Luther’s Legacy Does Not Belong to Hitler

Modern historians have a tendency to draw a direct line from the anti-rabbinical views of the German Reformer Martin Luther to the Holocaust, as though those views provide the foundational explanation for understanding it. Though Luther’s final work on Judaism, On the Jews and Their Lies (1543), was first published 405 years before Kristallnacht, it is commonly cited as a motivating factor behind the Nazis.

Peter F. Wiener published Martin Luther. Hitler’s Spiritual Ancestor in 1945. He argued that “Luther,” was “obsessed by” “antisemitism” and “anything but godly.” Luther’s positive image was actually “an evil and dangerous legend.” The same year Gordon Rupp published Martin Luther: Hitler’s Cause or Cure? as a refutation, yet, unlike Wiener, his work has fallen out of print. A similar modern work, Fabricated Luther: Refuting Nazi Connections and Other Myths (2007) by Uwe Siemon-Netto, makes similar arguments, yet, this book is not popular. Today, Wiener’s conclusions are largely accepted.

Rita Steinhardt Botwinick states, in her History of the Holocaust (2001), that Luther’s “verbal attacks on the Jews were not equaled until Goebbels’ rhetoric.” Similarly, Robert Michael’s Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust (2006), portrays Martin Luther as a racist who “perceived the Jews as” ‘worthy of slaughter,” lumped in with “the Church Fathers, medieval theologians,” “and the Nazis” who “presented the Jews as the paradigmatic evildoers in Christendom.” In Martin Luther’s Anti-Semitism (2012), Eric Gritsch ascribes “antisemitism,” a “hint of racism,” and a murderous tendency similar to Hitler’s to Luther. Christopher Probst states, in Demonizing the Jews: Luther and the Protestant Church in Nazi Germany (2012), “that at the very least the motivations for the sociopolitical recommendations of the last section of On the Jews and Their Lies may be described as irrational, and thus antisemitic.”^[1]

On the popular level, Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin state in Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism (2003), that Luther “was one of history’s most vehement Jew-haters,” “the founder of Protestantism,” “and a father of German nationalism.” A. J. Deus recently wrote in Holy Enemies of Freedom: How Martin Luther Unleashed the Beast of Anti-Semitism (2018), that “Martin Luther [was] cited in the foundation of Adolf Hitler’s anti-Jewish thought framework.” Interestingly, one of the video displays at the beginning of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is a mini-documentary on Christian antisemitism, mostly focusing on Luther.^[2]

As a result of Luther’s new image, Lutherans themselves are reevaluating their connection with the founder of their church. From 1982 to 2004, a string of Lutheran denominations and associations distanced themselves from Luther’s anti-Judaic teachings. In the “Driebergen Declaration (1991), the European Lutheran Commission on the Church and the Jewish People . . . which represents twenty-five Lutheran church bodies in Europe, rejected . . . the anti-Jewish writings of Martin Luther.” In the United States, The Lutheran Evangelical Protestant Church declared, “With deep sorrow and regret repentance is offered to the Jewish People for the harm that Martin Luther caused and any contribution to their harm. Forgiveness is requested of the Jewish People for these actions.” The more conservative Missouri Synod stated, “we deplore and disassociate ourselves from Luther’s negative statements about the Jewish people.”^[3]

Given the manner in which certain Nazis appealed to Luther, most strikingly Julius Streicher’s testimony at Nuremberg, it should come as no surprise that his tainted image, along with the horrors of the Holocaust, have helped recast his legendary status. Works like The Aryan Jesus (2008) by Susannah Heschel, and A Church Undone: Documents from the German Christian Faith Movement, 1932-1940 (2015) by Mary Solberg, have solidified a connection between Nazi antisemitism and Martin Luther’s brand of Protestantism.

Curiously, neither Heschel nor Solberg include any discussion of the theological developments which took place in Germany previous to Hitler’s ascension. Neither the effect of German Higher Criticism or Neo-orthodoxy are mentioned. Contributions from the former were assumed and heavily relied on by theologians in the German Christian movement and contributions from the latter heavily affected the way the Confessing Church opposed Naziism. More importantly, both movements contradicted the foundation of Luther’s theological legacy. Drawing a straight line from the medieval Reformer to Hitler, while ignoring the modern theologies of Schleiermacher and Karl Barth, can best be described as historical tunnel vision.

