Winfried Seibert - The girl that could not be named Esther

He may have been too socially conscious, to the point where the church elders did not go along with him. Here is what he was like: An older woman was crossing the street with a wheelbarrow. Luncke went up to her and said, ‘I’m going the same way as you. I’ll push the wheelbarrow.’ That caused a sensation in Spenge. Someone like that couldn’t be allowed to stay. 16 › Reference

He didn’t stay. When word got out that he would not receive the position of pastor in Spenge, his supporters assembled in protest, something unprecedented at that location. Two- to threehundred Protestants blocked the parish house and railed against the church authorities who had ordered the transfer of Assistant Pastor Luncke. The police had to be called to break up the meeting. 17 › Reference

His ordination as pastor, which finally took place on August 18, 1935, in Gelsenkirchen-Bulmke, met with unusual difficulties, which Luncke — and not Luncke alone — attributed to the Nazi-sympathizing German Christians (G.C.). In this vein, the congregation of Bulmke questioned the Confessional Synod of the Province of Westphalia on June 28, 1935 about the possible intervention of the German Christians:

Your refusal of ordination must certainly have been done with blinders on. Or might the refusal have been the fruit of meetings with three G.C. [German Christian] men last Monday at the consistory office?

Luncke belonged to the Confessing Church, which fought against National Socialist church policy and its puppets, the German Christians. He spoke out quite frankly, even though the Confessing Church had its cautious and lukewarm members as well. Belonging to the Confessing Church did not mean unambiguous opposition to the Third Reich. Traditional Lutheran ideas on obedience to authority, which appeared in the circles of the Confessing Church as well, could accommodate the brown shirts who held power. Besides them, there were of course the German Christians, who were faithful to the Nazis.

In Gelsenkirchen, in the immediate vicinity of Friedrich Luncke, the Superintendent in charge was Theobald Lehbrink, whom we recently met in our search for Pastor L. from G. At Christmastime 1935, Lehbrink authored a nasty tract entitled On God and Authority, which was nothing more than National Socialist propaganda expressed in theological vocabulary. The style shows what was going on in the heads even of theologians. The Swiss theologian Karl Barth, the Father of the Confessing Church, had been a professor at the University of Bonn until the end of 1934. Since he had refused to take the oath of service to the Fuehrer, prescribed as of August 1934, he had been discharged. Lehbrink wrote the following about him:

A theologian like him seems a noxious weed to every National Socialist who understands the Fuehrer and his inexpressible deeds for Germany’s welfare...

A holy rage should come over us when we use our yardstick of Luther against the unbiblical and anti-German thought of Karl Barth, the chief inspiration of the Barmen Confessional Synod, the Swiss foreigner, the one-time Social Democrat... 18 › Reference

Lehbrink gets worse, as he merges the Crusaders’ cry of Deus Vult! — God wills it! with the triumphant model of the Protestant Reformer to create a hymn to Adolf Hitler. Even the party-faithful comrades might have thought that he had gone too far, had they received this sorry work to read:

“Since our heart belongs to God, it also belongs to this genuine revolutionary, who is leading the God-created people of our ancestors and of our posterity into the promised land of the future. We will be faithful to him to our last breath, for: ‘God wills it!’...

The Fuehrer Adolf Hitler, by the good and gracious will of God, has overcome the deadly rule of liberalism for the good of the widest possible living space for the German people. He rules and guides the existence of the entire nation according to ‘natural’ laws of life as set down by God, which are inspired by a single Will, all to insure the existence of the People for all eternity. Since the Third Reich is being led according to God’s laws of creation and preservation, we must cast off the theologian Karl Barth, the effect of whose teachings can be identified with the spread of liberalism...

Martin Luther overcame mortal sin against the belief of our people and by the truth of God became the great reformer of the way of life of all men. Adolf Hitler overcame mortal sin against the life our people and thus gives Christians the God-given opportunity to proclaim themselves ready to undergo a test of the truth of God for the life of faith of all men.“ 19 › Reference

The Third Reich and God’s laws, Hitler as a God-given opportunity and as one who has overcome mortal sin, Karl Barth as a foreigner and former Social Democrat, as a noxious weed who must be driven out. Wasn’t Superintendent Lehbrink verging on sacrilege with such words? Wasn’t the idolatrous placing of Hitler on the level of the Messiah pure blasphemy? What need did the German Christians have of the Messiah from Nazareth when this one from the Austrian town of Braunau was active among them in the flesh? Where was the church protest, where was the lightning which should have struck against such profanity? We know nothing at all of any response to this tract.

Still, the language of the ecstatic Theobald Lehbrink was a language that was not out of the ordinary. The language had been long prepared; it was well entrenched even before 1933. Deeply entrenched.

In opposition, there stood the Confessing Church. Not that resistance was the rule in the Confessing Church, not through silent protest and not through word and deed. It was rather the exception. Protestantism, too, could show a significant anti-Semitic tradition, one which was not so easy to lay aside. In Bismarck’s day (chancellor, 18641888), the well-known royal court preacher Adolf Stoecker had not only preached anti-Semitism; he had also made it the center of his Christian party platform. Consider this – on December 11, 1935, the Confessing Church celebrated Stoecker’s 100th birthday. You could hardly hush up his struggle against the Jews.

The Temporary Leadership of the German Evangelical Church went even further. They sang the praises of Stoecker’s campaign against the spirit of unbridled egoism and unbounded arrogance; they lauded Stoecker with words applicable to their own times:

He saw this spirit of the age driven by a Jewry disengaged from its religious roots and by an irresponsible liberal press. He took up arms against both of them. 20 › Reference

The courage to resist the spirit of the times that now appeared was the exception. The brave ones included Pastor Luncke from Leithe, who laid into the German Christians in a controversy between the Evangelical Church Service Club for Men, maintained by the Confessing Church, and the German Evangelical Men’s Group, set up by the German Christians as a competing group. He accused the German Christians of deceit, and if something was fraudulent in his eyes, he let everyone know it. 21 › ReferenceHe even got involved physically when some German Christians tried to take over his pulpit. He grabbed the intruders by the collar and singlehandedly threw them out of the church. 22 › Reference

Despite all its weaknesses, the Confessing Church provided the theological support that was indispensable even for men like Friedrich Luncke. In its theological declaration of May 1934, the denominational synod of Barmen had formulated six church truths 23 › Referenceagainst the errors of the ‘German Christians’ and the present-day national church administration that are ravaging the churches and destroying the unity of the German Evangelical Protestant Church. In this cry for help, dramatically underscored with the Latin closing words, Verbum Dei manet in aeternum — The word of God remains for ever and ever — the Confessing Church spoke out clearly against the false teachings of National Socialism. Here is an example of what they said: