The Book of Denial, Chapter Two: Protestant anti-Judaism

Martin Luther Martin Luther (1483 - 1546) challenged the church and revolutionized Christianity. The impact of his challenge on Europe’s Jews was further persecution by the Catholic south who saw the Jews as allies of the rebellious north while, in the north, some easing of physical persecution. Since Protestantism represented, for its leaders, a return of Christianity to its Jewish sources, an effort to rid itself of its pagan influence, Luther believed that this would attract Jews to the new religion. Luther’s attitude underwent a dramatic change, from tolerance to radical anti-Judaism when this failed to occur. It is his later writings, and particularly his final work, On the Jews and Their Lies, 1543 which, as had the writings of Paul, the gospels and the church fathers, would have a profound impact on the conditions of Jewish existence and survival within the Christian Diaspora. According to Nichols, from which the follow extracts are taken, “The concept of ‘severe mercy’ follows from [Luther’s] disillusionment with the prospects of large-scale Jewish conversion.” ‘What then shall we do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? Since they live among us and we know about their lying and blasphemy and cursing, we cannot tolerate them if we do not wish to share in their lies, curses, and blasphemy. In this way we cannot quench the inextinguishable fire of divine rage (as the prophets say) nor convert the Jews. We must prayerfully and reverently practice a merciful severity. Perhaps we may save a few from the fire and the flames. They are surely being punished, a thousand times more than we might wish them. Let me give you my honest advice. First, their synagogues or churches should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it. And this ought to be done for the honor of God and of Christianity in order that God may see that we are Christians, and that we have not wittingly tolerated or approved of such public lying, cursing and blaspheming of His Son and His Christians… Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed. For they perpetuate the same things there that they do in their synagogues. For the same reason they ought to be put under one roof or in a stable, like gypsies, in order that they may realize that they are not masters in our land, as they boast, but miserable captives, as they complain of us incessantly before God with bitter wailing. Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer- books and Talmuds in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught. Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach any more… Fifthly, passport and traveling privileges must be absolutely forbidden to the Jews. For they have no business in the rural districts, since they are not nobles, nor officials, nor merchants, nor the like… Sixthly, they ought to be stopped from usury. All their cash and valuables of silver and gold ought to be take from them and put aside for safe keeping. For this reason, as said before, everything that they possess they stole and robbed from us through their usury, for they have no other means of support . . . Such evilly acquired money is cursed, unless, with God's blessing, it is put to some good and necessary use… Seventhly, let the young and strong Jews and Jewesses be given the flail, the ax, the hoe, the spade, the distaff, and spindle, and let them earn their bread by the sweat of their noses as is enjoined upon Adam's children. For it is not proper that they should want us cursed Goyim to work in the sweat of our brow and that they, pious crew, while away their days at the fireside in idleness, feasting and display. And in addition to this, they boast impiously that they have become masters of the Christians at our expense. We ought to drive the rascally lazy bones out of our system… If however we are afraid that they might harm us personally then let us apply the same cleverness as the other nations, such as France, Spain, Bohemia, etc., and settle with them for that which they have extorted usuriously from us, and after having divided it up fairly let us drive them out of the country for all time. For, as has been said, God's rage is so great against them that they only become worse and worse through mild mercy, and not much better through severe mercy. Therefore away with them.’ At his trial in Nuremberg after the Second World War; Julius Streicher, the notorious Nazi propagandist, editor of the scurrilous antisemitic weekly, Der Stumer, argued that if he should be standing there arraigned on such charges, so should Martin Luther.” (Nichols, 1993, pps.270-271) And, in Of The Unknowable Name and The Generations of Christ, 1543, "But your [God's] judgment is right, justus es Dominie. Yes, so shall Jews, but no one else be punished, who held your word and miracles in contempt and ridiculed, insulted and damned it for such a long time without interruption, so that they will not fall, like other humans, heathens and all the others, into sin and death, not up in Hell, nor in the middle of Hell but in the pit of Hell, as one cannot fall deeper... Even if they were punished in the most gruesome manner that the streets ran with their blood, that their dead would be counted, not in the hundred thousands, but in the millions, as happened under Vespasian in Jerusalem and for evil under Hadrian, still they must insist on being right even if after these 1,500 years they were in misery another 1,500 years, still God must be a liar and they must be correct. In sum, they are the devil's children, damned to Hell... The Jews too got what they deserved. They had been called and elected to be God's mouth as Jeremiah says...Open your mouth wide and I will fill it; they however, kept tightly closed their muzzles, eyes, ears, nose, whole heart and all senses, so he polluted and squirted them so full that it oozes from them in all places and devil's filth comes from them. Yes, that tastes good to them, into their hearts, they smack their lips like swine. That is how they want it. Call more: 'Crucify him, crucify him.' Scream more: 'His blood come upon us and our children.' (Matthew 27:25) I mean it came and found you... Perhaps, one of the merciful Saints among us Christians may think I am behaving too crude and disdainfully against the poor, miserable Jews in that I deal with them so sarcastically and insulting. But, good God, I am much too mild in insulting such devils..." Four hundred years after his death the leaders of the Third Reich would come to describe Luther as inspiration and justification for 20th century Christendom’s Final Solution to its Jewish Problem.