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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTORY THOUGHTS

SOME years ago I published under the title “German With Tears” a survey of German education, past and present. Strangely enough, a chance remark occurring in the book—a remark which had very little to do with its main theme—produced more comment, more correspondence, more approval, and more violent attacks than any other statement. I wrote: “I personally believe that the real roots of National Socialism go down to the reformer Martin Luther, who seems to me more of a political demagogue than a religious reformer, and whose teachings and sayings are the foundations on which later Germans built.”

I shall try to prove that this was not a flippant thought but my utmost conviction. I know that it will sound shocking to some. I know that many people will disagree with my views. I shall not try to give a full and scholarly analysis of German Protestantism, of Luther and Lutheranism. I shall merely give my own reading of Luther; I shall show only that side of Luther and his influence which is usually ignored in England and which is entirely the reverse of the traditional view.

My remark, the one I have quoted, is really nothing new or revolutionary. There is a multitude of books which express the same thought, but they all do what I have done hitherto, i.e., they do not explain and prove their theory.

The Nazis themselves claim Luther as their spiritual father. “It was Luther, we must understand, who began to Germanise Christianity; National Socialism must complete the process.” This from Alfred Rosenberg is one of their typical sayings. But then, we must be careful in our acceptance of Nazi sayings.

However, long before Hitler there were German Protestant scholars of great standing who analysed aright the part Luther played in the history of Germany. “Lutheranism played an important part in the political and military development of German Prussia,” wrote Prof. Ernst Troeltsch of Heidelberg, early in the present century. “German nationalism plus the Prussian State have made our Reich, and both have their origins in Luther,” said Karl Sell, another pre-Hitler professor.

Since Hitler there have been very many authors who have connected Luther and National Socialism. Edgar Mowrer wrote as early as 1933: “Protestantism means in Germany Lutheranism. All the pet doctrines of Prussianism are found in the writings of the founder, Martin Luther.” And it is only a short time since a book was published by a great French scholar, Professor E. Vermeil, in which it is stated that “Hitler has taken up Luther's ideas.”

There seems therefore, very little that is original in my own saying. All the same, I shall attempt to show how I came to this monstrous-seeming conclusion.

When I was an undergraduate in my first term, my tutor returned an essay of mine on Political Philosophy with the sentence written under it: “All monistic theories are false”. I did not quite know what he meant. The essay—I have forgotten the exact subject—had to do with unemployment, and in my youthful, very “left,” very pink, views I had throughout the essay blamed capitalism for the present state of the world, especially for unemployment. My tutor was a wise man, a very detached thinker, from whom I learnt few facts but something of the art of clear thinking. I had tea with him a few days later, and he explained to me in detail what he meant by “All monistic theories are false”. His saying has since then become my guiding maxim.

He meant that it is not possible to explain a very complex and intricate political or sociological situation by one cause alone. There are always a great many factors, some of greater, some of smaller, importance, which cause a particular phenomenon to come into being. Only if we study them all can we come to a true and valuable analysis.

For my part, I have slowly and gradually come to the conclusion that spiritual values and conflicts play the most important part in all problems which govern our lives as individuals and as citizens. “Religious forces, and religious forces alone, have had sufficient influence to ensure practical realisation for political ideas,” says Professor Figgis. Max Weber, a famous German scholar, expresses exactly the same idea when he says: “The modern man is in general, even with the best will, unable to give religious ideas the significance for culture and national character which they deserve.”

This fundamental personal belief of mine has to be accepted as a necessary premise. I know that it is debatable. But I have to keep to the main point and do not want to lose myself in side-issues which have no direct bearing on the subject. I fully realise that it is fashionable nowadays to give especially to Economics a place that is higher and superior to that accorded to religious and spiritual ideas. This, I think is partly due to political propaganda, and partly to an inability to appreciate Nicolas Berdyaev's valuable truth that “Economics is a creation of the human spirit, its quality is determined by the spirit, its basis spiritual.”

Once I had given the spiritual and religious ideas the place which I have just indicated, it was pretty obvious that sooner or later I had to meet the philosophy and personality of Martin Luther. I was brought up partly in Germany, partly in France. Ever since my early childhood I felt instinctively that there was a different atmosphere between France and Germany which I was unable to describe. Later I learnt, and understood, that his was the difference between what is commonly known as “Kultur” and “civilisation”. It would be easy to describe me as a “francophile”, but such generalisations are a little too simple. Suffice it to say I loved the spirit of France, the traditional freedom, the beauty—in a word, the civilisation. And I began to see, as did almost everybody in France, that the danger to this civilisation did not come from Hitler but from the German “kultur”, from a belief and a religion which are typical of Germany, and of which Hitler is merely the latest and most complete example. I began to read and study the history of this “kultur”, and more than ever did I begin to see that it has its roots in Martin Luther.