In addition, Luther’s theological arguments against Judaism are of a different nature than the scientific racism promoted by men like Georges Vacher de Lapouge. At best, both had a general distaste for Jews. Luther’s status as Volk hero, along with his anti-Judaic writings, certainly helped neutralize potential opposition to the Holocaust. However, theological arguments did not serve as Nazi justification for the Holocaust. It should be recognized that Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin have argued for an overarching anti-monotheistic understanding of antisemitism, which they believe encompasses both sentiments.

A final consideration when tying Luther’s invective words about Jews to the Holocaust is the tendency to ignore Luther’s historical context. Careful historians like Thomas Kaufmann, in Luther’s Jews: A Journey Into Anti-Semitism (2017), have taken into account Luther’s standard hyperbolic rhetoric, personal circumstances under which he penned On the Jews and Their Lies, as well as the entire cannon of Luther’s writings on Judaism. In addition, contemporary with and previous to Luther were many common negative writings and assumptions Christians harbored toward Jews, making Luther’s diatribe less than distinctive. Luther also did not possess the presently assumed ideal of a privatized religion disconnected from civil and social affairs.

In summary, the German church’s theological liberalism, Nazi justification for Jewish persecution on scientific grounds, and the historical differences between the late medieval and modern periods, should prompt students of Luther and the holocaust to exercise caution when forming a strong association between the two. Some modern scholars have fallen into the trap of reading Luther through a Nazi lens. Luther’s last sermon, days before his death on February 18, 1546, included a call to treat Jews “with Christian love and to pray for them, so that they might become converted and would receive the Lord.” He would likely have been horrified by the Holocaust.^[4]

Thomas Kaufmann claims “the idea that On the Jews and their Lies could be used as a binding manifesto of anti-Semitism would never have occurred to [Luther],” who thought his non-theological works of little consequence, and whose anti-Jewish “diatribes did not arouse great public or political interest.” Yet, Adolph Hitler famously listed Luther, along with Frederick the Great and Richard Wagner as “protagonists” who fought for “ideals despite” receiving “no” contemporary “recognition.” There is no indication Hitler’s purpose in referencing Luther in Mein Kampf had anything to do with Jews directly. Yet, in a country in which “600,000 pastors, bishops, professors of theology, religion teachers, and laity” lived, and in which “approximately two-thirds of Germans were Protestant,” it was a political necessity to speak the language of the culture.^[5]

Neither Hitler nor the Nazi Party was remotely interested in preserving Christianity. Hitler was “happy” to “have no inner connection with [Catholicism]” and regularly mocked Christianity as a Jewish belief during the war. His relationship with the church can best be summarized by a statement he made in 1941: “I will not tolerate it, if a parson meddles in earthly affairs. The organized lie must be broken, so that the state is absolute lord. In my youth I espoused this point of view: Dynamite! Today I recognize, that one cannot hurry it along. It must slowly decay like a gangrenous limb.” Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, felt similar. He said in 1935, “For the Churches there is only one solution, which will ensure peace: Back into the sacristy! Let the churches serve God, we serve the people.” Roland Freisler, the President of the People’s Court, condemned Helmuth James von Moltke, a former jurist, to death in 1945 on the basis of his consulting with clergy on “the practical-ethical demands of Christianity.” His statement during the trial further reveals the totalitarian nature of Nazism: “Christianity and we National Socialists have one thing in common, and one thing only. We claim the whole man.”^[6]

Nazi leadership viewed orthodox Christianity as a competing religion, and treated it as such. Heinrich Himmler, who was in charge of the SS and famously dabbled in the occult, was recorded saying, “We shall not rest until we have rooted out Christianity.” J.S. Conway traces Christian persecution under Nazi rule, mainly originating in the SS, in The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933-1945 (1968). The state seized most church property, ministers were routinely accused of financial misconduct or sexual perversion, para-Church ministries and information outlets were eliminated, and thousands of clergy arrested. In short, churches were stripped of any visible public influence.^[7]

Still, for Hitler, Luther served as a völk symbol. His use of the Reformer was more than convenient. It was expected. After an economic downturn in the 1870s, völkisch writers introduced lobotomized versions of Luther’s anti-Judaic works to German culture. Before the seventeenth century, Luther’s Jewish writings were infrequently disseminated, mostly by pietists who appealed to his early works on Christian toleration and evangelism to Jews. Starting in 1881, a stream of tracts appeared which exclusively carried portions of Luther’s later writings on the Jews and claimed German and Jewish cultures were irreconcilable. In 1887, Luther became known as an antisemitic figure for the first time when Theodor Fritsch published Antisemiten-Katechismus, which included portions of Luther’s later anti-Judaic writings. “Hitler considered Fritsch . . . to have been a forerunner of his own ideas” and it was likely his work that exposed Hitler to Luther, since Hitler was raised Catholic.

