Buchenwald Inmate #2491: Christian martyr

Paul Schneider was a German Reformed minister whose early ministry coincided with the ascendancy of the National Socialist movement in the 1930s. His critique of the folk’s movement in view of the Word of God as well as a series of stands for the independent rights of the church vis-à-vis the state led to continual conflicts with Party functionaries, and penalties of increasing severity. At length, the conflict culminated in consignment to the concentration camp at Buchenwald, where his life ended.

I wish to summarize the contour of his life as presented in the short biography by Rudolf Wentorf. (Detailed biblio info is at end of this review.) Everyone should read this book. It is deceptively short: 114 pages plus appendices. For me, it has called for several perusals, and more are scheduled. Later, I will try to distill more precisely the key issues that Schneider faced. These issues have not gone away: there is more than just historical interest to motivate our study of his life. It is a shame that he is generally unknown to American Christians; this is a shame that, however, can be remedied.

1. Youth through early ministry

Born in 1897, Schneider was raised first, in villages west of Mainz and south of Koblenz (left-most circle of the map, Fig 1), then, in high school, the family moved to the vicinity of Giessen (middle circle).

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In 1915, he volunteered for service in the Great War (WW1) and served on the eastern front, earning the Iron Cross. When it was over, he resumed his studies — at the universities in Giessen, Marburg, and Tübingen –, having declared for the ministry.

Two major influences dominated his early career as a student: the theological liberalism of the German university, and sympathy for the working man suffering from the severe post-war dislocations. His concern for the alienated proletariat induced him to take six months off from studies and labor as a working man.

Four years had gone by since the War, and it would be as many again before we see clear and unequivocal evidence that Paul had saving knowledge of Christ. His conversion did not come all at once, but was the end of a long, rocky pilgrimage, full of agonizing and soul-searching, and what we might today call spiritual depression. In parallel with that path was another in which “life goes on”: he married, was ordained, and filled some junior-level ministry positions. (And is this not typical of human life? Even Luther to some extent.)

By 1927 Schneider had fully thrown his youthful liberalism overboard and embraced Christ, and was established in ministry, in the same parish that his late father had served, near Giessen.

In 1915, he volunteered for service in the Great War (WW1) and served on the eastern front, earning the Iron Cross. When it was over, he resumed his studies — at the universities in Giessen, Marburg, and Tübingen –, having declared for the ministry.

Two major influences dominated his early career as a student: the theological liberalism of the German university, and sympathy for the working man suffering from the severe post-war dislocations. His concern for the alienated proletariat induced him to take six months off from studies and labor as a working man.

Four years had gone by since the War, and it would be as many again before we see clear and unequivocal evidence that Paul had saving knowledge of Christ. His conversion did not come all at once, but was the end of a long, rocky pilgrimage, full of agonizing and soul-searching, and what we might today call spiritual depression. In parallel with that path was another in which “life goes on”: he married, was ordained, and filled some junior-level ministry positions. (And is this not typical of human life? Even Luther to some extent.)

By 1927 Schneider had fully thrown his youthful liberalism overboard and embraced Christ, and was established in ministry, in the same parish that his late father had served, near Giessen.

It is important to add, that his overcoming of theological liberalism did not lead to turning a cold shoulder to the plight of the German worker; but the outlook matured to a deeper form of concern. To the end of his (too short) life, he was concerned about how the church had become a bourgeois institution that in many ways had failed the common man, and he was always looking for ways to remedy that deplorable situation.

In the meantime, the political situation of the Weimar Republic continued to degenerate, such that in 1933 the National Socialist movement assumed power through a number of developments that are well known, and need not be rehearsed here.

