Peter F. Wiener
Shortly after the outbreak of war in 1939 I was asked by the “Political Society of another very big English Public School to talk to them on “France,” which I did indeed with very great pleasure. This was on a Sunday night; and with the proverbial kindness of headmasters, I had been asked to come on Saturday and spend the night in a most congenial atmosphere. As it happened, the visiting preacher to the school on Sunday morning was a fairly well-known German refugee Lutheran pastor (it is kinder not to mention his name). To be quite honest, I have to admit that I felt little inclined to attend the service, but I went all the same.
The Herr Pastor spoke on antisemitism. I was wholeheartedly with him, of course, when he denounced it as not merely unchristian but antichristian. I was equally pleased when he explained to the boys that the violent antisemitism of the Nazis is not an isolated factor, to be considered as something quite apart from Nazism, but is an integral and most important part of the whole doctrine of Fascism.
I was, however, more than surprised when he suddenly called upon Luther. He roundly declared that “Luther, the founder of modern freedom, was the first to turn against antisemitism. He wanted the Jews to be treated in a Christian and charitable way.” And he quoted some of Luther’s fine sayings which I knew very well. “The Jews are our blood-friends, cousins and brothers of our Lord. No people has been so distinguished by God.” “We must exercise toward the Jews,” he quoted the Reformer again, “The law of Christian love and show them a friendly spirit; allow them liberty to work and to earn, and to leave them scope to live with and among us, and hear and see our Christian teaching and life.” “What good can we do the Jews when we constrain them, malign them, and treat them as dogs? When we deny them work and force them to usury, how can that help? We should use toward them Christ’s law of love. If some are stiffnecked, what does it matter? We are not all good Christians.” Noble and true words indeed. The preacher went on to explain that one of the reasons why Luther fought the Catholic Church was that “the Catholics” (in Luther’s own words), “have treated the Jews as if they were dogs and not men, and have done nothing except vilify them and rob them of their property.”
The pastor went on to explain in his sermon that this was just one example of how Luther stood for the decent Germany; the Nazis are opposed to Lutheran doctrines, he declared, and he ended his sermon with the words: “As I have tried to show you with regard to the treatment of the Jews—the great and urgent task before us is to bring the German people away from Hitler, back to Luther.”
I felt almost sick, and I had first of all to think of a remark Dean Inge once made to me. “When I examined priests for their ordination, I did not expect much from them. But I insisted that they should have read the Bible—which quite a few of them had not.” In the case just mentioned, I thought that a Lutheran priest should at least have read Luther.
It is quite true that when Luther fought the pope, he wanted allies and friends. Thus the Jews were welcome, and he made the truly wonderful remarks just quoted. But as so often before, once he had achieved his purpose he showed his true face. For the greater part of his life Luther was an antisemite of the worst calibre. He knew no compromise; and in this particular instance he did not even attempt to explain or excuse his complete change of colour.
“There can be no doubt that the radical change in Luther’s attitude on the Jewish question was an outcome of his increasing depression,” is rather a meaningless explanation attempted by A. Hausrath, one of Luther’s most famous apologists. I shall try to show what the true Luther thought of the Jews and how he proposed to deal with them.
Like all his enemies, the Jews in Luther’s eyes were devils. “Whenever you encounter a real Jew, you may in good faith make the sign of the cross and openly and fearlessly pronounce the words `This is a veritable devil’”. “Therefore,” the Reformer told his followers, “do not doubt and never forget, beloved Christians, that apart from Satan himself, you possess no more deadly poisonous, and dreadful enemy than a real Jew. I know that. They poison wells, kidnap and maltreat children.”
“Even with no further evidence than the Old Testament, I would maintain, and no person on earth could alter my opinion, that the Jews as they are today are veritably a mixture of all the depraved and malevolent knaves of the whole world over, who have been dispersed in all countries, similarly to the Tartars and gypsies and such folk, to afflict the different nations with their usury, to spy upon others and to betray, to poison wells, to deceive and kidnap children, in short to practice all kinds of dishonesty and injury.”
