Paul Tillich’s Wartime Addresses to Nazi Germany

"The spell must be broken so that the German people can live."--Paul Tillich, May 9, 1944

Paul Tillich broadcasted one hundred Voice of America speeches to the German people during 1942 to 1944. Tillich’s collected speeches in, “Against The Third Reich,” Paul Tillich’s Wartime Addresses to Nazi Germany 1942 to D-Day 1944 (pdf. referred to as WAN here after), represent about half of the broadcasts. [1] Any person listening to these broadcasts, or reading anti-Nazi pamphlets did so at great risk for they could be punished by torture and death. Philosophy students Hans and Sophie Scholl were beheaded by guillotine for distributing anti-Hilter leaflets at Munich University in 1943. A University janitor identified the Scholls as the students who threw leaflets in a campus building. Czech theologian Jakub S. Trojan reported that anyone listening to the Voice of America broadcasts could be executed. During President FDR’s administration, Voice of America was not allowed to broadcast false information. [2]

Tillich’s speeches refer to the Nazis as the “National Socialist dictatorship.” Tillich became a religious socialist after WWI during which he held a higher military rank than Hitler. [3] Socialism was very popular with German labor during the late 1800s and early 1900's so the title of “socialist” was very common like the title “democracy” became popular after WWII. What made “National Socialism” different from other sects of socialism was its fanatical support for an anti-Communist, militaristic, racist, totalitarian state.

Ultimate Concern and Idolatry

Tillich addresses subjects such as the community, power politics, freedom, justice, truth, hate, guilt, and de-humanization. He frequently reports on the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis reminding listeners “to be anti-Jewish was to be antiChristian” (WAN, p. 6). Parochial nationalism is called anti-Christian and idolatrous by Tillich and is the primary focus of his criticism throughout the broadcasts. He defined idolatry as “the elevation of a preliminary concern to ultimacy”(ST.,Vol.I, p.13). Also, Tillich re-interprets the meaning of “religion” to give theology greater relevancy in order to formulate a contemporary socio-political “theology of culture.” Tillich expanded the concept of “religion” to mean ultimate concern: “The object of theology is what concerns us ultimately. Only those propositions are theological which deal with their object in so far as it can become a matter of ultimate concern for us.” (Ibid., p. 12). And again Tillich explains, “like every human being, he [the philosopher] exists in the power of an ultimate concern, whether or not he is fully conscious of it, whether or not he admits it to himself and to others.”(Ibid., p. 24).

Ultimate concern is for Tillich the essentially religious and an object for theological analysis. Idolatry takes something conditional and elevates it to the unconditional; the particular is given universal significance; the finite is raised to the level of the infinite. If holiness is considered inherent in something, it becomes demonic. Holy objects symbolically represent human ultimate concern, but over time the object, or a system of sacred things tend to become the ultimate concern that then transforms the holy objects into an idol, “Holiness provokes idolatry”(Ibid., p. 216). Idolatry is committed when the relative symbol itself is substituted for the reality of the symbolized. The infinite is reduced to an object; symbols become mere signs, spirituality becomes empty, or misdirected ritual. Religious nationalism is the epitome of idolatry that sets in motion an anti-demonic struggle for Christians.

In Tillich’s broadcast on the defeat of Nazi nationalist belief, he named them a “National Socialist tribal religion against the Christian spirit” (WAN, p.163). The Nazis fought against Christianity because they understood Christianity had “a particular attitude toward life” that was the complete antithesis to Nazism. Nationalist self-idolatry has its origins in tribalism older than Christianity where “every tribe considered itself to be the greatest in the world.” Christianity attempted to rise above this nationalistic tribalism to proclaim one law, truth, justice, and one God--not a national god. A universal God symbolizes the unity of humankind, unity of justice in all nations that uphold the dignity of every person and not one tribe or race, or the idolatry of nationalism—the “dragon of pagan idolatry.” When ancient Israel chose the god of nationalism, the people were “surrendered to foreign powers by the God who was its God.” As the Christian church became weak and irrelevant, ancient pagan nationalistic gods “rose from their graves,” and “equates its own limited power with the highest power and, in this way, destroys itself.” He urged the German people to “return home” to Christianity and humankind.

Tillich warned that Nazi Nationalists wanted to put the German people in the condition where they could be “dragged to the slaughterhouse” by exploiting a fearful nation which renders people unable to form clear judgments. The Nazis instill a “false fear-phantom” of an unknown future to drum up “heroic courage” so the German people will endure their present hardships and continue to sacrifice themselves keeping the sorcerers of fear in power. Like the Japanese, the Nazis turned the belief of their own sacredness of blood and soil into barbarity, arrogance and a false sense of national invulnerability. Tillich warns, “One can deal with what one fears. But out of anxiety one must awaken.”