Though it was the Völkisch Movement, not Lutherans, who first used non-theological portions of Luther’s later writings to foment anti-Jewish sentiment, German Church leaders participated in the Zeitgeist. Because the Völkisch Movement accused the Protestant Church of “‘suppressing’ Luther’s anti-Semitism,” a string of Christian versions of Luther’s anti-Judaic works emerged, including Walter Holston’s third volume of the Munich Luther edition in 1936, which was the “only edition of the complete text of On the Jews and their Lies.” Two years later, “the leading bishop in the state of Thuringia, Martin Sasse, published a booklet” containing portions of Luther’s anti-Judaic invectives which had a “print run of 100,000 copies.” Given these circumstances, it would have been unusual for Hitler to not have referenced Luther. After all, he was the beneficiary of Luther’s new image.^[8]

As early as 1918, Hitler called Luther “a great man” who “saw the Jew as we are only beginning to see him today.” Hitler referred to Luther as a “great German” in a 1927 speech and, in 1934, claimed that if Luther were alive to see Nazi church unification, he would rejoice. Kristallnacht itself was carried out in honor of Martin Luther’s birthday. Early on in Hitler’s career he called himself a Christian and utilized Christian symbols, a practice which progressively diminished as his career unfolded. However, Hitler’s use of Luther is extremely limited and, compared with his frequent references to scientific racism, insignificant. Other Nazi officials made more endearing statements.

Bernhard Rust, the Minister of Science, Education, and National Culture, promoted Hitler as a second Luther. Walter Buch, a jurist and SS official, had a “pious Protestant upbringing” and seemed to genuinely admire Luther’s anti-Judaic works, claiming that Hitler preached ideas Germans had “always held” from the time of Martin Luther. Heinrich von Treitschke, the editor of Preussische Jahrbucher, was motivated by “Social Darwinism,” but used the words of Luther when he stated, “the Jews are our misfortune!” Adam Alfred Rudolf Glauer, an influential Nazi occultist, appreciated “Luther’s anti-Semitism,” yet represented the opinion of many National Socialists who also thought Luther’s works were “deficient, because [they were] based on religious, not racial, considerations.” Thus, even Nazi officials who disagreed with Luther’s religion, borrowed from him out of political expediency, and they weren’t the only ones. The Nazi inspired “German Christian Movement” followed their example.^[9]

From 1933-1934, Hitler attempted to consolidate Christian Protestantism into the national German Evangelical Church. Under the new National Bishop Ludwig Müller, who served as Hitler’s advisor for church affairs, the Aryan Paragraph was enacted as a way to defrock ethnic Jews who served in the clergy. Soon thereafter, German Christian leaders floated ideas intended to “dejudaize” Christianity, such as removing Jews from churches, deleting the Old Testament, and changing the image of Jesus to fit Aryan ideals. Led by Karl Barth, a group of Confessing Lutherans drafted the Barmen Declaration, which resisted State overreach. Thus, two wings of the Protestant Church formed in Germany, both claiming Luther.

In 1933, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote “The Church and the Jewish Question,” in which he heavily quoted Luther on the church’s responsibility to evangelize Jews and receive them upon conversion. Using Luther’s position, Bonhoeffer argued that the State was overstepping its bounds by preventing the church from accomplishing its primary goal. In 1936, the Confessing Church sent a memorandum to Hitler in which, among other complaints, they directly challenged the philosophical underpinnings of Nazi racism.

When blood, ethnicity, race, and honor here receive the rank of eternal values, then the Evangelical Christian is forced by the First Commandment to reject this valuation. When the Aryan human being is glorified, God’s Word is witness to the sinfulness of all humans; when anti-Semitism, which binds him to hatred of Jews, is imposed upon the Christian framework of the National Socialist world view, then for him the Christian commandment to love one’s fellow human stands opposed to it.^[10]

Unfortunately, this general statement did not challenge any specific Nazi policies, and lacked applicability outside the church. This gave room for Confessing Church clergy, such as Wilhelm Halfmann, to even support the Nuremberg Laws. In 1937, Gerhard Schmidt “fought to retain the Old Testament” against the German Christian Movement by pointing out that Luther did not “reject the Old Testament because of the Jews, but rather the other way around: Because of the Old Testament, he rejects the Jews.” The same year, the National church summarized the difference between Der Stürmer, a Nazi propaganda newspaper, and the Confessing Church’s position on the Jews.: “They are united in their radical rejection [of the Jews]. the one for anti-Jewish reasons, and other for anti-Christian reasons.” Though there were heroic exceptions like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemöller, and Theophil Wurm, they were in the minority.^[11]

