Sarah Masters reviews the film
Theologians Under Hitler
Theologians Under Hitler, a book written by history professor Robert Erickson more than thirty years ago, examines in-depth the German church’s involvement in the Third Reich. Director Steven D. Martin brings the book to life in a newly released documentary of the same title.
The film scrutinizes the evolving theological perspectives of three well-known German theologians who came to embrace Adolf Hitler’s ideology. Book author Erickson, who appears in the film, notes that the majority of Germans who were members of the church viewed Hitler's rise to power in 1933 as “an act of God's blessing, a new chapter in the story of God among the German people.”
Paul Althaus, Gerhard Kittel and Emanuel Hirsch, the Christian scholars profiled by Martin, were outspoken in their support of the Nazi party. Kittel, who edited the standard reference work on the Jewish background of the New Testament, assisted the Nazis in developing a "moral" rationale for the holocaust. Hirsch was named Dean of Theology at Goettingen around the time the Nazi Party began to gain strength as a political force and it was Hirsch who preached that the “volk,” a mystical view of the German people that influenced Hitler’s anti-Semitism, was at the root of what it means to be German. Althaus wrote “The German Hour of the Churches,” a treatise that supported fusion of the church and state under Hitler. The documentary follows Hirsch, Althaus and Kittel from the pre-war rise of the Nazi Party through the German defeat at the end of World War II.
Theologians Under Hitler addresses the history of the Enlightenment and its effect on Christianity, and provides commentary from experts ranging from Susannah Heschel of Dartmouth University to Harmut Lehmann of Goettingen University.
The intersecting roles of religion and politics so clearly delineated in Theologians Under Hitler may leave the viewer pondering the possibility that something like this could happen again.
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Completed: 2008
Running Time: 64 Minutes
Director: Steven D. Martin
If you are interested in purchasing this DVD for $24.95, please go to www.vitalvisuals.com.
Sarah Masters is the Managing Director of Hartley Film Foundation, a non-profit foundation dedicated to cultivation, support, production and distribution of the best documentaries on world religions and spirituality.
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