Christian Conglomeration

Pious Old Paul von Hindenburg grew so troubled by the Nazi v. non-Nazi schism in German Protestantism that Catholic Chancellor Hitler had to call on the Protestant President one day last week and personally assure him that somehow everything would come out all right.

Meanwhile everything was so wrong that the Protestant bishops in Reichsbischof Ludwig Mueller's "Spiritual Cabinet" resigned after a secret conference lasting eight hours and the Reichsbischof's consecration, scheduled for last Sunday, had to be "indefinitely postponed."

Storm centre of the Church crisis was earthy young Rev. Joachim Hossenfelder who looks in his Nazi uniform anything but a bishop. He remained last week Bishop of Brandenburg, despite charges that he seeks to paganize the Church. He it was who sat approvingly through a speech by one of his subordinates who in Berlin's vast Sportpalast called for scrapping of the Old Testament on the ground, among others, that much of it was written by "Jewish pimps."

Reichsbischof Mueller, no friend of Jews, declared in an interview at Konigsberg last week that "Christianity was not born of Jewry but out of a fight against it." On the other hand he was not ready to paganize Protestantism, seemed to wish to straddle that issue. "We cannot be a conglomeration of Christians and Nordic pagans," he declared. "We must learn to view Christ in the German fashion," This fashion the Reichsbischof did not define. It vibrated last week between non-Nazi and Nazi overemphasis respectively on the passive concept of Gentle Jesus and the active concept of an Heroic Christ. Reichsbischof Mueller vibrated too. First he appointed three good Nazis to his new "Spiritual Cabinet." But their first act was to forbid governing officers of the Church to belong to any "church political parties, leagues, groups or movements.'' The Reichsbischof himself promptly resigned as "protector" of the Nazi German Christians.

German newspapers were compelled to suppress all but the barest news of the Church crisis and Reichsbischof Mueller flatly refused to discuss it with U. S. correspondents. "Tell American churchgoers," said he, "that in our Church the Gospel will naturally remain as a foundation on which the message of Christ will rest." Meanwhile Storm Troops descended on the parishes of many non-Nazi pastors, herded several off to prison camps.

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