Early on, Bonhoeffer pointed out the self-preserving tendency of the Confessing Church as it had “yet shown no sympathy for the millions suffering injustice. If and when she does speak it is always on her own behalf.” Both the German and Confessing churches were concerned völk religion would replace Christianity. If the Confessing Church rejected core Nazi policies outright, this fear was elevated. These weaknesses, coupled with the völkisch movement’s use of Luther “helped create an attitude of mind that paralyzed any kind of civil courage on the part of the Lutheran population.”^[12]

For the Confessing Church, Luther’s theology did not weaken resistance against hatred for Jews as much as Karl Barth’s theology did. According to J. S. Klan, Neo-orthodoxy “contributed to the church’s impotence in the 1930s” by encouraging her “to be concerned primarily with her own affairs, insisting that the church’s role was to defend an ‘intolerantly one-sided and transcendental faith laden with paradox.’” Barth wrote in 1933, “The Church has in no way whatever to serve mankind nor the German people. She has alone to serve the Word of God.”^[13]

Neo-orthodoxy was a reaction to the Higher criticism embraced by the German Christian Movement. Barth agreed with German Christians, in stark contrast to Luther, that the Bible was “a human instrument and document, bound and conditioned by the temporal views of nature, of history, of ideas, of values,” and therefore, “not sinless,” and “not infallible.” In order to legitimize Christianity, Barth relegated it to the realm of transcendent experience, thus rejecting natural revelation and neutralizing modern attacks on inerrancy or the supernatural. In the process the church lost its prophetic capability. Faith was privatized and common ground between the church and other institutions eliminated. The very feature that kept the academy from discrediting the church destroyed the authority of the church. Not only did Luther never conceive of such thinking, but he contradicted it by engaging in polemics upon the basis of “the Scriptures” and “clear reason,” as his most famous speech at the Diet of Worms in 1521 testifies. Neo-orthodox theologians departed from the foundation of Luther’s theology which was the Word of God as divinely communicated in the temporal realm and, therefore, subject to reasonable inquiry.^[14]

In contrast to the Confessing Church, the German Christian Movement worked toward creating, in the words of Adolf Bartels, a “more Germanic” and “less Jewish Christianity.” They proceeded “always in the name of Luther” and used their respect and “backing from theological faculties” to secure resources. Between 1943 and 1945 they maintained the “Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Church Life,” overseen by the office by the Reich Minister for Church Affairs. The Institute was comprised of “theologians who had been well trained in the most sophisticated methods and insights of their field.” They appealed to racial theory, Higher criticism, and historical-critical interpretations to supplant orthodox Christian teaching. ^[15]

In 1940, the Institute released Die Botschaft Gottes, an edited version of the New Testament which deleted positive statements concerning Jews. 200,000 copies were sold. The next year. After denouncing 1,971 hymns as Jewish, including Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress,” the institute published a new hymnal, Grosser Gott wir loben dich!. Luther’s catechism was also replaced the same year. Theologian Walter Grudmann, “called for the removal of the Old Testament” and claimed, in contrast with Luther’s That Christ Was Born a Jew (1523), that “Jesus was not a Jew but rather had sought the destruction of Judaism.” He also denied the historical accuracy of the passion narrative and the Sermon on the Mount. Siegfried Leffler, an official in the Thuringia Ministry of Education, believed Catholics and Protestants should form a new church committed to “common readiness to sacrifice for Germany.” One can only imagine what the founder of Protestantism would have thought of such a notion. The Movement’s activities diametrically opposed Luther’s Reformation teaching. Yet, this did not keep them from claiming him as their own.^[16]

In 1938, A few days after a pogrom in Weimar, “the bishop of Thuringia, Martin Sasse,” published Martin Luther on the Jews: Away with Them!, which included selections from On the Jews and their Lies. The following year, the Godesberg Declaration maintained that “National Socialism is an extension of Luther’s efforts.” Pastor Eric Fromm appealed to Luther’s German translation to push for an updated dejudaized translation of the Bible. In 1941, regions dominated by German Christians justified support for imposing the Jewish Star as a mark of identification in part, because Luther had allegedly taught that “racial distinctiveness” and “national identity” could not be changed through baptism. Thus, even “`German Christians’ had removed the theology from Luther’s opposition to the Jews in order to ingratiate themselves with the Nazi state and projected an image of the reformer as a political and racial thinker.”^[17]

