Statement on Nazi hostility toward Christianity in Austria, including the closing of schools, prohibition of youth groups, pressure on church members to leave, and post-war efforts to restore church and social services

PASTOR FRIEDRICH KAUFMANN, (LUTHERAN) SALZBURG, AUSTRIA
Personal Report on the Conditions of the Protestant Church in Austria during National Socialism and Today.
Out of the suffering of the people after the World War there had arisen before 1933 a general readiness to help, to work, to sacrifice and to assist one another. From this readiness an unspeakable blessing for the entire nation and its neighbors could
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have arisen under a righteous, just government. With very clever words this idealism was captured and kept alive by National Socialism, so that a majority of the people up to the last moment did not want to believe what had been done with their noble readiness to cooperate. Moreover a part of the people actually did not know anything of the inhumanities of National Socialism or believed they were bitter necessities of war. So it was among many National Socialists of Austria.
Almost the only places, which from the beginning onwards sensed something (not everything) of the threatening danger, were the Christian Churches, which, warning and helping, attempted to raise their voice. Thereby the church got the reputation among many of not being ready for constructive cooperation and it was severely attacked by leading authorities of National Socialism. The attack was directed from the beginning onwards against the Christian doctrine of a just God over all nations and of a Savior of sinners. They wanted no judge over their own people and no atonement and grace through Christ. The battle of National Socialism was not only against the Church but also against Christ.
The method of combat in Austria was not as gross as in the Old Reich. There were here neither German Christians nor a German Faith Movement nor neo-pagans but only a fight against the "degenerate Church." Primarily the youth was estranged from the Church. Christian schools were closed, the kindergartens of the parishes were withdrawn, youth groups forbidden and religious instructions in public schools slowly made impossible. These measures were executed subtly or by force. Moreover in the schools and kindergartens and in the Hitler Youth, to which all pupils had to belong, a rigorous propaganda against Christianity began. To the children they made Christianity ridiculous with the last century's slogans of rationalism.
Withdrawal from the church (whether Protestant or Catholic) was promoted under great pressure. Again and again all public officials, employees and laborers, above all the teachers, party members, or their employees, under threats and pressure, were urged to withdraw. The "training courses" in which many professions had to participate were always directed against Christian faith. Whenever a pastor took a position against one of these speeches or against the many clever attacks in newspapers and periodicals, he and the church were branded as public enemies—tactics which were much more effective and dangerous than arrest or the concentration camp.
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Preaching was free but under surveillance. The danger was great of being misunderstood in one's own parish and being regarded as a saboteur, for it was difficult to differentiate between good will to cooperate on the part of the people and evil leadership—between war needs of the people and the government's violent measures. In war all criticism of the government came to be regarded as treason against the people.
The National Socialist Government went so far as to promise a government job immediately to every pastor who would resign his office and if possible withdraw from the church. The Evangelical church in Austria regarded this possibility as a very desirable purge of its clergy. In reality it preserved through all hostilities a very great resoluteness in its confession of faith and in its organization. A special need of the Protestant Church in Austria arose from the prohibition of the Gauleiter against holding Divine Services in schools and public buildings, since in many places they do not possess their own churches and therefore had always used such buildings for their Divine Services. Many buildings and institutions of Christian charity were confiscated and their property seized. The printing of parish papers and Bibles, hymnals, etc., was forbidden as a "war measure." The pastors were excluded from every public council and activity. The church was to die out sadly without protection of law and without replacements.
Today many apostates are returning to the church. After the frightful experiences of the last years, and the severe disappointment of their good will to cooperate, after the unspeakable suffering of the war, which no one can imagine, who did not live in the midst of the people, they are seeking refuge with God and a new beginning in Christ. Since nowhere else in the world does the voice of Love resound, they hear the.voice of Divine Love; since the war's wounds are being healed by nobody, they come to the Saviour of souls; all those who are homeless and persecuted, who have lost their property and home, seek now a home and security in faith. If Christianity can not help them, many await help only from Bolshevism and every harsh measure helps to destroy receptivity for faith. All uncharitableness and irreconcilability drive the nation, which has suffered so much, toward despair. Now the people are ready for a new beginning and are seeking it in Christ, and in his church. And the church must beg for Christ's sake: Let the guilty be punished and the criminals sentenced, but let not the innocent and those who made mistakes be pushed into despair. I was for 11 years in the most difficult service as a Protestant pastor in the South
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American jungle (my wife is a South American) and then here during the entire war served the poorest, the condemned, prisoners, ill and weeping people, I know the suffering, the misery and hunger—even the hunger for love and the word of God, therefore I must express this request.
The Protestant Church in Austria is very poor and now has to reconstruct many destroyed churches and parsonages, must take over again the institutions of charity; it needs more helpers for spiritual ministration and religious instruction, it has taken over the church welfare of all Protestant refugees. In the PW camps, the SS camps, among the political detainees it has many new and most earnest parishes. It is now to help, advise, set aright and rebuild with its meagre forces, since there is no other help except Christianity, in a disappointed, embittered and deeply shaken people. Never has a Bible been requested by so many—and we have no Bibles.
The harvest is great and the laborers are few, therefore beg the Lord of harvests that he may send laborers into the harvest— and much love.
[signed] Rev. Friedrich Kaufmann
Salzburg 23 October 1945
Told to me personally, then put in writing, then signed by Pastor Kaufmann on 13 Oct. 1945, Salzburg, Austria.
[signed] Edmund A. Walsh