Kirchenkampf and Holocaust

Jews have been writing their chronicles and histories—for Jews. Some Christian Scholars have been writing about the Church Struggle—for Christians. The deeper meaning of the Holocaust and Kirchenkampf has scarcely penetrated the American scene at all. Jewish leaders maintain that the American Jewish community has not yet come to terms with the Holocaust—for reasons which are certainly easy enough even for an outgrouper to understand. Less understandable, however, especially in view of the rising power of the Radical Right in America, is the failure of the American churches to work through the lessons of the German church struggle. Even the theological schools give it only a passing glance, chiefly because it does not fit the kind of self-understanding which American Chris tendom has of itself. Thirty years ago, as the Confessing Church was going to its Synod at Bad Oeynhausen or the German Jews were facing the dreadful portent of the Kristalnacht, there were only two leading churchmen in America who repeatedly and clearly—and with interpretations which still stand the test of time—warned of the true import of Nazism's war against the Jews and the Christians: Reinhold Niebuhr and George Shuster. Today, so far as the churches are concerned, it is only among the students and younger theologians that the questions which the Kirchenkampf and the Holocaust put to traditional religious institutions constantly arise. It is therefore with great anticipation and gratitude that the Wayne State University's undertaking to develop a major documentation and research center on the Church Struggle and a North American center on the Holocaust is to be welcomed by a whole company of

Art · German · Linguistics · Nazism · Political science · The Holocaust · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Theology, History, Judaism, Christianity · Religious studies