Historical research on the university system of
Nazi Germany has increased considerably during the last two decades. In this
time, most of the German university subjects have contributed with particular
studies to answer the question of what happened during the time of the Third
Reich. However, the study of religion belongs to those disciplines just standing
at the beginning of a common effort to investigate their own past. The ongoing
jubilee congress gives us not only the chance to look back on a successful
development, but should urge us also to reconsider a critical phase of our
history.
Before I begin with my sketch of the situation, I have to make a
preliminary remark concerning the problem that the shape of the discipline
study, or, as we in Germany prefer to say, science of religion, was not clearly
defined. To avoid unreasonable extension I confine my report therefore to those
scholars whose teaching profession explicitly included the term study or science
of religion. My main sources are university, state, federal, and to a lesser
extent, church archives which I visited during a three-year-project sponsored by
the German Research Foundation. A smaller part of my findings I already
published last year.
Among the 23 German universities four, that is Bonn,
Leipzig, Marburg, and Tuebingen, can be seen as main centers for the study of
religion, developing their profile during the Weimar period. In Bonn Carl
Clemen held the chair for comparative religions. When he reached his
retirement age in April 1933, no reinstatement took place mainly because of
problems arising with the candidates who ought to fill the vacancy. Although
Gustav Mensching was supported by the Berlin Ministry of Education, he
met with disapproval at the university of Bonn. Several members of the
philosophy department expressed serious reservations about the scientific
capability of Mensching, who was reproached for lacking deeper historical
knowledge as well as for a superficial approach in his philosophy of religion.
Finally Mensching was appointed and received a lectureship for history of
religions in April 1936. Before that time he was associate professor at the
Latvian state university of Riga. Already in 1934 he joined the NSDAP and also
became a member of the so called "Dozentenund". Mensching continued his career
at the university of Bonn, where he obtained a chair for comparative science of
religion in 1941. During his denazification trial a discussion took place
whether his involvement in the Third Reich should be traced back to an attitude
of conviction or opportunism. I fear it was a combination of both. After a pause
of two years, Mensching was rehabilitated in 1948.
At the university of
Leipzig the follower of Nathan Soederblom Hans Haas died in 1934. The
Dresden Ministry of Education first tried to establish Mensching as his
successor, but the attempt failed because the theological faculty insisted on
someone who was seen as a stronger counterbalance to the claims of the German
Faith Movement. The quarrels arising therefrom postponed the appointment of
Walter Baetke, the candidate of the faculty. Baetke, a supporter of the
confessing church and a well-known specialist for Nordic studies, then became
professor for history of religions at the beginning of 1936. At this time,
Joachim Wach already had lost his associate professorship for science of
religion in the philosophy department. As a volunteer of World War I and a
member of the nationalist veteran association, the measure did not immediately
come into effect. He was dismissed in April 1935 and emigrated to the United
States. Since his absence caused a severe gap within the curriculum, the
lectureship of the anthropologist Friedrich Rudolf Lehmann was enlarged
to the study of religion. In 1937 Lehmann became associate professor. Being on
an expedition to southern Africa, he was surprised by the war. After the
steamer, he was traveling with, was scuttled 100 miles south of Cape town, he
was locked up in a British internment camp. Supported by the director of the
university of Johannesburg, he was released in 1941 and moreover received the
opportunity to work at Witwatersrand university and finally got a job at the
Department of Native Affairs. In 1950 Lehmann was appointed professor at the
university of Potchefstrom.
Let us now return to Germany and the university
of Marburg where the famous historians of religions Rudolf Otto and Friedrich
Heiler taught. In 1934 Heiler was moved to another university and one year later
to the philosophy department of Marburg. In contrast to the general opinion, I
want to stress the fact that this measure was not directed at Heiler personally
but had a more general claim. The Berlin Ministry of Education wanted to weaken
the theology department as a whole and tried to replace the weakest link of the
chain. It will probably be new to you that already in the 1920s plans existed
inside the theological faculty to expel Heiler as a consequence of his catholic
activities. Calculating on such antipathies, the Ministry proved right not to
expect grave protest against his removal. Although the rector assessed Heiler in
a letter to his Berlin superiors not to be incriminated at all, he was, of
course, no supporter of National Socialism. But it would be far too much to say
the opposite as Heiler frequently used to do after the war. In my opinion,
Heiler's opposition to the Pagan aspirations of Alfred Rosenberg - whereas we
have to state some kind of ambiguity in his attitude - was not connected with a
general rejection of the Third Reich. It was quite normal that he swore his oath
to Adolf Hitler in April 1935 to be, with the help of god, loyal and obedient to
the "Fuehrer" and chancellor of the German Reich.
Due to the paper of Prof.