2. Church and folk: the battle lines are formed

The first storm clouds appeared already in 1932, when Schneider supported Hindenburg against Hitler in the election of that year. He circularized a letter in which he said

Oh, the unholy party-spirit that sins against our entire people coming and going! Where are those Christian consciences who judge righteously, who take the standards for their politics neither from National Socialism nor from socialism, but rather from the Gospel? National Socialism draws nothing from that source; can this movement really unite both poles and lead our people into moral and religious renewal, when it needs renewal so badly itself? (45)

Substitute “Republican Party” for “National Socialism” and “Democratic Party” for “socialism” in that paragraph, and one can see how timeless the issues are.

Some local Party functionaries filed a complaint to the District party superintendent.

Pastor Schneider himself was a German, he knew himself as such, and loved his people; but with wittgenstinian intuition, he also felt that to always be saying “German German German” betrayed a self-consciousness about it that indicated a pathology. After the National Socialist seizure of power, “signs went up in many dance halls in Germany: ‘Tonight German night with German dances!’ Pastor Schneider asked, ‘Is that some kind of dance other than the usual?'” (45) After a mass meeting of “German Christians,” Schneider preached to his congregation, “I want to be and remain a plainspoken, evangelical Christian and also spare myself the label ‘German’, for that is self-evident.” Since baptismal and marriage records are key evidences in establishing genealogy, people would often request such records from the church to establish their Aryan bona fides. Pastor Schneider would deliver the requested documentation, but would write at the bottom, “You — Aryan — do not forget your first parents — Adam and Eve!” (48)

Likewise, Schneider posted to the Christian fraternity he had belonged to during his student days, when they began to demand of their members “proof of Aryan descent,” that “this is an impossible consideration for a ‘Christian’ relationship” (48).

Conflict with the Party ensued. To prevent arrest, the Consistory [=regional church governing body] put Schneider on leave of absence. Apparently, the rub was not his opinion as such, but broadcasting it from a position of (rival) authority.

At this point, we can sense some distinctions that need to be made. But that can wait. The most important issue was indicated with boldness and clarity in a sermon of Jan 1934:

Whenever they place blood and race and the history of the people as a source of revelation next to God’s Word, next to his Will revealed to us in the words of Scripture alone, next to Jesus as the unique Mediator between God and man, then in truth they fall away from the living God and His Christ. (50)

3. Church life as alternate community

Schneider countered what he saw as ominous trends by emphasizing youth activities in the context of church, presumably as alternative to Hitler-youth, and re-implemented church discipline.

Church discipline had degenerated to that which we commonly see in our times, namely, people going to church just twice a year and expecting to receive communion when they did. Pastor Schneider ended this with a stroke. But his Session complained to the Consistory (“we’ve always done it this way”). Thus, it got to the point that both church officers and civil leaders (53) were complaining to the Consistory, though from quite different motivations. The upshot was that on 19 Feb 1934, the Consistory transferred him to the Hunsrueck district (left circle in Fig. 1, and Fig 2).

4. The cemetery incident

He was installed in the Womrath/Dickenschied parish on 8 May, 1934 (Fig. 3, comparing to first two figures).

map2This time, it only took four months for the battle lines to heat up again. At a grave side service in Gemünden for a youth that had died, Gauleiter [=district leader] Nadig eulogized that the boy “would now be taken up into the ‘Horst Wessel Troop.’”

Schneider felt a line was crossed, and rose to declare, “whether there is a Horst Wessel Troop in eternity, I don’t know; but the Lord God bless your exit from time and your entry into eternity. Let us now in peace go to the house of the Lord and hold a memorial for the dead before God and his holy Word!” (56). Nadig repeated his assertion; Schneider protested again, and left the cemetery.

map3The tension was high; the Party radicals caucused, then marched from the cemetery to a tavern rather than to the church where the final service was held.

Later, Schneider tried to diffuse the tension by discussion. He wrote a letter to Nadig that emphasized the separate prerogatives of church and state, firmly but politely insisting on his rights as pastor to control a funeral service. The issue was the prerogative of the church to control its own destiny, to have the right to proclaim and interpret the Word of the God and control the worship services. The particular had to do with the conduct of a funeral. Gauleiter Nadig was claiming the right as political leader to reinterpret church doctrine; in his executive capacity as pastor, Schneider resisted this usurpation.

Nadig ordered Schneider’s arrest; Schneider did not back down.

Interestingly, there were SA members in his church that took his side, and threatened to resign from the SA if he was not released. Thirty-four of 48 households signed a petition. The mayor declared, “as we have fought for our homeland and for National Socialism, so we will stand and fight for the belief of our church.”

Schneider was only held for five days.

5. The Confessing Church

In parallel, the Confessing Church was organized in the fall of 1933 as a voluntary organization of pastors (both Lutheran and Reformed) desirous of resisting the mingling of politics and church. This is another story that needs to be told. It is, unfortunately, a story of mixed merit. The intellectuals of the movement cleverly slipped neo-orthodox time-bombs into the confessions. But the typical guileless pastor in the movement was not necessarily on board with that hidden agenda. He saw it as a stand for the gospel.

In March 1935 a Synod was to be held. The Party countered to require them to sign that it would not be publicized. In Prussia, 500 refused and were imprisoned. In Hunsrueck, only Schneider took the stand; he was imprisoned for several days, in Kirchberg.

6. Church discipline, 3rd arrest, exile, 4th arrest

All things human have their ebb and flow. Pastor Schneider enjoyed a year of respite.

family

But toward the end of 1936, a couple teachers in the evangelical public schools started to propagate a paganized view of Christmas, even while ratifying it as a beautiful primal-German custom (75).

Pastor Schneider stepped up church discipline again. It did not get past the first warning of the three required by his book of order. Therefore, no excommunication was yet implemented, and he wanted to give plenty of time. But on May 31, 1937 he was arrested again. He had “irresponsibly called for a boycott against a peasant.” On June 24, the penalty was commuted to banishment from the Rheinland (91).

The Consistory basically washed its hands; it neither commanded him to disobey the order (in order to obey God in exercising his calling) nor forbade him to disobey. How common it is, for the wider church to fumble, to hem and haw, just at the moment of need!

Schneider returned to his parish, in violation of the civil ban. That fall, things caught up with him. He was arrested for the fourth and final time, and sent to Buchenwald (just north of Weimar [right-most circle in Fig. 1]).

7. Concentration Camp

For a year and a half, Paul Schneider performed hard labor, while testifying to the Word of God to both fellow inmates and officers of the camp. At least once, he refused to salute the flag, and another time he vocally protested the unjust execution of two prisoners. This behavior led to beatings and solitary confinement. His body finally gave way, and he died on July 18, 1939.

Preliminary Conclusion

There is much that calls for deep pondering in the conflicts between Schneider and the National Socialist forces. In particular, it is necessary to isolate the exact locus of the conflict. Too many people – even on occasion, Wentorf himself in an otherwise excellent book – seek an easy answer that relies on a popular demonization of the “Nazis” – Nazis bad, anyone-they-opposed good. What makes Schneider’s case particularly instructive is that the conflict that arose with National Socialism occurred while the jewish question was barely on the table. For us, therefore, the case is particularly relevant.

The confessing pastors prayed weekly for the Führer (72) and made it clear that they were not setting up the church as a haven for political dissidents (67). They were ready to sacrifice their goods and blood to the state and to their German Folk (74). And in several particulars, they cheered the changes brought about by the National Socialists — for example, the exit from the League of Nations. But the church “has the duty to pronounce godly warning and the judgment of God to the Führer and the regime if they do not desist from this policy of removing all Christianity and Christian confession from public life” (69).

(How many in the Christian Right of America would dare say this about any policy implemented by their beloved Republicans?)

The conflict was very specifically over the replacement of Christianity with civic religion, and the preservation of the prerogatives of the church as an authority independent of the state. Nothing could be more relevant to our own situation.

More will need to be said to unpack these themes.

But our first approach should be awed silence before a great man that would rather die than renounce Christ, even for a moment. Let us think on him, weep, and rejoice.

