The Weimar Moment

The Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth spent most of the years of the Weimar Republic teaching in Germany. His academic career began in Göttingen in the fall of 1921, before continuing in Münster (1925–1930) and in Bonn (1930–1935). Since he emerged as a prominent theologian in those years, the following question is bound to arise: How did he view Germany’s democratic Republic? Did he have an impact at all on the way in which people who knew him (his students, his readers, etc.) perceived the political situation? If he did, can one speak of a positive or negative influence? These questions have been answered in very different ways.

Starting in the 1970s, a cluster of theologians and historians affiliated with the University of Munich, in particular, have voiced some very provocative, indeed at times downright polemical, criticisms of Barth. Members of the so-called “Munich school,” such as Trutz Rendtorff and his successor Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, but also Falk Wagner, have argued in the last decades that Barth, with his radical critique of liberalism, was among those who undermined rather than supported the Republic. One should take note of the fact that each of these scholars have distinct views. Falk Wagner, in particular, went further than the others when he stated that certain “fascist” traits are present in the “structural content” (“inhaltliche Struktur”) of Barth’s theology.² Graf, on the other hand, tends to think that Barth contributed, indirectly, to the demise of the Weimar Republic.³

None of these scholars deny the fact that Barth leaned politically toward (social) democracy.⁴ But they nevertheless see certain parallels between Barth’s struggle against liberalism and the antidemocratic forces present in Germany during the Weimar Republic. In 1963, long before the Munich school’s critique, the historian Klaus Scholder wrote that despite his social democratic tendencies Barth was perceived by the broader public as standing “on the side of those who were shooting at the Republic.”⁵ A number of scholars have come to Barth’s defense, so to speak, and claimed that, far from threatening the republic, he never was among those who called for the end of liberal democracy. The purpose of this paper is to revisit this old debate by addressing the following questions: did Barth contribute, intentionally or unintentionally, and within the obvious confines of his activity as a theology professor, to the delegitimization of the Weimar Republic, from the beginning of Germany’s democratic experiment in 1918 until its demise in January of 1933? At the outset, one must make it clear–Barth himself realized this shortcoming—that he could and should have done much more to explicitly and clearly support the frail Republic. In a letter from 1945 to the German theologians who were prisoners of war, he wrote,

I must admit it openly: if there is one thing about which I reproach myself when I consider my years in Germany, it is the fact that back then I neglected to warn explicitly (not just implicitly), publicly (and not only in private) against the tendencies which I could see (and which were quite strange to me) around me in the Church and in the world after I arrived in Germany in 1921. The reasons for this neglect were my concentration on my ecclesial-theological task as well as a certain reluctance as a Swiss national to meddle with German affairs. Those who knew me in those years will perhaps testify that I was not simply silent. But I also did not speak out as loudly and as clearly as I should have. ⁶

The Weimar Republic is often divided into three periods: the first period, which was marked by many social, political and economic crises, covers the beginnings of the republic in November 1918 until Adolf Hitler’s failed “Beer Hall” putsch in November 1923 in Munich. A second period of relative stability lasted from 1924 until 1929, when the brilliant Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann died (October 3, 1929) and the world economic system crumbled. The third and final period, leading to the demise of the Weimar Republic, saw the rise of authoritarianism, of a more assertive German foreign policy, and of a polarization of the political landscape towards both extremes of the spectrum (1929–1933). This paper will follow the three-fold Weimar periodization.

THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC (1918–1923)

The fragility of the Weimar Republic in its first years was obvious to many. The assassinations on January 15, 1919, of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht and many other democratic socialists by the right-wing monarchist militias (the Freikorps) in the suppression of the Spartacist uprising in Berlin betrayed the instability of the new democracy. Barth was far removed from these events, in his small town of Safenwil, in the Swiss countryside, midway between Basel and Zurich. Still, he followed the Berlin events as closely as possible.

He was not enthusiastic about the new German Republic, as can be seen in an article he published in a local Swiss paper in August 1919; the new democracy failed to embody the kind of socialism he envisioned. It was not radical enough. But the temptation to join the Third International and the violent methods of Russian Bolshevism had to be resisted at all cost. The Swiss Socialist movement should “be at the service of life, not death,” and it should realize that Bolshevism had no future.⁷ Barth was convinced that “abolishing the democracy would not right its acknowledged mistakes.”⁸

As a Swiss citizen who actively took part in local politics during his years of pastorate in the canton of Aargau, Barth knew the benefits of a parliamentary democracy and was inclined to support such a form of democracy. Already in October 1911, in a lecture on “Human Right and Civic Duty” given in the fourth month of his ministry in Safenwil, Barth repeated what he had learned from Hermann Cohen while a student in Marburg: “There is no ready-made concept of state […]. Rather, it must be always be constituted (erzeugt) anew in the tension between human right and civic duty.” He continued: “Compared to monarchy (not to mention despotism, which in reality does not deserve to be called a form of state), democracy undeniably stands closer to the pure concept of state. […] The highest goal of political aspiration cannot be the homeland.”⁹

Much in Barth’s theology changed in the subsequent years, with his rebellion against liberal theology, in the aftermath of August 1914 and the theological defense of the war by his former professors (Wilhelm Herrmann, Martin Rade, and Adolf Harnack), but his socialist sympathies remained. In his lecture at the religious-socialist conference in Tambach, Thuringia ( September 1919), Barth stated that “[t]oday there is a very definite call for a generous, far-sighted, honest conduct toward social-democracy, not facing it from outside, as unaccountable spectators and critics, but rather within it, as comrades who together hope and together carry the burden of accountability. There lies for us in our time the problem of the opposition to the old order, the parable of God’s kingdom […]”¹⁰ Elsewhere in that lecture, he wrote: “We throw our energies into the most trivial tasks, into the business nearest at hand, but also into the making of a new Switzerland and a new Germany, precisely because we look forward to the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven.”¹¹ In both editions of his commentary on Romans (Römerbrief), completed in August 1918 and September 1921 respectively, Barth defended the necessity of political involvement but rejected any human attempt at divinizing or sanctifying politics by involving God in political and military matters,

Fulfilling one’s duties, without chants, sounds and illusions, yes! but without involving God in it! Paying the tax, but without incense for the Caesars! Citizens initiative and obedience, but no combination of throne and altar, no Christian patriotism, no religious crusade for democracy. Strikes and general strikes, even street fighting if need be, but no religious justification and glorification of these! Military service as soldier or officer, if need be, but under no circumstance military chaplain!¹²

To sum up, “Social-democrat, yes! but not religious-socialist! The betrayal of the Gospel does not belong among the political duties.”¹³ Note that despite the fact that no political ideology can be directly identified with the kingdom of God, Barth seems to be indicating here that social democracy has greater affinities with the “new world” Christians hope for. In a lecture given before a social-democratic audience in the last months of 1919, Barth spoke of social-democracy as a “sentinel” (Wächterpost), as a political orientation in search for a very narrow path between the German form of democratic socialism, which he thought was distorted by capitalism (Barth calls it the Mehrheitssozialdemokratie; its adherents are Profitsozialisten), and Russian Bolshevism.¹⁴ What was at stake was the dangerous absolutization of a reality, politics, which is essentially about human—and thus relative—possibilities. Barth wrote in the second edition of his commentary on the epistle to the Romans: “The convulsions of revolution may then be replaced by a calm reflection on ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ (calm because ultimate assertions and complaints have been ruled out), by a prudent reckoning with the ‘reality’ which lies behind the hubris present in the notion of a war between good and evil people, by a candid sense of humanity and worldliness which knows that the strange chessboard upon which human beings dare to experiment with (and sometimes against) other human beings in state, church and society is not the scene of the conflict between the kingdom of God and the antichrist.”¹⁵ This is just one example of Barth’s way of distinguishing between ultimate and penultimate realities, and of his relativization of human reality.

