On this day in history, January 5th, 1919, the German Workers’ Party, the precursor, to the Nazi Party was formed. [1]
Even for people who have seemingly no interest in history, the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party is fascinating. It begs so many questions:
- How could Hitler, an Austrian house painter and WWI veteran, rise to be Fuhrer (dictator) of Germany in less than 15 years?
- How did the Nazis (which started as a small radical group) end up being a powerful political party that won the the German parliamentary election 1932?
- Why did so many ordinary Germans support the Nazi led Holocaust?
- What lessons can we draw?
For the Christian, added to this list are other questions:
- How could God allow this to happen?
- What was the reaction of German churches during this time?
- Were there Christian men and women of faith that resisted? If so, what was the result?
- What lessons can we draw?
Being historically minded from a young age, I have studied this time period extensively at college, read, visited Auschwitz -Birkenau, and toured several Holocaust museums around the world. The historical questions above can be answered through that study and through helpful sites such as found here.
For the questions of faith, however, further humility is required. On this side of heaven, we will not know fully the mind or heart of God nor will we know all the reasons behind His sovereign actions.
With that being said, the Lord Jesus commanded His disciples to: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’” (Mat. 22:37). Loving God with all our mind involves exploring faith questions and confronting doubts.
To address the faith questions above, I was greatly helped to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s works. Bonheffer, a German pastor, was called by God to be a faithful Christ witness during Nazi rule. While HItler was in power, Bonhoeffer led an underground seminary — his training manual for that seminary is now published as The Cost of Discipleship. In 1943, Bonhoeffer was arrested for his unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Hitler and spent the remainder of his life in Nazi prisons and was put to death at the Flossenburg concentration camp on April 9, 1945. The guard watching his hanging commented that he had never seen anyone so at peace in the presence of God. [2]
Many of my faith questions about Nazi rule were answered by reading Bonhoeffer’s biography [3] and studying Bonhoeffer’s compilation of Letters and Papers from Prison.
Shining through his writing and biography was the humanity of Bonhoeffer. He feared for his life; he missed his family and ached for his young fiance. He asked his parents to send him creature comforts to prison. He was annoyed with his cellmate. He wrestled with God’s will and sovereignty that permitted him to be in prison.
Bonhoeffer also worshiped God and thanked God for his union with Christ. He learned to trust God’s hand upon his life and the lives of the German people. He showed true humility and genuine faith to trust the Father in the most bleak of circumstances and was faithful to witness Christ to his cellmate, the guard at his death, and all those who read his biography today.
I don’t have all the answers. I am still asking and exploring big questions around why God permitted the Nazi party to rule. However, my academic and faith journey studying around that question has given me a conclusion that is worth living and dying for: God will always provide me an opportunity to have faith and give Him glory in whatever circumstances I face.
Footnotes:
- https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nazi-party-1
- https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/dietrich-bonhoeffer/resistance-and-execution
- Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas