certain types of events such as Hitler rallies and things happening at the top. That's all I can glean from this source. I'm sure we could easily find out much more that would be interesting.

Sienmon-Netto writes this that mentions him in chapter one:

But this leas us to questions that must be pondered in a study of the phenomenon of cliche thinking: Does modernity allow for differentiated view? Can a media society function without cliches? Would Shirer's work have been a global success had he written, 'Well, yes, there were Germans who misunderstood Luther and therefore did not resist the Nazis and who became Nazis themselves; and there were other Germans whose internalized Lutheranism guided them in the opposite direction and made them choose the path of resistance and martyrdom'?

Shirer knew many of the latter variety of Germans. He knew Carl Goerdeler, who will be the focus of a long chapter in this volume. Did Shirer not see that it was Goerdeler, rather than Hitler's fellow travelers, who acted in a truly Lutheran fashion? Or was Shirer insufficiently informed about Luther and about Hitler? Or did he not want to know? Like Shirer, I am a veteran foreign correspondent familiar with the pressures and constraints of our trade, and that makes it impossible for me to slam him. Too great is the temptation to reach into your stock of cliches if your job compels you to explain strange societies to readers and listeners who are unfamiliar with such subjects.

It reminds us of the soundbites we get for our newscasts on television, these days--unless it has to do with an accident or a starlet; THEN we get incredible detail. The more inane the story the more we learn about it. Sickening.

Anyhow, Siemon-Nettos explanation of the work of the journalist makes sense to some degree.

Fabricated Luther, first paragraph

"More than six decades ago, scores of Germans were rounded up and tortured to death, hanged, guillotined, or executed by firing squads for their attempt to overthrow the National Socialist tyranny. Almost all of them were Christians; some were Roman Catholic, and some were Lutheran. The most famous among the latter group were Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the theologian, and Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, the former mayor of Leipzig. Goerdeler would have become Germany's chancellor had the July 20, 1944, coup attempt against Adolf Hitler succeeded."

Why is it I have never, ever, heard of Carl Goerdeler before reading the "Fabricated Luther"? Oh, yes, I just heard about him also in the movie "Valkyrie" with Tom Cruise. My visitor from Vancouver had us watch the movie the other night. Wow, never heard of Goerdeler before and now twice in one summer. Actually, the point did not really hit me til watching "Valkyrie".

I checked my Adolf Hitler tome (by John Toland; see picture)--no Goerdeler in the index, at all. My husband, who knows more about this kind of thing, has never heard of Goerdeler. Again--my husband, who knows more about this kind of thing, did not think the uprising was as big as the movie depicted. HOW could it not have been? Certainly, the movie-makers could not have made it up. Why does it seem strange to us even now after all this time?

Why does this matter? It matters because Siemon-Netto's line of reasoning in the book tries to show that the German resistance has been minimized both in the kind of support it received and the kind of recognition it received. It's story has been buried. In fact, Siemon-Netto shows how the German resistance and its information and informants were completely and tragically dismissed in London and other places. He also shows how the story received no play after the war. This matters because if there actually was resistance and by what kind of people the myth of the Lutheran quietism is debunked.

Why does any of it matter? First of all, the truth always matters. Sienmon-Netto thinks it matters because Luther's stance on the two realms is not only not a problem but the solution to many problems plaguing nations. The doctrine on the two realms matters. To me it matters, because Luther must be evaluated as fairly as possible because he taught us the Gospel, and it matters and therefore he matters. No one should take unnecessary offense at reformation teachings.

Reformation and Apologetics

I'm looking for "On Temporal Authority: To which Extent it ought to be Obeyed" -- online. I found a blog that does a very interesting job both listing Luther's works and being engaged in reformation apologetic.

http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2005/12/martin-luther-topical-master-index-for.html

Update: James Swan kindly sent the link to the entire document. It is here. Thank you very much!

Fabricated Luther/ from on temporal authority: "Use your head"

Was reading in the Lull Anthology of Martin Luther's Theological Writings. p. 655 and following.
"Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed"

I think that's the document everyone is referring to. Or is there another?

Why does Luther always make so much sense? Read the entire thing here. The ending of the treatise was brilliant. Basically is is a call to use your brain and follow natural law and love when the circumstances require it. He relates a memorable story to illustrate his point.

"A good and just decision must not and cannot be pronounced out of books, but must come from a free mind, as though there were no books. Such a free decision is given, however, by love and by natural law, with which all reason is filled; out of the books come extravagant and untenable judgments. Let me give you an example of this.

This story if told of Duke Charles of Burgundy. A certain nobleman took an enemy prisoner. The prisoner's wife came to ransom her husband. The nobleman promised to give back the husband on condition that she would lie with him. The woman was virtuous, yet wished to set her husband free; so she goes and asks her husband whether she should do this thing in order to set him free. The husband wished to be set free and to save his life, so he gives his wife permission. After the nobleman had lain with the wife, he had the husband beheaded the next day and give him to her as a corpse. She laid the whole case before Duke Charles. He summoned the nobleman and commanded him to marry the woman. When the wedding day was over he had the nobleman beheaded, gave the woman possession of his property, and restored her to honor. Thus he punished the crime in a princely way.

Observe: No pope, no jurist, no lawbook could have given him such a decision. It sprang from untrammeled reason, above the law in all the books, and is so excellent that everyone must approve of it and find the justice of it written in his own heart. St. Augustine relates a similar story... Therefore, we should keep written laws subject to reason, from which they originally welled forth as from the spring of justice. We should not make the spring dependent on its rivulets, or make reason a captive of letters."

Fabricated Luther: Troeltsch

This seems to be the kind of thing Ernst Troeltsch wrote about Lutheranism:

“Thus the conception of a State Church still remains the centre of the social doctrines of Lutheranism” (Ibid., 516). Lutheranism manifests a passive tendency that predisposes it to support whatever power happens to be dominant and makes it vulnerable to being controlled by the governments to which it is connected, even if they are characterized by brutality and tyranny. Troeltsch views these tendencies within Lutheranism as contrary to the progressive spirit he associates with Protestant countries in the modern era.

The impact of such analysis and stereotyping is what Siemon-Netto is trying to examine.

My own reaction to this is:

Certainly, we who were reared after the wars were encouraged to engage in critique. "Critical thinking" was supposedly the highest goal of education, one of our teachers used to say. To this day, Germans are known to be brutally honest, critical and forward in their speech. This can be very annoying, but also highly constructive leading to correction and innovation.

I don't think that this just happened just as of late.

Secondly, I would not describe the State Churches as particularly "Lutheran", in that I never heard anybody discuss documents from the reformation or any of Luther's books.

I was confirmed in the State Church myself, and I certainly did not learn anything about Luther or the reformation, then and there. We in the ev.luth. State Church knew ourselves mostly in opposition to Roman Catholics. We knew what we did not believe and do better than any teachings of Martin Luther, I'd say. I did not get to know Martin Luther, until I bought my own first book authored by him at the secular University of Alberta. I think, actual words and teachings of Luther are almost a bit of a State Secret.

The Fabricated Luther

It took me most of the summer. For some reason, I found this book difficult (but worthwhile) reading. (Not nearly as entertaining as Luther himself. :) ) Uwe Siemon-Netto's book "The Fabricated Luther, Refuting Nazi Connections and Other Modern Myths." still needs digesting. Many of the men he speaks about are not really familiar to me. For example, Ernst Toeltsch, "a liberal German theologian considered a tragic figure by many of his colleagues" had much influence that was not helpful. Such things, I've never read about. So this is just a start.

I am not really a WW II buff, though I've read a big tome on Adolf Hitler and another on Bonhoeffer's life. Of course, having grown up in Germany I have personally often been exposed to the numerous recollections of civilians, such as my parents, grandparents, my husbands family... Refugees, displaced people, German Mennonites from behind the Ural (my father's brother-in-law). Having grown up in Germany, I also still remember some of the damage to buildings, that could be seen during the sixties.

One of the reasons I picked up this book was that during some exchanges on blogs with Reformed Jews, Luther was practically charged with causing the Holocaust and this was pretty well all that was "known" about him. (Also, Bror said it was a good book.) So it arrived from CPH.

The Foreword is by Peter Berger. A number of themes are woven together in the book. Siemon-Netto tries to debunk what he calls "cliche" thinking related to Germany, World War II, Luther's understanding of the distinction between the two realms, and the German resistance under both National Socialist and Communist totalitarianism. He finishes by applying the correct understanding of Luther to current situations.

One other observer of the same time needs correcting. This is part of the effort of the book: William L. Shirer, the author of "The Rise and the Fall of the Third Reich", has wielded too much influence, dealing in cliches. (Shirer I had come across when researching a little bit about what was said about Luther in relationship to anti-semitism. So there a bell was rung.)

I'd like to go through the book again and comment on it here. Hopefully, I can do it. There are a ton of details that need to be examined when debunking "cliche thinking". If you are really interested, you would definitely be better off getting your own book.