Two more political murders, on August 26, 1921 of the Catholic politician Matthias Erzberger, and on June 24, 1922 of the Jewish politician Walter Rathenau, a moderate who had recently become Germany’s foreign minister, only confirmed the seriousness of the Weimar situation. Right-wing militias and army officers were responsible for both assassinations. How did Barth respond to these events? Were it not for his letters, we would have difficulty knowing Barth’s opinions, since he seldom engaged in direct political commentary in his theological work (for reasons which will be explored later). Four days after the murder of Rathenau, on 28 June 1922, Barth wrote a circular letter to his friends. Note that this letter must be read in the context of Barth’s tense coexistence in the theology department at Göttingen: his relations with some of his colleagues, particulary Emanuel Hirsch (1888–1972) and Georg Wobbermin (1869–1943), were difficult, as can be seen in the following excerpt:

Hirsch, who suffers from his eyes, is now suddenly unfit for action and is in a clinic in Bonn under the care of a German-nationalist eye specialist to whom he has dedicated Germany’s Destiny. One of his last deeds was a big nocturnal speech in defense of the assassins of Erzberger; I have absolutely no doubts about what he must think of Rathenau’s murder. The German professors are really bad, their reputation is accurate, but when one has them before oneself all desire to proceed against them in the way the Swiss religious-socialists—and we too at times—used to vanishes. Eschatology, on the one hand, and the zoo on the other, are

the only possible ways of considering these “small creatures” of the loving God in their complete aberration, an aberration which however is combined afresh with so much cleverness, amiability, spirit and—piety. One can only observe, with amazement, that this is precisely the “neighbor,” and that oneself presents certainly the same baffling image under a different point of view, full of deadly poison and praising the Lord God. On the day following the Rathenau-day, we were invited by Walter Bauer along with some raucous old members of a students’ corps and their wives, and we heard Wobbermin blurt out the most extraordinary nationalistic words. […] And all of that in the sanctuary of a great German cake-eating evening, which ran its course despite all the storms, like Swiss cigars! Cakes! (you have to pronounce the word in a Northern German way.) That is when the German become blissful and dare to say the boldest things. ‘Colleague Barth’ sits there and makes sure to show that he is paying attention by saying: ‘Oh yes? Mmm—reeeally?’ What is there to say anyway when someone proclaims, while simultaenously pounding his fist on the table, that a Jew is always without a home country and will never belong in a German government? What can one say, on top of that, is Swiss and thus himself somewhat like a Jew?¹⁶

This long passage is very revealing, insofar as it shows us where two of Barth’s most prominent colleagues in Göttingen stood on the question of German völkisch-nationalist and anti-Semitic ideology. Not that there was any mystery in this regard: Hirsch had been called to Göttingen on the basis of his book from 1920 on Germany’s Destiny, a book laden with his German nationalism.¹⁷ Both Hirsch and Wobbermin did not show much distress, to say the least, when they heard about the murder of two moderate, and highly respected, German politicians. As Wobbermin put it bluntly, a Jew such as Rathenau did not belong in a German government. That settled the matter, as far as Wobbermin was concerned. There was no doubt in Barth’s mind that Hirsch would have agreed.

Karl Barth was well acquainted with certain earlier forms of German nationalism. He had experienced it firsthand during his student years. For instance, in February 1907 his fellow students cheered Adolf von Harnack for his comments at the beginning of a class on a recent election to the Reichstag: the SPD had been defeated, losing almost half of its seats (from 81 to 43), whereas the conservative, nationalist parties had gained power. Barth wrote some sarcastic remarks in his lecture notebook: “Beware of the hangover!”¹⁸ Barth had no inclination toward conservative nationalism, even long before August 1914, when some of the people he respected the most, namely his teachers at the universities of Marburg and Berlin (Martin Rade, Wilhelm Herrmann and Adolf von Harnack), became enthused by the nationalist wave that overwhelmed Germany at the beginning of the war. But there was now a (relatively) new ingredient added to the old Wilhelmine nationalism, an ingredient that was to a very large extent absent from his professors’ world-view: anti-Semitism.

Barth’s letter from June 28, 1922 also gives us an important clue concerning his reluctance to counter this conservative nationalist ideology publicly; as a Swiss national he was very much aware of being an outsider. Hence the reservation he often maintained in public especially during the first decade of the Weimar Republic.¹⁹ In private, and even sometimes publicly, Barth expressed his views openly, and a clash with Hirsch was inevitable.

Hirsch’s name is among those recurring the most regularly in Barth’s letters to Eduard Thurneysen and other friends in the 1920s. Very soon after his move to Göttingen, even before teaching his very first class as a university professor, in a letter from November 6, 1921, Barth describes his first encounter with Hirsch, at the home of their colleague Alfred Bertholet (1868–1951), an Old Testament scholar originally from Basel, like Barth. During that evening, there was an outburst by Hirsch after Bertholet’s wife defended the new democracy. In the course of what Barth calls a “blowup,” Hirsch did not hide his “ruthlessness” and “fanaticism” (Barth’s terms) with regard to German nationalism and his opposition to democracy. Thus, Barth knew right away “that it will not be possible to talk with this man on this whole subject.”²⁰ Despite these differences, the two men met every Monday evening for two hours of conversation.²¹ But their first encounter at Bertholet’s home was a bad omen, and it obviously left an indelible mark on their relationship. As their association was reaching its final breakdown in May 1932, more than 10 years later, after Hirsch sent him a letter in which he deplored the darkness that was clouding their relationship, Barth replied that the dark cloud had been obvious to him since their first encounter in Göttingen in Bertholet’s home.²²

Barth and Hirsch often discussed politics during these long, weekly conversations.²³ In a letter to his Swiss friends from May 18, 1922, Barth reports a heated conversation in which he responded to Hirsch’s 30 theses on “Nation, State and Christianity”:²⁴

I attach these theses to this letter, without commentary. Think about it and let me know if there was anything else I could have done except being crude, in other words to speak of a Christianity utterly betrayed by Prussianness, to describe his theses as a theological paraphrase of Ludendorff’s war memoirs and similar publications. He replied that he had not heard, until now, what I had been saying all along (Gogarten apparently suspects that is indeed the case). Now he has finally heard and realized that I am ”seriously bad.” The fact that until now he had not noticed where I stand, even though this was already brewing within me since last summer, shows to me the extent of the meekness with which I allowed him to dominate all our conversations. The situation had to be clarified, eventually. He needed to hear from me […] that we are not one “in Christ.”²⁵

Barth’s deep distrust of nationalist extremism does not mean that he had no sympathy for Germany and its plight. Quite the opposite! In the weeks following the end of the war, he had the impression that “the devil” had switched sides and had now taken over the victorious nations, as could be seen in their desire to crush Germany.²⁶ Three years later, he was very sensitive to the economic distress around him and was almost ashamed to be among those who had a measure of comfort. The situation was dire, he wrote to Thurneysen, “I am […] really not in danger of becoming a German nationalist. But if only the other possible choices one has here were not equally hopeless!”²⁷

Barth was outraged by the French occupation of the Ruhr area in January 1923 and wrote that he was slowly beginning to feel German. He could only side with Germany as he read the newspaper every day. He asked his Swiss friends to send him articles from Swiss newspapers in order to find out how the situation was evaluated there. When one thought things could not become worse, as he wrote in a letter to his friends and relatives, they apparently did. He then added, with accurate foresight, “there is no doubt that here an immense reservoir full of hate is being filled up which sooner or later will lead to a general breakup in the direction of the West […], and then the French will be able to experience something.”²⁸ Less than five years after the armistice, France and Germany were on the brink of another military conflict, and this time Barth was siding with Germany. The fact is that, far from being anti-German in principle, he had loved Germany since his student days.

When, in the context of these tensions, 18 theology students from Paris sent a Christmas letter to their German comrades to convey their “fraternal and Christian sentiments,” the theology students at Göttingen met with some of their professors to discuss whether a reply (and what kind of reply) should be sent. Hirsch opposed the idea of a response and stated that he would no longer “have fellowship” with any student who would sign one. Barth, whose presence at that meeting many students did not welcome, supported the project of a measured, decorous reply that would emphasize the kind of Christian unity which needs to be built, one which transcends national boundaries. This led shortly thereafter to “an awful scene” with Hirsch, who called Barth “a Swiss! a foreigner! an agitator! a man who disturbs the peace.”²⁹ The two colleagues later reconciled and, as it turns out, Hirsch was almost ready to add his signature to a letter drafted by Barth when the project of a letter was shot down by the university administration.

