Between March 1942 and May 1944 Paul Tillich wrote and broadcast 112 five-page addresses to the German people through the Voice of America (VOA). Tillich, a German Protestant theologian, sent these passionate and political pleas to the German people asking them to reject Hitler and the morally corrupt German government.
Tillich was singularly qualified to take on this task. As a theologian and a former soldier who fought in the trenches during World War I, he brought a unique perspective to the broadcasts. He was dismissed from the University of Frankfurt in 1933, early in Hitler’s regime, for his support of religious socialism and the Jews. He was closely allied with Jewish intellectuals and causes, and stated quite publicly that to be anti-Jewish was to be anti-Christian. For all this, he narrowly avoided arrest in 1933 and was allowed to emigrate to New York, where he would write the addresses collected in this book.
Through his broadcasts Tillich expressed the need for resistance against Hitler and emphasized the certain doom of the Third Reich. He also consistently explored anti-Semitism and the meaning of Christianity and faith in a continent wracked by death and destruction. Tillich focused on the guilt of the Germans themselves and their complicity in the maltreatment of Jews and other crimes against humanity. By December 1942, he was already speaking of the transport trains, mass executions of Jews, and the involvement of German physicians in the slaughter. According to Tillich, Germans were to be held responsible for these crimes and only acknowledgment of their culpability could liberate them.
It is difficult to know what effect Tillich’s speeches had upon the German populace. Tillich spoke the truth about German society and government at a time when the Reich was losing its grip on the war and on its people. His comments concerning Nazi defeat and oppression, the outcome of the war, and the need for Germans to unite against Nazism were indeed accurate. In his final address, “One Hundred Speeches on Liberation from Nazism,” given on March 7, 1944, Tillich affirmed that Germans must liberate themselves from Nazi tyranny or at the very least, from the spirit of Nazism. This unequivocal anti-Nazi sentiment was, for Tillich, the strongest statement he could make in support of Germany and the German people. For one who was so staunchly pro-German, these broadcasts were Tillich’s attempt to save his country and his countrymen from ruin.
The 55 addresses contained in this volume, most of which were previously unknown in the United States, represent approximately half of Tillich’s speeches. They are arranged chronologically and followed by a brief Notes section.
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| TABLE OF CONTENTS | |
| Acknowledgments | |
| Introduction | |
| 1942 | |
| 1. The Question of the Jewish People | March 31, 1942 |
| 2. The Death and Resurrection of Nations | April 1942 |
| 3. Internal and External Freedom | April 20, 1942 |
| 4. Justice and Humanity | May 11, 1942 |
| 5. Goethe on Reverence | May 1942 |
| 6. The Ninth Anniversary of German Book Burning | May 18, 1942 |
| 7. Guilt and Innocence | June 8, 1942 |
| 8. The Tragic in the Evolution of History | August 14, 1942 |
| 9. The German Tragedy | August 1942 |
| 10. Bringing Germany to Political Maturity | August 28, 1942 |
| 11. The Intelligentsia and Germany’s Conquest | September 4, 1942 |
| 12. How One Should View the Enemy | September 12, 1942 |
| 13. What is Worth Defending? | October 6, 1942 |
| 14. Power Politics | October 13, 1942 |
| 15. The Punishment of War Criminals | October 20, 1942 |
| 16. Germany’s Past, Present and Future Fate | November 3, 1942 |
| 17. Dark Clouds Are Gathering | December 1942 |
| 18. Where Hope Lies This Advent Season | December 8, 1942 |
| 19. The Fourth War Christmas | December 15, 1942 |
| 20. A Guiding Light in the Darkness of the New Year | December 1942 |
| 1943 | |
| 21. Who Is Guilty? | January 1943 |
| 22. Mourning for Stalingrad | January 1943 |
| 23. The Tenth Anniversary of Hitler’s Regime | February 1943 |
| 24. The Germanic Legacy | March 2, 1943 |
| 25. The Christian Legacy | March 8, 1943 |
| 26. The Human Legacy | March 16, 1943 |
| 27. Germany’s Rebirth into the Human Race | March 23, 1943 |
| 28. “Tyrannical Power Has Limits” | April 6, 1943 |
| 29. The Passion Story of Nazism | Palm Sunday 1943 |
| 30. The Tolling of Easter Bells | Easter Sunday 1943 |
| 31. Blindness Precedes Ruin | April 27, 1943 |
| 32. Fate and Guilt | May 18, 1943 |
| 33. Two Kinds of Defeatism | May 25, 1943 |
| 34. The Defeat of Nazi Belief | June 1, 1943 |
| 35. Nazism and the Ideals of the French Revolution | July 5, 1943 |
| 36. The Defeated Cheer the Victors | July 19, 1943 |
| 37. Collective Guilt | August 9, 1943 |
| 38. Guilt-Atonement-Expiation | August 16, 1943 |
| 39. Egyptian Plagues and German Plagues | September 1943 |
| 40. Puppets and Puppet Masters | September 20, 1943 |
| 41. To Whom Has Germany Surrendered? | September 24, 1943 |
| 42. Justice rather than Vengeance | November 9, 1943 |
| 43. Retribution Unparalleled | November 23, 1943 |
| 44. Breaking the Pact with the Nazis | November 30, 1943 |
| 45. A Soldier’s Revealing Letter | December 27, 1943 |
| 1944 | |
| 46. Judgment as Redemption | January 31, 1944 |
| 47. Community in the Service of Power | February 15, 1944 |
| 48. Rebellion and Loyalty | March 21, 1944 |
| 49. A German Good Friday | March 28, 1944 |
| 50. The Ancient and Eternal Message of Easter | April 4, 1944 |
| 51. The Cost of Surrendering Freedom | April 18, 1944 |
| 52. Unbearable Waiting | April 24, 1944 |
| 53. Who Stands on the Side of Justice? | May 2, 1944 |
| 54. Fighting the Tyranny of Fear | May 9, 1944 |
| 55. One Hundred Speeches on Liberation from Nazism | March 7, 1944 |
| Index | |