Rudolf Wentorf. Paul Schneider: The Witness of Buchenwald. Eng. trans Franklin Sanders (Tucson: American Eagle 1993 [Paul Schneider: Der zeuge von Buchenwald, 1967, 1986]).

3 thoughts on “Buchenwald Inmate #2491: Christian martyr

  1. I am deeply grateful that Tim Harris has published a perceptive review of my translation of Wentorf’s life of Paul Schneider. For all the confusing elements — neo-orthodoxy among Hitler-resisters, conflict between Lutheran & Reformed, & lawful obedience to civil authority — Schneider’s life remains a Christian example to us when state-worship & secular religion are once again trying to replace Christianity.

    What? America like Nazi Germany? Why, never! Unhappily, it is true. Evangelical Christians have adopted a view toward obeying the state (Romans 13) worse than the Two Kingdom Doctrine of the Lutherans, far worse. As the conflict between Christianity and the state in Germany proved once again, whenever the church enters an uncritical & unconditional alliance with the state, it sets loose a catastrophe that eventually engulfs both church and state.

    I translated Paul Schneider’s biography over 15 years ago, and was glad recently to find a new book about the Church-Struggle, “Lutherans Against Hitler: The Untold Story” by Lowell C. Green, published by Concordia. Although at times a painfully partisan Lutheran, Green’s book still offers a wealth of detail that makes the subtle temptations of the Church-Struggle more understandable. How could the most Christian nation in Europe become overnight the most pagan? Green outlines the problem: the Nazis’subtle gradualism and playing one denomination off against the other, as well as the distrust and rivalries between Lutherans & Reformed and fractious personalities such as Barth. On top of this came the legitimate Two Kingdom’s teaching of submission to lawful authority. The picture differs vastly from today’s simple-minded idea that the Nazis were the embodiment of all evil and everyone could see that from the beginning. In 1933, with 2 out of 5 Germans unemployed, parliamentary confusion, the nation on its back, & the Nazis claiming to be Christian, their evil to come was not so plain.

    Green brings much more evidence of the Christian opposition to Hitler & the Nazis, something I was trying to do with my Schneider translation. God never leaves himself without faithful witnesses, and the picture of all Germany cravenly bowing down to Hitler is simply false and gravely insults the confessions of Paul Schneider and thousands of German Christians who died rather than “follow a multitude to do evil.”

    More to the point, having lived & studied in Germany, I was astounded to learn that the American stereotype of Germans as robots was wildly inaccurate. Compared to Americans, they are rabid questioners of authority, far more independent and assertive. After all, on the Autobahn there are no speed limits.

    Thank you for drawing attention to Rev. Paul Schneider’s life and martyrdom. I hope your readers will investigate the Church-struggle (Kirchenkampf) further to explode the myths and learn the inspiring truth, and lead Evangelical Christians to abandon their slavish subservience to the state, whether governed by Republicans or Democrats.

    Best wishes,
    Franklin Sanders

  2. dear tim,
    having talked about this book and then remembering our conversation it occurred to me the other day that like the Germans in 1930’s and the Puritans in 16-1700s , the Evangelical Christian Coalition has not remembered its past history; and more than likely (if it has not already) will repeat this history. The sad part is that the Germans and Puritans i put on a higher mental plain than the Evan’s… so that is even more interesting in a way. So now i ponder what will history show for this ignorance of the past… From the Bible it never was good..

  3. I am honored that Mr. Sanders added that comment. I too have found Germans to be non-compliant in political discourse, almost to a fault. (Sometimes I’m thinking, “do you have to argue about everything?”). On the other hand, I have found them in their business (e.g. waitresses, clerks, etc.) to be more polite and dutiful than the American in a similar role; the American is more apt to be surly and pre-occupied with own affairs. So at the risk of hasty generalization, I would say that Americans have something to learn from Germans in both roles.

    Look forward to getting the book by Green.

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