Sarah Glaser
Thesis
April 12, 2012
State and Religion: Austrian
Quaker Nazi Identity in World War II
Abstract:
The interaction between
Quakerism and Nazism has been heavily studied in regards to the aid work
Quakers provided, but the topic of the Quakers who sided with the Nazis is rarely explored. This
thesis examines how it would be possible for a small group of Quakers in the
Vienna Meeting to align themselves politically with the Nazi government while
still maintaining their Quaker identities. Specifically the case of Rudolph Boeck, the Vienna
representative to the German Yearly Meeting and a member of the Nazi government,
illustrates this point most clearly. The non-dogmatic ideas behind Quakerism and the unique
cultural circumstances of post-World War I Austria made these two ideologies
compatible for the Vienna Quakers of the time.
Introduction
World War II has been a source of fascination for scholars and historians since its occurrence. The history, teleologies, aftermath and events of the time have been extensively researched, explained, questioned and revisited. However despite the extensive knowledge on the subject, there are still areas left unexplored. Though there is a wealth of writing on the aid and support Quakers in Austria and Germany provided to Jews, there is practically no writing on those Quakers that aligned themselves with the Nazi party. Despite the lack of inquiry into this topic, there is evidence that some Quakers in the Vienna Meeting not only supported Nazi policy, but a few such as Rudolph Boeck, the Vienna Meeting’s representative to the German Yearly Meeting, worked for the Nazi government. This thesis will examine how the seemingly conflicting ideologies of Nazism and Quakerism could work together due to the understandings of both in this specific place and time.
Out of all those who have written about Quaker involvement in World War II, the only two historians who have touched on the topic of Nazism within the Quaker community are Hans A. Schmitt and Sheila Spielhofer. Schmitt, the first historian I read who interested me in the topic, only very briefly mentions the existence of Quaker Nazism. His book is largely concerned with the varied lives of Quakers during WWII in America and Europe. Spielhofer, on the other hand, focuses solely on the Vienna Meeting, as she discovered after joining the meeting that little was written or studied about its past, especially during WWII. Her book “Stemming the Dark Tide” takes on the task of uncovering the meeting’s history, but her attempts to absolve Vienna Quakers of responsibility do not fully address the ties between the Vienna Quakers and the Nazi party mainly due to the apologist slant of the text.
One of the most interesting questions raised by this double identity of a Nazi Quaker is how did the Nazi Quakers balance these two seemingly conflicting ideologies. The dual identity works together due to the origins of Quakerism in Austria. The result of the devastation of Austria and Germany after WWI was that all social structures, economic structures and basic national identity had collapsed. Quakers were the first aid workers in the area, and due to this, had a large impact on the peoples of Austria and Germany. Prior to this aid work, the Quaker religion had died out in both countries and it was these Quakers that revived Quakerism in the area. Therefore Quakerism in the area was still to be defined and determined by the German Yearly Meeting, which was formed in 1925[1] by 40 founders and reached a membership of 199 by 1932.[2] One unique aspect of the German Yearly Meeting central to its formation was that “German Friends decided not to require new members to sever previous religious affiliations, as they did in yearly meetings elsewhere.”[3] This was partially because several of the founding members were still involved with their previous religious affiliations, such as Emil Fuchs, a Lutheran minister. Therefore though all members attended Quaker meeting, many were able to comfortably understand and identify multiple ideologies, which would later serve to help some identify with Nazism. The German Yearly Meeting was a center for debate, dissent and disagreement as to the Quaker response to the Nazi movement throughout WWII. Some Quakers such as the well known Emil Fuchs and Margarete Lachmund, felt moved to continue the established tradition of Quaker pacifism and aid work, while others such as Paul Helbeck and Rudolph Boeck felt that the Nazi party was helping to rebuild and restore Austria and Germany. Though German Yearly Meeting tried to advise the members on how to interpret the state, there was no one doctrinal answer to Nazism from the meeting as members were deeply divided.
The
varieties of understandings of Quakerism in Austria and Germany lead to
tensions between the Quakers, both native and visiting. The German Yearly
Meeting deeply divided between their own as to whether or not to support the
new government, and could they accept other Quakers, who supported the
government, as Quakers. The meeting also had to contend with the views,
influences, and foreign ties of the visiting aid workers who remained active
and in Germany and Austria from World War I, who strongly resisted the new
government. This returns to the central issue of the relationship between Quakerism
and Nazism. Both grew in Germany and Austria in a similar time period, although
as Schmitt says “in a time when Hitler’s following increased by tens of
thousands, Quaker recruits could at best be counted by the dozens.”[4] Still,
Quakerism through its aid work campaigns reached thousands of needy Germans and
Austrians and brought with
their aid work a religious message. Nazism bolstered the political hopes
of the devastated countries of Germany and Austria. The issues raised in the
German Yearly Meeting help to clarify how Quakers thought of themselves and
their politics at the time. Though by no means a united front, the German
Yearly Meeting displays the tensions between themselves, their understandings
of Quakerism and their political ties.
Political
allegiances at this time in Germany and Austria were deeply confused by the
numerous movements and the complete destruction of the previous social and
political structures of the area. Austria and Germany after WWI were devastated
by the economic losses of the war and the loss of the previous political and
social orders. Therefore both countries sought to rebuild themselves, and the Nazi party rapidly rose
to prominence claiming that it would reassert the power and dignity of the two
countries.
This message appealed to the people as they looked for hope for the
future.
The
message of hope the Quakers brought to the area spoke to hope for the future
through spiritual means, different from the Nazi claim to political power. As I
will discuss further, the
Quakers coupled their material aid with spiritual messages of their own faith,
which appealed to some of the people they helped. From their aid
efforts,
Quakerism was revived in
Austria and Germany. However, due to the lack of a set doctrine in the religion, there was room for
interpretation by the members and application to the cultural context at
hand, rather than being given strict rules to follow. Therefore in this way,
the Quakers of the German Yearly Meeting had a diverse population and all guidance was derived from
within the meeting itself, and was subject to the needs of the time.
The
debates within the German Yearly Meeting were frequent and divided amongst the
members. Though the Quaker periodical, Die
Qüaker, reflected the more liberal and activist members of the meeting’s
opinions, the meeting itself was never able to resolve their conflicts with a
clear path for members to follow during the rise of the Nazi party and WWII.
Both the liberal and the quietist Quakers tempered all guidance offered by the
meeting. Therefore all statements were open to interpretation as to how Quakers
should interact with their faith and the state. The openness of both the instructions of the meeting
and of the religion are what allowed for some Quakers to have the dual
ideologies of Nazism and Quakerism.
Chapter 1: Vulnerable Austria, its
People and the Introduction of Quakerism
This
chapter will explore the cultural and religious circumstances that helped the
growth of both Nazism and Quakerism in this time and place. Austria was
socially and economically devastated after World War I. The once vibrant
capital of the AustroHungarian Empire was without resources or stable social
institutions. The populace had to find new sources of hope for the future and
structure for their daily lives. Due to this need, this multiple movements grew
from this distress. The two movements explored in this thesis, Nazism and
Quakerism both gained their strongest supports during this time in this place.
Though Nazism had far more followers than Quakerism, the growth both
experienced result directly from the circumstances of post-WWI Austria and
Germany. Though Nazism
grew organically from the peoples of Austria and Germany, and foreign aid
workers revived Quakerism, they each brought a new ideology to move Austrians
and Germans forth to the future.
Interwar Austria
Austria
after World War I was devastated by not only the war, but also by the loss of
its empire. Though Europeans of the time referred to Austria as holding a “key economic
position”[5] by the
interwar period “Austria [had been] reduced from the economic centre of an
empire of fifty-six millions to a small non-self-sufficient country surrounded
by high tariff walls.”6 Though in a key location, Austria itself had
no government capable of taking advantage of its position in Europe, and
therefore lost any economic capital it might have had before WWI. Austria was
unable to sustain itself or its peoples having previously relied on its empire
to keep the cultural capital supported. Out of this devastation, the people
looked for leadership and a new social order. A scholar at the time, Dr. R.
Gessner, in a talk to the Royal Institute of International Affairs in England
in 1936, recognized that “In a country which is in a state of extreme misery
you get absolutistic, or theocratic thinking producing violent antagonisms. It
is because of the extreme economic misery in Austria that you find such intense
political antagonisms.”[6] His
understanding at the time was entirely accurate. It was this extreme economic misery that the Quaker
missionaries were responding to in their aid work, but their ministry
was only able to go so far in alleviating the suffering of the populace. While
economic aid was essential, the construction of a new social order or new ideologies were essential
to the devastated populace’s recovery. Due to the extreme conditions, some of
the responses, such as Nazism, rose to meet the situation at hand.