THE PERIOD OF RELATIVE STABILIZATION (1924–1929)

Historians rightly emphasize the word relative when they describe this second period of the Weimar Republic. Certainly, when compared to what preceded and what was to come, the word stability is warranted, even if the election of a monarchist and a militarist, Paul von Hindenburg, as president of the reich on 26 April 1925 was not a good omen for the young democracy. The chancellor and foreign minister, Gustav Stresemann, since his nomination in August 1923, had been astonishingly successful in his efforts to normalize the national economy, relations with the Allies, and to resolve the tensions on Germany’s Western border. For his work, he was awarded, jointly with the French president Aristide Briand, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926. Even so, during this stable period the German public became increasingly interested in extreme nationalism. In a circular letter written in Danzig on November 26, 1924, Barth commented at length on an event at the University of Göttingen in honor of the students and professors who had served and died during World War I. He gave a detailed account of the German nationalist ideology that characterized the academic gathering,

So last Sunday we had here in Göttingen the dedication of a monument commemorating the 700 fallen students and professors, with the participation of Hindenburg. Surely it was quite valuable for me to see for once the Wilhelmine and the German-national-völkisch Germany like this, side by side, and to hear it proclaim itself in untroubled unison: rector Binder (the philosopher of law, a fierce nationalist), students from the German “Hochschulring deutscher Art” (a bladder which is absolutely dangerous to public safety, it seems to me!), the University registrar, the mayor, the chieftain of the armed forces, the president of the Veterans’ League, among others. Everyone, everyone gave a speech. Here is the quintessence of it all, in keywords: “Young heroes … August 1914 … Germany in our hearts and on our lips—individuals must die, so that the state may live—have reached the Walhalla—live eternally: in our hearts—the peace of shame of Versailles (pronounce: Ferssaaai!)—the men of November 1918—loyalty for the sake of loyalty—a better future–when the next war comes—good and blood…

(Continuation, in the express train Nov. 28!) … which young German heart would not? … German oak trees—victorious in 100 battles—fallen heroes—we too.’ All right, you probably get a sense of the meaning of all this. My complete and incurable foreignness with regard to that world no longer makes me as bitter and angry as I used to be. The old Hindenburg was by far the most decent and respectable. He spoke with the voice of a lion, even the birds in the trees fell silent, he sat on his sword, he spoke briefly but measuredly and incisively, he was the only one in the entire event who felt compelled, when speaking of the oft-mentioned better future of Germany, to add the proviso “with God’s help.” These words did not appear to me to be mere rhetoric; on the whole, I cannot deny the fact that the whole affair, and the possibility which it obviously embodies, made an impression on me, and, to conclude, I am glad, after all, that I did not skip the whole ballyhoo, as sick as the whole thing was.³⁰

This excerpt unambiguously reveals Barth’s deep antipathy towards the völkisch ideology that permeated this commemorating event; even if he had grown accustomed to witnessing völkisch outbursts since his arrival in Germany in 1921. There is no doubt that Barth, unlike some of his colleagues in Göttingen, had no inclination to support that growing ideology. It is clear that, unlike Hirsch, he would not have talked of “hating with our whole heart the sacrifice, in democracy, of the nation and the state to the random majority rule,” or about democracy as a “major perversity.”³¹ In Hirsch’s mind, Germany had been “forced to adopt the democratic, parliamentary constitutional system, which does not fit us.” Germany had become nothing but a “colony” of the victorious powers.³²

Did Barth keep his antipathy for nationalist extremism, political authoritarianism and anti-Semitism to himself? Not quite. In a conference from June 1925, Barth very publicly argued that anti-Semitism, militarism and the German nationalist ideology should be treated as confessional issues, i.e., as issues which conflict with the Christian faith:

A church which today desires to confess its faith must have the courage to express its insights, which are provisional and drawn from Scripture, on the problems of life which beset its members today. It cannot wait until its statement comes thirty years too late […] but must act while the problems are still burning, while the Church can speak its word about these problems, where the word of the Church belongs, i.e. at the beginning of these developments. For instance the Church must have the courage to speak today (I mention only one specific problem) about the fascist-völkisch nationalism which since the war is appearing in similar forms everywhere.³³

But to oppose nationalist and fascist ideologies is not quite the same thing as favoring parliamentary democracy. So the question remains: was Barth in favor of liberal democracy? To answer that question, we need to turn to Barth’s lectures on ethics from 1928–29 and 1929–30.³⁴

The bulk of Barth’s comments on the state in his lectures on ethics are located in a section on “humility.” That alone suggests an approach that is radically different than the one chosen by several of his contemporaries, such as Gogarten or Hirsch.³⁵ If there is one thing missing in Hirsch’s account of “Germany’s destiny,” it is precisely humility and the kind of self-criticism that goes with it. The only “fault” (Schuld) that Hirsch was able to consider, in relation to Germany and World War I, was the idea that Germany did not fight “with its entire soul.”³⁶ Hirsch wished to remember Germany’s “powerful deeds in the World War, the most powerful deeds ever accomplished by a people [Volk].”³⁷ Such boundless, extreme patriotism, which considers “our state and its law” as something “holy,” was completely foreign to Barth, whose views represent, in stark contrast, a much needed “disenchanting of the world,” or a radical questioning of any absolutization of the law or the state.³⁸ God’s name represents “the basis and the limit of all right in the human world.”³⁹ We need to be warned always anew against “the deifying and idolizing of man and of his right, by which the latter eo ipso abrogates itself. This recognition has to be put into practice, and it is never and nowhere self-evident that this will occur. […] In the question whether we are aware that we are human and not divine, one can see summed up all the questions with which we are encircled and about which we have to speak here.”⁴⁰ One of the consequences of that basic fact is that there are no guarantees that we are in the right when exercising ethical judgment. “At any moment,” Barth writes in his lectures on ethics,

my confidence in the existing social order might be confidence in the order of the antichrist and my action on the basis of this confidence might be the action of an unreconciled sinner. Whether I have on my side the social order, in all its human lack of sanctity, that God wishes to use for the sanctification of my neighbor, is a question which I am asked every moment and to which I must give a responsible answer if I am to administer the right.⁴¹

Barth’s thorough relativization of all human institutions and authorities, including the church and the state, two penultimate realities which will no longer be needed once sin is abrogated, should not be interpreted as a delegitimization of these institutions but as an attempt at theologically ordering the various authorities in the civil and the Christian community. In his lectures on ethics, Barth navigates between two extremes, namely between a view of the state as “the city of the devil” (Augustine is mentioned here) and various idealizations and divinizations of the state (he mentions Hegel and Richard Rothe). He writes, “Real humility, taking really seriously the reality of the human condition as one of both grace and sin, cannot ignore this sign, in contrast to all romanticism and sectarianism.”⁴² Taking the state seriously means acknowledging its relative authority. One of the most often quoted biblical verses in Barth’s lectures on ethics is Acts 5:29 (“We must obey God rather than men”), a verse that serves as a necessary reminder that “the respect that must be shown” to the state can be regarded “only as provisional” (vorläufig).⁴³ Obviously the state can distort its mission to serve its human community, in which case the Christian might be called to work “with a party which seeks to improve or alter the form of the state.”⁴⁴

The state is a necessary and good thing. But what concrete forms should it take? Barth’s positive comments in his lectures on ethics are not detailed, but they point toward liberal, constitutional democracy, with the usual separation of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of power,

The decisive elements in the upbuilding of the community by the national constitutional- and culture-state are a) the constitution, i.e. the basic regulation of the relation among the legislative, executive, and judicial powers which needs, if not the express will and cooperation of the citizens, at least (even in the case of the dictatorship of a minority or majority) their freely given confidence; b) the legislation, i.e. the regulation of the common life for the ends of state, in other words the best possible safeguarding of unity, law and freedom; c) the proper government, i.e. the concern for a thorough, equal and appropriate execution of the existing laws; d) the court as the entity which gives definite and independent rulings (independent even of the current government) in cases of dispute.⁴⁵

It is worth noting that Barth is describing a state that is based on the rule of law (Rechtsstaat) and culture (Kulturstaat) in order to “upbuild” the community as a whole, a state where the courts are independent from the government, a constitution guarantees the freedom of all its citizens, and a government abides by and enforces that constitution. As for the leader of the state, Barth maintains his fundamental stance on the impossibility of predicting the theological (il)legitimacy of future events: “A specific decision about the sacred place from which the leadership comes cannot precede this venture.” But certainly, as he added to his lecture notes several months after the end of the Weimar era, early in the summer of 1933, “The leader may also be a usurper with a great power of suggestion, and confidence in his leadership may be a matter of hypnosis.”⁴⁶

In sum, Barth’s lectures on theological ethics indicate that if his ideas contributed to the delegitimization of the Republic, it was certainly not intentional, and it could only have been caused by a deficient and distorted understanding of his criticism of theological liberalism and modernity.⁴⁷

THE COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC (1929–1933)

As Adolf Hitler’s party, the NSDAP, steadily increased in power, becoming the second most powerful party with the September 14, 1931 elections by winning 107 seats in the Reichstag where it previously only had 12 seats. Barth was more outspoken as the German government increasingly displayed authoritarian tendencies.⁴⁸ In 1931, he was invited to reflect on some of the problems facing Christianity for an article in the journal of Zofingia, the Swiss student association.⁴⁹ With his former comrades as well as younger students from the association in mind, Barth focuses on three mortal “enemies” with which Christianity should never make a pact, for these “religions” claim the whole person, including one’s private life, and divinize certain realities of the world. Barth does not use the term, but what he has in mind is clear: he is attempting to signal the idolatrous dimension of the three following new “religions”: communism, fascism and what he calls “Americanism.”⁵⁰ For the purposes of this paper, only the second religion, fascism, is considered. Fascism is characterized by “its rigid dogmatic knowledge about this single reality, the nation.” It “appeals to fundaments which are in no way fundaments.” It “presents itself as an unlimited power” and with “a lack of freedom [Unfreiheit] and intellectuality [Ungeistigkeit] which is offensive to all of us who were students twenty years ago.”⁵¹ As with the other two “religions,” “Christianity puts the divinity of all gods, and thus the seriousness of all religiosities, in question.”⁵²

On May 1, 1931, Barth joined Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD). Around the same time, his colleague and friend Günther Dehn (1882–1970), who had, in a 1928 lecture, called into question the confusion of patriotism and Christianity, especially the identification of Christian sacrifice with the death of German soldiers, was beginning to be harassed by extreme right-wing students at the University of Heidelberg, where they succeeded in forestalling his nomination. In February 1931, Dehn was similarly harassed by students at the University of Halle.⁵³ Surmounting his reluctance to appear as a “praeceptor Germaniae” in this affair, Barth publicly and unambiguously declared his solidarity with Dehn’s person and ideas, both in a theological journal and on the national stage.⁵⁴

On February 15, 1932, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published Barth’s article on the “Dehn case.”⁵⁵ After expressing twice his original misgivings, as a person born in a foreign country, about taking position publicly on a German political issue, he added that the case had taken such a turn that he now felt compelled to repeat and to clarify his position in greater detail.⁵⁶ One of his main intentions in his article was to state with the greatest possible clarity that Dehn’s perspective was fundamentally identical with his own position, for Dehn had developed his views on the basis of Barth’s theology, specifically, on the basis of his recent lectures on ethics. In these lectures, Barth had expressed criticism of the type of religious discourse that draws a parallel between the Christian notion of sacrificial death and the soldier’s death in war.⁵⁷ The biblical verse quoted by Dehn in his 1928 lecture, for instance, was already used by Barth in a passage from his lectures on ethics in which he treated critically the topic of “sacrifical duty” (Opferdienst) to one’s homeland.⁵⁸

In 1931, the journal of the dialectical theologians, Zwischen den Zeiten, included an article by Barth’s former student Richard Karwehl (1885–1979), “Political Messianism: On the Debate Between Church and National-Socialism.” Karwehl unambiguously rejected the possibility of a synthesis between the National Socialist worldview and the Christian faith.⁵⁹ In 1932, another former student of Barth, Joachim Beckmann (1901–1987), followed in his professor’s footsteps when he denounced “1. any divinization of the nation, 2. any hate-filled propaganda, 3. any conservatism which makes use of religion for its own purposes.”⁶⁰ But, of course, Barth did not sign these two lectures, by Karwehl and Beckmann, even though they reflected his influence. And thus, looking retrospectively in 1945, Barth regretted not having condemned the threat of fascism more explicitly and publicly, during his fourteen years in Germany (1921–1935).⁶¹

On March 12 and April 10, 1932 Germany elected a new president of the Reich. Paul von Hindenburg, who was popular among German nationalists because of his war credentials, defeated Hitler by a narrow margin. This election represented a decisive shift to the right, one that the social democrats, the liberals and the Center party were willing to risk, when they decided to support Hindenburg in order to hinder further progress of the National Socialist party. In September 1932, Barth was appalled to see how the German authorities, including Hindenburg, dissolved the Reichstag with complete disregard of the Weimar constitution.⁶² Such political moves reminded him of the slogans of 1914, when the “emergency” of the situation was used as a pretext to circumvent the political institutions and a real political debate:

My only attitude toward this Germany, if things repeat themselves, is nothing but a fundamental repugnance.—Should I not become angry at this spectacle? Should I bury myself even a bit deeper in theology? Perhaps, but all of this irrational, Cossack-like behavior has always quite specifically touched a nerve in me, and on top of that these people in whose hands I find myself, as a civil servant, will come up sooner or later with a new, reactionary constitution, to which one will have to declare allegiance. No, this time I will once again trespass the boundaries, in a very cantankerous way, and Lollo will have a very hard time keeping me from democratic speeches to the populace.⁶³

THEOLOGY AND POLITICS—BARTH’S INCLUSIVE MODEL

The question of the relation between theology and politics in Barth’s thought is a contested one. The most famous defense of the theory that Barth’s theology was a predicate of his political views is Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt’s 1972 book Theologie und Sozialismus. Das Beispiel Karl Barths. Here it is important to note Barth’s self-understanding, which clearly contradicts Marquardt’s thesis. Also, Barth’s theology must be considered in its context; any one-dimensional interpretation, which either predicates his theology on his political views, or vice-versa, is too simplistic.⁶⁴ But the idea of a full reciprocity between Barth the politician and Barth the theologian is equally unsatisfactory.

Eberhard Jüngel is closer to understanding Barth’s theological model than Marquardt when Jüngel writes that as a theologian centered on God’s Word, and “precisely because of that,” Barth paid close attention to current political events. Barth was convinced that an adequate knowledge of God has “concrete political implications.”⁶⁵ In his mind theology does not have two objects, but only one: God’s Word. This is Barth’s constant regressus in principium, a movement in which God’s revelation is and remains the main theme.⁶⁶ Yet theology’s single object is itself oriented toward the world, it encounters the world here and now. The theologian does not live in the future or the past but in the present, in the service of the Church’s witness in the contemporary world. It is in this context, and no other, that the theologian, bound to (and freed by) God’s Word, listens to and reflects on it in an effort to understand it. Barth was well aware that “the message of the Church is inherently political.”⁶⁷ He was convinced that the “knowledge of dogma […] is right from the start an ethos,” it claims “the whole person” and “the whole city.”⁶⁸ His theological model was an inclusive one: as soon as the church speaks theologically, it is in fact also, albeit often indirectly, speaking politically:

The church recognizes and assists the state inasmuch as the service to the neighbor, which is the purpose of the state, is necessarily included in its own message of reconciliation and is thus its own concern. The church will take up a reserved attitude toward the state’s actions to the extent that these actions diverge from that purpose, being unable as the church to accept co-responsibility in this regard. Finally, with its own given means, it will move on to protest against the state if the latter’s actions mean a denial of its purpose, if it is no longer manifest and credible as the order of God.⁶⁹

Even though Barth was adamant that theologians and ministers alike should not limit themselves exclusively to offering “Christian considerations on the world and humanity,” he certainly thought that such considerations had their place in Christian theology.⁷⁰ But he did so as a theologian seeking to understand God’s Word. Barth’s political involvement should not be severed from its theological basis.⁷¹ Conversely, to ignore the political implications of his theology would inadequately reflect the dialectical, and inclusive, relation between theology and politics in Barth’s overall thought. Barth’s model may seem prima facie to be “isolationist,” but in fact his undisputable lifelong interest for social and political issues arose not despite his concentration on God’s revelation but precisely because of it. Simultaneously, his theological model presented crucial critical resources against any tendency to use theology as a way of legitimizing one’s political orientation.⁷² There is no denying that Barth maintained a certain distance from politics, especially in the 1920s and the early 1930s. As we saw, he did regret not having spoken more forcefully in those years about the rise of antidemocratic forces. But that does not warrant the thesis that Barth’s ideas contributed to the delegitimization of the Weimar Republic.

CONCLUSION

One does not need to be a sympathetic reader—a careful and thorough one will suffice!—of Barth’s writings to reach the conclusion that, unlike other prominent theologians of the time, Barth can hardly be said to have undermined Germany’s experiment in democracy. The thesis according to which Barth indirectly contributed to the delegitimization of Germany’s first experiment in democracy (1918–1932) results from an inadequate and deeply biased analysis of his writings and of their Wirkungsgeschichte.

