True Christians living in Nazi Germany

[JoshuaNY]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran Pastor who was part of the German resistance against the Nazis. As other posters said it is easy to be a Monday morning quarterback .He was a part of the planning to assasinate Hitler. Many of us would wrestle with the decision to be a part of a plan to end someones life he too had a hard time deciding what to do. His quote was “…it is better for good men to do evil than evil men to do good”
Now you can agree or disagree with his choice but I beleive he was a True Christian trying to do the best he could with what he had to end the war and the attrocities of that were happening. He was arrested, imprisoned and executed for his involvement.

 

[504Katrin]

My Grandparents were good Christians, and they didn’t support the regime. It took small things to get prosecuted back then. The Nazis almost killed my Grandpa. Mom told us that everyone had to have a picture of Hitler on their wall and Grandpa refused to hang it up. One day the police came to our house and when he still refused to hang it up they brought him to a concentration camp. They let him starve and didn’t give him food. They would have let him die from hunger, but then luckily the war was over and he came back home. He was just skin and bones and that emaciated that his own wife walked by him and didn’t recognize him anymore
The fam back then also hid a Russian girl and a Jewish family who lived in the back of our house. Mom said she doesn’t know how Grandma was able to feel all of them during the war but somehow she made it.

 

[GraceDK]

Here is a subject that fascinates me. It concerns one of the most defining and horrific periods of human history – which occurred in the lifetime of many still alive today.

So much of Nazi ideology was at odds with Christs teachings of compassion, love, kindness and peace. There were many religions that considered themselves Christian in Germany.

I would be very interested in peoples opinions.
The question: How should true Christians have acted during the terrible years Nazi Germany was in power?

Dear brother or sister.
As I was walking around in German cities I noticed the hight of culture in terms of beautiful churches and synagoges. I asked myself… how could a country with so many churches fall prey to anti-christian mass-hysteria?
Then it occured to me I didn’t have to look back at history.

Nothing has changed. We have, in Europe, high numbers of baptisms, we have wonderful churches all over the landscape… and yet we have populations with little or no understanding of Jesus Christ. They don’t have a personal relationship with Him (which it takes to change lives) No real ungency about evangelisation… …
Look at the number of porn addicts, divorces, unfaithful people… look at the abortion industry. Abortion is on the top list of causes of death in Europe.

In Nazi Germany too many were caught in tradition instead of personal convictions/relationship with Christ.
And they tried for too long to combine an anti-christian system with their christian view of life… this cannot be done. Also today people have to make a choice and can’t have both…

Compromises with the truth are the beginning of our problems, individually and nationally.
The lesson is, if it can happen to a high civilisation like Germany, it can happen and do happen to all countries. Not because Christianity is inadequate, but because of original sin and our unwillingness to let ourselves be helped.

 

[valentino]

I never said it wasn’t there, I just said it did not come out full force as an actual policy of erradication or “The Final Solution” until after he had power. Also anti semitism was not that un common on Europe in Hitler’s day…just not to the extent that he carried it after becoming dictator. People did not realize that his policies were going to lead to mass murder until well after the time to easily stop him was past.

if a politition in America wrote a book and preached in his party rallies he’s for getting rid of all Hispanic ,that they are the reason America’s in such dire straits,and they are like rats that need to be exterminated and eliminated from society I believe it would be my duty not to vote for such a man.

 

[Alix1912]

if a politition in America wrote a book and preached in his party rallies he’s for getting rid of all Hispanic ,that they are the reason America’s in such dire straits,and they are like rats that need to be exterminated and eliminated from society I believe it would be my duty not to vote for such a man.

And in our political system that woud work. In the Weimar Republic it is a little different. People voted for a party, and there were several parties each which controlled a percentage of their legislature. Those parties would form coalitions and the largest coalition picked the Chancellor (kinda like a president, they also had a “President” but it was more of a symbolic role" the real power was with the Chancellor). The people of Germany never persoanlly elected Hitler Chancellor. The moderate coalition fell apart and the next largest group was the one lead by the National Socialist Party (Nazi’s). Thats how Hitler got to power.

Once he was Chancellor they staged a “National Emergency” by getting a mentally handicapped communist to set fire to the Capital building, and that excercised a clause in the Weimar constitution written after WWI to give emergency powers to the Chancellor essentially making Hitler a dictator.

Around the same time the War Hero Hindenburg who was president died, and Hitler appointed himself president as well. And once he had power…well he wasn’t about to give it back. (Think Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars…His rise to power was basically a take off of what Hitler did).

It’s really not as simple as saying the Germans elected a crazy man to power. Keep in mind that at the time Germany was in a severe economic depression that made our Great Depression (Same time period) look minor. They were being crushed by crippling war reperations for WWI and basically starving in the streets, the people were also badly demoralized and being treated horribly by the rest of Europe for their role in WWI. The National Socialists were promising economic recovery, and end to the reperations (which were helping cause MASSIVE inflation), and a renewed sense of national pride. It’s easy to see how at the time this was appealing to the common German.

As many have stated on this thread, it is easy to look back and judge. We know how the end turns out. The people of the time did not. They did not know if the allies would win the war, or how Hitler would snatch power and become a dictator. Also anti semitism was way more common in Europe at the time than any form of discrimination is here in the US. You cannot make comparisons like yours. Basically, most Germans did not realize how bad Hitler was until he had so much power and had crafted a society of mistrust and fear that it was hard to resist.