There was, according to Luther, no good or human quality about the Jews. “What is good in us Christians, they ignore; what is wrong in us Christians the Jews take advantage of.” “The breath of the Jews reeks.” “Their rabbis teach them that theft and robbery is no sin” (W53, 489).
“The Jews professing to be surgeons or doctors deprive the Christians who make use of their medicaments of health and prosperity for such Jewish doctors believe they find especial favour with their God if they torment and furtively kill Christians. And we, fools that we are, even turn for succour to our enemies and their evil ways in the times when our lives are in danger, which is indeed sorely trying God’s patience.”
I do not believe that even the notorious “Der Sturmer” of Dr. Streicher surpassed the sayings of Brother Martin. “It is impossible to teach or re-educate the Jews”. “A more bloodthirsty and vindictive race has never seen the light of day.” So the Reformer goes on and on.
As so often before, Luther’s worst utterances are not fit for quotation or reproduction. “Many of the obscenities occurring in his sermons and writings on the Jews are suggested by proverbs which themselves reek too much of the stable, but which he sometimes still further embellishes” (Grisar). “In his books (on Jews) Luther’s peculiar talent for indelicate language reached its climax. He wrote with unchecked ferocity, and indulged freely in his quaint practice of befouling the objects of his hate with imaginary animal excreta” (Lipsky).
“Were God to promise me no other Messiah than him for whom the Jews hope, I would much rather be a pig than a man,” is one of his mildest sayings. “Were a rabbi to ease himself into a vessel under your nose, both thick and thin, and say `Here you have a delicious conserve’, you would have to say you had never tasted a better dish in your life. Risk your neck and say differently! For if a man has the power to say like the rabbis that right is left and left is right, regardless of God and all His creatures, he can just as well say that his anus is his mouth, that his belly is a pudding-dish, and that a pudding-dish is his belly””(E32, 285).
“Whenever you see or think of a Jew, say to yourself `Look, that mouth that I see before me has every Saturday cursed, execrated, and spat upon my dear Lord Jesus Christ Who redeemed me with His precious blood, and has also invoked maledictions on my wife and child and all Christians that they might be murdered and perish miserably. He himself would gladly do it if he could, if only in order to get hold of our goods; maybe he has already today many times spat on the ground, as it is their custom to do when the name of Jesus is mentioned, so that his venomous spittle still hangs about his mouth and beard and leaves scarcely room to spit again. Were I to eat, drink, or speak with such a devilish mouth, I might as well eat and drink out of a can or vessel brimful with devils, and thus become partaker with the devils who dwell in the Jews and spit at the Precious Blood of Christ. From which God may preserve us” (E32, 141).
So the Reformer continues throughout his writings. “The Jews are malignant snakes and imps”. “Whoever would like to cherish such adders and puny devils—who are the worst enemies of Christ and us all—to befriend them and to do them honour simply in order to be cheated, plundered, robbed, disgraced, and forced to howl and curse and suffer every kind of evil, to him I would commend the Jews. And if this be not enough, let him tell the Jews to use his mouth as a privy, or else crawl into the Jew’s hind parts, and there worship the holy thing, so as afterwards to be able to boast of having been merciful, and of having helped the Devil and his progeny to blaspheme our dear Lord.”
These few samples taken at random must be sufficient to give you a true idea of what the Reformer saw in the Jews. I could continue for many pages to cite much worse passages. I think, however, that I have already spent too much space on the subject, but I thought it necessary to let the Reformer speak again for himself, and to prove that I have not chosen some isolated cases, but that, as far as the Jews are concerned, he stuck to his views for the greater part of his life. To comment on such exclamations and sayings is really not necessary. It seems to me a much more impressive method if I leave the reader to draw his own conclusions.
Of course, Luther proposed in detail how his followers should treat the “damned Jews.” “Never ought a Christian to eat or drink with a Jew”. “On being asked whether it would be right to box the ears of a Jew, Luther replied `Certainly. I for one would smack him on the jaw. Were I able, I would knock him down and stab him in my anger. It is lawful, according to both the human and the divine law, to kill a robber; then it is even more permissible to slay a blasphemer.’” Not a very Christian attitude; but worse is still to come. If I had to baptise a Jew, I would take him to the bridge of the Elbe, hang a stone round his neck and push him over with the words `I baptise thee in the name of Abraham’” (Detailed references given in Grisar, “Luther”, vol. v, p. 413)
“We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them” is his charitable advice. At other times he is in favour of “forcing them to work and treating them with every severity as Moses did in the desert when he slew 3,000 of them.”