Alles I will not refer to Rudolf Otto. Otto's successor Heinrich
Frick also claimed to have been in opposition. Nevertheless he was a
beneficial member of the SS for some time and had joined the National Socialist
Teachers Union. From 1937 until 1945 Frick served as Dean of the faculty which
was clear proof of the confidence the authorities put in him. The inauguration
of the "Fuehrerprinzip" made it rather unlikely that someone got such a post who
was suspected of being unreliable in his political convictions. Frick
intensified Otto's earlier attempts to enlarge the famous "Religionskundliche
Sammlung" to a whole institute for religious research. Under the name of a
"Marburg Castle Institute", Frick's planning grew to enormous dimensions. An
inordinate amount of money would have been necessary to realize these plans
which therefore repeatedly were rejected by the Ministry of Finance. In contrast
to that, Frick alleged after the war that political objections from the
Rosenberg side prevented the institute from coming into existence. He moreover
exaggerated his plans in describing them as a fight against the Third Reich in
general.
I do not want to be misunderstood and do not assert that Frick or
other scholars connected with Rudolf Otto had been party faithfuls of National
Socialism. Such one-sided judgments are inappropriate to describe the real
situation which normally was much more complicated. But we should avoid the
other extreme too and maintain a critical stance on our own history. See my
remarks therefore as an appeal for differentiation.
Turning now to the
university of Tuebingen, I am almost obliged to withdraw the comment I just
made. We find here that the relationship with National Socialism was hardly
ambiguous. Under its director Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, the Tuebingen study of
religion not only adopted the racist ideology of National Socialism as a whole
but entered into close cooperation with Nazi organizations. I do not have enough
time to give a description of all the unpleasant things that occurred, reaching
from personal denunciation to an institutional involvement in the criminal
activities of the "Gestapo". However, one should not forget that Hauer had been
a close friend of Otto and Heiler in earlier days, sharing most of their
scientific and religious convictions. Contrary to them, he left the realm of
liberal theology and free Christianity and became the well-known "Fuehrer" of
the German Faith Movement, an umbrella organization that linked most of
Germany's voelkish religious groups. Hauer, who has to be seen as the leading
religious studies scholar of the Third Reich, succeeded in increasing his
seminar and staff to a sizable degree and was moreover promoted to be the
director of an "Aryan Seminar" founded in 1940. After the end of the war it
proved impossible for him to return to the university.
To be a supporter of
National Socialism did not necessarily have to be accompanied by an
anti-Christian attitude such as Hauer's. With Rudolf Franz Merkel in
Munich and Johannes Witte in Berlin two examples produce evidence to the
contrary. Merkel, who followed Heiler teaching history of religions at
the university of Munich, became associate professor in 1933 and attained
lifelong civil servant status in 1939. Until 1937 he was a pastor in the
Protestant church of Bavaria. An ardent follower of Hitler and party member
since May 1935, he made his vicarage into a meeting point for Nazi groups.
Merkel repeatedly tried to establish a separate institute for the history of
religions in Munich. Although he declared his scientific views to be totally
congruent with the ideology of National Socialism, his attempts failed because
his academic abilities were not esteemed as sufficient. In 1945 Merkel was
dismissed. But two years later most of the measures against him were lifted as a
result of interventions undertaken by Friedrich Heiler.
Johannes Witte
was a like-minded nationalist, fighting against the democracy of Weimar as
Merkel did. Holding the chair of missiology in Berlin, his teaching profession
was extended in 1934 to general history of religions. Witte's career profited
very much from his belonging to the German Christians who had a firm footing in
the Berlin theological faculty. In 1935 he became its dean, the same year he
joined the NSDAP. But misfortune struck when his membership in a Berlin
Freemason's lodge became known. Even though he defended himself with strong
reference to his national merits and antisemitic convictions, he had to resign
and retreated a few years later from his university position.
In addition to
the older centers for the study of religion, several new ones came into being. I
was rather surprised to become acquainted with five new teaching professions,
being unknown to me before I started my research. Besides the two systematical
theologians Hermann Mandel and Karl Bornhausen, whose
professorship was developed into the study of religion at the universities of
Kiel and Frankfort, three new university institutes were founded in Halle under
Wilhelm Brachmann, in Strasbourg under Otto Huth, and in Greifswald under
the Swedish scholar Åke Ohlmarks. This is more than a respectable growth
since public funds were increasingly cut down in favor of the war. But also
outside the university education, the study of religion had been on the rise in
semi-official institutions such as the "Ahnenerbe" of the SS and the Rosenberg
office. Especially Rosenberg tried to gain access to the scholarly learning
succeeding with branches for the study of religion in Halle and Munich.