I read Luther's writings: by no means all of them, even not the greatest part. Luther's writings are something unbelievable. Over sixty enormous volumes have so far appeared in the latest edition, which is by no means complete as yet. He wrote partly in German, partly in Latin; and to read his works is anything but an easy task. I think it would take a lifetime of concentrated work on the part of an outstanding scholar to read everything that Luther has written. His letters alone number well over three thousand. But at least I can say that I struggled through quite a number of his most important works—and read them with an ever-growing surprise, since the Luther I met there seemed to be a person completely and utterly different from the Luther I had been taught in school.

I began to read biographies and commentaries on Luther. This is perhaps an even more difficult task than the reading of Luther's own works, inasmuch as for over four centuries scholars, politicians, biographers, religious leaders, and students have found something to say about the reformer. A whole big catalogue in the Library of the British Museum is filled with nothing but the titles of writings on Luther. Thus it was not easy to choose. But one fact emerged. The Luther of the legend has not existed any longer in the world of scholarship since the beginning of this century.

I myself went to a Lutheran school in Berlin. We had Lutheran teachers, and 99 per cent of the boys were Lutheran. We celebrated every year “Luther Day”. Throughout my school life in Germany Luther was shown to us as a great man fighting for freedom, tolerance, independence—the man who exclaimed, “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, May God help me, Amen!” Luther, the honest, cheerful, decent German who fought a corrupted, immoral Rome. Luther, who proclaimed the advent of the modern world; Luther, honoured by Protestants everywhere—the hero of Germany and the Protestant world.

This view was maintained by all scholars, as I said, until the end of last century. Every Protestant saw in Martin Luther almost a demigod, and any views to the contrary were put forward by Catholics who were guided more by emotion and dislike than by any substantial facts.

But towards the end of the last century things changed. The first man who not only saw Luther in a new light but who also told a deaf world the dangers coming from Germany—Friedrich Nietzsche—was the son of a Lutheran pastor. In his own days Nietzsche was not read even in his own country. Nowadays he is quoted all over the world—but I doubt very much whether he is read. He is accused of having said and taught things which never occurred to him. I cannot enter into Nietzsche's teachings here, but I must utter a warning against quoting, or misquoting, one of the most profound thinkers humanity has ever known without having read him, without having tried to understand his ideas.

Nietzsche's remarks on Luther merely indicated the direction from which the wind was blowing. His voice remained unheard. It was not until 1904 that the Luther-revolution started.

A few years previously an important document had been discovered which shed some light on an unknown period in Luther's life, and in 1904 Henri Suso Denifle published the first volume of his “Luther and Lutheranism”. Denifle, sub-archivist of the Holy See, was a very well-known scholar. Through his work at the Vatican he had access to documents and writings such as few other scholars possessed, and he had devoted his whole life to the study of the writings and influence of Martin Luther. As a result, he published his thunderbolt. Within a month the book was out of print. It was perhaps the greatest attack ever delivered on any reformer. Denifle gave full and ample quotations for everything he said. A terrifying, dirty, dishonest Luther appeared, a Luther much blacker and more hideous by far than all his former opponents taken together had depicted him. And the worst of it was that Denifle had quoted hardly anything but Luther's own words.

The reaction must have been enormous. Here is how one of Luther's biographers describes it: “Lutheran Germany shook with wrath. . . . The reviews, the newspapers, all the periodicals of a country rich in printed matter, spoke of only one subject. And in “public assemblies, governments were interpellated on the subject of a frightful and positively blasphemous book” (L. Febure: “Luther—A Destiny”).

The sensation abroad was equally great. The book was translated, contradicted. Literally hundreds of books and pamphlets appeared. But the really important point is that the whole place of Luther and Lutheranism in the history of mankind underwent a change.

As a reply to Denifle, a Professor Boehmer—a great apologist of Luther—published a work which he called “Luther in the light of Modern Research”, which brought out the fundamental changes that had taken place within a few years in Lutheran research. The most valuable book of this period, one still unsurpassed today, was by a Protestant theologian, Ernst Troeltsch, Professor at Heidelberg. The amazing thing was that Troeltsch in his great work, “The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches,” expressed—to quote Professor L. Febure—corroborated certain of Denifle's views.”

