Eine Woche nach Beginn des Zweiten Weltkrieges, am 7.9.1939, schrieb Pastor Martin Niemöller, seit 1937 Häftling im Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen, einen Brief an den Oberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine, Großadmiral Erich Raeder, in dem er sich «ausdrücklich als Freiwilliger» meldete. Er erinnerte daran, daß er den Krieg 1914-1918 erst als zweiter Torpedo-Offizier, dann als Wachoffizier und Kommandant auf U-Booten miterlebt hatte und 1920 in der «Zeit der Spartakuskämpfe im Ruhrgebiet […] aktiv gewesen» war, und bat «um irgendeine Verwendung im Kriegsdienst, für die man mich geeignet hält.»1 Darauf erfolgte zunächst keine Reaktion.2 Dann teilte Wilhelm Keitel, der Chef des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht, Niemöller mit, «daß die Heranziehung zum aktiven Wehrdienst nicht beabsichtigt ist.»3
Als Gerücht drang die Nachricht von Niemöllers Freiwilligen-Meldung ins westliche Ausland und führte dort zu Irritationen. Karl Barth, immer um Aufklärung über Niemöller bemüht4, hatte «nie ein |197 öffentliches Wort in dieser Sache gesagt. Solange sie im Stadium bloßer Gespräche war, habe ich allerdings in persönlichen Äußerungen immer gewarnt davor, die mißliche Nachricht weiter zu verbreiten.»5 An Arnold Ehrhardt, der nach England emigriert war, schrieb Barth am 18.10.: «Von Niemöller las ich einen Brief an seine Eltern, laut dessen er nach wie vor an seinem Ort und geistig-geistlich in bester Verfassung ist. Wenn auch dort das Gerücht umgehen sollte, daß er sich freiwillig gemeldet habe, so dementieren Sie es bestimmt.»6 Ehrhard gab diese Nachricht an die Zeitung «Daily Telegraph» weiter, die sie am 6.11.1939 als Erklärung von Barth brachte.7 Darauf fragte der Ökumeniker Prof. Adolf Keller in Genf, der auch aus Amerika Anfragen in dieser Sache erhielt, bei Barth an, ob er das von Niemöller oder seiner Frau wisse: «Ich bekam nämlich von einer intimen Freundin von Frau Niemöller, die ich beide persönlich kenne, die Mitteilung, daß er ‹auf sein Gestellungsgesuch noch keine Antwort erhalten habe.›»8 Barth antwortete ihm umgehend am 20.11., er habe «nun bestimmt erfahren – auch aus der Quelle, die Du andeutest (sie fängt mit F an und ist wohl mit der deinigen identisch9), aber darüber hinaus direkt aus den Berliner Kreisen – daß die Nachricht stimmt: er hat sich gemeldet.» Dem Freunde gab Barth einen brieflichen Kommentar dazu.10
198Inzwischen erhielt Barth auch aus England eine Anfrage in dieser Sache, von George Bell (1883–1958), Bischof von Chichester (1929–1957). Barth hatte dem englischen Ökumeniker im März 1938 von Schottland aus, wo er Vorlesungen hielt, geschrieben und ihm ausdrücklich eine Stellungnahme zu Niemöller angeboten11; wenige Tage später hatte er ihn in London persönlich kennengelernt und «eine sehr gute Unterhaltung» mit ihm gehabt.12 Bell hatte noch am 27.9. Nachrichten über Niemöller an Barth weitergegeben.13 Nun schilderte Bell ihm am 15.11.1939 genau die Abfolge der Meldungen über Niemöller und bat ihn um eine Stellungnahme:
Some English newspapers, following a Statement in the Christian Century, I suppose, have put it about that Niemöller has offered his services to the German military command. Ehrhardt wrote to the Daily Telegraph quoting a letter from you to him, denying this. Then came a Statement from Geneva put out in the International Christian Press Service, purporting to come from an authentic source, not precisely described, to the effect that Niemöller had offered his Services, but not as an escape from imprisonment, and that this offer had been declined. I cannot think that this Statement is true. Hildebrandt14 says that it is impossible that Niemöller should have made such an offer. He says that it is not only the case that his family would not allow him to volunteer, fearing the fate of von Fritsch15, but that if he were to |199 fight with the German military forces, he would be fighting for the upholding of those very things for resistance to which he is in prison. Tell me what you believe and know.