As Stefan Holtmann has recently noted, the members of the Munich school do not argue that Barth himself was antidemocratic. Rather, they believe that his anti-liberalism negatively influenced Germany’s fledgling democracy.⁷³ Consequently, the Munich school’s interpretation relies heavily on certain observers’ accounts in its argument that Barth, by criticizing “liberalism,” indirectly criticized the roots of modernity’s liberal democracies. But members of that school do not ask whether these observers’ accounts reflect an accurate understanding of Barth’s views. Certainly, some people who heard him talk took him to be part of the broader trend that condemned modern liberal society in toto.⁷⁴ But since when is it methodologically sound for historians to lay the full responsibility of faulty interpretations at the feet of the original thinker? Why not acknowledge what appears to be an accurate rendition of Barth’s own thoughts, as for instance Richard Karwehl’s 1931 article, or Joachim Beckmann’s 1932 conference on the impossibility of reconciling Nazi ideology and Christianity?

Moreover, some of the members of the Munich school are very adept at giving the impression that Barth’s criticisms of theological liberalism were in fact being directed towards liberalism in general, including political liberalism, and that his use of the term Krisis (“judgment,” as exercised by God, in Barth’s theology, and a theme which is never disconnected from forgiveness) was similar to other, socio-political uses of the term.⁷⁵ These two subtle moves, namely using superficial impressions and reminiscences to make a case against Barth’s own views, and blurring certain categories and criticisms in ways which do not reflect Barth’s original theological intent, are not the expression of the kind of historical scholarship which always seeks to attain a greater measure of fairness and objectivity. One would expect a better, more comprehensive approach from scholars who seek to fully historicize Barth.

A close analysis of Barth’s theological model points to the following thesis: It is precisely because of what at first sight appears to be an isolationist stance (theology has only one object: God’s Word) that Barth had the resources, as a theologian, to offer a radical critique of authoritarian and totalitarian forms of social and political life.⁷⁶ Barth’s entire theological existence confirms that, as a theologian, he had absolutely no interest in any theological work done in isolation from the world (including the political world) in which he lived. And his theological model, with its rigorous concentration on God’s Word, is misunderstood when it is taken to mean that theology may be done in isolation from concerns for humanity’s welfare.

As Barth never tired of saying, that very Word is addressed to humanity and is fundamentally for, or in favor of humanity. At the same time, he had no desire for a theology that would eventually cease to be theological and dissolve into pure political discourse. He was searching for “a theology which, even when confronting politics, would not become political but would remain a theology,” a theology which would stand on its own feet, “in the end also for the sake of politics.”⁷⁷

NOTES

1. Letter to Eduard Thurneysen from 11 November 1918, in Karl Barth and Eduard Thurneysen, Briefwechsel 1913–1921, ed. E. Thurneysen (Zurich: TVZ, 1973), 299. All translations are my own, unless noted otherwise.

2. F. Wagner, “Theologische Gleichschaltung. Zur Christologie bei Karl Barth,” in Die Realisierung der Freiheit. Beiträge zur Kritik der Theologie Karl Barths, ed. Trutz Rendtorff (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1975), 41. Wagner sees this exemplified in what he calls the phasing out (Gleichschaltung) of human freedom in Barth’s theology.

3. See Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, “‘Der Götze wackelt’? Erste Überlegungen zu Karl Barths Liberalismuskritik,” Evangelische Theologie 46 (1986): 422,441, and his contribution in Die Realisierung der Freiheit. For a detailed presentation and evaluation of Rendtorff’s, Graf’s and Wagner’s intepretations of Barth, see Stefan Holtmann, Karl Barth als Theologe der Neuzeit. Studien zur kritischen Deutung seiner Theologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007). For another recent survey and evaluation of these historiographical debates, see Arne Rasmusson, “ Historiography and Theology. Theology in the Weimar Republic and the Beginning of the Third Reich,” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 20 (2007): 155–180. To his credit, Rasmusson does not silence or condemn the fact that the Munich school had (and still has) a theological agenda of its own: it sought to recover Ernst Troeltsch’s program, after a long eclipse in large part due to the influence of dialectical theologians. Rasmusson describes the Munich school’s interpretation of Barth as being at times “exceptionally” and “exceedingly tendentious” (164, n. 33; 178), and “very distorting” (169). As a whole the interpretation of the Munich school “is implausible” (178).

4. “I do not claim that Barth’s political position on Weimar’s parliamentary democracy was ambivalent. Such a claim cannot be defended at this time, because crucial sources concerning Barth’s political ethics have not yet become available.” Graf, “‘Der Götze wackelt’?,” 440. Graf published these words in 1986.

5. “One of the many oddities of that period is the fact that despite his deliberate affiliation with social democracy Karl Barth did not choose this path (i.e. forming a broad, democratic center) in a visible way, and also the fact that in those years he stood—at least according to the broader public’s perception—on the side of those who were shooting at the Republic.” Klaus Scholder, “Neuere deutsche Geschichte und protestantische Theologie. Aspekte und Fragen,” first published in the journal Evangelische Theologie, reprinted in K. Scholder, Die Kirchen zwischen Republik und Gewaltherrschaft. Gesammelte Aufsätze, ed. Karl Otmar von Areti and Gerhard Besier (Berlin: Siedler, 1988), 84–5. Jüngel opposes this claim in “Provozierende Theologie. Zur theologischen Existenz Karl Barths,” in Karl Barth in Deutschland (1921–1935). Aufbruch—Klärung—Widerstand. Beiträge zum Internationalen Symposium vom 1. bis 4. Mai 2003 in der Johannes a Lasco Bibliothek Emden, ed. Michael Beintker, Christian Link and Michael Trowitzsch (Zurich: TVZ, 2005), 50.

6. Karl Barth, “An die deutschen Theologen in der Kriegsgefangenschaft” (1945), in Offene Briefe 1945–1968, ed. Diether Koch (Zurich: TVZ, 1984), 50. On October 12, 1938, Barth wrote to his friend Pierre Maury, “I have often reproached myself for the fact that between 1921 and 1933, while living in Germany, I remained silent about all the things I could see happening politically around me. I wished to avoid confusing God’s kingdom with any political ideology. This puritanism was perhaps necessary or excusable back then. But that is no longer the case today” Quoted in Martin Rohkrämer, “Karl Barth in der Herbstkrise 1938,” in Evangelische Theologie 6 (1988): 532.

7. Karl Barth, “Das, was nicht geschehen soll,” in Neuer Freier Aargauer. Sozialdemokratisches Tagblatt 14, no. 188 (15 August 1919): 2. In this article, Barth urged the delegates to the upcoming Swiss Socialist Parteitag in Basel to steer clear from the temptation to join the Third International (also known as Comintern, founded in Moscow in March 1919) and its readiness to use “all available means” to overthrow the international bourgeoisie: “What appears to be the most obvious choice is exactly what should not happen! Choosing Bolshevism seems to be the most obvious choice for us social democrats today, because of all the things which are around us in the air. But whoever is smart will be particularly careful and ponder whether this is not a splendid deception through which everything that has been achieved could possibly be lost. What seems to be the most obvious choice is almost never the right thing to do.” (1) “Whoever understands in one’s very being the new which must come will be unable to support the Bolsheviks, even if our adversaries deserve the type of punishment inflicted by the Bolsheviks. We should not adopt the methods of our opponents. This is the most dangerous error looming in our ranks right now.” (1–2) “Death is strong enough to fulfill its necessary function. We should not be serving death, but life. Bolshevism does not have a future. Knowing what has a future, we cannot become Bolsheviks.” (2).

9. Karl Barth, “Menschenrecht und Bürgerpflicht” (1911), in Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten (1909–1914), ed. Hans-Anton Drewes and Hinrich Stoevesandt in collab. with Herbert Helms and Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt (Zurich: TVZ, 1993), 374 and 379 (this passage also contains a critique of any democracy that excludes the participation of women). The highest goal of political involvement must transcend nation-states and even larger geographical entities such as continents: it must serve “humanity (“die Menschen überhaupt”; 379). Throughout his lecture, Barth relies heavily on Hermann Cohen, System der Philosophie, Zweiter Teil: Ethik des reinen Willens (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1904). Barth readily acknowledged that debt in a letter to his friend Wilhelm Loew (see the editorial comments on the lecture; 362).

10. “The Christian’s Place in Society,” in Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man, 319. “Der Christ in der Gesellschaft,” in Anfänge der dialektischen Theologie, ed. J. Moltmann (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1966), I: 32.

11. “The Christian’s Place in Society,” in Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man, 323. “Der Christ in der Gesellschaft,” 35.

