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Totalitarianism: German Military Chaplains in World War II and the Dilemmas of Legitimacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Doris L. Bergen
Doris L. Bergen
Affiliation:
An associate professor in the history department at the University of Notre Dame.
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Extract

In his memoir, German chaplain Hans Leonhard describes a visit to a military hospital during World War II. Leonhard entered a ward full of men with sexually transmitted diseases. “So you're a pastor?” one patient jeered. “We don't need one of them. You just want to tell us those stories about cattle breeders and pimps.” The phrasecame from the Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg. In The Myth of the Twentieth Century, he dubbed the Old Testament a collection of “stories of pimps and cattle traders.” Members of the pro-Nazi “German Christian” movement popularized Rosenberg's phrase in church circles. Leonhard, accustomed to hostile reactions, answered the taunt with a challenge: “Tell me just one such story,” he said to the man. “If you can tell me even one, I'll leave the room immediately and never bother you again.” All the patients looked at their comrade. “I can't think of any right now,” he finally said. The others laughed, but he did not give up. “You probably want to tell us something about praying,” he accused Leonhard. “Well, a real man doesn” The chaplain countered with another question: “Were you at the front?” he wanted to know. There was a pause before the man muttered, “We from the reserves have done our duty, too.” According to Leonhard, that admission ended the exchange. The chaplain sat down with the rest of the men and talked about the Old Testament and about prayer.

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Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , June 2001 , pp. 232 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2001

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References

1. Leonhard, Hans, Wieviel Leid erträgt ein Mensch? Aufzeichnungen eines Kriegspfarrers über die Jahre 1939 bis 1945 (Amberg: Buch & Kunstverlag Oberpfalz, 1994), 41–42. All translations from the German are mine unless otherwise specified.Google Scholar

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3. In November 1933, Reinhold Krause, a Berlin high school teacher of religion and “German Christian,” gave a speech in the Berlin Sports Palace. Before twenty thousand cheering people, Krause demanded “liberation from the Old Testament with its cheap Jewish morality of exchange and its stories of cattle traders and pimps.” Krause, “Rede des Gauobmannes der Glaubensbewegung ‘Deutsche Christen’ im GroG-Berlin, gehalten im Sportpalast am 13 November 1933 (nach doppelten Stenographischen Bericht),” 6–7, Landeskirchenarchiv Bielefeld (hereafter LKA Bielefeld) 5, 1/289,2.Google Scholar

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5. Published diaries and memoirs of chaplains include: Alberti, Rüdiger, Als Kriegspfarrer in Polen: Erlebnisse und Begegnungen in Kriegslazaretten (Dresden/Leipzig: C. Ludwig Ungelenk, 1940);Google ScholarSchabel, Wilhelm, Herr, in Deine Hände: Seelsorge im Krieg (Bern: Alfred Scherz, 1963);Google ScholarPerau, Josef, Priester im Heere Hitlers: Erinnerungen 1940–1945 (Essen: Ludgerus-Verlag, 1963);Google ScholarSchübel, Albrecht, 300 Jahre Evangelische Soldatenseelsorge (Munich: Evangelischer Presseverband für Bayern, 1964);Google ScholarBaedeker, Dietrich, Das Volk das im Finsternis wandelt: Stationen eines Militärpfarrers, 1933–1946 (Hanover: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1987);Google Scholarand Leonhard, Wieviet Leid. Also see Brandt, Hans Jürgen, ed., Priester in Uniform: Seelsorger, Ordensleute und Theologen als Soldaten im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Augsburg: Pattloch Verlag, 1994).Google ScholarThe most extensive collection of personal papers of a German World War II chaplain that I have found is the Nachlaβ Bernhard Bauerle, held at the Landeskirchliches Museum, in Ludwigsburg (hereafter LKM Ludwigsburg). Thanks goes to Eberhard Gutekunst and Andrea Kittel for permission to see these papers. There are relevant materials in the papers of Pastors Hans Stempel and Ludwig Diehl in Zentralarchiv der Evangelischen Kirche der Pfalz, Speyer (hereafter ZASP Speyer). A valuable source is chaplains' activity reports prepared at the division and army levels. Many of these are held at the Bundesarchiv-Militaerarchiv in Freiburg/Br. (hereafter BA-MA Freiburg); many are also on microfilm at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., in the Captured German Documents, series T-312, Records of German Field Commands: Armies; and T-315, Records of German Field Commands: Armies (hereafter T-series/roll/frame). Also see Reich Church Ministry files, especially regarding appointments of chaplains, in the Bundesarchiv Potsdam (hereafter BA Potsdam), 51.01/23846 and 23847. Some materials on Catholic chaplains are at the Archiv des Katholischen Militärbischofsamts (hereafter AKM Bonn).Google Scholar

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32. Obituary for Grois, Anton, Wehrmachtpfarrer, and Divisionspfarrer, , Verordnungsblatt, no. 4 (15 04 1942): 21, AKM Bonn.Google Scholar

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44. Dohrmann's notes provide a figure of 455, BA-MA Freiburg, N282/1, 163.Google Scholar

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66. On Stangl, see Sereny, Gitta, Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience (New York: Vintage Books, 1983).Google Scholar

67. See Nevermann, Hans Richard, “Warum zog ich nicht die Notbremse? Erinnerungen 40 Jahre nach dem Überfall auf die Sowjetunion,” Junge Kirche 6 (1981): 282–84.Google Scholar

68. Keller, Heinz, “Ob das der Herrgott von uns will?,” in Brandt, Priester in Uniform, 130–31. Keller was with the 2d Medical Corps, 46th Infantry Division in the Crimea and the Caucasus.Google Scholar

69. Keller, 130–31.Google Scholar

70. Verordnungsblätter des katholischen Feldbischof der Wehrmacht 6 (12 08 1944): 30, “Generalabsolution,” signed Rarkowski, .Google Scholar

71. Bartov, Omer, The Eastern Front, 1941–1945: German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare (London: St. Martin's, 1985).Google Scholar

72. For additional discussion of women's roles in Nazi warfare, see Koonz, Claudia, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics (London: Jonathan Cape, 1987);Google ScholarZipfel, Gaby, “Wie führen Frauen Krieg?” in Heer and Naumann, 460–74;Google Scholarand Sereny, Into that Darkness, especially 355–62.Google Scholar