the Jews during the Nazi period, carefully compiled
and amply documented in this volume, possess a significance that is not
confined to the history of Christian-Jewish relations. They constitute an
important chapter in the history of Christianity itself in that they reveal
the deeper aspects of the Church's antagonism to the anti-religious and
hence anti-Christian character of Nazi anti-semitism.
The well-attested facts presented to us in this volume are a clear
confirmation of the Church's reputation of Nazi doctrines, not only when
these doctrines were directed against the Jews but, first and foremost,
when they threatened the very existence of the Church itself, both as a
system of theological doctrines and beliefs and as an historical institution.
The Church regarded freedom, freedom of man as well as its own, as an
inalienable right rooted in the nature of man as a rational being created
in God's image. Hence, when the Church was deprived at the right of
self-determination, it felt its very existence endangered, and it was then
that it recognized the full symbolic import of Jewish persecution. This
view was plainly set forth at the beginning of the persecution of the Jews
by the Nazi-regime in Holland, by D. J. Slotemaker de Bruine, Protestant
pastor and Minister of State, who declared:

"...Freedom of the spirit is our life-blood. By that I mean freedom in
questions of the spirit, freedom of conscience, freedom of the Church,
freedom of instruction, freedom of the Word of God, freedom to bear
witness..." [1]
<I>
In the light of this statement it is obvious that the Church was provoked
to raise its voice in protest chiefly because the Nazis appropriated the
messianic structure of religion which they exploited to their own ideological
and political ends.
This was made clear already in the early days of the Third Reich by "Die
Geistlichen Mitglieder der Vorlaufigen Leitung der Evangelischen Kirche" who,
in a memorandum (Denkschrift) addressed to the Fuehrer (May 1936), accuse
Hitler of pursuing a policy that is not only directed against the Church but
which is designed "to de-Christianize the German people" (das deutsche Volk
zu entchristlichen), quoting, among other things, the words of
Reichsorganisationsleiter Dr. Robert Ley:

"The Party lays total claim to the soul of the German people...and hence
we demand the last German, whether Protest