Overcoming Luther’s theology, while recruiting his image, was only possible because of theological developments which had taken place in Germany for one hundred years preceding the German Christian Movement. Friedrich Schleiermacher, known as the “Father of Liberal Theology,” taught at University of Berlin in the early 19th century and revolutionized the study of hermeneutics by subjecting biblical texts to the naturalistic assumptions embedded in psychology and literary analysis. In contradiction to Luther, who believed “the Scriptures have never erred,” Schleiermacher destroyed inerrancy. He also disagreed with Luther by claiming the Jewish background of “the historical Jesus” was insignificant and that “no continuity whatsoever between Judaism” and modern Christianity existed.^[18]

From Schleiermacher spawned a movement which altered the German theological landscape. Max Müller was influenced by Franz Bopp at the University of Berlin and became “a thoroughly Schleiermacherian interpreter of texts.” During the late 19th century, he championed the idea that language determined culture, including religious ideas. Another “leading biblical critic, Bruno Bauer, published Herr Hengstenberg in 1839, “in which he attacked the well-known conservative scholar and church leader Ernst Hengstenberg for ‘seeing Christianity as a continuation of Judaism.’” Two years later he “developed the concept of a coherent ‘political antisemitism’” in his Critique of the Synoptic Gospels. In 1878, Julius Wellhausen introduced the Documentary hypothesis which challenged Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. In 1901, William Wrede, who taught at the University of Breslau, rejected Jesus’ messianic beliefs since he thought the Gospels were not historical accounts, instead trying to find a “historical Jesus.” Peter Jensen, professor at the University of Marburg,” asserted in 1909 “that Moses, Jesus, and Paul were three variants of Babylonian divinities.” The next year he suggested the gospels were myths following a pattern from the Gilgamesh Epic. By 1923, Friedrich Anderson, a well known pastor, was calling for the rejection of the Old Testament. William Bauer, a professor at the University of Gottingen, argued that “Jesus was not bound to the law, but encouraged free thinking” in 1927. The idea that Jesus was Aryan, called “The Galilean Jesus,” “entered the work of university theologians in the 1920s and 30s who were rejecting supernatural miracles . . .”^[19]

Before the German Christian Movement began, categories and tools for altering Luther’s religion were already embedded in academic and theological institutions. Generally speaking, the Confessing Church embraced Luther’s orthodoxy while denying, albeit feebly, the way Nazis interpreted him. The German Christian Movement denied his orthodoxy while embracing Nazi interpretations. In both cases, Luther’s theology was overcome in order to neutralize the Confessing Church and justify the German Christian Movement. At this juncture, it is important to understand what Luther said about the Jews, and why he said it.

At the Nuremberg trials in 1946, “Julius Streicher, the founder of the anti-Semitic propaganda paper Der Stürmer” said “Luther and not he should be in the dock.” Streicher was a “radical” anti-Semite who viewed Luther as a “warrior against the international power of the Jews,” and who previously “complained about the lack of references to Luther’s anti-Semitism” in national education. Luther’s work, which Streicher appealed to at Nuremberg, was On the Jews and Their Lies.^[20]

On the surface, the commonalities between Nazi policies and Luther’s civil recommendations concerning Jews are similar. The Reformer urged that rulers should burn Jewish synagogues, schools, and homes, as well as confiscate “prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which . . . idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught.” Luther pointed to Deuteronomy 13:12, in which Moses wrote “that any city that is given to idolatry shall be totally destroyed by fire.” Rabbis should be “forbidden to teach . . . on pain of loss of life and limb,” for their spiritual oppression of “poor Jews.” Luther advised that Jews should be deprived of safe protection on highways since, if they did travel the “countryside,” they were necessarily guilty of “usury” as they were not “lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like.” Their money, since it was also necessarily the product of usury, should be taken and given to converted Jews who wanted to pursue an honest occupation. “Young strong Jews and Jewesses” should be hired for toilsome work or ejected from the country. Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin observe that “Martin Luther’s words anticipate most Nazi actions against the Jews.”^[21]