12. Barth, Der Römerbrief (Erste Fassung) 1919, ed. Hermann Schmidt (Zurich: TVZ, 1985), 520–1.

13. Barth, Römerbrief (Erste Fassung), 521. See also: “The fact that you as Christians have nothing to do with monarchy, capitalism, militarism, patriotism and free thinking is so obvious that I do not need to mention it…. The whole matter of the renewal which comes from God should not be confused with the matter of human progress. The divine should not be politicized, and what is human should not be divinized, not even in favor of democracy and social democracy. Whatever your standpoint concerning penultimate realities, you must keep yourself free for the ultimate. You should not look for the turning point or the victory of God’s kingdom in what you are able to do with regard to the current state.” (509) For a good analysis of these passages and of Barth’s way of articulating theology and politics, see Ulrich Dannemann, Theologie und Politik im Denken Karl Barths (Munich-Mainz: Chr. Kaiser-Grünewald, 1977).

14. This talk, which was subsequently published, also contains a fascinating retrospective look at his journey, two months earlier, to and from the Tambach conference. Here is the most important passage in which Barth comments on Germany’s social democracy: “Bourgeoisie means keeping silent for the sake of peace. It means keeping things balanced at all costs. It is the refusal to be accountable, to be disturbed, to question, to doubt, to ‘mull over,’ to accuse…. And therefore we should not become bourgeois. We should neither take the path of the German majoritarian social democracy, nor the path of Russian Soviet-socialism. Both paths are bourgeois paths: foul peace agreements, practical methods which are too facile [nahe liegende], a desire to reach the goal too quickly, to be right—these are some of the characteristics of both paths. If we follow either of these two paths, the German or the Russian path, there is a tremendous danger that we might forget what we are in fact all about. The path which lies in-between the profit-socialists and the commotion-socialists is incredibly narrow right now…. Again and again, we must search for and take the narrow path…. We stand in a sentinel position.” Karl Barth, “Vom Rechthaben und Unrechthaben. Rede, gehalten zu einer sozialdemokratischen Volksversammlung,” in Das neue Werk. Eine Wochenschrift, 4 January 1920, nr. 40, 640–1.

15. Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (London-Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 489. Barth, Der Römerbrief (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1933), 472.

17. E. Hirsch, Deutschlands Schicksal. Staat, Volk und Menschheit im Lichte einer ethischen Geschichtsansicht (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1920). On Hirsch’s nomination, see Wolfgang Trillhaas, “Emanuel Hirsch in Göttingen,” in Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 81 (1984): 220–240.

18. See Hans-Anton Drewes, “Die Auseinandersetzung mit Adolf von Harnack,” in Karl Barth in Deutschland (1921–1935), 190–1. Drewes sees in these words a sign of Barth’s “vigorous skepticism and repulsion with regard to Wilhelmine overtones” (191). Of course, it must be added that the new generation of German nationalists in the 1920s also showed resentment against the Wilhelmine era. See Klaus Scholder, “Neuere deutsche Geschichte und protestantische Theologie. Aspekte und Fragen,” in Scholder, Die Kirchen zwischen Republik und Gewaltherrschaft, 76.

19. It has been noted, however, that Barth did in fact receive a German passport (without losing his Swiss citizenship) when he became an ordinary professor in Münster in 1925. His German passport was issued in Göttingen on January 4, 1926. It was renewed several years later before being revoked in 1935, when he was expelled from Germany. See Karl Barth and E. Thurneysen, Briefwechsel. Band 3. 1930–1935, ed. C. Algner (Zurich: TVZ, 2000), 225, n. 3. In his public response to the open letter Hirsch published on the Dehn case, Barth wrote that he was trying “to be a good German, without ceasing to remain a good Swiss” (Offene Briefe 1909–1935, 198).

20. “And then there was a big, amusing clash between Miss Bertholet and Hirsch on politics. Miss Bertholet favors democracy, whereas Hirsch is a ruthless (much more ruthless—or fanatic, as may calmly be said—as could be seen in the letters) German nationalist. There was talk of the Entente’s ‘murder of the German people,’ and it became clear that it will not be possible to talk with this man on this whole subject. After this, I am afraid that I will have to keep clear of him as much as possible on theological questions as well.” Letter to E. Thurneysen, in K. Barth and E. Thurneysen, Briefwechsel 1921–1930, 5.

21. “I sit down with Hirsch every Monday evening from 10pm until midnight!” Circular letter from January 23, 1922, in Karl Barth and E. Thurneysen, Briefwechsel 1921–1930, 31. On 11 February 1922, Barth describes this relationship as “odd” (seltsam, 36). He adds that Hirsch is friendly toward him, persistently seeking contact with him (“he is visibly very kind to me and shows a persevering intention to spend time with me. I can therefore not snarl at him and shake him off, as I initially intended to,” 40).

22. “So in your eyes I am now ‘veiled in darkness, on the human level’ (‘nach der menschlichen Seite im Dunkel verborgen’). But you see, that is precisely how I have been seeing you since the first fifteen minutes during which I saw and heard you. That day, you were having a conversation with Miss Bertholet on the legitimacy of unrestricted submarine warfare; I think that was in October 1921; it was our first encounter, and I thought it was abundantly dark [reichlich dunkel], and in no way did it become brighter in the four years which followed.” Letter to E. Hirsch from May 16, 1932, quoted in Offene Briefe 1909–1935, 203, n. 24.

23. “What is more dangerous is the fact that the political questions are coming to the forefront of our conversations, even though our talks are seemingly unrelated to worldly matters. He handles these questions with uncanny fervor; words such as ‘lies about guilt,’ ‘ignominious peace,’ ‘enemy alliance’ and so forth invariably come up.” Circular letter from February 26, 1922, in Karl Barth-E. Thurneysen, Briefwechsel 1921–1930, 46.

24. “Nation, Staat und Christentum. 30 Thesen,” in Mitteilungen zur Förderung einer deutschen christlichen Studentenbewegung 6, nr. 4 (1923), 82–4. Reprinted in Hans-Walter Krumwiede, Evangelische Kirche und Theologie in der Weimarer Republik (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1990), 90–2.

26. “About the Entente: the devil appears to have migrated to them.” Letter to E. Thurneysen from December 1, 1918, in Karl Barth and Eduard Thurneysen, Briefwechsel 1913–1921, 305.

27. Letter from November 18, 1921, in Karl Barth and Eduard Thurneysen, Briefwechsel 1921–1930, 11.

28. Circular letter from January 23, 1923, in Karl Barth and Eduard Thurneysen, Briefwechsel 1921–1930, 130.

29. Circular letter from anuary 23, 1923, in Karl Barth and Eduard Thurneysen, Briefwechsel 1921–1930, 131.

31. E. Hirsch, Die gegenwärtige geistige Lage im Spiegel philosophischer und theologischer Besinnung. Akademische Vorlesungen zum Verständnis des deutschen Jahres 1933 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1934), 62. Quoted in Klaus Tanner, Die fromme Verstaatlichung des Gewissens. Zur Auseinandersetzung um die Legitimität der Weimarer Reichsverfassung in Staatsrechtswissenschaft und Theologie der zwanziger Jahre (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989), 96. See also: “If one understands democracy as the constitution of a government which completely hands over the state to the citizens which live in it, or more precisely to a majority of them, then democracy is a major perversity [eine große Verkehrtheit].” Hirsch, Deutschlands Schicksal, 83.

33. “The Desirability and Possibility of a Universal Reformed Creed,” in Theology and the Church (London: SCM, 1962), 132–3. “Wünschbarkeit und Möglichkeit eines allgemeinen reformierten Glaubensbekenntnisses,” in Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten (1922–1925), ed. Holger Finze (Zurich: TVZ, 1990), 640. See also Barth’s reply to Wilhelm Stapel, in 1926, published in the nationalist and anti-Semitic journal Deutsches Volkstum 8 (1926): 304–6, reprinted in Offene Briefe (1909–1935), 102–5, see esp. 103, in which Barth wrote: “Somehow on a purely physical level I dislike the nationalism of the majority of German academics.”

34. I am limiting my analysis to Barth’s vision of the state and am not commenting here on his theses on church and state, in Karl Barth, Ethics (New York: Seabury Press, 1981), 517–521; Ethik II. Vorlesung Münster Wintersemester 1928/29, wiederholt in Bonn, Wintersemester 1930/31, ed. Dietrich Braun (Zurich: TVZ, 1978), 457–467.

35. This has been noted in Heinz Eduard Tödt, “Karl Barth, der Liberalismus und der Nationalsozialismus. Gegendarstellung zu Friedrich Wilhelm Grafs Behandlung dieses Thema,” Evangelische Theologie 46 (1986): 544, and by Rasmusson, “ Theology in the Weimar Republic,” 168.