From
this new start after the devastation of WWI multiple social groups emerged, but
one of the fastest growing was the Nazi Party in both Germany and Austria.[7] Though
the Austrian Nazi party was different from the German Nazi party, the two
groups had similar ideals and the National Socialism that was preached in both countries gestured towards
the power and supremacy of the Germanic nation. “Austria was forced to
exist against its own will in 1918. In the first constitution which it gave itself, it declared itself to
be part of Germany.”[8] This
shows Austria’s stance on its relationship to Germany. The native language of
Austria is German, and immediately after the end of WWI, it declared itself to
be part of Germany. However, the path to the Anschluss, the unification of Germany and Austria, was marred by
the Putsch, the failed coup d’état by
Nazi Germany to take over the Austrian government.
Despite this,
historians have represented Austria’s willingness to join with
Germany in a multiplicity of ways
following WWII, and clarification is necessary. The willingness of the Austrian
people to unify with Germany prior to the Anschluss
has been heavily debated after the end of WWII, due to Austria’s first victim myth. The first
victim myth removes culpability from Austria, as the country is represented as being the first
victims of the Nazi party, rather than accomplices. This has been
debunked due to the large amount of evidence against the myth, but is still
necessary to clarify in my argument. Jaqueline Vansant succinctly explained
Austria’s understanding of the myth in
The
German Quarterly;
“In both public and private
discourse in Austria, the dominant narratives concerning the seven years under
National Socialism portray the country and the general population as victims.
The ‘storytellers’ deny widespread Austrian approval of the Anschluss and any
complicity in the crimes committed under the National Socialists.”[9]
This narrative was so
effective for the Austrian people after WWII that it took many years for this
mythology to be debunked by historians and critics outside the country, and
only recently has the debunking of this mythology become the standard
understanding for Austria’s role in WWII. Vansant concluded the article by
confirming Austria’s culpability, “No one can deny that the general Austrian
population suffered during World War II. But not everyone who suffers is a
victim. By viewing their
own suffering as paramount, many Austrians relativize history in order to avoid
responsibility or admission of possible gain from others' suffering.”11 By believing the first victim myth, it gives
the Austrian people the ability to ignore the benefits Austria gained from the
Anschluss
and Nazi regime.
Introduction of Quakerism
and Quaker Aid in Interwar Austria
In order to understand the different types of Quakers found in Vienna during World War II, it is essential to understand how Quakerism was first brought to the Viennese community. The majority of the Quaker presence in Austria during World War I was comprised largely of missionaries and aid workers, although the War Victims’ Relief Committee Reports can be read as intending to conflate the two. These reports were circulated in English to British and American Friends to ask for aid in both time and money, as well as to chronicle the achievements of the Relief Committee abroad. The reports not only measure and assess the work that the Quakers are doing abroad, but are an essential look into the beginnings of Quakerism in Germany and Austria at this time. According Hans Schmitt “Until the mid-twentieth century, the majority were American or British.”[10] This, plus the fact that there were no Quaker meetings since the 18th century in Germany, means that the majority of native Austrian Quakers during WWII converted after WWI, or were children of those converts. In this section, I will look at what the Quakers did during WWI and the Interwar period, as well as how they had involved themselves through their aid works with the Austrian people, which caused the revival of Quakerism in Austria.
Though
the War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of Friends was created very
early in WWI, they were unable to go to “enemy countries” until after the
armistice was declared as they note in their fifth report. Prior to the
cessation of hostilities the members of the War Victims’ Relief Committee were
in Russia, Serbia, Switzerland, Armenia, Holland and France. The Committee
changed its name to Emergency & War Victims’ Relief Committee as they
involved themselves in countries with increasingly dire circumstances, such as
Poland, Germany and Austria as covered first in their sixth report.[11] This
is due to the fact that since the armistice, the Quakers felt that having
separate committees performing the same tasks in the same countries was
unnecessary and decided to unite the two committees. Austria and Germany are
treated as separate nations in the report, although the subcommittee chair is
Harrison Barrow for both Germany and Austria, therefore showing that though
listed separately, the situations and peoples are similar enough to fall under
the same chairperson on the subcommittee. The sixth report also informed the
reader that the Relief Committee was the first organization in “so-called enemy
countries”[12] where
they were “the pioneers in initiating relief work.”[13]
This is significant because as the first relief workers in the areas, they made
some of the largest impacts in doing small deeds to aid people in need. This,
as the first act of help after a devastating war, would have make a large
impact on those they fed and clothed in Austria and Germany. This impact would
serve to help Quakers receive respect in the countries, and certainly aided the
resurrection of the religion in the region.
A very important part of the Relief
Committee’s work was their spiritual aid, along with their material aid.
For those on the Committee, it was their way of enacting their faith in the
world to provide aid in foreign countries. However, while fighting was still
active during WWI, the aid
workers were unable to profess their faith along with their aid work.
This was revoked after the cessation of hostilities, as the sixth report stated
“We have to be thankful not
only for new areas accessible but for new liberties regained, for with the
withdrawal of the declaration which workers used to have to sign that they
would undertake no
propaganda, we are again free to express in words as well as by deeds the
principles which prompt our help to suffering humanity.”[14]
This created a different kind of aid work in
Austria and Germany, as prior to the sixth report the aid workers were forced
to sign a contract that they would undertake no propaganda, which would have also included the spiritual message that the
Quaker workers wanted to spread. This spiritual message of Quakerism
that the aid workers brought can be defined as Social Witness, the desire to enact the Quaker inner
spirituality by improving the world. One essential part of Quakerism for
these aid workers was the
common humanity of all, including those in need in enemy countries.
Therefore when others were hesitate to help those their countries had fought
against, the Quakers saw aid work in Germany and Austria as no different than
aid work in Britain. The
workers’ ability to
express the inner spirituality was what introduced the true idea of Quaker aid to
Austria and Germany. Nowhere
else in post-WWI Europe did Quakerism become so firmly connected with their aid
work. Therefore the Quaker aid work not only was an important factor for
converts, but anyone aided by the Quakers in the post-WWI era remembered it
throughout their lives. By bringing non-Quakers into the Quaker fold,
their sphere of influence was that much widened. This would serve the Quakers
well during WWII, as many remembered the effect the Quakers had on individual
lives with their aid work.
By bringing a spiritual message to the aid
work it became also missionary work, which had not been
the case previously during WWI for Quakers. This change was important, because
as previously stated, their faith was what motivated the aid workers to carry
out their work in Europe. The Quakers were optimistic about their missionary
work, though they realized in their reports the limitations of their work, as
shown in the Committee’s sixth report.
“We believe that no true relief work can be carried on without the
spiritual message, the converse is not true,
and we may anticipate the maintaining of such centres of Quaker teaching long
after the more urgent need for our relief work has ceased…we believe that the
practical Christian lives led by our workers and the friendships they have
formed with those amongst whom they have lived, are potent influences in
turning people to seek whence they draw their inspiration and in creating a
desire to know the truth as we believe it.”[15]
They believed that not only is their relief work impossible without a
spiritual influence, but also that the aid they provided and the connections
they made had influenced those they helped to turn towards “the truth as [they]
believe it,” i.e., the Quaker religion and way of life.
This quote truly sums up the message that the Relief Committee was hoping to
bring to Europe with their aid work. That though they understood that the
largest impact they may have is to physically aid those in the countries they
worked in, their purpose
for helping was not only physical, but also spiritual. The aid workers
could provide physical aid, but the Quakers felt that it was not only a
physical need but also a spiritual need as the countries they were active in
were not only physically devastated.
Therefore it was important
to those aid workers to emphasize their Quaker identity and faith to those they
helped. The aid workers led by example for those they helped, hoping that
perhaps the impoverish peoples of Austria and Germany would be inspired by the missionary aid workers to
lead a more Quaker way of life. These attempts are largely successful in
their eyes, as stated by the Committee in their seventh report.
“We believe that wherever
our workers have been the bearers of physical relief they have been received
also as ambassadors of a spirit of brotherhood and reconciliation. We have many
and increasing evidences of this fact, and it may truly be said that the
peoples of Central Europe have regarded our gifts and services as an earnest of
a new spirit.”[16]
The emphasis in both reports
shows that the spiritual
work was the most important part for the aid workers, though the
physical gifts and help they brought Central Europe was essential, it was the spiritual message
that helped them make connections on a deeper level with the populace.
This acknowledgement of the effectiveness of the spiritual message in their
report helps to explain
the number of converts in the areas visited after the lifting of the ban of
missionary work. In this way their work in Austria, Germany and
Poland was unique in that
the Quakers were able to combine, for the first time during WWI, their aid work
with their spiritual message.
All
of the “enemy states” were in grave situations after the armistice, but the Quakers
felt that especially Austria, and secondly Germany, was in the most danger as
discussed in their seventh report.