The connection between On the Jews and Their Lies and Nazi policy says more about Nazi manipulation than it does Luther’s belief. Luther’s full cannon of writings concerning Jews and Judaism is varied. In his First Lecture on the Psalms (1516), Luther claimed that Jews were heretics based upon their rejection of Christ, misreading of prophecy, pharisaism, and acceptance of the Talmud as authoritative. In his Second Lecture on the Psalms (1518) Luther opposed suspicions “of cabbalistic speculations about the ten names of God and the tetragram as being blasphemous and superstitious,” and encouraged Christians to treat Jews kindly for the sake of evangelism. In a Sermon on the Contemplation of the Holy Suffering of Christ (1519) he opposed Christians who reviled Jews during the Passion celebrations. In sermons on usury, ranging from 1519 to 1540, Luther occasionally referenced Jews in stereotypical ways for their participation in the practice. While Luther was at Wartburg castle (1521-1522), His Commentary on the Magnificat ascribed the covenant of Abraham to ethnic Jews and claimed there would always be Jewish Christians. “In 1523, Luther penned a treatise entitled That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew, where he admonished Christians to treat Jews in a ‘brotherly fashion’ with the intention Jews would be converted to Christianity.” Roman Catholics even accused Luther of being a “Jew’s friend.” Luther engaged Jews on the Old Testament prophecies concerning Jesus, and continued this work throughout the 1530s. Unfortunately, for Luther, Jewish reception was not proportional to his confidence and optimism.^[22]

Luther’s perception of Jews changed as his evangelistic efforts proved unsuccessful. In Against the Sabbatarians (1538), Luther expressed his frustration and stated that Jews hated Christ and were under judgement, as their suffering proved. Contemporary events also contributed. With the success of the Reformation, Protestants were forced to think through questions on civil government they had not previously dealt with. Suleiman the Magnificent also threatened Western Europe with Islamic domination. It was in this environment that, Antonius Margaritha, a Jewish convert to Christianity, published The Entire Jewish Faith (1530), which became “one of the most important sources of information about Jewish religious ceremonies and practices into the eighteenth century.” Jews, according to Margaritha, were “doing secret deals with the Turks and hoping to break the Christians’ power.” Interaction with Jews was dangerous for Christians. Magistrates should protect Christians by outlawing usury and depriving them of rights. “Treating the Jews kindly only resulted in their ‘cursing, reviling and despising [Christians] and Christ himself.’” Luther referred to the book on occasion and many of Margaritha’s issues, such as the blasphemous uses of God’s name, are echoed in On the Jews and Their Lies.^[23]

The vast majority of Luther’s objections in On the Jews and Their Lies (1543) were theological and focused primarily on Old Testament interpretation and Replacement Theology. In contrast to That Jesus Was Born a Jew, Luther suggested the Abrahamic Covenant only applied to the church. He also contradicted a previous belief by insinuating in one section that Jews ate children. Luther’s extra biblical observations seem to be formed by “anti-Jewish literature of the Middle Ages and that of his own day.” His often bombastic rhetoric was no more elevated than his diatribes against Catholic Priests whom he called “desperate, thorough arch-rascals, murderers, traitors, liars, [and] the very scum of all the most evil people on earth. . . full of all the worst devils in hell.” Luther even thought of himself as a “babbler” and a “windbag.” Yet, he did not encourage the same kind of treatment of Catholics that he did of the Jews. One reason for this may be his view on the relationship of church and state.^[24]

In 1539, the ruler of Hesse, under the influence of the Reformer Martin Bucer, limited Jewish activity. Following Roman law found in Justinian’s Codex Iuris Civilis, Bucer maintained that “all idolatry was to be forbidden throughout the Empire and anyone who transgressed had to be put to the sword.” Jews were limited from certain trades and from proselytizing. Intermarriage was punishable by death. Like Bucer, “Luther inherited from the medieval world a society which was largely Church-controlled.” In On the Jews and Their Lies, Luther maintained, “[Jews] are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity.” Luther believed that the uniquely Jewish aspects of “Moses’ law . . . came to an end” under the New Covenant and that “imperial laws must be applied to these imperial Jews.” Luther had no concept of a modern secular state. If a religion posed a serious spiritual thread, the local magistrate should act. Luther was concerned Christians would become “guilty sharers before God in the lies, the blasphemy, the defamation, and the curses which the mad Jews indulge in so freely and wantonly against the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, his dear mother, all Christians, all authority, and ourselves.” He was also concerned Jews would tempt Protestants into guilt over usury at a time when they needed to purify themselves spiritually in light of the Turkish threat.^[25]

One of the flawed interpretations both the Nazis, and many modern scholars take when examining On The Jews and Their Lies is in thinking that Luther was making universal statements about all Jews. Luther actually was critiquing a system of religion and life which he believed ethnic Jews could reject. Before his controversial seven recommendations, Luther warns Christians that if they did not “fear God” they could receive a fate more terrible than the Jews. Luther states, both “Muhammad and the pope have already neglected [God’s grace], becoming not much better than the Jews.” ^[26] Thus, those in the Christian community were equally capable of committing the errors of the Jews in Luther’s mind. Conversely, Jews were still capable of conversion and Christians were still capable of being used to convert them. Luther’s seven point plan did not apply to converted Jews. Luther also drew a distinction between “poor Jews” and power hungry Rabbis in the same way he distinguished between Catholic priests and laymen.

