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A social change of this magnitude perhaps inevitably creates a backlash. Indeed, that very backlash, in the form of antimodernism, antiliberalism, and antisecularism, is with us to this day. It characterizes much Christian public rhetoric. The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw this backlash begin and later intensify. It took a variety of forms, both traditional and strangely modern. Traditional antimodernism yearned for the return of an earlier day of cultural and religious homogeneity, and was spearheaded especially by Christian leaders alarmed by growing secularization. But at the same time, a modern antimodernism rooted in pseudoscientific racism began to flourish, offering Social Darwinian theories asserting the superiority of "Aryans" over other races. The focus of these theories, the primary racial enemy, was the newly emancipated Jews.
During the first third of the twentieth century, Gerlach shows, German Protestant leaders were susceptible to both religious anti-Judaism and modern anti-Semitism, though the former rather than the latter held greater sway. Christian anti-Judaism had a very long history.1 The essay by Shelley Baranowski in Betrayal shows that antimodernist anti-Judaism, which blamed Jews for their contribution to deleterious social changes in the secularizing Germany of the era, was an important theme in mainstream Protestant thought during the Weimar era. It dovetailed nicely with this older religious anti-Judaism and proved deeply appealing in German church life. Gerlach documents the expression of anti-Judaism in the German Protestant press during this period, demonstrating that egregious expression of anti-Jewish sentiment was quite common in the widely read Sunday papers as well as sermons and other popular outlets. A section of a sermon by Basel theology professor Dr. Adolf Köberle captures the mood quite well:
The secular, areligious Jew … has followed the path of outrage against God to its final consequence. In his heart, he has bid farewell to the last bits of faith and reverence before God. His ideal is the spirit of the French revolution, the spirit of liberalism and materialism, Marxism and Bolshevism, but also, when possible, the spirit of unprincipled Mammonism and the unbridled greed of a Caesar-like world domination. He is everywhere where there is something to subvert … whether it be marriage and family, love for the Fatherland or the church, discipline and order, chastity and decency, wherever there is something to gain.
Discussing the Köberle sermon, Gerlach incisively concludes: "As the struggle of the German Evangelical Church with the Nazi regime began, such attitudes were widespread in the churches. These prejudices would make any genuine Christian activism on behalf of the Jews virtually impossible."
It was not only Hitler's anti-Semitism that struck a chord in the churches. The Nazi Party positioned itself in the 1920s and early 1930s as the only force standing between Germany and utter social collapse. The chaos of the tottering Weimar Republic is well-known, as is the economic crisis that helped Hitler's rise to power. Hitler and the Nazis promised to reestablish a strong central authority and bring order, restoring Germany's honor after the double humiliation of defeat and a punitively imposed peace, rebuilding the German military, preventing Soviet-style communism from prevailing in Germany, and feeding a hungry people. The Nazis also—and this is often overlooked—promised a return to traditional values, proclaimed a strengthening of Germany's fragmented sense of national community, and demanded the suppression of enemies who undermined these bulwarks of traditional German identity. Nationalism, militarism, community, prosperity, law and order, tradition, authority, anti-communism: not only in Germany have culturally conservative Christians found these themes attractive.
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