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Saturday, June 6, 2020

How German Mennonites Came To Defend The Use Of The 'Heil Hitler" Greeting

Facebook removed this post on the Anabaptist Collective site, but here are its main points.
Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, Associate Professor of Theology and VP and Dean of the Seminary at Tyndale University in Toronto, has done considerable research on European Mennonites prior to and during World War II. Some of his findings, including a recent post on the use of the "Heil Hitler" greeting, I found chilling and disturbing.

One quote he gives is by Walter [Jakob] Quiring, who in 1934 explained the “Heil Hitler” greeting as being the way in which millions of Germans “express their desire for strength, health, knowledge, in short, the blessing of God for their spiritual leader in his titanic battle against evil.”

Another Mennonite leader, Benjamin H. Unruh, who was exiled to Germany by the Stalin regime in 1921, wrote the following in 1937 to the District Administrator of Fernheim, the pioneer Mennonite colony in Paraguay:

“Heil Hitler” means that one heartily wishes the head of the new Germany hail [well-being]. Above all, believing Christians think of “salvation from God,” whom the Chancellor and Führer honestly confesses, for which we cannot be thankful enough. Just think of Stalin! ... In the Hitler greeting “Hitler” is in the dative case. Have you never read 1 Timothy 2:2? … Adolf Hitler wants nothing for himself, everything only for his Volk. I honour him with my whole heart, and I love him as one can only love a sovereign (Fürst means the first among his people!). Only history will reveal what God through Adolf Hitler has granted the German Volk in its entirety, including Germans in host countries, and what he will still grant to Europe and the world as well. Hitler is the great combatant of Stalin."

Elsewhere, Neufeldt-Fast states that the justification Mennonites and other professed Christians most often gave for supporting Hitler was his rhetoric on resisting the socialism of Stalinist Russia. Sadly, this rationalization resulted in many individuals and whole congregations embracing one of the most demonic regimes in history. Prussian Mennonite church leaders, he notes, "regularly signed formal and informal correspondence to each other in a way that linked traditional Mennonite piety with piety toward the Führer: 'With brotherly greetings, Heil Hitler!' ”

"History does not repeat," Neufeldt-Fast believes, "but it can rhyme." He concludes that apostasy is rarely obvious to people at the time they are embracing it.

This should serve as a reminder of how easy it is to become seduced by any mix of nationalism and the Christian faith.

7 comments:

  1. ...as an American Baptist I value Separation of Church and Sate.

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  2. the CHURCH being those who believe and follow Jesus have always been the world and responsible for witness of the message of peace and hope showing love and care, this can not be forested on other. You shall love the lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as your self.

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  3. Gut wrenching truth. May God enable the Christians in our society to see what is going on with the same toxic mixture.

    Leon

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  4. Leon writes: "gut wrenching truth"

    My mind translates: "good wrenching truth"

    is it just me? haha

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  5. There are no dates of church support of Hitler, a grossly unjust fact. Nearly all Germans were impoverished and embarassed after WWI, the "war to end all wars" and this strong voice promising to reestablish their economy and build a disciplined society was enigmatic. If any church supported the regime AFTER it was known widely what they did, and after the threat of death for opposing it had passed when the regime was destroyed, then that church is in need of repentance and would be an embarrassment to all reasonable people.

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  6. WHEN I WAS IN Germany the people I learned to know said they who approved of Hitlert were very wrong and said now they know why they lost the war GODS doing and they are gllad they lost the war.Hitler was not for bthe BIBLE.VB

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