Those who lack this understanding easily pull some of Luther’s statements out of context. For example, after reading a section in which Luther claims Christians “are at fault in not slaying [Jews],” Eric Gritsch remarks, “Such a declaration cannot be limited to a specific historical context. It is timeless and means ‘death to the Jews,’ whether it is uttered by Luther or Adolf Hitler.” However, Luther’s point is that Christians have failed through the centuries to punish Jews for what he believes are capital offenses. This section is immediately followed by Luther’s seven points, which did not include “slaying,” and related statements about exception for Jewish conversion.^[27]

At the end of 1542, Luther’s 13 year old daughter Magdalena died causing him much distress. His health was also failing. These two factors may have contributed to Luther’s tempestuous book. It is true that Luther took many negative medieval views on Jews for granted but it is also true that his views have been mishandled and misunderstood for modern political purposes.^[28]

Some of Luther’s writings had a negative impact, but the stream from him to Hitler is less direct than many claim and his theology also posed barriers for what eventually justified the Jewish holocaust. The Nazis, the German Christian Movement, and the Confessing Church all had to overcome foundational elements of Luther’s Reformation theology before the holocaust was able to proceed without resistance. The complete cannon of Luther’s anti-Judaic writings, as well as most of his teaching in On the Jews and Their Lies, also had to be purposely misunderstood or ignored in order for both the Völkisch Movement to make use of him. Modern interpretations of the Holocaust which offer a primary role to Luther are not taking into account the full historical picture. Luther’s legacy does not belong to Hitler. It belongs to Protestants worldwide who revere his theological teachings, whether they be found in hymnals, catechisms, or writings, and do not seek to supplant or distort them in the cause of modern secular anti-Jewish ideology.

^[1] Peter F. Wiener, Martin Luther: Hitler’s Spiritual Ancestor, (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1945). https://www.tentmaker.org/books/MartinLuther-HitlersSpiritualAncestor.html; Robert Michael, Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust, New York, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). 8, 10, 160. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=307860; Botwinick, R.S. A History of the Holocaust: From Ideology to Annihilation. (Taylor & Francis, 2001), 92; E.W. Gritsch, Martin Luther’s Anti-Semitism: Against His Better Judgment. (Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012), Kindle Locations 37-38; C.J. Probst, Demonizing the Jews: Luther and the Protestant Church in Nazi Germany, (Indiana University Press, 2012). 55.

^[2] D. Prager, and J. Telushkin. Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism, (Touchstone, 2003), Kindle Locations 1486-1490; A.J. Deus, Holy Enemies of Freedom: How Martin Luther Unleashed the Beast of Anti-Semitism. (Missing Element Corporation, 2018), 2.

^[3] “A Response to Dabru Emet.” European Lutheran Commission on the Church and the Jewish People, 2003. https://ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/documents-and-statements/protestant-churches/eur/lekkj03may12; “We Believe.” The Lutheran Evangelical Protestant Church, https://web.archive.org/web/20071112040935/http://www.orgsites.com/pa/lutheranepc/_pgg1.php3; “QUESTION: What Is the Missouri Synod’s Response to the Anti-Semitic Statements Made by Luther?” The Lutheran Church: Missouri Synod, https://www.lcms.org/about/beliefs/faqs/lcms-views.

^[4] Martin Luther, Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther’s Works. 51: Sermons: 1. American ed. (Saint Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publ. House, 1959), 195; Adolph Hitler, Rudolf Hess, and Deitrich Eckhart, Mein Kampf. First. (White Wolf, 2014). 97.

^[5] T. Kaufmann, L. Sharpe, and J. Noakes, Luther’s Jews: A Journey Into Anti-Semitism, (Oxford University Press, 2017). 124, 160; Martin Luther, Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, and Helmut T. Lehmann. Luther’s Works. 54: Table Talk. American ed. Saint Louis, Mo.: (Concordia Publ. House, 1967); S. Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany, (Princeton University Press, 2010), 3; Thomas Mueller, Adolf Hitler and Martin Luther: Anti-Semitism, Nazi Propaganda and the German Lutheran Church. (ProfWriter, LLC, 2013).

