This post is unfinished – help needed with German translation of this site

Erwin Balzer, the bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lübeck was one of seven Protestant regional church bishops and presidents to sign the “Notice of ecclesiastical position of Protestant Jews”, 17 December 1941.

It is little known that the Evangelical Lutheran Church Bishops and the Presiding Bishops (?) of Saxony, Hesse-Nassau, Mecklenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Anhalt, Thuringia and Lübeck issued the following declaration.

»Die nationalsozialistische deutsche Führung hat mit zahlreichen Dokumenten unwiderleglich bewiesen, daß dieser Krieg in seinen weltweiten Ausmaßen von den Juden angezettelt ist. Als Glieder der deutschen Volksgemeinschaft stehen die unterzeichneten deutschen Evangelischen Landeskirchen und Kirchenleiter in der Front dieses historischen Abwehrkampfes, der unter anderem die Reichspolizeiverordnung über die Kennzeichnung der Juden als der geborenen Welt- und Reichsfeinde notwendig gemacht hat. Schon Dr. Martin Luther erhob nach bitteren Erfahrungen die Forderung, schärfste Maßnahmen gegen die Juden zu ergreifen und sie aus deutschen Landen auszuweisen. Von der Kreuzigung Christi bis zum heutigen Tage haben die Juden das Christentum bekämpft oder zur Erreichung ihrer eigennützigen Ziele missbraucht oder verfälscht. Durch die christliche Taufe wird an der rassischen Eigenart des Juden, seiner Volkszugehörigkeit und seinem biologischen Sein nichts geändert. Eine deutsche evangelische Kirche hat das religiöse Leben deutscher Volksgenossen zu pflegen und zu fördern. Rassejüdische Christen haben in ihr keinen Raum und kein Recht. Die unterzeichneten deutschen Evangelischen Kirchen und Kirchenleiter haben deshalb jegliche Gemeinschaft mit Judenchristen aufgehoben. Sie sind entschlossen, keinerlei Einflüsse jüdischen Geistes auf das deutsche religiöse und kirchliche Leben zu dulden.« (1)

[My translation with Google – can someone please provide a better translation?]

“The National Socialist German leadership has irrefutably proved by numerous documents that this war has been instigated in its global dimensions by the Jews. It has therefore taken the necessary steps to safeguard decisions about German life and actions against the Jews both internally and externally. As registered members of the German Protestant Community and the Landeskirchen facing this historic defensive struggle, [we note] the National Police Regulation on the registration of Jews which has been made ​​necessary as they are enemies of German rule. This has been noted by Dr. Martin Luther by bitter experience, that the need arose to take the sharpest measures against the Jews and to expel them from Germany. 

From the Crucifixion to the present day the Jews have fought Christianity or abused to achieve their selfish goals and distorted. By Christian baptism is not changed the racial character of a Jew, his ethnicity and his biological being. A German Protestant Church has to promote the religious life of German citizens. Racial Jewish Christians have in it no space and no right. The undersigned German Protestant church leaders have therefore abolished any fellowship with Jewish Christians. They are determined to tolerate no influence on the German Jewish intellectual and religious life of the Church. ” (1)

No expression of official regret or even a withdrawal of this unfortunate paper has been made. Where was the outcry and protest of the churches, as in the Pogrom Night in 1938 when the synagogues were burned? One courageous priest protested but the church leaders were silent! Certainly it would be wrong and unfair to generalize and to condemn all Evangelical Christians.

Prayer – Father, forgive them – they knew not what they did. May your Church today not make the same mistake by excluding or not welcoming Jewish believers in Yeshua. Lord, have mercy!

(1) documented eg in: Karlheinz Deschner: Again, the cock crew – a critical history of the Church from the beginning up to Pius XII. 3rd edition, Stuttgart 1968, here p 461F. Also in: Gerhard Czermak: Christians against Jews. Hamburg 1997, p 338/39 or Joachim Kahl: The Misery of Chris¬tentums. Reinbek b.Hamburg 1993, p 51. Easy to find on the internet by entering the first literal words in quotation marks.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelisch-Lutherische_Kirche_in_L%C3%BCbeck

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Balzer

The son of a teacher took over after the Protestant theological studies his first parish on Helgoland 1930’s.In 1931 he joined the Nazi Party and in 1933 became pastor of Christ Church in Hamburg. At the age of only 33 years he was on 1 June 1934 Bishop of Lübeck appointed, with him the NSDAP party membershipand the recommendation of the Lübeck Justice Senators Hans Boehmcker provided assistance. Balzer was an active Nazi. In his jurisdiction, he built a ” German Christian Church Government “. ^[1] In 1939 he was in Eisenach co-founder of the Institute for Research and elimination of Jewish influence on the German church life . On April 4, the same year he co-signed a declaration in which the “battle of Nazism against any political claim to power of the church” and its “struggle to achieve the German nation species-appropriate belief” as “completion of the work, which the German reformer Martin Luther has begun, “was called. ^[2]

The ecclesiastical However, 1955 On July 1, 1945 Balzer was released as bishop of Lübeck, got back. A year later he went to board and lived until his death in Hamburg.