“It must be remembered that
in the first period after the Armistice many were stunned by the overwhelming
defeat; in the dissolution of the empire all threads of social organization had
been broken and the Austrians, weakened by long continued undernourishment, did
not find it easy to adapt themselves to the new conditions.”[17]
The danger seen here was
that not only had previous aid and social structures fallen apart, but that the
populace could not find a way in their shock to help themselves. As the
situation in Austria had worsened throughout WWI, the populace became
increasingly helpless, and after the defeat, there was no system in place to
revive the people or the state. There danger seen here was not only of the
countries ceasing to function, but that potentially a more dangerous social
order could take over these vulnerable countries. The aid workers were
concerned for the future of the states, and also for the future of Europe as
they witnessed the dire conditions in the countries. “Although Germany has not
as yet suffered perhaps as acutely as Austria, the conditions there are very
serious, and so far growing worse from day to day, and threaten to become of
the utmost gravity, not only to Germany but to the whole of Europe, if steps
are not taken to remedy the causes of them.”[18]
This perhaps helps to explain the focus on the aid work on younger generations.
Though there was some help to the elderly, the main push of the aid work was to bring relief to
students and children. This would be to try to bring a message of hope to those who would
grow up to run the state, such as students, as opposed to letting the people
Austria and Germany feel that they have no help and no options.
The
Relief Committee’s work in Austria connected them with essential members of the
population, namely children, mothers, and students. When the Quakers arrived in
Vienna, they discovered that in Austria the infant mortality rate was far higher than the
birthrate due to malnourishment and disease. The sixth report stated,
“[Vienna’s] supplies of essentials such as coal, milk, clothes and credit have
dwindled to a fraction of what is required.”[19]
The Quakers, in response, worked with Welfare Centres that existed in districts
to distribute essentials such as milk, sugar, butter, oatmeal, cocoa and soap.
Through this program their aid reached at least 25,000 families in 1919.[20]
However, this was still not enough to cope with the astounding numbers of ill
children. “By the end of October [1921] 83,483 children had been examined; of
these only 8,665 were normal” and the rest ranged from “32,267…rather
undernourished,” “33,589…badly undernourished” to “8,962…very badly undernourished.”[21] This
is a clear example of how devastated the Austrian population was, that such
large numbers of children in the center of Vienna could be so ill. Despite the
lack of supplies available, the Quakers felt that what they could provide was bringing
some comfort to those they reached. The Quakers also felt that their missionary work continued to be needed
and brought “hope and faith in the power of Divine Love,”[22] as
written in the seventh report. This message of hope coupled with the
physical aid that made an impact on those they helped, as seen from the
numerous thanks from Germans and Austrians the reports feature. It was this spiritual message
that sustained the Quaker missionaries in Austria and Germany, and it was also
this message of hope that they infused in their aid work.
In
addition to their family aid, the Quaker student initiatives were a calculated
attempt to not only aid, but also to influence the young adult population of
Austria and Germany. The aid workers
“found such evidence of real distress and illness among students in Vienna that
[they] felt that the future of the State was seriously threatened.”[23] The
aid workers were concerned that without help that Austria would fail due to
malnutrition of its youth, that there would be no newly educated minds to help
the country to a new social order. Therefore the student population was one of
the most targeted populations of the Quaker aid work. Due to lack of nutrition
and lack of appropriate clothing, the student population was in serious danger
of starvation or freezing in the Austrian winters. Their first solution in
Austria was “Clothing sales…arranged for the poorest of the students at which
they are allowed to buy the most necessary garments at the very low price which
they can afford. Warm breakfasts have now been arranged to begin shortly,
starting with 500 students and increase shortly to 1500.”[24]
In later reports, and in Germany, they continued to grow their aid programs for
students. They saw the students as “perhaps future leaders of Germany” and
“[realized] what depends on clear vision and study to fit them for wise
judgment and clear foresight, one understands the urgency of doing something to
help them.”[25] The Quakers were incredibly
perceptive in this regard in that they understood not only what population
would be most open to their message of a new way of religiously interacting
with the world, but also that they sensed which population was going to be most
influential in the upcoming years.
The
aid work the Relief Committee provided coupled with their missionary message
helps to show why Quakerism revived in Austria and Germany in the midtwentieth
century. Being some of the first to aid the populaces and provide a message of
hope after a devastating war clearly left an influence on those they aided,
both children and students. Therefore it is unsurprising that though prior to
WWI there were few Quakers in Germany and Austria, by WWII there was a
mid-sized population of Quakers in both countries. As previously stated by the
seventh report, the populace of Austria were stunned by the defeat, and due to
the dissolution of the empire lost all threads of social organization.
Therefore as the Quakers were some of the first to come with aid, organization
and a message of hope, it stands to reason that many connected with the
spiritual message of humanity that followed. It was this message of common humanity and hope for a
better future that attracted many to Quakerism, as there was a lack of
social order and hope for the future in post-WWI Austria and Germany. The unity
and accepting message of Quaker beliefs, as will be explained in the next
section, helped to provide stability for some members of the devastated
populace.
Quaker Belief and Practice
Quakers
around the world have a variety of understandings of what their Quakerism asks
of them. Therefore there are many ways of understanding and enacting one’s
faith in Quakerism.
Generally Quaker doctrine asks that members interact with the world and do not
lose themselves wholly to the spiritual, but there is not one central dogma or
credo that Quakerism follows. As Hans Schmitt says in his introduction, “Quaker
theology begins and ends a personal experience.”[26]
However, a personal experience does not necessitate turning inward on oneself
and ignoring the world. This means that for many Quakers, it is their conscience that helps them
to understand how to live in the world and how to enact their spirituality.
Two of the main Quakers ways of living in the world are quietist and activist.
Quietist Quakers believe in the quieting of daily activities and that one’s
spirituality is an inward experience. Activist Quakers, such as the
missionaries, see their activism coming from their spirituality, and that the
activism they carried out in reforming and aiding the world is a direct witness
to their Quaker faith. Both of these types of Quakers share a common belief in
the main concepts of Quakerism, as outlined in this section, but interact very
differently with the world based on their understanding of the behaviors that
Quakerism asks of them as opposed to their Quaker spirituality.
One concept that the Quakers who
brought Quakerism to Austria and Germany felt was imperative to follow was
Social Witness, the combination of their inward spiritually and their outward
deeds. This was not an original part of the Quaker faith, but “after early
millenarian or perfection hopes had been abandoned [the Quakers] strove…to
reform society [rather] than to effect a total change.”[27] In
this the Quaker missionaries in Austria and Germany carried out their faith by
enacting social change such as feeding the starving communities, clothing the
poor, and providing medical care for the ill.
Instead of trying to overhaul society, the Quakers sought to minister to the humanity in all.
Inner Light, the Inner
Light of Christ in each person, in the Quaker faith guides individual’s
religious experience and what he or she feels moves him or her to action. For
example, early Quakers “concluded that war and violence, even when employed by
the ‘saints,’ contradicted the Inner Light of Christ within us.”[28]
However, not all Quakers subscribe to this, or they choose to interpret it in
different ways, such as conscientious objection or refusing to work in a
fighting capacity for the military. Though this is one example of the varieties
of understanding Quakerism, and helps to illustrate how the lack of a specific dogma or credo
allows for multiple understandings of Quakerism amongst Quakers. It is a
personal understanding of one’s own Inner Light that dictates action in the
world, therefore ones own life and circumstances partially dictate a personal
understanding of the Inner Light.
It
was partially this freedom of choice in religion that drew some Quakers in
German and Austria to the religion.
“Hans Albrecht, clerk of the
German Yearly Meeting during the Third Reich, pursued the vision of a community of searchers not bound
by doctrine. [In his view, the Quaker community was] ‘Not a community of
menials whose opinions should be leveled into one opinion by some form of coercion and forced into a narrow
inescapable lane, but a community of free individuals who seek their way
together in mutual responsibility and in responsibility towards God.”[29]
For the German Yearly
Meeting, Quakerism did not lead them down a strict path of doctrinal religion,
but rather let each member come as an individual. In this way the religion
placed a great deal of responsibility for ones own spirituality in the
individual.
Therefore it was a community
based off of diversity rather than homogeneity, and the mutual responsibility
owed to each other was finding the appropriate and spiritual way to live in the
world and to live with God. One reason why the Germany Yearly Meeting
emphasized individuality was that in the meeting at the time one did not have
to sever previous religious ties. Therefore each member was coming in with
diverse backgrounds and religious perspectives, despite all being united as
Quakers and members of the German Yearly Meeting. Quakerism’s goal was not to force one opinion on the
members of the meeting, but that there should be discourse and hopefully the
members would feel moved
to similar conclusions from their inward spiritual life. At the same
time, the members were responsible for and to each other, as well as to God. The freedom of debate, dissent
and personal choice in Quakerism was an important and lively part of the
German and Austrian meetings.
However,
this freedom and individual decisions served to allow for different understandings of what each
Quaker’s responsibility was. Schmitt’s observation that “the absence of dogmatic
practices has tended to undermine Quaker unity”[30] is
most clearly shown by the differing opinions of the German Yearly Meeting.
Some in the Berlin meeting saw it as their responsibility to help Jews escape
the country; some in Vienna saw it as their responsibility to follow the state.
