Y*Our Liberal Heritage Of Unitarian*Universalism aka U*Uism And National Socialism aka Naziism - What's The Connection In/On The Interconnected Web?
Probably more than most Unitarian*Universalists aka U*Us would care to know. . .
Certainly rather more than I expect the leaders and members of the Deutsche Unitarier Religionsgemeinschaft aka German Unitarian Religious Community would care for most other international U*Us aka Unitarian*Universalists U*U World*wide to know. . .
As a result of Googling around for -
German Unitarian Nazis
earlier today as part and parcel of yet again responding to Unitarian*Universalist injustices, abuses, and *hypocrisy* of one kind or another I came across a section of Will C. Frank's 'Our Liberal Heritage' that goes into *some* detail about the human relations between ever so "liberal" German Unitarians and National *Socialists* aka Nazis in pre-WWII 1930's Nazi Germany. Let's just say that the presumably quite reliable albeit no doubt "less than complete" information it contains is "less than flattering" and raises some Big Fat U*U Unitarian Questions about the post WWII German Unitarian religious community as represented not only by the Deutsche Unitarier Religionsgemeinschaft (apparently a "reincarnation" of the Religionsgemeinschaft Freier Protestanten i.e. "Religious Community of Free Protestants"), but *also* by the Unitarische Freie Religionsgemeinde (i.e. Unitarian Free Religious Community), the Unitarian Church in Berlin which was founded by Hansgeorg Remus in 1949, and last but by no means least. . . former Deutsche Unitarier Religionsgemeinschaft leader Sigrid Hunke's break away Bund Deutscher Unitarier - Religionsgemeinschaft europäischen Geistes.
The information contained in OUR LIBERAL HERITAGE, NO. 27 (in)appropriately titled 'LOVE EACH OTHER OR PERISH' makes it abundantly clear aka *transparent* that the pre-WWII Unitarian religious community in Germany collaborated with, if not was co-opted by. . . the Nazi Party of Germany. One can't help but wonder about how other European and American Unitarian religious communities interacted with the German Unitarian religious community during that time period to say nothing of the years and decades following WWII.
Herwith some "fair use" quotes from LOVE EACH OTHER OR PERISH with emphasis and (in)appropriate hyperlinks added -
In Nazi Germany, the Rev. Clemens Taesler, minister of the largest Unitarian church in Germany, the Unitarian Free Religious Society of Frankfurt, espoused the values of American Unitarians William Ellery Channing and Theodore Parker and German rationalism and idealism. *Yet* when Hitler came to power in 1933 he gravitated toward the spirit of the times, proclaiming the need for a new German Christianity that would renew the soul of the German people, Nazis showing the way. The Nazi regime *rewarded* him and his church with a freedom earlier denied Unitarians by orthodox established church authorities. Taesler even gained a position to teach religion in the public schools. By 1936 *other* liberal ministers in Frankfurt *shunned* Taesler for allowing himself to be coopted by the Nazis, but Taesler thought he was helping the survival of liberal religion by adjusting to the Nazi reality. His church remained packed with 1,200 worshipers seeking a way to *reconcile* their liberal values with the Nazi wave sweeping over them.
Taesler survived World War II (Editor's note: Gee what a Big Fat U*U Surprise. . .), and in 1946 wrote to his American Unitarian friend, James Luther Adams: “An immense guilt has come over our German nation.... Though we were forced here in Germany to live since the fall of 1938 more and more as in a prison, all of us became accessory to the crimes.... We have gone through an ocean of blood and tears [and] we as Germans are despised. . . in the world. . . A short time after your visit in Frankfurt [1936], Nazism began to show its right [true] face. Till then a man ... could still believe that one had the intention to act fairly in politics, especially in the Jewish question. But then the black day came, the day of the burning synagogues and of the persecution of the Jews, and soon all the religious societies were persecuted and oppressed. Our liberty of action too, as a Unitarian Free Religious Society, was limited more and more. And the war brought Nazi fanaticism to the boiling point.”
The Nazi phenomenon and the ease with which many (i.e. *many* German Unitarians. . .) adjusted to it became a transforming moment for James Luther Adams, a great Unitarian theologian of the 20th century. Adams realized that to each comes a moment to decide – to go on *adjusting* or to take a stand. “We must love each other or perish,” Adams preached in 1939. “Hitler could have been stopped. Anti-Nazis begged us to stop him. We are all to blame for him and his actions.” Religion, he emphasized, “offers peace only as a reward of struggle and suffering.” Adams implied for Americans whether one could meaningfully oppose Nazi anti-Semitism without working for full social justice against prevailing U.S. racism. In the 1960s Adams was in Germany with anti-Nazi friends watching television images of dogs and fire hoses keeping African Americans down. As liberal Germans had not escaped *complicity* in Nazism, Adams had to confess to them that “yes, it was true, I could not deny complicity in the venerable tradition of maltreatment of the African American in the USA.”
“I became acutely aware of the necessity for explicit commitment, in contrast to a vague sort of liberalism opposed to prejudices and promoting openness of mind.” The Rev. James Reeb of All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington faced the same choice. In contemplating the complicity of the Catholic Church with Nazism (Editor's Note: Why didn't James Reeb contemplate the complicity of the Unitarian Church with Nazism both before, during, and allegedly *after* WWII?) he wondered if we protect our lives and treasured institutions “at too high a price?”
“Did not *silence* mean *violating* the essential purpose of the church? I think the answer is yes.”
(Editor's Note: So do *I*. . .)
Reeb made his commitment explicit, went to Selma, and was beaten to death in witness to the purpose of the church.
Ref: James Luther Adams, Not Without Dust and Heat: A Memoir (Chicago: Exploration, 1995, pp. 202-207); Duncan Howlett, No Greater Love: The James Reeb Story (New York: Harper & Row, 1966, pp. 151-153).
end quote
The Emerson Avenger finds it most ironic, and really quite shameful, that he was permanently banned from ALL UUA sponsored email list serves as a result of posting comments about the disturbing allegations of modern German anti-Nazis that the post WWII German Unitarian religious community was co-opted by Nazi ideologues, including former SS officers, some of whom were allegedly convicted Nazi war criminals. . . In fact the proverbial straw that broke the Big Fat U*U Camel's apparently quite spineless back was a post that I submitted to the ICU*U email listserve which asked very specific aka *pointed* questions about very specific people in top level leadership positions in the Deutsche Unitarier Religionsgemeinschaft who were alleged to be former SS officers and Nazi ideologues who were using the DUR as a cover for their neo*Nazi activities. . .
Certainly rather more than I expect the leaders and members of the Deutsche Unitarier Religionsgemeinschaft aka German Unitarian Religious Community would care for most other international U*Us aka Unitarian*Universalists U*U World*wide to know. . .
As a result of Googling around for -
German Unitarian Nazis
earlier today as part and parcel of yet again responding to Unitarian*Universalist injustices, abuses, and *hypocrisy* of one kind or another I came across a section of Will C. Frank's 'Our Liberal Heritage' that goes into *some* detail about the human relations between ever so "liberal" German Unitarians and National *Socialists* aka Nazis in pre-WWII 1930's Nazi Germany. Let's just say that the presumably quite reliable albeit no doubt "less than complete" information it contains is "less than flattering" and raises some Big Fat U*U Unitarian Questions about the post WWII German Unitarian religious community as represented not only by the Deutsche Unitarier Religionsgemeinschaft (apparently a "reincarnation" of the Religionsgemeinschaft Freier Protestanten i.e. "Religious Community of Free Protestants"), but *also* by the Unitarische Freie Religionsgemeinde (i.e. Unitarian Free Religious Community), the Unitarian Church in Berlin which was founded by Hansgeorg Remus in 1949, and last but by no means least. . . former Deutsche Unitarier Religionsgemeinschaft leader Sigrid Hunke's break away Bund Deutscher Unitarier - Religionsgemeinschaft europäischen Geistes.
The information contained in OUR LIBERAL HERITAGE, NO. 27 (in)appropriately titled 'LOVE EACH OTHER OR PERISH' makes it abundantly clear aka *transparent* that the pre-WWII Unitarian religious community in Germany collaborated with, if not was co-opted by. . . the Nazi Party of Germany. One can't help but wonder about how other European and American Unitarian religious communities interacted with the German Unitarian religious community during that time period to say nothing of the years and decades following WWII.
Herwith some "fair use" quotes from LOVE EACH OTHER OR PERISH with emphasis and (in)appropriate hyperlinks added -
In Nazi Germany, the Rev. Clemens Taesler, minister of the largest Unitarian church in Germany, the Unitarian Free Religious Society of Frankfurt, espoused the values of American Unitarians William Ellery Channing and Theodore Parker and German rationalism and idealism. *Yet* when Hitler came to power in 1933 he gravitated toward the spirit of the times, proclaiming the need for a new German Christianity that would renew the soul of the German people, Nazis showing the way. The Nazi regime *rewarded* him and his church with a freedom earlier denied Unitarians by orthodox established church authorities. Taesler even gained a position to teach religion in the public schools. By 1936 *other* liberal ministers in Frankfurt *shunned* Taesler for allowing himself to be coopted by the Nazis, but Taesler thought he was helping the survival of liberal religion by adjusting to the Nazi reality. His church remained packed with 1,200 worshipers seeking a way to *reconcile* their liberal values with the Nazi wave sweeping over them.
Taesler survived World War II (Editor's note: Gee what a Big Fat U*U Surprise. . .), and in 1946 wrote to his American Unitarian friend, James Luther Adams: “An immense guilt has come over our German nation.... Though we were forced here in Germany to live since the fall of 1938 more and more as in a prison, all of us became accessory to the crimes.... We have gone through an ocean of blood and tears [and] we as Germans are despised. . . in the world. . . A short time after your visit in Frankfurt [1936], Nazism began to show its right [true] face. Till then a man ... could still believe that one had the intention to act fairly in politics, especially in the Jewish question. But then the black day came, the day of the burning synagogues and of the persecution of the Jews, and soon all the religious societies were persecuted and oppressed. Our liberty of action too, as a Unitarian Free Religious Society, was limited more and more. And the war brought Nazi fanaticism to the boiling point.”
The Nazi phenomenon and the ease with which many (i.e. *many* German Unitarians. . .) adjusted to it became a transforming moment for James Luther Adams, a great Unitarian theologian of the 20th century. Adams realized that to each comes a moment to decide – to go on *adjusting* or to take a stand. “We must love each other or perish,” Adams preached in 1939. “Hitler could have been stopped. Anti-Nazis begged us to stop him. We are all to blame for him and his actions.” Religion, he emphasized, “offers peace only as a reward of struggle and suffering.” Adams implied for Americans whether one could meaningfully oppose Nazi anti-Semitism without working for full social justice against prevailing U.S. racism. In the 1960s Adams was in Germany with anti-Nazi friends watching television images of dogs and fire hoses keeping African Americans down. As liberal Germans had not escaped *complicity* in Nazism, Adams had to confess to them that “yes, it was true, I could not deny complicity in the venerable tradition of maltreatment of the African American in the USA.”
“I became acutely aware of the necessity for explicit commitment, in contrast to a vague sort of liberalism opposed to prejudices and promoting openness of mind.” The Rev. James Reeb of All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington faced the same choice. In contemplating the complicity of the Catholic Church with Nazism (Editor's Note: Why didn't James Reeb contemplate the complicity of the Unitarian Church with Nazism both before, during, and allegedly *after* WWII?) he wondered if we protect our lives and treasured institutions “at too high a price?”
“Did not *silence* mean *violating* the essential purpose of the church? I think the answer is yes.”
(Editor's Note: So do *I*. . .)
Reeb made his commitment explicit, went to Selma, and was beaten to death in witness to the purpose of the church.
Ref: James Luther Adams, Not Without Dust and Heat: A Memoir (Chicago: Exploration, 1995, pp. 202-207); Duncan Howlett, No Greater Love: The James Reeb Story (New York: Harper & Row, 1966, pp. 151-153).
end quote
The Emerson Avenger finds it most ironic, and really quite shameful, that he was permanently banned from ALL UUA sponsored email list serves as a result of posting comments about the disturbing allegations of modern German anti-Nazis that the post WWII German Unitarian religious community was co-opted by Nazi ideologues, including former SS officers, some of whom were allegedly convicted Nazi war criminals. . . In fact the proverbial straw that broke the Big Fat U*U Camel's apparently quite spineless back was a post that I submitted to the ICU*U email listserve which asked very specific aka *pointed* questions about very specific people in top level leadership positions in the Deutsche Unitarier Religionsgemeinschaft who were alleged to be former SS officers and Nazi ideologues who were using the DUR as a cover for their neo*Nazi activities. . .
Comments