Occasionally, he feels that he oversteps the limit, and then he reaches the climax of his hypocrisy. “Oh my Lord,” he whines, “my beloved Creator and Father. Do Thou graciously take into account my unwillingness to have to speak so shamefully of Thine accursed enemies. Thou knowest I do so out of the ardour of my faith and to the glory of Thy Divine Majesty.”
After such solemn prayers, he returns to his foul and abusive language. “It is our own fault that we have not avenged the sacred blood of our Saviour and the innocent blood of countless Christians and children, spoiled since the demolition of Jerusalem until now; it is our own fault that we have not annihilated the Jews but placidly let them stay where they are in spite of all their murders, their curses, blasphemies, lies, violations, and that we even protect their schools, their dwellings, their persons and property.” Nowhere in the history of civilised mankind have the masses been so incited to persecution and murder as by this “Christian Reformer.”
Indeed, four centuries before the world ever heard of the inhuman “Nuremberg Laws” Brother Martin compiled an anti-Jewish cod of his own. Luther’s antisemitic laws consist of seven paragraphs only. Here they are:
Set fire to their synagogues and schools; and what will not burn, heap earth over it so that no man may see a stone or relic of them forever.
Pull down and destroy their houses since they perpetrate the same nefarious things in them as in their schools. Pack them all under one roof or stable, like the gypsies, that they may know that they are not lords and masters in our land as they boast.
Deprive them of all their prayer-books.
Forbid their rabbis henceforth to teach.
Deprive them of the right to move about the country.
Forbid them the business of usury, and take from them all their belongings.
Hand the strong young Jews of both sexes flail, axe, mattock, spade, distaff, and spindle; and make them work for their bread in the sweat of their brow, like all the children of Adam. Confiscate their property and drive them out of the country. (W53, 525 abridged).
It will be found, at close inspection, that Luther’s laws are much more strict, or at least as severe, as those of Hitler. Very often he repeated his order, “The Jews have to be expelled from our country.” Or he gave the Christian advice. “The Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows seven times higher than ordinary thieves” (W53, 502).
When some of his friends reproached him for the anti-Christian attitude which his followers had to adopt toward the Jews, he replied smilingly: “Maybe mild-hearted and gentle Christians will believe I am too rigorous and drastic against the poor afflicted Jews, believing that I ridicule them and treat them with much sarcasm. By my word, I am far too weak.”
Up to the last day of his life, the Reformer remained obsessed by his antisemitism. Shortly before he died he wrote to his wife that he was ill. He blamed the Jews for his bad state of health! In his very last sermon, he urged his listeners: “You ought not to tolerate the Jews.” He ordered the princes to commit atrocities. “I pray to all rulers in whose territories there are also Jewish subjects, to practise severe justice in regard to this despicable race.” And if the rulers should refuse then it was the duty of the preachers to preach hatred. “If the authorities refuse to follow this drastic advice, the pastors and preachers are at all events to proclaim it to the people.” “Let us admonish you gentlemen and colleagues,” Luther told the preachers, “you clergymen and priests, in the name of the office you hold, that it is also your duty to admonish your congregation to beware of the Jews and to shun them.” He planned an even more powerful and violent attack against the Jews than any yet delivered; but before he had time to finish it, Luther had died.
What are the facts and the results? “Luther claims that his antisemitic writings were the first real work of instruction of Judaism which might teach us Germans from history what a Jew is and warn our Christians against them as against veriest devils” (For a fuller analysis see Dr. R. Lewin’s “Luther’s Stellung zu den Juden”, especially p. 77; also Grisar’s “Luther”, vol. v, p. 416). Nobody can deny the truth of this statement, although decency makes it impossible to mention his worst utterances, although “it is impossible even in a most detailed analysis to reproduce the excitement which trembles through every page, the mad fanaticism” which we find in the German original.
