Racing to Save a Nazi Church

Most Christians today don't have any conception of just how tightly intertwined Christianity and Nazism were in Germany. It's often assumed that they two were antagonistic; the truth, however, is that many Christians saw Nazism as fully compatible with their religion. One of the few physical examples of this, a Nazi-themed Lutheran church, is at risk for falling down.

Ekklesia reports on the efforts of some Christian leaders to save the church in order to preserve it as a reminder of what happened before and what could happen again:

The Martin Luther Memorial Church in Berlin has embarrassed the authorities for six decades, but is also seen as a warning to the wider church about what can happen when Christians get too close to Government. [...] “There was a bust of Adolf Hitler in the nave,” Isolde Boehm, dean of the church, said. “A carved face of Hitler has been replaced by one of Martin Luther. There is even a rumour that the church was supposed to be called the Adolf Hitler Church.”

The priests — Frau Boehm and the Reverend Malte Jungnickel — have applied to have the church declared a listed building and are lobbying the Government to come up with money to fund the restoration. “There is no other church in Germany that is so obviously fascist-designed,” said Ilse Klein, a parish councillor and local historian. “Look at the face of Christ on the cross,” Herr Jungnickel said. “It is the face of a victorious Aryan, with a bodybuilder’s frame, not the suffering Jesus.”

There is Nazi iconography everywhere. Der Spiegel has a nice set of photography of the church, including Nazi storm troopers carved in various places — once, right next to Jesus Christ. Swastikas are illegal in Germany so naturally they have all been removed, but the places they once occupied are still obvious.

The ethical dilemma of preserving Nazi iconography has been gripping German art critics. Debate has also been raging as to how much from the Nazi era should be cleared away or allowed to stay. [...] “The problem we will always have with this unique church is that whenever we stand in the pulpit and say something, we have to preach against our surroundings; that’s incredibly hard,” Frau Boehm said. “Somehow we have to find a way of preserving the building, keeping its interior as a warning, but also supplement it with a documentation centre explaining the complicated history of the church in the Third Reich.”

It is an interesting dilemma. Preserving the church will feel immoral, since it’s preserving a piece of Nazi history. Wiping it clean, however, will remove a very strong reminder of what the Nazis did — and this is something that people can’t afford to forget. On the whole, I think that the positives outweigh the negatives, but we should never lose sight of the negatives — they are just as important to remember as what we want to preserve the church for.

 

Christian Right & Christian Nationalism:

• Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany, and Christian Nationalism
• Christian Anti-Semitism, Persecution of Jews
• Religious Intolerance & Bigotry
• Christianism & Christian Nationalism
• Christian Identity, White Supremacy, Christian Supremacy