Thus for the last four decades the Luther-legend has not existed any longer. Serious research has taken place, and Luther and his teachings are seen in a completely different light by scholars, historians, Germanists, theologians all over the world, than they were at the beginning of the century.

Except in England. Yes, it is true. The researches and advances made in Luther studies, the German Reformation, and history during the last four decades have been utterly and completely ignored in Britain. It is not surprising that such a quite and anything but excitable philosopher as Jacques Maritain could, in a recent article on Luther, refer to “Anglo-modern stupidity”.

The reasons for this neglect are manifold. First of all England is traditionally insular. In as many respects as the Channel has proved Britain's greatest asset, in as many respects—especially in the intellectual sphere—it has proved a drawback. What Maritain calls the atmosphere historique on the Continent, very often does not reach England (which incidentally is not always a drawback).

Secondly, no nation indulges so much as England in wishful thinking. No nation finds it so utterly impossible to get rid of prejudices. Even ten years of war within three decades, ten years of German aggression, brutality, atrocities under different leaders, different generals, by different people has not made the English abandon their legend of “the lovely Germany, the home of Beethoven and Goethe”. The Luther-legend had found a firmer holding in England than in any other country; and since the Reformer has been glorified by people such as Matthew Arnold and Carlyle, it seems that nothing will ever destroy the accepted belief.

Thirdly, this incapability of changing views and facing unpleasant but necessary facts is due to an education which still considers games as more important than thought.

Lastly and above all, this retarded attitude of mind is due to an intellectual desert island within the island. I am referring to the Universities. No one will doubt that English scientists and technicians, doctors and scholars of ancient subjects are second to none. But some modern subjects, those in which no technical ability counts and permanent progress of thought is necessary, are in a pitiful state in England.

Let us take merely my own subject: German, and the way it is taught at the place with the highest reputation for learning and scholarship—Oxford. The way German is taught in Oxford, and consequently all over the country, is laid down by the Professor of German at Oxford. From 1907 until 1937 Professor Fiedler held the Chair; he was succeeded by Professor Boyd. Under them the syllabus underwent no noticeable change; two World Wars left Oxford completely unaffected in this respect. That this is so may be seen from the publications which came from the pen of those two scholars during the last few years, when more than ever it was necessary that students of German should know something about National Socialism and its ancestors. Professor Boyd has published since he took over the professorship an edition of Goethe's “Iphigenia in Tauris”, and a collection in chronological order of Goethe's poems. Professor Fiedler has published a new edition of Goethe's Faust, Part II, and a collection of selected passages from German authors. The Oxford of 1945 is still, so far as the teaching of German is concerned, the Oxford of 1832. Hitler's Germany might as well not exist, since only the Germany of Goethe is taught.

It is significant that in his first sermon after his appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury, the late Dr. Temple appealed to the teachers of German not merely to teach the classics, but to have regard to some degree for grim and unpleasant realities.

To return to Luther. None of the books which gave a completely new interpretation of Luther was published in England for a long time. Twenty-six years after its publication, Boehmer's apology for Luther and his reply to Denifle was published. Professor Troeltsch's book had to wait until 1931 to find an English publisher. Bishop Gore wrote then in the introduction: “It stands beyond question without a rival as an exposition of Christian life and thought and their relations to contemporary social facts.” If that is so, one may well ask why it took some decades for it to be translated into English.

What I am going to state is, then, nothing new and original on the Continent, although to English ears it may sound blasphemous and heretic. I have indicated my limitations. Perhaps I may as well mention that, in spite of my shortcomings, I think I have some qualifications for speaking on Luther. It has been rightly observed that “Luther was so typical a German, one may even say so exclusively German, that a complete understanding can be expected only from a German”. For once my nationality seems to be an advantage.

There are so many conceptions which have undergone a complete and radical change since the works of Troeltsch, Weber, and Denifle appeared, that it would fill many volumes if I attempted to describe them all. However, I have at least to indicate briefly two important and fundamental new views.