36. “However, there is one thing which the English people have shown, namely an unshakable, no, a merciless sternness. And therefore they had to vanquish us, for we took the war too lightly, and we thought that we did not have to take part in it with our entire soul. The realization of guilt indicates to us the way to liberation. We will again reach the heights only if we adequately accomplish in times of peace the exact same things which we failed to achieve in the war.” Hirsch, Deutschlands Schicksal, 109.

38. “More importantly is this, which is related to the soul [etwas Seeliches]: we must learn anew to consider our state and its law as holy.” Hirsch, Deutschlands Schicksal, 150.

43. Barth, Ethics, 447 (Ethik II, 336). For Barth’s use of Acts 5:29, see Ethics, 384, 446 and 519 (Ethik II, 226, 334 and 461). On obedience (or disobedience) to the state insofar as it respects (or ignores) its own limits, see Ethics, 383 (Ethik II, 225): “There is a state that is the beast from the abyss [cf. Rev. 13]. We not only do not owe this state obedience; we owe it disobedience.” In that regard, Friedrich Wilhelm Graf’s thesis is correct: “But one should … not ignore the fact that concretely the impact of Barth’s theology amounted to a relativization of democracy.” Graf, “‘Der Götze wackelt’?,” 440. Strictly speaking, Graf here is only saying that Barth’s theology relativized democracy. That is indeed correct, but is the alternative (i.e. Hirsch and his vision of the state and its law as holy etc.) preferable? Moreover, Graf does not stop here in his critical engagement with Barth. His overall thesis is that Barth indirectly contributed to the loss of legitimacy of the Republic.

45. Barth, Ethics, 448 (Ethik II, 337). The words between square brackets were added by Barth to his lecture notes in the early summer of 1933 (see Dietrich Braun’s editorial comments in Ethik II, IX–X).

47. For a similar assessment, based on the actualism of Barth’s ethics (i.e., how God’s concrete command cannot be known in advance, ahistorically, but is related to the specific circumstances and thus open to individual and communal interpretation), see Thies Grundlach, “Theologische Ethik unter modernen Bedingungen. Zu den politischen Implikationen der Ethik Karl Barths von 1928/29,” in Kerygma und Dogma 37 (1991): 209–26, esp. 218–9.

48. “In Göttingen and Münster Barth had to be cautious with his public pronouncements, in light of the political situation.” E. Jüngel, “Provozierende Theologie. Zur theologischen Existenz Karl Barths,” in Karl Barth in Deutschland (1921–1935), 50.

49. “Fragen an das ‘Christentum,’” in Feuille centrale de la Société suisse de Zofingue (Geneva, December 1931), also in Karl Barth, Theologische Fragen und Antworten. Gesammelte Vorträge, 3. Band (Zollikon: Evangelisches Verlag, 1957), 93–9. Barth’s text was reprinted the following year in another journal, Christentum und Wirklichkeit 10 (1932): 35–41. It was translated in English by R. Birch Hoyle (London: The Lutterworth Press, 1932).

50. By “Americanism,” Barth does not mean “liberal democracy” but rather a way of life which divinizes health and comfort, backed by a brilliant modern technology, and which gives free reign to selfish interests, on the basis of an optimistic morality. As such, “Americanism” is not limited to the North American continent but is a religion that can flourish anywhere, and Barth writes about “European Americans” (“Fragen an das ‘Christentum,’” in Theologische Fragen und Antworten, 94–5).

51. Barth, “Fragen an das ‘Christentum,’” in Theologische Fragen und Antworten, 94.

52. Barth, “Fragen an das ‘Christentum,’” in Theologische Fragen und Antworten, 95.

53. The following passage from Dehn’s lecture was the most shocking to many: “It is common for the Church to associate death for the homeland with the pure sacrificial death, using the biblical verse: ‘There is no greater love than this, that someone should lay down his life for his friends.’ Without a doubt, we wish to respect the dignity and the greatness of such a death, but, also without a doubt, we wish to say the truth. That way of presenting things does not take into consideration the fact that the person who was killed intended to kill. The parallelization with the Christian view of sacrificial death thus becomes impossible. Related to that is the question, which deserves to be raised, concerning the legitimacy of memorial monuments which the Church erects within its own walls. Would it not be better to leave such things to the civil community?” G. Dehn, “Kirche und Volksversöhnung. Vortrag in der Ulrichskirche zu Magdeburg am 6. Nov. 1928,” in Kirche und Völkerversöhnung. Dokumente zum Halleschen Universitätskonflikt (Berlin: Furche Verlag, 1931), 21–2. Dehn’s lecture was also published in Die christliche Welt 45 (1931): 194–204. On November 3, 1931, nationalist students and storm troopers (SA) disrupted Dehn’s classroom in Halle. Starting in the summer of 1932, he was on paid leave. His professorship was taken away from him in June 1933.

54. See Barth’s letter from February 2, 1932, to Leopold Cordier (1887–1939), a professor of practical theology from Gießen who had asked him to publicly support Dehn: “My reluctance to proceed according to your wishes has principally to do with the simple fact that I, as a Swiss, am obviously not in the best position to come forward on this matter as praeceptor Germaniae. Perhaps I will overcome this reluctance.” Quoted in Offene Briefe 1909–1935, 172. Later that same day, Barth wrote his article in support of Dehn and sent it to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In November 1931, Barth had already co-authored with Karl Ludwig Schmidt a word expressing their solidarity with Dehn’s “person and ideas” (“persönlich und sachlich”): see Theologische Blätter 10 (1931): 332–3.; now also in Offene Briefe 1909–1935, 161.

55. Karl Barth, “Warum führt man den Kampf nicht auf der ganzen Linie? Der Fall Dehn und die ‘dialektische’ Theologie,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 15 February 1932 (Morgenblatt), 6; now in Karl Barth, Offene Briefe 1909–1935, ed. Diether Koch (Zurich: TVZ, 2001), 174–83. Emanuel Hirsch and Hermann Dörries had published their rebuttal of Dehn (and their praise of the nationalist student groups who were threatening to leave Halle for Leipzig or Jena if Dehn was nominated) in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung on January 31, 1932.

56. “Until now I have hesitated to join the broader public debate on this issue: it had right from the beginning political, indeed deeply political overtones. I also have to take into consideration the understandable sensitivity (which perhaps is not quite sensible, ultimately) of those who are not inclined to listen to a person born in Switzerland who speaks on German political matters, at least when his views contradict theirs…. I still hope that I, as a foreigner who after all has now spent ten years in Germany, will be allowed at least to raise these questions.” Offene Briefe 1909–1935, 174–5. The questions Barth refers to in the last sentence are: Should the conflict with Dehn not be part of a broader discussion about the so-called “dialectical” theology which underlies Dehn’s position? Would it not be more adequate for the whole discussion to take place on academic and theological ground?

57. Karl Barth, Ethics, 156–60; Ethik I. Vorlesung. Münster Sommersemester 1928, wiederholt in Bonn, Sommersemester 1930, ed. Dietrich Braun (Zurich: TVZ, 1973), 261–9. Barth writes: “As ethics should be on guard against even secretly pushing the demand for conscientious objection, so it should also—and here the need for restraint is even more urgent—refuse completely to let itself be made an instrument of the warring state by devoting itself to providing spiritual munitions for the forces or rather by giving the general staffs the desired repose of a good conscience concerning those who must actually take aim and shoot.” Ethics, 158 (Ethik I, 265).

58. Barth, Ethics, 156 (Ethik I, 261). For Dehn’s use of that verse, see note 53 above.

59. “The Church’s prophetic ministry is nearly extinguished, and as a consequence even Protestant pastors confuse the secularized eschatology of the völkisch movement with the legitimate eschatology of the Church’s message and join enthusiastically the ranks of the National Socialists.” Richard Kahrwehl, “Politisches Messiastum. Zur Auseinandersetzung zwischen Kirche und Nationalsozialismus,” Zwischen den Zeiten 9 (1931): 519–43.

60. J. Beckmann, “Politische Umschau vom evgl. Standpunkt,” unpublished lecture notes, quoted in Christoph Weiling, Die ‘Christlich-deutsche Bewegung.’ Eine Studie zum konservativen Protestantismus in der Weimarer Republik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 234. On Beckmann’s nationalist tendencies (he had chosen Hirsch to be his thesis—Licentiat—advisor), see Weiling, 251–3.