Holding a position explicitly designated to the study of religion, the
following were removed: Hans Alexander Winkler from Tuebingen university
as former member of the Communist party. According to the anti-Jewish
legislation Joachim Wach lost his lectureship in Leipzig, Martin
Buber and his pupil Norbert Glatzer in Frankfurt. In 1937 Friedrich,
then Frederic, Spiegelberg, lecturer for history of religions at the technical
university of Dresden, emigrated to the United States. From 1941-1962 he then
taught at Stanford University as professor for comparative religious
studies.
Now I would like to turn your attention to the international context
of the subject. When in September 1935 the 6th International Congress for the
History of Religions was held in Brussels, only a handful of German scholars
participated. Because the Berlin ministry feared international criticism against
the cleansing of academic life from Jews and political opponents, only academics
with strong national reliability got permission to attend the congress. Just a
few days before the event began, the head of the German delegation Witte had to
be released in great haste as former adherent of Freemasonry. His successor
Bornhausen defended in his official greeting address the national awakening of
Nazi Germany, focusing on its metaphysical grounding which not only led to
religious enthusiasm but also to a remarkable improvement in the study of
religion. Four weeks later Bornhausen stated in his final report a general
backwardness of the congress, to which he counted a strong Jewish influence as
well as the antiquated ideas of its participants. Nevertheless he claimed to
have had a good success and that especially the countries of south eastern
Europe had been susceptible to the German views. Due to World War II, the
following convention had to be canceled. Originally Germany should have hosted
it, but the expected participation of too many Jews had caused the German
withdrawal, as stated in a report which is to be found among the files of the
Reich Ministry of Education. Plans for Bologna as a substitute also remained
inconclusive. The report - which incidentally noticed that it was based on
internal congress matters stolen from Brussels by the German invaders - gave
expression that Germany looked for possibilities to carry out the 7th
international congress in 1943 in Berlin.
Another compelling example for the
international impact of National Socialism is the newly established chair for
science of religion at Strasbourg. Shortly after the occupation of France, plans
emerged to rebuild the German university of Strasbourg, which had existed in
earlier times. In November 1941 a so called "Reich" university was inaugurated.
Instead of theology departments it contained a seminar for science of religion,
bearing a strong anti-Christian attitude. Among those scholars expelled from
Strasbourg we see historians of religions such as Marcel Simon who had been a
participant of the Brussels congress and later became president of the
International Association for the History of Religions from 1970 until
1980.
After the war nobody seemed to have had a real interest in the
preceding period. Was it not outrageous to put the "mythical-ritual pattern in
civilization" on the agenda of the first post-war congress without undertaking
any attempt to deal with those myths that had led to the total destruction of
civilization during the time before? Was it really possible in the face of
millions of victims to return to business as usual and to proceed as if nothing
had happened? Putting such questions to the fore, I want us to think about the
prerequisites, the common features, and the intellectual integrity of our
international association founded in 1950. To draw the veil of oblivion over
everything must have been a signal or even an invitation for those scholars who
had close affinity with National Socialism to give up their reserve and to
return to the academic stage. It is disturbing to read the names of Hoefler,
Kummer, and others among the participants of the Rome congress. Even a Herman
Wirth was allowed to present a paper. With Matthes Ziegler and Eberhard
Achterberg two leading Nazis of the former "Amt Rosenberg" attended the
convention in Marburg in 1960. Here Betty Heimann could have listened to a
lecture of J. W. Hauer who had denounced her 25 years before as a Jewish scholar
who should no longer play any role in the German academic life.
Incriminated
historians of religions like Hauer had good reasons for not dealing with the
NS-period. But why the predominating direction of the German study of religion
with Heiler as its leading figure left it out of the account remains an open
question. The dividing line between pro- and anti-Nazi positions was probably
not so sharp as was later claimed. Especially if we reflect in this context on
the problem of religious legitimacy our classification becomes blurred. Just
taking over the assumptions of the so called historiography of the church
struggle with its dichotomy of true and false religions prevented a serious
study of NS-Paganism as well as a deeper analysis of the study of religion
itself. If we realize that Heiler's phenomenological approach and Hauer's
voelkish-racial phenomenology had the same theological epistemology and shared a
common religious substructure, expressed either in terms of a Pagan or a
Christian belief system, we get to the core of some of our main problems and
most important issues.
Thus to make real progress in our discussions we need
a comparison of the German situation with the developments in other European
countries. Understand this as an appeal for a common effort to research the
impact of National Socialism and related fascist ideologies on the study of
religion. We will not be able to develop thorough and persuasive prospects for
the future without knowing and accepting our history of that time.
*Lecture given at the XVIII Quinquennial Congress of The International Association for the History of Religions, Durban/South Africa (5-12 August 2000). Dr. Horst Junginger, Dpt. for the Study of Religion, Corrensstr. 12, 72076 Tuebingen.mailto:hojusakli@t-online.de.