For almost four centuries people spoke and thought of “The Reformation” as if it was a unity. Protestants in all countries believed that they adhered to the same principles, that they had some fundamental doctrine in common. This idea has been abandoned since the works of Weber and Troeltsch. “Protestantism” is a misnomer, a thing which does not exist. Troeltsch began to analyse the meaning of “Protestantism” and denied that such a conception was possible. Denifle makes it perfectly clear that he speaks of Lutheranism, which has little to do with Protestantism. “The first condition for a true understanding of Lutheranism is to understand its great difference from all other forms of Protestantism,” he writes; and Troeltsch points out again the great political difference between Calvinism and Lutheranism. “Lutheranism has found its strongest form of expression in the politics and world-outlook of the Prussian and German conservatives, through whom to-day Lutheranism still helps to determine the destinies of the German people.” “The restoration of Prussian-German Lutheranism was one of the most important events in social history. . . . Lutheranism hallowed the realistic sense of power and the ethical virtues of obedience, reverence, and respect for authority which are indispensable for Prussian militarism.” “In spite of the fact that originally Calvinism was very closely connected with Lutheranism, it has gradually become the very opposite of Lutheranism.” “Calvinism, on the other hand, in more recent times under the influence of Pietism and Methodism, to which it is closely akin, has upon the whole maintained its unphilosophical theology, or at least after the disturbances of the enlightenment it rediscovered it. In its close connection with English and American racial peculiarities and institutions, however, it has merged with and to some extent produced that political and social way of life which may be described as `Americanism'”.

These are, in a few quotations, Troeltsch's conclusions. He proved that from the social and political point of view, German Lutheranism and Swiss, French, Anglo-American Calvinism are not merely not connected, but directly opposed. I cannot at present explain in detail how he arrived at his conclusion. I can merely mention it, refer to his work (and perhaps to Tawney's and Christopher Dawson's writings on the subject), and state that I fully accept his views. Thus if during the following pages I should refer to “Protestants”, it is important to bear in mind that I am referring to German Protestants, i.e., Lutherans. However briefly I have touched on this point, I had to do it in order to avoid any possible misunderstanding. Since Troeltsch wrote, these views have been widely accepted and elaborated. “Calvinism”, the theologian Rauschenbusch has written, “had a far wider sphere of influence and a deeper effect on the life of the nations than Lutheranism because it continued to fuse religious faith and the demand for political liberty and social justice.” Canon Barry was even more outspoken ten years later: “Lutheranism is a very terrible anti-Christian system, peculiar to Germany, not to be confounded with Anglicanism or Calvinism, but sui generis, which in Luther became incarnate, in Prussia forged its sword, and in the distracted anaemic Eruope of the 20th century seemed to have discovered its prey. Luther was not the champion of liberty and freedom, either Catholic or Protestant. He was the voice of Germanism, which dreams that as religion, culture, government, and race it should be master of mankind. This Germanism must be conquered, or the end of genuine freedom is at the door.”

Another ten years later, these views were fully accepted in America. “It is well known that the leaders in the Reform or Protestant movement differed radically amongst themselves regarding theological matters. It is of importance to note that they also differed regarding political matters, and that these differences finally led to the rise of separate and opposed political philosophies.” I could give many more quotations to prove that nowadays people make a great difference between “Calvinism”, “Anglicanism”, and “Lutheranism”. While the two former have given rise to liberal thought and democracy in the course of history, the last-named is the foundation of Prussian militarism and the Herrenvolk.

It is perhaps interesting to note that a French scholar, Professor J. Paquier, has even gone so far as not merely to prove the existence of the same difference between French and German Protestants, but goes on to state that “We have no right to confuse German Lutheranism with Lutheranism as found in Alsace.” The whole conception of Protestantism has undergone a change which I have thought it necessary to mention, in order to provide a better understanding.

The other preliminary point which I can state only in the same summary way before I enter upon my subject proper, is the new place the whole of the Reformation movement has found, as the result of modern historical research, within the framework of history, and especially the connection between the Renaissance and the Reformation. This is indeed a stimulating subject, but all I can do here—in order that Luther the man, and his works, can be properly understood—is to try and describe very briefly what is the traditional view of these two movements, and how they are seen in the light of most recent research. I shall again merely state the conclusions, and must leave to a future and more elaborate study the tracing of the stimulating and enlightening way by which modern scholars have found the way to a true interpretation of the Renaissance and the Reformation and the relationship of the one and the other.

I think it is safe to say that it was the traditional view—and still is in many quarters—that the Renaissance was merely a revival of classical art and literature, pagan and spiritually hollow, while the Reformation went further and gave new and healthier life to religion and all other spiritual forces. “It is customary”, says the Cambridge Modern History, “to distinguish the Renaissance as the revival of letters from the Reformation as the revival of religion.” But the Renaissance was something much more. “The Renaissance stood for a complete Weltanschauung and culture, and not only a collection of remarkable fine creations”, remarks Berdyaev so rightly.