Yet both these meetings were part of the same German Yearly Meeting. The
differences between the Quakers greatly undermined the unity of the German
Yearly Meeting, as it was very difficult to reach consensus between the
members. Because there was no doctrine and no one opinion forced on the members
of the Berlin and Vienna Meetings, the members did not necessarily have to enact
their religion in the same way. However, both could be united in the same
German Yearly Meeting as the meeting was a center for debate throughout all of
WWII. Each individual was
entitled to their opinion, understanding of Quakerism, and way of living in the
world, as Quakerism allows. However, this meant that no one strict code
of how to interact with the new government could be formed by the meeting. The
emphasis placed by the German Yearly Meeting was not necessarily on enacting
ethics, but on how the
Quakers were to live in their uncertain world during the Interwar period and
WWII. Ethics for Quakers, like many other religions, are not divorced
from the main spiritual life of the religion, however, uniquely for Quakerism, that spiritual life is mainly
inward, and then brought to the outside world in either a quietist or activist
manner. Therefore, if a Quaker feels that what is ethical is to provide
aid work, and that his or her faith moves them to, they find a way to provide
aid. If a Quaker feels that the best way to live their life ethically is do serve the state and their
faith is an inward, private experience, then they may not feel moved to do the
same aid work. There was no point for the Quakers of the German Yearly Meeting
to have to choose one path or the other based on the principles of the meeting.
This means that the Quakers in Germany and Austria during WWII had the freedom
to interpret and enact their ethics and faith in whatever manner they felt was
appropriate for their own lives.
Chapter 2: The Vienna Meeting, Nazism
and Rudolph Boeck
Due to the unique circumstances of the time and place, these Nazism and Quakerism both had a profound effect on many parts of the populace in Germany and Austria. Quakerism, as the less rigid ideology, found itself needing to react to the overwhelming power of the Nazi institution. This chapter explores the Quaker reactions to the Nazi party as seen through the German Yearly Meeting, the Quaker newspaper Die Quäker, and the Quaker Rudolph Boeck. The reactions across the German Yearly Meeting were incredibly diverse, and this was due to the previously discussed deeply personal nature of Quakerism. The German Yearly Meeting attempted to guide its members, but due to dissent and disagreement within, the meeting was unable to ever form a clear response to Nazism. Therefore, as Nazism helped those included within its exclusive boundaries, some Quakers benefitted from this exclusivity.
The
German Yearly Meeting’s
Tensions: Activist or Quietist?
Quakerism as a religion was counted, along with German Mennonites and Seventh Day Adventists, as a Freikirche;
“In between the church
mainstream and pacifist sects were several pacifist communities closer to the
denominational mold. They belonged to a niche of German Christendom known as Freikirchen: free churches. Lacking the German provincial churches’ ties to the state, they still
stood closer to the theological mainstream than the sects.”[31]
Lacking the ties to the state allowed the Freikirchen the freedom to choose how closely they would align
themselves with the state, as their theological views were not so far from the
mainstream that they would be considered dangerous. The Nazi reaction to the Freikirchen as opposed to the sects and
provincial churches was comparatively mild.
“The regime outlawed most
sects and sought to diminish the societal stature of provincial churches; at
the same time, it tended
to bypass free churches.”[32]
The cause of this bypassing is unclear, but when Protestant churches,
sects and Jehovah’s Witnesses began to suffer, the free churches “remained
comparatively untouched.”[33] Hans
Schmitt offers a few ideas as to why this was, and one the most compelling
reasons is that “some
Gestapo officials had themselves benefitted from the child feedings of the
1920s, a fact that would continue to surface in a variety of encounters
throughout the Nazi era.”[34]
Schmitt’s evidence combined with Lichti’s description of a dictionary for children that laid
out only three religions, Protestantism, Catholicism and Quakerism,[35]
clearly support the idea that the memory of the aid work the Quakers provided
helped to protect the religion during World War II. Therefore, despite the
Quakers being the Freikirche to
remain furthest in message from the Nazi party, they were still dealt with
lightly due to the memory of the life saving aid work provided by the Quaker
aid workers after World War I.
Many of the free churches, according to
Lichti, were reluctant to risk their relatively safer status by criticizing the
regime. The Quakers, more so than the other two
free churches, opposed parts of the Nazi regime’s policies in their monthly
paper (Der Quäker)[36],
occasionally through anti-Jewish metaphor,[37]
and “modeled what a Christian periodical did
not have to say.”[38] Though
anti-Jewish metaphor sounds in line with the Nazi party policy, Lichti argues
that when employed in Der Quäker it
was taking nationalist
examples from the Old and New Testaments and criticizing the nationalism of the Israelites. Despite opposing the Nazi
party policy, this does not mean that the publication was free from bias. In
Lichti’s view, the Quaker
periodical “…maintained a critical distance to Nazi ideology while Mennonite
and SDA periodicals did not.”[39]
This may be true, but the editors of the paper were clearly opposed to the
regime, having fled their home country in 1933. [40]
Therefore though the paper holds interesting Quaker outlooks on the war and the
events in Germany and Austria, the paper has a clear bias towards the opinions
that are closer to those held by those who chose to subvert and oppose the Nazi
regime than those who upheld the state ideals.
An
essential part of understanding the tensions in the German Yearly Meeting is
understanding the variety of opinions about the state contained within the
Meeting. As Lichti emphasizes, “German Friends never advanced a simplistic understanding of separation
of church and state, and certainly never advocated an unconditional regard for
the authority of the state. But they also did not present a united front.”[41] Therefore there was no clear-cut separation
in the lives of the Quakers on how to interact with the state. Though some Quakers perhaps felt it
their duty to follow the state’s authority, some felt that what the state was
doing went against their religion. The meeting itself did not have one
opinion that it put forth, nor did it attempt to instruct its members exactly
what to do.
Instruction would have gone
directly against the meeting’s choice to allow each individual member to decide
his or her path in order with his or her own conscience. This multiplicity of Quaker positions
in church and state
is partially what created contentious debate in the German Yearly Meeting
during the Nazi regime. For
most of the German and Austrian Friends, their Quakerism was an essential part
of their identity, but Quakerism doctrinally did not dictate their
understanding of what authority the state should hold, merely that they
should form their own opinions. Therefore it is unsurprising
that some Quakers, like most other Austrians and Germans, followed the common
practice of trusting and supporting the Nazi regime. German and Austrian
Quakerism’s official stance on trusting the regime was that they should be “loyal citizens ‘to the extent that it is
reconcilable with their obedience to God and their recognition of the
claims of
God upon them.’”[42] In
Quakerism, one’s obedience to God and recognizing the claims of God is derived
from one’s conscience and understanding of one’s faith. This is clearly derived
from the ways in which Quakerism was brought to Austria and Germany, namely
that each individual should do what their faith moves them to do. As the aid
workers were moved to go to the “enemy states” and provide aid, their message
of conscience dictating action in the world was passed onto those who
converted. If a Quaker could reconcile obeying the state and obeying what God
has called him or her to do, then a Quaker could easily be both a Nazi and a
Quaker. Perhaps for
Quakers who joined the Nazi regime, they felt the best way to carry out God’s
work was to be a part of the state which was, in their eyes, rebuilding Germany
and Austria.
Part
of what appealed about political Nazism, which enticed some Quakers, was the inclusive
quality of the movement. If one was included in the Völk, the German word for people, or the “right” people by Nazi
definition, then it was a new
kind of inclusiveness that some had not previously experienced. “[The]
more ‘inclusive’ dimension of Nazism and nationalism usually gets short shrift.
The horror of Nazi
ideology lies in its genocidal exclusiveness, but much of its popular appeal
lay in its circumscribed inclusiveness.”[43]
Due to the economic distress following World War I, students and those poorly
connected found it hard to feed themselves or find work. The inclusive attitude
of Nazism and the massive government the Nazi party operated opened up jobs to many who had been
unable to find employment. For the first time since WWI, under the Nazi government many Austrians
were able to feel included in a larger organization or identity, as they had
been in the Hapsburg Empire.
One
possible reason Quaker rhetoric and their paper Der Quäker largely avoided anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic language
and ideas is due to the fact that unlike other churches, they felt no need de-Judaize the
bible, as the faith was not based directly on the Christian Bible.[44]
Anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism despite sounding like similar concepts are not
actually that alike. Anti-Judaism is against the religion itself, and
creates the supersessionist rhetoric, that Christianity has supplanted Judaism,
and desire to remove or criticize the “Jewish” aspects of the Christian Old
Testament. Anti-Semitism is against the concept of a Jewish people or
race, and despite including attacks against the religion of Judaism, is a
different concept than anti-Judaism. There were notable examples in Der Quäker of anti-Semitic examples that
Lichti asserts were metaphors for criticisms of the anti-international
sentiment of the Nazis. Emil Fuchs, a former Lutheran pastor, though not a
Nazi, did criticize Judaism with “his conviction that Christianity superseded
Judaism: Jesus had transformed the Jewish conception of God, making it
‘infinitely more profound, vast, and noble.’”[45]
Fuchs also presented Jewish religious legalism as ‘the reason why Jews kept
falling away from God.”[46] Both
of these examples present Judaism as an inferior religion that is causing its
own distance from God, rather than Christianity who Fuchs sees as moving people
towards God through more “profound, vast, and noble” means. Though far from the
inhumane extremes that the Nazi party reached in response to Judaism, the fact
that a Quaker who helped Jews flee Germany would condemn Judaism and Jews in
this manner is telling of the general anti-Semitism of the period.