Im Schlußteil seines Briefes, den Barth sich rot anstrich, kam Bell auf die Rezension eines gerade erschienenen Buches zu sprechen16; der Rezensent
Spender said that one of the puzzles which he found it difficult to solve, was how leaders in the Confessional Church who resisted Hitler and the regime quite whole-heartedly in Church questions, could yet say that they were loyal followers of Adolf Hitler otherwise. I do not myself believe that there are many Confessional leaders left, if any now, who are infected by that dualism. I think they were at one time, but it must be now many months, or perhaps years, since those who had hopes, blind hopes, of Hitler in the political or economic sphere, have been disillusioned. Surely all of them now feel that Adolf Hitler is one and life is one, and that in every department of it the Fuehrer is to be resisted, and that his ideological principles expressed themselves equally in the persecution of the Church, in the System of concentration camps, and in the seizure of Poland and Czechoslovakia.
Barth antwortete Bell am 8.12.1939 mit einem ausführlichen, in englischer Sprache verfaßten Briefe, der ursprünglich nicht für die Öffentlichkeit bestimmt war. Bell bedankte sich am 19.12. für diesen Brief und die Begründung, die Barth für die Verleihung des theologischen Ehrendoktors der Basler Fakultät an Bell formuliert hatte. Barth oder Bell müssen den Text von Barths Brief an Prof. Charles Béguin in Neuchâtel weitergeleitet haben. Denn schon am 28.12. d.J. erschien er in französischer Übersetzung in der von Béguin herausgebenen Zeitschrift «Les cahiers protestants» unter der Überschrift «A propos de Niemöller».17 In einleitenden Sätzen wies der Herausgeber auf Niemöllers Freiwilligenmeldung hin: «Son geste a frappé de stupeur ceux |200 qui évoquaient souvent dans leurs pensées, ce martyr du régime.» Der Text war im Hauptteil um einige Sätze gekürzt; auch waren ein einleitender Absatz und zwei Schlußabsätze weggefallen, in denen Barth andere Themen behandelte. Von dieser Zeitschrift übernahm den Text die Genfer «La Semaine Religieuse.»18
Durch die Anfrage einer Leserin der Zeitschrift19 sah sich Barth im Januar 1940 dazu veranlaßt, abermals in einem Privatbriefe Niemöllers Handlungsweise zu erklären.20
Als sich Niemöller 1945, von den Amerikanern befreit und nach Neapel verschleppt, in einem Interview zu seiner Freiwilligenmeldung |201 bekannte und damit einen Sturm der Entrüstung heraufbeschwor21, trat Barth öffentlich mit einer Charakterstudie Niemöllers für den Freund ein.22 Niemöller selbst begründete später seine Meldung damit, er habe nicht länger untätig zusehen wollen, während seine Söhne an der Front kämpften, und damit, er habe gehofft, auf diese Weise von der Marine aus aktiv am Widerstand teilnehmen zu können.23
Basel, den 8. Dezember 1939 My dear Bishop!
⌜Thank you very much for your kind letter. Please excuse my long silence. Theology, in the middle of the term, gives me a great lot to do. Besides, I had some trouble arising form illness, surgeons etc. It is over, I hope so, and here I am.⌝
You are asking me about Niemöllers last adventure. ⌜My Information, given to Dr. Ehrhardt and transmitted from him to the Daily Telegraph, was correct at this moment. Later my information became – alas – wrong.⌝ I know the truth directly from Niemöllers family and from his closest collaborators: he had offered his Services to the German navy in a preceding moment. Then he drew back his offer ⌜(probably in this moment I received my dementi)⌝. Then he renewed his |202 offer and had a rather unkind non-acceptance by the admiral Raeder ⌜(and this is the Statement in the International Chr. Press, mentioned in your letter)⌝. These are the facts.
The explanation? Lastly there is no explanation. There are only some considerations:
Niemöller is in solitary confinement since nearly two years. He had rarely the opportunity to meet people. He had at no time the opportunity to hear and to speak people in liberty, outside the prison and without the presence of watchmen. The news he got from the outside world were these related in the nefarious papers of the official German press. No one knows exactly, what was happening in his mind and especially, what he thought since the war broke out. It is not impossible, that – not his spiritual but his mental strenght was in a certain degreee shattered …!
But certainly, these circumstances are not entirely solving the question.
Do not forget: ⌜1.⌝ Niemöller has always been and certainly remained till today a good – a too good – German. He fought very earnestly, deeply convinced of the rightness of the German cause in the war 1914-1918. ⌜He fought after the war in the same zealous spirit against the German communists.⌝ Then he became a minister: a devoted, a very faithful minister.24 But the old Adam – like the old Adam of us all – never died. Being a spotless lover and promotor of the evangelical message he never ceased to be at the same time a fervent German nationalist. He became a member of the national socialist party (later he resigned!). He agreed with Hitler – not with his church policy but in a considerable degree with his political views, claims and acts.25 In the first years of church struggle I myself had not seldom to struggle – against this political short-sightedness of Niemöller and of his friends. I wonder if he ever saw the unity in the thoughts and facts of Hitler and the gap in his own thoughts and facts. I do not think that he did loose his brain, when he offered his Services to Hitler. I think he did simply, what his old Adam told him to do.
203Do not forget: ⌜2.⌝ Niemöller ist a very good – a too good – Lutheran. Lutheranism permits and demands to believe in the ultimate reality of this gap between an ecclesiastical and a purely political aspect and attitude. Behind and at the bottom of the astonishing act of Niemöller you will find: the lutheran dualism between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of unlimited worldly power, between Gospel and Law, between God revealed in Christ and God acting through nature and history. Lutheranism ist very adequate to the natural German soul. And: Anima Germanica naturaliter est Lutherana!26 There are a few German theologians and Christians, who are chemically free of the ingredient of this doctrine. There are some, you can be sure about that! But Niemöller, I fear, was never among these few people. He is able to be killed from Hitler for Christ’s sake. But equally he is able to be officer on board of a warship of the same Hitler! ⌜I hope, that Hildebrandt, Niemöller’s former assistant, has learned, since he is in England, to take another line. Before, he also was hardly sickening in this hospital.27⌝
Dear bishop, our friends of the Confessional Church are Germans and they are Lutherans. There is a little minority of men and women, who – also since the outbroke of the war – see, what is to see, who suffer and hope and (secretly) fight with us. They need our deep sympathy. They need our prayers. A day is coming when they will be visible and audible. And let us love also the others, this poor majority today erring in the fog. They are, believe me, not bad, only too German, only too Lutheran. There are, also among this majority – Niemöller is a remarkable example – very excellent, very learned and very pious men. The day is coming, when their eyes will be opened. The necessary catastrophy of the Hitler-system can be helpfull to realize this spiritual effect. Much more: the existence of a catholic Christian community of faith, love and hope. Much more the work of the living Word of God, who can not fail to accomplish his gracefull designs among us all: among Swiss and British and also among German sinners.
204⌜Meanwhile, dear bishop, you have become with the doctership of our faculty «one of ours». I do not need to say, how glad I am about this fact, about the unanimity of our decision, about your willingness to accept this little sign of our great admiration for your work and your personality. When a better time is coming, we hope you will come to us and have a look at this city and its inhabitants. I often and gaily remember the evening in your Palace at Chichester and our good conversation. I hope, that I myself have not Seen the British shore for the last time. Have a good and blessed Christmas-time, you and all your friends an brethren.28
Please do not be hurt by this terrible disabuse of the English language. I never learned it properly but only by reading (the life of archbishop Davidson29 … and also criminal stories!).⌝