In the Reformer’s own times, the results of his teaching were tragic. “All his counsels were, of course, of such a nature that they provoked the people to an unchristian persecution of their Jewish citizens.” It is typical that in towns like Strasbourg, Lutheran in religion but French and Latin in culture and tradition, “the magistrates decided to prohibit Luther’s antisemitic pamphlets being printed in the city.”
But there were, in Luther’s time, some courageous Protestant leaders who complained bitterly. One of them, Bullinger of Zurich, protests against the “lewd and houndish eloquence” of the Reformer. “Everyone must be astonished at the hard and presumptuous spirit of the man (Luther). The opinion of posterity will be that Luther was not only a man, but a man ruled by criminal passion.” “Were it written not by a famous pastor of souls, but by a swineherd, it would still be hard to excuse.”
“Official reports go to prove that the cruel persecution of the Jews was no mere paper measure.” In the same way as Luther had treated the peasants and the Anabaptists, the Jews got their due now. But much worse still were the historical consequences. “The seed of the hatred against the Jews which Luther sows, does not get lost, however, but continues to have its reaction through the centuries. Whoever wants to write against the Jews out of any motive, always believes to have the right to refer triumphantly to the writings of Luther.” (All future “antisimitic decrees had their origin in Luther” (Lewin, op. cit).)
It is curious to notice how Luther’s biographers, or rather his apologists, treat this dark episode. Few are so hypocritical as the Lutheran pastor referred to above to make out Luther as a Jew-loving Christian. Most of them ignore his antisemitism completely. Only a very few are honest enough to admit that Luther’s behaviour is unparalleled among people who call themselves Christian. Professor MacKinnon in his great work—usually so full of admiration for Luther—frankly admits that in his antisemitic writings “vitriolic fury boils over in this wild polemic.” But then comes a sentence so typical of the way Luther is portrayed by English scholars: “It is difficult to believe that he (Luther) soberly contemplated the literal application of such monstrous proposals.”
Why? One would like to ask Professor MacKinnon. He does not say so. Why make allowances and mental reservations for a man who said repeatedly “I am not cruel enough,” who could in cold blood watch and command that hundreds of thousands of his opponents—papists, peasants, Anabaptists, and Jews should be and were slaughtered tortured, and otherwise persecuted. Why on earth is this difficult to believe? Merely in order to maintain a myth, a legend?
I again find it much more dignified to say with Professor Grisar, “After all that has been said, it would be very rash to apply to Luther’s attitude towards the Jews the words which St. Paul wrote of himself when considering humanity as a whole—i.e., of the power of God by which he had striven with endless patience and charity to bring home the Gospel to both Jew and Greek. `To the Greeks and to the Barbarians, to the wise and to the foolish, I am a debtor.’ `I have become all things to all men in order to save all.’”
A contemporary American scholar already quoted—Lipsky—sums up Luther’s teaching on the Jews in the following appropriate manner: “It is only necessary for an antisemitic agitator to quote Luther in order to arouse a destructive rage against alien inhabitants of the Fatherland. Luther’s unbridled tongue tossed off phrases that still are a godsend to antisemitic ranters, and as long as the prophet’s words are cherished so long, no doubt, will the stream of invective and abuse flow from the hallowed spring.”
And another, more recent, commentator states boldly that “As far as the treatment and solution of the Jewish question is concerned, Adolf Hitler has continued and achieved the work of Luther.”
This seems to me a more correct interpretation of Luther than that of the German Lutheran pastor at the Public School, or of most of his English biographers.
Sir Thomas More said once with regard to Luther: “The gentle reader must forgive me if much that occurs offends his feelings. Nothing has been more painful to me than to be compelled to pour such things into decent ears. The only other alternative would, however, have been to leave the unclean book untouched.” That is exactly what I feel. I do not like saying what I have to say; but shyness, fear, tradition, prejudice, ignorance, hypocrisy, and various interests have too long prevented us from showing a side of a man who is usually in English-speaking countries hailed as representative of “the other, the better, the decent German.” On the contrary, in Luther I see one of the darkest figures history has yet produced.