“Hostility regarding the
presence of Jewish members surfaced even in the German Yearly Meeting. While it
never led to the exclusion of Jews from the Quaker body, it illustrates that
these sentiments and anxieties were so pervasive that they penetrated even the
liberal haven of the German Friends.”[47]
This hostility towards the presence of Jewish members of the meeting shows that
the fear of and disregard for
Jews was a part of the German Yearly Meeting, at least in part. Not only was there anti-Jewish
sentiment in the meeting, but also early in Quakerism’s resurrection in Germany
and Austria the German Yearly
Meeting took it upon themselves to consider “The Jewish Problem.”
“During the late 1920s,
certain German Friends promoted the conventional Christian solution to the
‘Jewish Problem’: conversion to Christianity…One likely reason why the German
Yearly Meeting did not adopt the ‘conversion solution’ was that many German Quakers
entertained an interfaith perspective. To be precise, German Friends were
divided. One sector
maintained that Quakerism was specifically Christian; the opposing
sector believed that Quakerism transcended Christianity.”[48]
As stated earlier, the German Yearly Meeting did not require members to
give up their previous religious affiliations. However, this does not mean that
some members did not want Quakerism to be exclusively Christian.
Therefore as tensions arose in Germany and Austria as to “The Jewish Question,”
the meeting had to confront the diversity of opinions on religious affiliation
within the meeting. This also shows that there were conservative voices
within the meeting, but the overall population of the meeting did lean towards
the liberal, as there was ultimately no solution created to answer “The
Jewish Question.”
Despite
the strains of anti-Semitism that can be found, many Quakers in the German
Yearly Meeting were quite liberal and accepting of all. The Quakers of the Berlin
Meeting were perhaps the least anti-Semitic of the Christian organizations in Germany.
In 1931, the Berlin Quaker
Meeting issued an apology to the Jewish people of Berlin after an attack by
anti-Semitic gangs after Rosh Hashanah saying, “We feel a sense of co-responsibility and complicity, because we did not
do enough to detoxify the hatefilled atmosphere.”[49] Many
similar apologies were released after WWII to the Jewish populace by
organizations, but the Berlin Meeting was the only unaffected organizations to
recognize the atmosphere of the time as it was occurring and to stand up to it
in this way. This is one of the many ways that the Berlin Quaker Meeting set
itself apart from not only other Germans, but also other Quaker Meetings. The
Berlin Quaker Meeting was home to numerous Quakers who helped Jews and
other oppressed peoples during the Nazi regime. Despite the liberalism and aid
work of the meeting, only two years later in 1933 a peace activist named Marie
Pleissner came to the Berlin Meeting,
“In the hope that they might
issue some form of public protest…she chose the right German Quaker Meeting,
for none was more activist or more outspoken in its opposition to anti-Semitism
than the Berlin Meeting.
She recalled that her plea received a cool reception: ‘They said, ‘If you want
to do something, then do it at your own risk.’’ Several leading German Quakers
in fact agreed with Pleissner, but more cautious voices prevailed.”[50]
Well known activist members
of the Meeting such as Gerhard Halle, Emil Fuchs, Margarete Lachmund and Grete
Sumpf wanted a public
statement, but the meeting was unwilling to publicly represent itself as
speaking out against Kristallnacht, a
night of vandalism and violence again the Jews of Germany and their property.
Public protest at this time in Germany was dangerous and would have been seen
by the government as opposition, which the Nazis did not take kindly. Despite
this failing to speak out, the Berlin Meeting’s actions spoke louder than its
words and many members of the Berlin Meeting throughout the Third Reich did aid
Jews in whatever way they could such as helping them escape to other countries,
hiding them and offering them shelter and aid.
The
German Yearly Meeting tried to help its members decide how to approach opposing
the anti-Semitism and racism of the Nazi regime without encouraging separation
from the overall German society. The same three Quakers who sided with Marie
Pleissner also attempted to move the German Yearly Meeting to speak out against
the oppressive Nuremberg Laws, but “Hans Albrecht and a majority of the membership rejected any
demonstrative act that would jeopardize the existence of the society.”[51] A
large portion of the German Yearly Meeting realized that to actively
demonstrate disapproval at such a public level would endanger all members of
the meeting, whether or not they had participated. This protective measure, as
also seen by a letter sent to the members of the German Yearly Meeting by the
executive council, summarizes the meeting’s approach to society. Though each member was encouraged to
individually act on his or her own conscience in reaction to the world, the
meeting itself was unwilling to separate itself from society as an important
part of Quakerism for many of the Quakers of the meeting was enacting their
faith in the world, not removing themselves from it.
“[A confidential letter sent
to the members of the German Yearly Meeting] stood by Quaker teachings that
challenged Nazism’s chauvinist racism and antiSemitism, but also made clear
that the German Yearly Meeting did not intend to sever all ties to German
society and go
underground. As a consequence, German Friends never collectively denounced Nazi
anti-Jewish policy.”[52]
This letter does not dictate
how Quakers should react to the state, it simply outlines that Quakerism
believes in the humanity of all people and that the Quakers should not
subscribe to the racism and anti-Semitism shown by the Nazi party. However,
this letter does not mandate standing up to the regime or opposing the regime.
The overall emphasis of the meeting is that it does not intend to become an underground movement and
remove itself from society. Therefore, it also allows for members to
join society and to support parts of the Nazi party other than the racism, such
as the economic policies that were so appealing to many Austrians and Germans.
This also means that the German Yearly Meeting was not united enough to
collectively denounce the Nazi anti-Jewish policy. As previously seen, the
meeting was unable to present a united front on many debates, and therefore in
their collective statements and responses there is room for multiple ways of
understanding the message and approaching the world from a personal
understanding of Quakerism. Therefore, though the German Yearly Meeting might
challenge the Nazi stance, it in no way barred Quakers from identifying with or
agreeing with the Nazis, as there was no move to sever ties with or denounce
society.
It
is difficult to criticize the German Yearly Meeting for refusing to become a
target for the Nazi regime as the Meeting had only recently come into being,
and the population of German Friends was quite small. Therefore to support the
continuation of the religion in the area, it would be wise to not endanger its
small community. Though a larger percentage of German Quakers aided Jews, the
total number of German Friends willing to put down their names to help Jews at
the Berlin Center was only twenty-two.[53]
Lichti feels that “It would be wrong to detach these individual efforts from
the German Yearly Meeting; the proportion of members involved suggests that
individual efforts emanated from an orientation inspired by the German Yearly
Meeting.”[54]
Lichti’s point is supported fully by the fact that those Quakers, who wrote about their experiences
in helping Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis, often cited their own
Quaker faith as what motivated them to help those in need. However, the German
Yearly Meeting was often divided by many different opinions during debates.
“One American Quaker account
reported that the presence of members of Jewish descent in the German Yearly
Meeting did cause ‘acrimonious dispute within the Society itself, which seemed
split by the infection of hate.’…the
German Yearly Meeting was not a sealed society of selfless saints. Some
accounts of the Vienna Quaker Meeting, for example, describe a singular lack of
concern for Jews. And other accounts suggest a cleft between the activist and
quietist sectors of the German Yearly Meeting.”[55]
The differences between the
activist and the quietest sectors of the meeting are
perhaps the most evident, as shown by this observer’s account. The Vienna
Meeting is the source of many of the quietist Quakers, and Rudolph Boeck was
its representative to the German Yearly Meeting. Though many members of the
Berlin Meeting risked their lives due to their activism, the more inward Quakers did not
necessarily feel called to do the same work. Therefore, for some of
those Quakers that remained in society as quietists with their inward faith,
there was no call or need to oppose Nazi policy and stand up to the government.
The German Yearly Meeting never demanded activism of its members, and those in
the Vienna Meeting did not feel that their Quakerism called them to activism.
Lichti
cites differing opinions[56] on the
willingness of the Vienna Meeting to aid Jews and resist the Nazi regime.
However, I do not believe he is reading the differences correctly. He reads the
sources he has found on the Vienna Meeting as sometimes aiding the Vienna
International Quaker Center, but he is not reading these accurately. The
Vienna Meeting was not a part of the Vienna Center, and though the Vienna Center
did work to aid persecuted Jews, it was largely staffed and run by foreign
Quakers. As Schmitt says, “The Quaker office at Singerstrasse 16 became less of a ‘center’ of the
Society of Friends in Austria but more an outpost for British and American
welfare workers.”[57]
Therefore though Lichti cites a member of the meeting reflecting on the
services offered by the Vienna Center, the member credits all the aid work to
the foreign Quakers staffing the Center, and the only interaction the member describes the Vienna
Meeting as having with the Center is through using the same space for their
meeting for worship. As Schmitt
cites, when the Vienna Center rose to attempt to meet the almost immediate
challenge of evacuating Vienna’s large Jewish population after the Anschluss, “they did so without the
cooperation of the small meeting in the Austrian capital…[one of the staffers
of the Vienna Center] had taxed Vienna Quakers with a lack of courage,
contending: ‘They will probably take on protective coloring and keep quiet.’”[58] This
comment clearly depicts the political leanings of the Vienna Meeting. The “protective coloring” is
the political affiliations with the Nazi party that will safely shepherd them
through the Nazi regime. Though “protective coloring” can be interpreted
as simply going with who is in power, Vienna Quakers such as Rudolph Boeck can
be seen internalizing and supporting the Nazi message. Not only did the aid
worker’s comments indicate that the Vienna Meeting was aligned with the Nazi
party, but the Meeting also “[restricted its] attendance to Aryans.”[59] This
further distanced the Austrian Quakers from German meetings such as Berlin as
no other meeting felt moved to alienate its non-
Aryan members.
The Overlap Between
Quakerism and the Nazi Party
The
Quakers in Germany and Austria at the time of the Nazism of the Third Reich
were varied, including both native Austrians and Germans and numerous visitors
from America and Britain. Despite sharing one religion and one German Yearly
Meeting, the Quakers in these countries had very different relationships
between themselves, their religion and the world around them. These differing
priorities and varieties of Quakerism allowed for the German and Austrian
Quakers to have as much discussion and dissent as they did in their meetings. The disagreements on what it
means to be a Quaker and how a Quaker approaches the world are central to
understanding the differing views of the Quakers in Austria and Germany.
Two of the most notable examples of Nazi support in Quaker meetings are the
Paul Helbeck controversy and Rudolf Boeck. Both examples exhibit each man’s
understanding of their Quaker identity, the debates, and disagreements other
Quakers had in reaction to Helbeck’s and Boeck’s support of Nazi policies.
The Paul Helbeck controversy
was the case of one of the founding German Quakers who was deeply involved in
politics[60] and
wrote a letter to the Nazi newspaper, Völkischer
Beobachter, and the German Yearly Meeting chastised him for representing his views in the letter as
Quaker views. The controversy itself was whether or not Helbeck was
pushed out of the Meeting because of this letter, but what is of particular
interest is the content of Helbeck’s letter and its reception. In his letter
“he outlined areas of agreement and disagreement with the party ideologist Alfred
Rosenberg’s magnum opus: The Myth of the
Twentieth Century.”[61]
Rosenberg’s ideologies were some of the founding tenets of the Nazi Party.
Though Helbeck’s letter has been lost, Schmitt’s research did uncover a note
written by Helbeck in which Helbeck
wrote that “the National Socialists pursue an economic route which [he]
substantially agree[d].”[62]
Throughout Schmitt’s recording of this controversy and subsequent debate at the
meeting, there is no mention anti-Semitism in Helbeck’s letter. However, there
is support of the Nazi party’s economic policies from Helbeck himself. In the minds of the many of the
people at the time, the Nazi party was attempting to return Germany and Austria
to their former, and rightful, glory.
Schmitt’s
research into the minutes of the meeting has preserved the reception of the
letter amongst the meeting.
The majority of the meeting received it poorly because though “its contents
apparently challenged German Friends to consider ‘how far they can cooperate in
supporting the acts of the new government here’”[63] which
is not unconditional support for the Nazi party. However, Helbeck did in
his letter outline where he felt Quakers could support the government’s
economic policies, although there is no mention of the social policies nor of
what Helbeck disagreed with in Rosenberg’s book. Many such as the well known
Quaker activist, Emil
Fuchs, “could not understand how a Quaker could find any area of agreement with
a Nazi luminary who had accused pacifists of being simply cowards, ‘at a
time when some [Quakers] sat in concentration camps.’”[64]
This view defends his friends in camps without leaving room for the economic
gain that some like Helbeck and Boeck found in the Nazi government. Fuchs was
not the only member of the Meeting to receive Helbeck’s letter with strong
resistance. This disagreement shows the internal tensions in the German Yearly
Meeting, in that one Quaker could identify, understand and support the Nazi
ideologist who publicly denounced pacifists, while other Quakers affirmed
pacifism as a central part of being a Quaker and therefore could not accept
Rosenberg.
Helbeck
also had defenders, further demonstrating the tensions within the Meeting. One
such defender was Hans Albrecht who said “Helbeck was free to write to the Völkischer Beobachter, but should not have done so as a Quaker.”[65] This a
weak defense of Helbeck’s Quakerism, but a strong defense of the freedom of the
German Yearly Meeting to allow each member his or her own opinion. Albrecht
here seems to be seeking to avoid actively aligning or distancing the movement
from society, as so many of the statements of the German Yearly Meeting sought
to do. Schmitt says that the notes from the Meeting “recorded interruptions
from the floor [in response to Albrecht]: ‘Can one do anything else?’”[66] It is
obvious from this statement that
for some Quakers their Quakerism was intrinsically tied with their activities
in the world; that they could not separate their understanding of Quakerism
from their daily lives. However, for those that aligned with multiple
ideologies or religions, it would be possibly to have multiple vantage points
to speak from. This comment also supports that there were multiple perspectives
on how Quakerism was involved in the public and private spheres in the German
Yearly Meeting. For some
members of the Meeting, their Quakerism was private and unrelated to their
political views, and for others, pacifism and aiding others in need were
essential parts of their Quaker identity. Quakerism was spread in
Germany and Austria by aid workers from American and Britain not twenty years
earlier, and therefore it seems surprising that some would be able to separate
themselves from the not too distant aid workers who so strongly identified
their help with their understanding of Quakerism.
Several
notable American Quakers were sent to Germany by the American Friends Service
Committee to speak with German officials and to survey the situation in Europe
shortly after Kristallnacht.[67] These
Quakers were Robert Yarnall, a Quaker businessman, Rufus Jones, a
Quaker theologian and professor at Haverford College, and George Walton,
headmaster of a Quaker school in Pennsylvania. One encounter at the German
Yearly Meeting between Yarnall and his Austrian counterpart, Rudolf Boeck is of
particular interest. Yarnall calls Boeck, Vienna’s representative on the
Executive Committee of the German Yearly Meeting “‘a real, honest, enthusiastic
Nazi.’”[68] This was surprising for Yarnall;
he was not expecting to find a Quaker so different from himself. Having come to
attempt to support aid efforts and work with the Nazis to help the Quaker cause
of helping those persecuted escape, it is especially surprising to an American
Quaker to find an Austrian Quaker, seemingly from the same set of beliefs to be
so out of line with what Yarnall understood as his Quakerism. However,
as seen from the German Yearly Meeting’s guidance and debates, German Quakerism
was still forming its identity and its precepts at this time.
Sheila Spielhofer resists Schmitt’s claims and Yarnall’s understanding of Rudolph Boeck’s Nazi allegiance. Spielhofer takes issue with the fact that Schmitt seems to want to show “how callous Rudi Böck [Rudolph Boeck] had become.”[69] However, this is not Schmitt’s goal in my understanding, but rather his goal is to show the range of Quaker allegiances and lifestyles during WWII. Spielhofer goes on to say “It seems more likely that the promise that the Nazis had given that they would help the poor and unemployed….that the union with German was the best solution to Austria’s problems.”[70] However, this selection undermines the point that Spielhofer was making. That promise is exactly what attracted Boeck to Nazism, but that does not mean that he was not a Nazi. The kind of Nazis I argue the Quakers in Vienna were, were not members of the Gestapo or the SS, they were not aware of the extremes of the camps, they simply wanted to regain the dignity lost from the fall of the empire. Therefore the Nazi promise to solve the problems Austria and Germany were facing was enticing to many of the people included in the Nazi rhetoric.
