Christianity's persecution of the Jews has dominated Jewish
history since the Christianization of the Roman Empire
under the Emperor Constantine in the early fourth century
AD. To the Jews, the cross has been as much a symbol of
persecution and terror as the swastika, only provoking
dread. Under the banner of the cross and in the name of
Christ, the Jews have been cast out of nations, confined
to ghettos, lost their possessions and frequently their
lives. They have been forced to convert to a Christianity
which compelled them to break the Sabbath, to not circumcise
their children, and to eat swine. They had to disobey the
Bible to become Christians.
Everyone blames the Nazis for the Holocaust, yet their
treatment of the Jews was rooted in the Christianity that
shaped the German nation. It has to be remembered that
the Nazi Holocaust was nurtured in the land of the Protestant
Reformation. In fact the seed of all that Adolf Hitler
would do was carefully transplanted from the Catholic Inquisition
into Protestantism by none other than Martin Luther, the
greatest spokesman of the Reformation and one of the most
influential men in all of history.
Is this is a shocking accusation? What could such a hero
of the faith have to do with the nightmare of the Third
Reich and the demonic figure of Adolf Hitler? Surely, the
man who liberated the Gospel from the grasp of meaningless
tradition and restored the doctrine of salvation by grace
through faith alone would not be guilty of such things,
would he? Yet Martin Luther's violent, venomous views and
bitter treatment of the Jews was not something he sought
to hide. Far from it. By every means at his disposal -- the
pen, the pulpit, and persuasion -- he sought to gain not
merely acceptance of his views but concrete, violent action
against the Jews.
His Three Treatises
Martin Luther was certainly not ashamed of his words.
He wanted them to be remembered and obeyed. It is only
his followers who would like to have his words forgotten,
since they seemingly invalidate all that he stood for.
And so the chances are almost certain that you have never
heard of the three treatises Martin Luther wrote against
the Jews in 1543: 1) On the Jews and Their Lies ;
2) On the Ineffable Name ; and 3) On
the Last Words of David .
These treatises represented a lifetime of thought concerning
the Jews. His first attempt to win them was by persuasion.
As a young man, Luther had written, "If we wish to help
them, we must practice on them not the papal law but rather
the Christian law of love, and accept them in friendly
fashion, allowing them to work and make a living, so that
they gain the reason and opportunity to be with and among
us and to see and to hear our Christian teaching and life." [1]
It was only when such preaching and persuasion failed
("soft mercy" in Luther's theology) that more forceful
measures were taken. For over the course of Luther's life
it became apparent to him that the prejudices against the
Jews he had sought to combat in his earlier writing were
justified. In his mind they were accursed blasphemers whose
Lord was the devil and any suffering inflicted upon them
would remind them that they were God's rejected people.
Luther's Legacy
The following measures are in a sense Martin Luther's
last will and testament, his legacy to the world. The legacy
of a man is what his descendants derive from him, a living
memorial to who he was long after he is dead. In one of
these formal, systematic presentations of his mature convictions
he summarized the wisdom his 32 years of Bible study had
gained for him into seven recommendations: [2]
What shall we Christians do with
this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since
they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct,
now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and
blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies,
cursing, and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the
unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets
speak, nor can we convert the Jews. With prayer and
the fear of God we must practice a sharp mercy to see
whether we might save at least a few from the glowing
flames. We dare not avenge ourselves ... I shall give
you my sincere advice:
Set fire to their synagogues and schools, burying and
covering with dirt what won't burn, so no man will see
a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor
of our Lord and Christendom.
Second, I advise that their houses be seized and destroyed.
Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic
writings be taken from them.
Fourth, I advise that the rabbis be forbidden to teach
henceforth on pain of life and limb.
Fifth, I advise that safe conduct on the highways be abolished
completely for the Jews, for they have no business in the
countryside, since they are not lords, officials, or tradesmen.
Let them stay at home.
Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and
all cash and treasures be taken and kept for safekeeping.
Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an axe, a spade,
a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong
Jews and Jewesses, letting them earn their bread by the
sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of
Adam (Genesis 3:19). For it is not fitting that they should
let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while
they, the holy people, idle away their time ... boasting
blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by
means of our sweat ... For, as we have heard, God's anger
with them is so intense that gentle mercy will only tend
to make them worse and worse, while sharp mercy will reform
them but little. Therefore, in any case, away with them
!
To Martin Luther, this "sharp mercy" was needed to bring
them to repentance, since they were not being converted
by the gospel he was preaching. This was not a passing
mood on his part; once he came to these conclusions he
never wavered from them. Martin Luther's last sermon, preached
just days before his death, was brimming over with biting
condemnation and vulgarities for the Jews. He planted the
seed of hatred in fertile soil, and it grew over the centuries.
You Shall Know them by their Fruit
Those with even a modest knowledge of the brutal history
of the Third Reich know that the Nazis put into practice
all of Martin Luther's recommendations against the Jews,
and more. They burned their synagogues in honor of the "positive
Christianity" Adolf Hitler claimed to stand for; they seized
and burned 
their houses; they took public delight in destroying
their holy books; they separated life and limb from the
rabbis; they certainly abolished safe travel for the Jews
(the only travel they had was a one-way trip on cattle
cars); they took every bit of their wealth away from them
(even the fillings in their teeth and the hair on their
heads); and the ones the Nazis didn't kill immediately
they put to demeaning slave labor. All this they were justified
in doing, according to Martin Luther, with prayer and the
fear of God.
Julius Streicher, one of the most notorious anti-Semites
even in the perverse world of the Third Reich, used Martin
Luther's seven recommendations in his defense at the Nuremberg
Trials. He even took as the motto for his newspaper, Der
Sturmer (the Nazi hate paper) a direct quote of Martin
Luther, Die Juden sind unser Ungluck , or, "The
Jews are our misfortune." [3]
There was another prominent Nazi who saw Luther in a positive
light: "Luther was a great man, a giant. In one go, he
broke through the dawn; he saw the Jew the way we only
start seeing him now." [4] The
speaker? Adolf Hitler.
In the World but Not of It?
Make no mistake about it: In spite of being a devoutly
Christian nation, the Germans were under no illusions as
to Adolf Hitler's intentions towards the Jews. He had told
them a thousand times. Many of the tens of thousands of
Protestant and Catholic clergy openly supported Hitler.
The rest stayed in the passive state they had always maintained.
William L. Shirer, author of, The Rise and Fall of
the Third Reich , understood how they came to be in
this condition:
...in his [Martin Luther's] utterances about the Jews, Luther
employed a coarseness, brutality, and language unequaled
in German history until the Nazi time. The influence of
this towering figure extended down through the generations
in Germany, especially among the Protestants ... In no
country with the exception of Czarist Russia did the clergy
become by tradition so completely servile to the political
authority of the State. [5]
When the clergy were given the choice of joining Hitler's
state church or going to prison, the overwhelming majority
quietly chose the former. Becoming the religious arm of
the Third Reich, the pastors, both the enthusiastic and
the reluctant, had to support it, since they looked
to it to define what was right and wrong. It was far too personally dangerous
to let God do this through the Holy Scriptures. To do so
was to say that there was a greater authority in men's
lives than the Third Reich. This was treason to Hitler.
So, they adorned their churches with swatiskas, closed
their eyes, and pretended they didn't know what was going
on. It is much easier to remember the heroic few like Martin
Niemoller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who chose the concentration
camp rather than be silent in the face of such monstrous
evil, than to consider the hundreds of thousands of German
Christians who filled up Hitler's armies, police forces,
death squads, and pulpits.
Like Mother, Like Daughter
The development of Martin Luther's thinking was a gradual
process, taking shape during his entire adult life. He
grew up in Roman Catholicism, for that was Europe's only
religion. It was the binding force in society and government
by which everyone knew their place, and heaven was the
reward for the generally short and harsh lives people lived.
Anything besides strict adherence to Catholicism was perceived
as a threat, not only to this life, but to the next. For
if the Catholic Church was not the only truth, then heaven
might not await good Catholics, and they may have lived
their lives in vain. So ingrained was this view of reality
that often the Church had to restrain the common people
from taking the lives of Jews and other non-Catholics into
their hands.
Martin Luther, like other Catholic theologians before
him, thought that earthly punishment inflicted by the Church,
and where necessary by the state, was actually the working
of God's grace to save some from the flames of hell. In
other words, it was always done for their own good .
And not only their good, but the good of society as a whole -- for
unbelievers in a "Christian nation" represent faction and
division, and must be dealt with, or else the society cannot
be blessed by God.
This has been the story of practically every nation and
society where Christianity has been the predominant influence.
It is part of the essential nature of Christianity. For
when Christians take the reins of power, ultimately the
denial of rights to nonbelievers is considered inconsequential,
because they are all going to hell anyway.
Responsibility
It is entirely fair to give Martin Luther the credit (he
would not see it as the blame or the shame) for all future
Christian rulers who treated the Jews according to the
wisdom of his policies. In the light of God's word, how
shall we judge this wisdom? Is it the pure, peaceable,
gentle, reasonable wisdom from above, full of mercy and
good fruits? Or is it an earthly, natural, demonic wisdom
that comes from below? What then was the source for Martin
Luther's words, that with them he could bless Jesus Christ
his Savior and with them lay the most bitter curses on
men made in God's image? [6]
There are other guidelines in the Word regarding righteous
judgment as well. The Son of God never said that you would
know false prophets by their doctrine . He said
you shall know them by their fruit . He also said
that a good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad
tree produce good fruit. If Martin Luther and the Reformation
were a good tree, then it cannot have produced bad fruit.
If it has produced bad fruit, it cannot have been a good
tree. These are the words of the Son of God of which we
are not to be ashamed. [7] He
also said:
But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of
darkness. If therefore the light that is within you is
darkness, how great is the darkness! (Matthew 6:23)
Is not Martin Luther the "eye" through which Protestantism
saw her clearest doctrines? How did the clarity of his
doctrines carry through to the purity of his deeds? So
then, if the "eye" is bad, isn't the whole body of the
Protestant church full of darkness? How great is that darkness!
The writer to the Hebrews wrote, Remember those who
led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering
the result of their conduct, imitate their faith . [8] We
will all receive the reward we merit for the faith we
imitate. For each person's faith is known by his conduct,
or as James put it, his works. [9]
For Martin Luther and those who received his legacy, this
faith could be so far removed from their works that they
could murder the Jews without invalidating their claim
on eternal life. It is obvious that the faith Martin Luther
made so much of was not saving faith, or he never would
have done and said the things he did. He would have had
the heart of the Apostle Paul towards the Jews, for the
Savior whom Paul served is the same yesterday, today, and
tomorrow. [10]
[1] Martin Luther, "That
Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew," published 1523.
[2] The whole tract
may be found in English in " Luther's Works ," Vol.
45, pp. 199-229. A number of English books have translations
of these directives. Among them is " The Christian
in Society," ed. Franklin Sherman (1971), pp. 268-272.
The "Ideas in Conflict" book, " Religion and Politics -- Issues
in Religious Liberties," by Gary E. McCuen, also quotes
them on pages 16-23.
[3] For a sample cover,
see the Time-Life World War II series, " At the Center
of the Web" (1989).
[4]Dietrich Eckart:
Dialogs Between Adolf Hitler and Me, 1924, p. 35
quoted according to Friedrich Heer, God's First Love,
1967, p. 380
[5]The Rise and
Fall of the Third Reich, A History of Nazi Germany ,
by William L. Shirer, page 327 of the 1962 paperback
edition.
[6] James 3:9-18
[7] Matthew 7:15-20
[8] Hebrews 13:7
[9] James 2:17-20
[10] Hebrews 13:8
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