62. “The political game which is currently being played in Germany displeases me profoundly—much more profoundly then National Socialism has ever displeased me. I can only see what is happening in the following way: the same Cossack mentality, which in 1914 led to the argument that one could work on the basis of the axiom ‘necessity knows no laws,’ is about to bypass the constitution of the Reich, treating it in effect as a mere ‘scrap of paper.’ In addition they expect us to respect their decision as one coming from God’s providence.” Letter from September 16, 1932, to Wilhelm Wedekind, quoted in Barth and Thurneysen, Briefwechsel Band 3 (1930–1935), ed. Caren Algner (Zurich: TVZ, 2000), 274, n. 18 (see: Holtmann, Karl Barth als Theologe der Neuzeit, 318).

63. Letter to Thurneysen from September 18, 1932, in Barth and Thurneysen, Briefwechsel Band 3 (1930–1935), 274. “Lollo” is Barth’s secretary, Charlotte von Kirschbaum (1899–1975).

64. G. van Norden, Die Weltverantwortung der Christen neu begreifen. Karl Barth als homo politicus, 66.

65. “To allow oneself to be challenged by God’s Word, and hence also by current politics, that is what characterizes the correct theological existence. […] Karl Barth’s theology was and remains provocative precisely because it let itself be provoked by the Word of God and thus also by the events of the time.” E. Jüngel, “Provozierende Theologie. Zur theologischen Existenz Karl Barths,” in Karl Barth in Deutschland (1921–1935), 42–3. See also: Barth “makes it clear again and again that a correct knowledge of God has concrete political implications.” (51). Jüngel has argued elsewhere that the relation between theology and politics is not reversible in Barth’s theological model: theology determined politics (not the reverse). Yet concretely it seems clear that the rise of fascism led Barth, if not to revise his basic theological orientation, at least to emphasize certain aspects more strongly (see note 45, above, and the corresponding passage, for example).

66. Karl Barth, “Unterricht in der christlichen Religion,” vol. 1: Prolegomena (1924), ed. Hannelotte Reiffen (Zurich: TVZ, 1985), 17. See H. Stoevesandt, “Die Göttinger Dogmatikvorlesung. Grundriß der Theologie Barths,” in Karl Barth in Deutschland (1921–1935), 79.

67. “The Church’s message is inherently political, insofar as it calls for the implementation of justice in the present confusion of the Pagan polis.” Karl Barth, “An Michael M. Hoffmann, Berlin,” open letter from June 21, 1932, Offene Briefe 1909–1935, 233.

68. “For the Fathers the knowledge of dogma has nothing to do with abstract gnosticism. From the get-go, it is an ethos. The entire person, the entire city are claimed by the parole de Dieu as it becomes known.” Karl Barth, “Wünschbarkeit und Möglichkeit eines allgemeinen reformierten Glaubensbekenntnisses” (1925), Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten (1922–1925), ed. Holger Finze (Zurich: TVZ, 1990), 639. English trans.: “The Desirability and Possibility of a Universal Reformed Creed,” in Theology and Church (New York-Evanston: Harper & Row, 1962), 132.

70. “The Word of God, which has to be proclaimed in Christian preaching, is about God, and certainly also constantly about the world and human beings, but in such a way that God remains the subject and the theme. The mission of the person in the pulpit is not to reverse things and to offer some reflections on the world and on people from a Christian perspective. If he does that, then he should know that he has simultaneously ceased to speak as a theologian.” Barth, “Unterricht in der christlichen Religion,” vol. 2: Die Lehre von Gott/Die Lehre vom Menschen (1924/25), ed. Hinrich Stoevesandt (Zurich: TVZ, 1999), 274.

71. Wolf Krötke, “Theologie und Widerstand bei Karl Barth,” in Karl Barth in Deutschland (1921–1935), 123. Krötke adds that it is a bit too easy to claim that those among Barth’s colleagues who embraced parts or all of the Nazi “spirit and praxis” were politically “blinded” as a consequence of a certain socialization (123–4).

72. Several scholars have argued that Hirsch’s theological thought was secondary to his political thought. See Jens Holger Schjørring, Theologische Gewissensethik und politische Wirklichkeit. Das Beispiel Eduard Geismars und Emanuel Hirschs (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979) and Christoph Weiling, Die ‘Christlich-deutsche Bewegung.’ Eine Studie zum konservativen Protestantismus in der Weimarer Republik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 203, n. 298. Barth sensed that this was the case: “However I hope that my own and Hirsch’s own primary interest is theological and not political.” Offene Briefe 1909–1935, 183. See also: “How could it not … be clear that your theological ‘passion’ can only be absolutely identical with your political passion? … For you, in relation to the subject matter we are discussing, obedience to God unequivocally coincides with the awareness of your ‘existential bond to the German Volk,’ and that awareness coincides no less unequivocally with your specific political conviction. Where and how could there be here an above and a beyond? … In other words: it appears that I deceived myself in a reckless way when I thought I could appeal to Hirsch the theologian, after having dealt with Hirsch the politician.” (201–2). Finally, and most clearly, see this letter to Hirsch from May 16, 1932: “It is not a theologian I hear talking here, but only an agitated party member” (203).

74. Several members of the Munich-school make much of the historian Karl Dietrich Erdmann’s comments in a discussion following a paper at a conference on the Weimar republic (in K. D. Erdmann and Hagen Schulze, eds., Weimar. Selbstpreisgabe einer Demokratie. Eine Bilanz heute. Kölner Kolloquium der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, Juni 1979 (Dusseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1980), 287–8. After hearing a debate between Bultmann and Barth in Marburg at the end of the 1920s, Erdmann was struck by Barth's radical critique of Culture-Protestantism, of liberal theology, and of idealist philosophy. In his eyes, Barth was shaking the foundations of a philosophical defense of democracy. See Tanner, Die fromme Verstaatlichung des Gewissens, 65–6. Trutz Rendtorff, Vielspätiges. Protestantische Beiträge zur ethischen Kultur (Stuttgart-Berlin-Cologne: Kohlhammer, 1991), 114. Graf, “‘Die Götze wackelt’?,” 440. Other observers, who knew Barths much better, and who are of little interest to Rendtorff, Graf and Tanner, include Wolfgang Trillhaas, to whom Barth’s “paramount inclination toward democracy” (“[d]ie überwiegende Nähe der Demokratie”) was never in question. See Holtmann, Karl Barth als Theologe, 315, quoting W. Trillhaas, Aufgehobene Vergangenheit. Aus meinem Leben ( Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976), 96.

75. Günther van Norden correctly writes: “One may perhaps say in a rather general way: he [Barth] fought Culture Protestantism, but not the culture state.” Die Weltverantwortung der Christen neu begreifen. Karl Barth als homo politicus, 45. On the other hand, Friedrich Wilhelm Graf is convinced that for Barth political liberalism and “religious-theological” liberalism were two sides of the same coin. See Graf, “‘Der Götze wackelt’?,” 434.

76. Concerning Barth’s own supposed “authoritarianism,” I am reminded of Wilhelm Herrmann’s comments about certain liberal theologians: “They lack understanding of the fact that the Christian faith is the unconditional submission [unbedingte Unterwerfung] to a power [eine Macht] …, namely to God’s revelation. They wish to retain only the first of the following two propositions: (1) faith saves [macht selig], and (2) faith is submission to the authority of revelation.” W. Herrmann, Der evangelische Glaube und die Theologie Albrecht Ritschls. Rektoratsrede (Marburg: R. G. Elwert, 1890), 17. Barth could only be accused of “authoritarianism” if he had identified or confused his own word with God’s Word. But his theological actualism (God is never “given” but “gives himself”) and his rejection of natural theology did not incline him to such crude theological errors. God’s authority cannot be possessed by Christians or by the Church, as he wrote in 1938; see Church Dogmatics I/2, G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance eds. (London-New York: T & T Clark, 1956), 578–9; Die Kirchliche Dogmatik I/2 (Zollikon: Evangelische Verlag, 1938), 643–5. In Barth’s eyes, the Roman Catholic Church does not have too much but in fact lacks (true) authority, whereas liberal Protestantism does not have too much but in fact too little (true) freedom; Church Dogmatics I/2, 666–9; Die Kirchliche Dogmatik I/2, 746–9.

77. Against Hirsch, Barth pursued “a theology which would not become politics, even in its face-to-face with politics, but rather a theology which would remain theology … Incidentally, and at the risk of provoking further anger, should I remind you that real theological ‘passion’ can only begin at the point where the passions unleashed in the Dehn case cease, and that it is ultimately also in the interest of politics—or let me put it that way for now: in the interest ‘of the vital-necessities [Lebensnotwendigkeiten] of the German Volk—that some of us choose that passion rather than these?” Open letter to Emanuel Hirsch, April 17, 1932, Offene Briefe 1909–1935, 202–3.

Chapter 11