Both Yarnall and Boeck held important positions as Quakers, yet their Quakerisms, and how this affected their approach to the world was radically different. Their discussion of Kristallnacht shows the vast gap in understanding between the two men. “‘For Boeck, as for other Nazis, the November pogrom [Kristallnacht] ‘was a spontaneous uprising of the people.’ When Yarnall pointed out that this ‘spontaneity’ occurred at the same time throughout Germany, his Austrian vis-à-vis replied, without thinking, blinking, or blushing: ‘Yes, you see, these things must be planned or else they get out of hand.’”[71] Not only was this the Nazi propagated sentiment about the Kristallnacht violence, but also it is showing a lack of concern for the violence. The “spontaneous uprising of the people” was violent and had no repercussions, which hardly seems just to anyone questioning the government’s message. Boeck clearly not only believed the government message but also when questioned showed his true belief in the message. Boeck and others around him were not ignorant of the property damage and violence that occurred that night, yet Boeck felt that “these things” had to be organized otherwise they would “get out of hand.” Therefore despite the violence and property damage, Boeck implies that the riot was controlled. However, condoning organized violence goes directly against the message the activist Quakers of the German Yearly Meeting preached, namely their pacifism. Though Schmitt does not provide much further detail on specific encounters with Vienna Friends, he does say, “Boeck and local Quakers also insisted that Quakerism was ‘a faith and a way of life which should not be confused with charity.’”[72] For Boeck and other Viennese Quakers, the Quaker faith did not call them to “charity” or the Social Witness that had lead American and British Quakers in
Austria and Germany in the
first place. For these
Austrian Quakers, their faith and their Quaker way of life coexisted with their
support of the policies and sympathies of the Third Reich. This understanding
of Quakerism is what permitted them to have these views that were so surprising
to the visiting Quakers.
The respect for Kristallnacht as an
uprising of the people
and the resistance to Quaker Social Witness set the Austrian Friends far apart
from and even at odds with the American and British Quakers who also resided in
Vienna, as well as many of their peers in the German Yearly Meeting.
The Nazis promised Austria that they would
revive industry, help the poor, and bring Austria back to being a powerful
state. Austria never recovered from the loss of the Empire in World War I.
Spielhofer proves here that Boeck like so many others fell under the spell of
the Nazi propaganda. She says, “It seems
to have been this mechanism which made Rudi Böck accept Goebbels’ version of
the Kristallnacht as a ‘spontaneous
uprising’ rather than admitting that it must have been planned. Had he faced
the truth, he would have been forced to share Yarnall’s horror and revulsion
and revise his allegiance to the Nazi leadership.”[73]
This is a very ineffective
defense of Boeck’s Nazi allegiance, as she explicitly states that he believed
the propaganda and in order to continue to his job as an architect under the
Nazi regime, he had to be ignorant of what was occurring. Therefore there is no
other conclusion but that Boeck was a Nazi, as he worked for the government,
supported its economic policies and internalized its propaganda. Though perhaps
he may have resisted the anti-Semitic sentiments that the government propagated
as the German Yearly Meeting emphasized, he still was a Nazi.
A statement made by the Friends’ World Conference of 1937, which both Hans Albrecht and Rudolph Boeck attended, supported Boeck’s allegiance to the Nazi regime.[74] Spielhofer provides insight here as to the official Quaker stance from the World Conference on allegiance to Quakerism versus allegiance to one’s nation. “The conclusion reached by the Conference was that ‘the individual must decide for himself, how far he can go in meeting the demands of the state’ and that ‘compromise is obviously necessary if we are to live in the world at all.’”[75] This is a logical conclusion to be reached by a Quaker conference, because as stated earlier, many Quakers believe that involving themselves in the world best manifests their faith. Therefore, for the conference to ask Quakers to remove themselves from society would be unlikely. However, this does not state what Quakers should do according to any sort of set credo in Quakerism. This is another repetition of the freedom of Quakerism and the individuality of the religion; that each individual must decide what their conscience tells them to do in response to their government. This provides validation for the actions of Boeck and others like him in that they supported the state that promised to support them. This however also provides room for the Berlin Quakers, who actively worked against the Nazi state in youth groups and in their meeting to help those around them. Therefore, due to the individuality of Quakerism, there is no inherent incompatibility in being a Nazi and being a Quaker.
Chapter 4: Conclusion
Quaker and Nazi ideologies were not so
incompatible in Vienna, as seen from prior
evidence. Though the Vienna Meeting’s resistance to aiding others was unique
amongst the meetings belonging to the German Yearly Meeting, they are an
important exception to the historical understanding of what Quakers did during
WWII. The unique cultural
circumstances of the time help to show why these Quakers diverged so far from
what American, British and other Quakers of the German Yearly Meeting
understood as Quakerism. These Viennese Quakers were just like many of
their fellow citizens who were swept up in the inclusive rhetoric of Nazism. Since Quakerism has no set dogma and
is guided by conscience, the Quakers of Vienna were able to rationalize and
understand their Quaker beliefs and Nazi politics together.
Part
of what made Quaker Nazis such a small subset of the Quaker population was that
many Quakers followed the aid and humanitarian message brought by the aid
workers after World War I, that all of humanity was equal, which was not the
Nazi rhetoric. However, as Quakerism is a non-dogmatic, individualized
religion, the members of the German Yearly Meeting were guided to follow their
own views and conscience, whether that led them to aid work or to promoting the
Nazi nationalist cause, the meeting did not pressure members to either end. Therefore
for those Austrians who wanted to see their country rebuilt to its former glory
and to feel fully included in the population, Nazism was an appealing political
option.
There
is still further work to be done in truly exploring this topic to its fullest. A search into the records of the German
Yearly Meeting and the Vienna Meeting would be informative. However, as
those who were present begin to die, the ability of researchers to fully
explore what has transpired in the heated discussions mentioned starts to slip
away. Though the meeting
minutes often mention discord, it is difficult to reconstruct what happened
from the minutes, which mainly record decisions reached, and not the journey to
the decision.
Throughout
Quakerism’s history, debate, discussion and personal conscience have played an
essential role. Though Quakers are largely remembered for the aid work most of
them contributed to during WWII, a small subset of Quakers identified with and
supported the Nazi party while maintaining their Quakerism.
Bibliography:
Anonymous, Vienna, a Ray of Hope. Vienna: J.
Weiner.
Ardent, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the
Banality of Evil. London: Faber, 1963.
Berger, Stefan. The Search for Normality: National Identity
and Historical Consciousness in German Since 1800. New York, NY: Berghahn
Books, 2003.
Brock, Peter and Nigel
Young. Pacifism in the Twentieth Century.
Syracuse, NY: University of Toronto Press Incorporated, 1999.
Donahue, William Collins.
“‘Bless My Homeland Forever’: Teaching Austria and the Holocaust.” Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German,
Vol. 29, No. 2 (Autumn 1996): 188-200. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3531828
(accessed September 3, 2012).
Emergency & War Victims’
Relief Committee of the Society of Friends. Sixth
Report of the Emergency & War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of
Friends: October 1918 to March 1920. London: Alf Cooke, Ltd., 1920.
Emergency & War Victims’
Relief Committee of the Society of Friends. Seventh
Report of the Emergency & War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of
Friends: April 1st, 1920 to March 21st, 1921.
Friedlander, Henry, Sybil
Martin and Jack Sutters, eds. Archives of
the Holocaust: An International Collection of Selected Documents (Volumes 1 and
2). New York: Garland, 1990.
Gessner, R. “The Future of
Austria.” International Affairs (Royal
Institute of International Affairs1931-1939), Vol.15, No. 2 (March-April
1936): 225-44.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2601741
(accessed September 3, 2012).
Halle, Anna Sabine. Thoughts are Free…A Youth Group.
Translated by Mary E. B. Feagins. Pendle Hill, 1935.
Heilbronner, Oded. “From
Antisemitic Peripheries to Antisemitic Centers: The Place of Antisemitism in
Modern German History.” Journal of
Contemporary History, Vol. 35, No. 4 (October 2000): 559-76. http://www.jstor.org/stable/261060
(accessed September 3, 2012).
Hibbert, G.K. Quaker Beliefs and the Present War.
Clifford Street, NY: The Northern Friends Peace Board, 1943.
Kelly, Paul M. “Thomas Kelly
Encounters Nazi Germany: His Letter from Strasbourg, 1938.” In Seeking the Light: Essays in Quaker History
in Honor of Edwin B. Bronner. Lancaster, PA: W.W. Norton & Company,
2001.
Kenworthy, Leonard S. An American Quaker Inside Nazi Germany:
Another Dimension of the Holocaust. Kennett Square, PA: Quaker
Publications, 1982.
Lachmund, Margarethe. With Thine Adversary in the Way: A Quaker
Witness for Reconciliation. Translated by Florence L. Kite. Lebanon, PA:
Pendle Hill, 1979.
Lichti, James Irvin. Houses on the Sand?: Pacifist Denominations
in Nazi Germany. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, 2008.
Monroe, Kristen Renwick.
“Cracking the Code of Genocide: The Moral Psychology of
Rescuers, Bystanders, and
Nazis During the Holocaust.” Political
Psychology, Vol. 29, No. 5 (October 2008): 699-736. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20447159
(accessed September 3, 2012).
Moody-Adams, Michele M. Fieldwork in Familiar Places: Morality,
Culture, and Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Pye, Edith M. Infant Welfare Work in Austria. Vienna:
1921.
R., J. “Austria Between the
Two Wars.” Bulletin of International News,
Vol. 21, No. 5 (March 4, 1944): 171-81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25643578
(accessed September 3, 2012).