Tillich testifies how German youth are educated by state “preachers and teacher, and educators of death” to seek the meaning of life in the death of an opponent, or one’s own death. Community, instead of providing life, turns education against humanity and any true religious-ethical meaning. They hate the spirit and try to kill the spirit, distort truth, deface justice, and teach tragic heroism. Educators teach a cult of death and heroism, which is really “an education for the extinguishing of all personality and for the mechanization of all humanity”(WAN, p. 45). Germany allowed itself to become “half willingly, half unwillingly” an instrument of destruction and self-destruction and are now entrapped by Nazi power.

How did Germany with such an advanced culture become the instrument of Nazi power? Tillich gives three reasons: 1). Germany, especially German Protestant religion, emphasized escapism from this life to another afterlife. German Evangelical churches in particular speak of the kingdom of heaven as otherworldly, and should not have any power in this world. However, this otherworldly attitude hands “this world over to satanic powers.” Tillich noted that Catholicism and Protestant Anglo-Saxon religions always felt responsible for the political and social organization of this world. 2.) German Protestantism withdrew from the political sphere by emphasizing spiritual freedom and setting themselves in opposition to political freedom. Freedom of thought which only means the freedom to dream replaced freedom of life (WAN, p. 54). Lastly, 3) the political sphere became ideologically separated from the human. In Germany, the nation and authority become separated. The original relationship between the nation and authority was forgotten so that political power became inhuman power in hands of the Nazi Nationalists. Government is accountable to the nation so that the political sphere is not outside the human, or the religious, or the intellectual for these are “part of what it means to be human, the absence of which makes full humanity impossible”(Ibid, p. 55).

Tillich views Nazi Nationalism as a revival of an ancient pre-Christian pre-historic repressed barbarism by pre-human monsters that are malicious to spiritual depth, freedom, and individual human dignity. In fact, they desire and compulsively seek human degradation. Nazi Nationalism is the “ancient dragon” that must be slain. Nazi Nationalism can easily give security with slavery, but not security with freedom. The German people could not tolerate freedom because they never had to struggle for freedom and have genuine revolutions like other countries and so stayed submissive to authority of the princes, nobles, teachers, magistrates, property owners, and mayors. What makes this false fanatical nationalistic German revival so frightening is its synthesis of ancient barbarism with a modern Machine Age Anti-Humanism that replaces all authentic community traditions with an artificially created “phantom” culture. [4] The German government preferred a society of human machine to true human beings. Young men are made into war machines, and young women into incubators (WAN, p. 231). Nationalistic fascism only produce “semi-intellectual products,” taken from inferior ideals dressed in un-German anti-Christian symbolism that is affirmed by the “priests of German idol worship.”

Tillich urges the German people to spiritually separate themselves and break away from the enslaving Nazi spirit. They are “thieves of millions who are adorned with medals,” and even worse than this they “deliberately set the earth aflame”(WAN, p. 201). The Nazis know that they are losing the war and want to disappear so to re-appear later when conditions are right. For now they urge the German people to fight against the Allies only to prolong Nazi rule as long as possible so to prolong their lives. The fascists reason that even if they lose their life in battle they at least escaped facing justice. In other words, the Nazis are heading to catastrophe and are willing to let the world perish with them while “knowingly allow German people to bleed to death for the sake of their power”(WAN, p. 236).

[1] Page numbers cited are the original book’s pagination, and not the pdf document page numbers.

[2] On July 2, 2013 the U.S. repealed the ban on broadcasting propaganda to the American people. Today the Pentagon posts directly and by proxy on social media to influence news and political commentary.

[3] Interestingly, William L. Shirer wrote in his book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960), “…there is no doubt that Corporal Hitler earned the Iron Cross, First Class” (p. 30).

[4] Tillich must of known that “phantom” in Greek eidolon (εἴδωλον ) as in “ideology,” means both “idol” and  “phantom.” He avoided all academic language in his broadcasts.

Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand

I've been downhearted baby

Ever since the day we met

Jan lays down and wrestles in her sleep

Moonlight spills on comic books

And superstars in magazines

An old friend calls and tells us where to meet

Her plane takes off from Baltimore

And touches down on Bourbon Street

We sit outside and argue all night long

About a god we've never seen

But never fails to side with me

Sunday comes and all the papers say

Ma Teresa's joined the mob

And happy with her full time job

I've been downhearted baby

Ever since the day we met

Am I alive or thoughts that drift away?

Does summer come for everyone?

Can humans do as prophets say?

And if I die before I learn to speak

Can money pay for all the days I lived awake

But half asleep?

A life is time, they teach you growing up

The seconds ticking killed us all

A million years before the fall

You ride the waves and don't ask where they go

You swim like lions through the crest

And bathe yourself in zebra flesh

I've been downhearted baby

Ever since the day we met