Germany 1933Public humiliation was the first step in removing Jews from German society. SA members cut the beards off Jewish men and forced wealthy Jewish women to scrub the streets with their undergarments.
In 1919, Adolf Hitler had defined Jews as "a racial and not a religious group." He was dead wrong. Here's a more proper definition:
"Whether their outlooks are secular or religious, their homes in Israel, Europe, the United States or anywhere else in the world, Jews are not a race but a people unified by memory and history, culture, tradition, and religious observances that are widely, if not identically, shared." (The Holocaust Journal, p. 60)
Hitler may have been dead wrong, but before it was over, 6,000,000 Jews were just plain dead!
* March 5 - The Nazis win 288 or 647 seats in the Reichstag election. Individual German states are stripped of power.
* March 9-10 - The SA (Storm Troopers of the Nazi Party) riot against German Jews, along with Stahlhelm, a nationalist organization made up of veterans of WWI.
* March 21 - Special Nazi courts are established to deal with political enemies.
* March 22 - Dachau is established in southern Germany.
* March 23 - The Reichstag gives Hitler dictatorial powers.
* Apri 1 - The German government establishes the first official boycott of Jewish lawyers, doctors and merchants.
* April 7 - Hitler approves laws banning Jews from the practice of law and from civil service jobs. Jewish government workers in Germany are forced to retire.
* April 11 - The German government sets up employment and economic sanctions against Jews. The Lutheran Church registers its opposition.
* April 26 - Hermann Goring establishes the Gestapo. Hitler meets with Bishop Wilhelm Berning of Osnabruck and Monsignor Steinmann who represent the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. Hitler tells the prelates that he is only doing to the Jews what the Catholic Church has done to them for 1600 years. Hitler says his anti-Jewish actions are "doing Christianity a great service." The two clergyman later comment that their talk with Hitler was "cordial and to the point."
* April 27 - The German government bans the ritual Jewish slaughter of animals for meat.
1933 was the year that a group of Nazi Protestant theologians who called themselves "Storm Troopers for Jesus," and who believed Hitler to be an "instrument of God," started a drive "to align the Protestant churches of German with pagan Nordic ritual and the goals of the Nazis."
They wanted one Reich church under centralized leadership. Ludwig Muller, Hitler's advisor on church matters was "elected" to the new post of Reich bishop of the Protestant church.
Muller was an anti-semite, a military chaplain who believed that the "races" should not mix, that such mixing was immoral and should be outlawed.
Some Protestant pastors opposed Muller and set up their own organization, the Confessing Church.
Many of these "dissenting" pastors were arrested and persecuted under Muller's orders. That led to protests and Hitler was forced to temporarily tone down his assault of the Confessing Church.
More tomorrow.
1 comment:
Let us not forget that church goers and leaders all over Europe did little or nothing to protest the anti Jewish laws. A handful of people risked their lives to rescue Jews or their children. Many had the children baptized and raised as Christians, but at least they were alive. The world and the religious leaders did not speak out when they could have. Many actually helped the anti Semites find and arrest or kill Jews all over Europe. I consider it a huge failure of organized Christianity. Underground groups in Poland and other European countries, including France, turned over Jewish volunteers to the Nazis. The numbers of Righteous Christians discovered by Yad Vashem in Israel is pitifully small! The role of our State Department was disgraceful as they refused to grant visas to Jews seeking escape. We all know of the few brave souls that did get Jews to Spain and a few to the US, Britain and China. Only Bulgaria refused to turn Jews over to the Nazis. It is not true that Denmark’s king wore a yellow star and refused to turn over Jews! Denmark surrendered without a shot and was controlled by the Nazis with the cooperation of Denmark’s police and government officials. Danish fishermen smuggled Jews out without the government’s help.
Civilization failed to act civilized and ignored the teachings of Jesus, the Jew. Had Jesus returned to Europe He would have died again at the hands of His neighbors. Maybe He did and decided Christian Europe was beyond redemption.
Bob Poris
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