Ritter, Harry. “On Austria’s
German Identity: A Reply to Margarete Grandner, Gernot Heiss, and Oliver
Rathkolb.” German Studies Review,
Vol. 16, No. 3 (October 1993): 521-23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1432145
(accessed September 3, 2012).
Rubin, Alexis P. Scattered Among the Nations: Documents
Affecting Jewish History 491975. Scranton, PA: Jason Aronson Inc., 1995.
Schmitt, Hans A. Lucky Victim: An Ordinary Life in
Extraordinary Times. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press,
1989.
Schmitt, Hans A. Quakers and Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness.
Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1997.
Schwarz, Egon. “Quite a
Normal Nation.” New German Critique,
No. 93 (Autumn 2004): 175-91. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4150485
(accessed September 3, 2012).
Spielhofer, Sheila. Stemming the Dark Tide: Quakers in Vienna
1919-1942. York, England: The Ebor Press, 2001.
Stadler, K.R. “The
Disintegration of the Austrian Empire.” Journal
of Contemporary History, Vol. 3, No. 4 (October 1968): 177-90. http://www.jstor.org/stable/259857
(accessed September 3, 2012).
Vansant, Jacqueline.
“Challenging Austria’s Victim Status: National Socialism and Austrian Personal
Narratives.” The German Quarterly,
Vol. 67, No. 1 (Winter, 1994): 3857. http://www.jstor.org/stable/408117
(accessed September 3, 2012).
Wilson, Francesca. A Day in Vienna. Vienna: J. Weiener,
192-?.
[1] Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and
Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri
Press, 1997), 17.
[2] Ibid, 19.
[3] Ibid, 20.
[4] Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and
Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Columbia, MO:
University of Missouri Press,
1997), 17.
[5] R. Gessner, “The Future of Austria,” International Affairs (Royal Institute of International
Affairs1931-1939), Vol.15, No. 2 (March-April 1936): 225-44, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2601741 (accessed September 3, 2012), 225. 6 Ibid.
[6] R. Gessner, “The Future of Austria,” International Affairs (Royal Institute of International
Affairs1931-1939), Vol.15, No. 2 (March-April 1936): 225-44, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2601741 (accessed September 3, 2012), 230.
[7] Ibid, 227.
[8] Ibid, 243.
[9] Jacqueline Vansant, “Challenging Austria’s Victim Status: National
Socialism and Austrian Personal Narratives,” The German Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 1 (Winter, 1994): 3857,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/408117 (accessed September 3, 2012), 38. 11
Ibid, 41.
[10] Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and
Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Columbia, MO:
University of Missouri Press,
1997), xi.
[11] Emergency & War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of
Friends, Sixth Report of the Emergency
& War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of Friends: October 1918 to
March 1920 (London: Alf Cooke, Ltd., 1920).
[12] Ibid, 5.
[13] Ibid, 5.
[14] Emergency & War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of
Friends, Sixth Report of the Emergency
& War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of Friends: October 1918 to
March 1920 (London: Alf Cooke, Ltd., 1920), 5.
[15] Emergency & War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of
Friends, Sixth Report of the Emergency
& War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of Friends: October 1918 to
March 1920 (London: Alf Cooke, Ltd., 1920), 6.
[16] Emergency & War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of
Friends. Seventh Report of the Emergency
& War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of Friends: April 1st,
1920 to March 21st, 1921, 3.
[17] Emergency & War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of
Friends. Seventh Report of the Emergency
& War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of Friends:
April 1st, 1920 to March 21st,
1921, 7.
[18] Emergency & War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of
Friends, Sixth Report of the Emergency
& War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of Friends: October 1918 to March
1920 (London: Alf Cooke, Ltd., 1920), 13.
[19] Emergency & War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of
Friends, Sixth Report of the Emergency
& War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of Friends: October 1918 to
March 1920 (London: Alf Cooke, Ltd., 1920), 12.
[20] Ibid, 12.
[21] Emergency & War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of
Friends. Seventh Report of the Emergency
& War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of Friends: April 1st,
1920 to March 21st, 1921, 5.
[22] Ibid, 5.
[23] Emergency & War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of
Friends, Sixth Report of the Emergency
& War Victims’ Relief Committee of the Society of Friends: October 1918 to
March 1920 (London: Alf Cooke, Ltd., 1920), 13.
[24] Ibid, 13.
[25] Ibid, 15.
[26] Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and
Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Columbia, MO:
University of Missouri Press,
1997), 1.
[27] Peter Brock and Nigel Young, Pacifism
in the Twentieth Century (Syracuse, NY:
University of Toronto Press
Incorporated, 1999), 7.
[28] Peter Brock and Nigel Young, Pacifism
in the Twentieth Century (Syracuse, NY:
University of Toronto Press
Incorporated, 1999), 7.
[29] James Irvin Lichti, Houses on
the Sand?: Pacifist Denominations in Nazi Germany (New York, NY: Peter Lang
Publishing, 2008), 16.
[30] Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and
Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Columbia, MO:
University of Missouri Press,
1997), 9.
[31] James Irvin Lichti, Houses on
the Sand?: Pacifist Denominations in Nazi Germany (New York, NY: Peter Lang
Publishing, 2008), 2.
[32] James Irvin Lichti, Houses on
the Sand?: Pacifist Denominations in Nazi Germany (New York, NY: Peter Lang
Publising, 2008), 3.
[33] Ibid, 33.
[34] Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and
Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Columbia, MO:
University of Missouri Press,
1997), 54.
[35] James Irvin Lichti, Houses on
the Sand?: Pacifist Denominations in Nazi Germany (New York, NY: Peter Lang
Publishing, 2008), 96.
[36] Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and
Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri
Press, 1997), 126, Der Quäker “counted
almost six hundred subscribers” at its peak.
[37] James Irvin Lichti, Houses on
the Sand?: Pacifist
Denominations in Nazi Germany (New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing,
2008), 152.
[38] James Irvin Lichti, Houses on
the Sand?: Pacifist Denominations in Nazi Germany (New York, NY: Peter Lang
Publishing, 2008), 55.
[39] Ibid, 20.
[40] Ibid, 18.
[41] Ibid, 53.
[42] James Irvin Lichti, Houses on
the Sand?: Pacifist Denominations in Nazi Germany (New York, NY: Peter Lang
Publishing, 2008), 53.
[43] James Irvin Lichti, Houses on
the Sand?: Pacifist Denominations in Nazi Germany (New York, NY: Peter Lang
Publishing, 2008), 116.
[44] Ibid, 163.
[45] James Irvin Lichti, Houses on
the Sand?: Pacifist Denominations in Nazi Germany (New York, NY: Peter Lang
Publishing, 2008), 164.
[46] Ibid, 164.
[47] Ibid, 170.
[48] James Irvin Lichti, Houses on
the Sand?: Pacifist Denominations in Nazi Germany (New York, NY: Peter Lang
Publishing, 2008), 166.
[49] Ibid, 185-186.
[50] James Irvin Lichti, Houses on
the Sand?: Pacifist Denominations in Nazi Germany (New York, NY: Peter Lang
Publishing, 2008), 190-191.
[51] Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and
Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Columbia, MO:
University of Missouri Press,
1997), 128.
[52] James Irvin Lichti, Houses on
the Sand?: Pacifist Denominations in Nazi Germany (New York, NY: Peter Lang
Publishing, 2008), 190.
[53] James Irvin Lichti, Houses on
the Sand?: Pacifist Denominations in Nazi Germany (New York, NY: Peter Lang
Publishing, 2008), 193.
[54] Ibid, 194.
[55] James Irvin Lichti, Houses on
the Sand?: Pacifist Denominations in Nazi Germany (New York, NY: Peter Lang
Publishing, 2008), 195.
[56] Ibid, 196.
[57] Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and
Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Columbia, MO:
University of Missouri Press,
1997), 137.
[58] Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and
Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri
Press, 1997), 136.
[59] Ibid, 183.
[60] Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and Nazis:
Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press,
1997), 47, “Founding member of the Society who was also head of the German
Democratic Party in the Wuppertal District.”
[61] Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and
Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri
Press, 1997), 47.
[62] Ibid, 47.
[63] Ibid, 47.
[64] Ibid, 47.
[65] Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and
Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri
Press, 1997), 48.
[66] Ibid, 48.
[67] Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and
Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri
Press, 1997), 107.
[68] Ibid,136-137.
[69] Sheila Spielhofer, Stemming
the Dark Tide; Quakers in Vienna 1919-1942 (York, England: The Ebor Press,
2001), 133.
[70] Ibid, 133.
[71] Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and
Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri
Press, 1997), 136-137.
[72] Ibid, 136-137.
[73] Sheila Spielhofer, Stemming
the Dark Tide; Quakers in Vienna 1919-1942 (York, England: The Ebor Press,
2001), 133.
[74] Ibid, 135.
[75] Sheila Spielhofer, Stemming
the Dark Tide; Quakers in Vienna 1919-1942 (York, England: The Ebor Press,
2001), 135.