^[6]Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Heim, and Werner Jochmann. Monologe Im Führer-Hauptquartier 1941-1944. (Hamburg: A. Knaus, 1980). 303, 150; On the reliability of the the Table Talks in German: How Hitler’s “Table Talks” broke history, YouTube,

; J.S. Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933-1945. (Regent College Publishing, 1997); H. Gollwitzer, K. Kuhn, R. Schneider, and M. Miles. Dying We Live: The Final Messages and Records of the German Resistance. (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2009), 129.

^[7] E.F. von Weizsäcker, Memoirs of Ernst Von Weizsacker: Chief of the German Foreign Office, 1938-1943. (Gollancz, 1951), 281.

^[8] Kaufmann, 149-148.

^[9] P. Hayes, Why?: Explaining the Holocaust. (Norton, 2017), 90; Adolf Hitler - Collection of Speeches - 1922-1945. Neues Europa, 57. http://nseuropa.org/English/Adolf%20Hitler%20-%20Collection%20of%20Speeches%20-%201922-1945.pdf; A. Hitler, and N.H. Baynes. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939. (Fertig, 1942), 387, 20; R. Gall,

The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945. (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 136, 55; Michael, 157; Weikart, 183.

^[10] P. Hoffmann, Behind Valkyrie: German Resistance to Hitler, Documents, (MQUP, 2011), 108.

^[11] W. Gerlach, and V.J. Barnett, And the Witnesses Were Silent: The Confessing Church and the Persecution of the Jews, (University of Nebraska Press, 2000,) 112-113.

^[12] E. Bethge, and V.J. Barnett. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography. (Fortress Press, 1970), 433; Kaufmann, 143, 49.

^[13] J.S. Klan, “Luther’s Resistance Teaching and the German Church Struggle under Hitler,” Christian Research Institute, 14, no. 4 (December 1987): 442; Karl Barth, Theologische Existenz Heute! Munich: C. Kaiser, 1933, 3.

^[14] Karl Barth, and Eberhard Busch, Barth in Conversation. First edition. Louisville, Kentucky: (Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 179.

^[15] Heschel, 44, 106, 25; Klan, 442.

^[16] Heschel, 111, 117-118, 6, 175, 224, 202; J.A. Zabel, and American Academy of Religion. Nazism and the Pastors: A Study of the Ideas of Three Deutsche Christen Groups. American Academy of Religion: AAR Dissertation Series. (Scholars Press, 1976), 202.

^[17] Heschel, 76, 81, 86, 206; Kauffman 149-150.

^[18] Martin, Luther, Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, and Helmut T. Lehmann. Luther’s Works. Career of the Reformer: 4. 3. Saint Louis, Mo.: (Concordia Publ. House, 1988). 356; Gerdmar, A. Roots of Theological Anti-Semitism: German Biblical Interpretation and the Jews, from Herder and Semler to Kittel and Bultmann. Studies in Jewish History and Culture. (Brill, 2009). 68, 75.

^[19] Heschel, 30 45, 58, 60; Irving Hexham, and Karla Poewe. “The Nazi War against Christianity,” Christian Research Journal 37, no. 05 (2014). https://www.equip.org/article/nazi-war-christianity/; Theodore M. Vial, Modern Religion, Modern Race. New York, NY: (Oxford University Press, 2016). 93.

^[20] Kaufmann, 7; Gritsch. Kindle Locations 1289-1291.

^[21] M. Luther, and Domenico d’Abruzzo, On the Jews & Their Lies. (Eulenspiegel Press, 2014), 115-169; Prager, Kindle Location 1500.

^[22] Kaufmann, 41-51, 4, 64, 78; Mueller, Kindle Location 81.

^[23] Kaufmann, 87, 79, 81.

^[24] Kaufmann 163, 123, 160. Martin Luther, Eric W. Gritsch, Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, and Helmut T. Lehmann. Luther’s Works. 41 3: Church and Ministry, Philadelphia, (Fortress Pr, 1966). 277.

^[25] Kaufmann, 84; Klan, 434; Luther, On the Jews and Their Lies, 166, 169, 172-173.

^[26] Luther, On the Jews and Their Lies, 164, 168, 165.

^[27] Ibid., 163; Gritsch, (Kindle Locations 35-36).

^[28] Kaufmann, 4.