This complete Weltanschauung found during the Renaissance its way even into Germany, which was so far behind in its civilisation compared to the Latin countries. “The Renaissance is marked in the history of Germany by a notable enlargement of culture, learning, and education”, Professor H.A.L. Fisher tells us in his “History of Europe”.

It is difficult to describe the greatness of the Renaissance, the completeness of the movement and the period, in a few sentences. If I had the space I would quote whole chapters from the works of Jacob Burckhardt, to whom the world owes so much for a true understanding of the Renaissance.

However, I found that the description given in the Encyclopaedia Britannica sums up the whole movement in a fairly clear way. It states that it was not merely a revival of learning, but that the rediscovery of the classic past restored the confidence in their own faculties to men striving after spiritual freedom; revealed the continuity of history and the identity of human nature in spite of divers creeds and different customs; held up for emulation master-works of literature, philosophy, and art; provoked inquiries, encouraged criticism, shattered the narrow mental barriers imposed by medieval orthodoxy. It indicates the endeavour of man to reconstitute himself as a free being . . . and the peculiar assistance he derived in this effort from Greek and Roman literature, the literae humaniores, letters leaning to the side of man rather than of divinity.” This article appeared first in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and was written by J. A. Symonds. But now something very interesting happened. It was reproduced in the most recent, the fourteenth edition—but with a postscript by Professor P. Smith, a famous American scholar. Here is what Professor Smith adds: “Like most historians of the 19th century, Symonds regarded them both (the Renaissance and the Reformation) as libera movements . . Just as he was writing, however, Friedrich Nietzsche . . . proclaimed that `the Reformation was a reaction of backward minds against the Italian Renaissance'; and this view gained ground until it was adopted by Catholic historians like Lord Acton, Protestant historians like Ernst Troeltsch, and generally by the majority of scholars.”

Throughout Nietzsche's writings we find references to these two movements, and their relationship. “The Renaissance is the last great period of history”. “We have in the Reformation a disorderly and plebeian contradiction of the renaissance of Italy”. “The Germans have cheated Europe of the last great event of culture which Europe might have collected—the Renaissance”. “Luther's reformation was in its complete flatness the reaction of the simple mind against something cosmopolitan. . . . The debasing of European spirit, especially in the north, has made a marked advance with Luther's reformation.” “That Luther's reformation succeeded in the north is a proof how retarded the north of Europe is compared to the south.”

But perhaps the most remarkable of Nietzsche's sayings on the subject we find in his “Human, All Too Human”. “The Renaissance”, he writes, “had positive forces which have, as yet, never become so mighty again in our modern culture. It was the golden age of the best thousand years, in spite of all its blemishes and vices. On the other hand, the German reformation stands out as an energetic protest of antiquated spirits. . . With their northern strength and stiff-neckedness they threw mankind back again. . . . The great task of the Renaissance could not be brought to a termination; this was prevented by the protest of a contemporary backward spirit. It was the chance of an extraordinary constellation of politics that Luther was preserved, and that his protest gained strength, for the Emperor protected him in order to employ him as a weapon against the Pope, and in the same way he was secretly favoured by the Pope in order to use the Protestant princes as a counterweight against the Emperor. Without this curious counter-play of intentions, Luther would have been burnt like Huss—and the morning sun of enlightenment would probably have risen somewhat earlier, and with a splendour more beauteous than we can no imagine.”

It ought to be remembered that Nietzsche was the son of a Lutheran pastor, that he had a Lutheran upbringing himself, and that he knew Luther's teaching, Luther's influence, from within. There was some justification when Nietzsche could state in one of his very last writings: “People are no longer afraid of the ideal of the Renaissance.”

Scholars began to see and discover that the Renaissance and the humanists “were not pagan. A great deal of nonsense is talked about the `pagan' Renaissance.” People began to understand in what a great time Luther had been born, and what a unique chance he had, and how he utterly and completely not merely ignored this chance, but fought it with such disastrous consequences. The Reformation, that is to say the German Reformation, was no longer seen as a liberal and progressive movement, but as a fatal reactionary period against the greatness of the Renaissance. “It is an elementary error, but one which is still shared by many people who have read history superficially, that the Reformation established religious liberty and the right of private judgment”, says Prof. J. B. Bury in his “History of Freedom of Thought”. Or, as Prof. Oscar Levy, the English editor of Nietzsche's works, wrote in 1940, “Luther's reformation was a malediction upon art, poetry, beauty, knowledge, as well as upon greatness of heart, mind, will, and deed.” “The Reformation,” writes Dyer in his “History of Europe”, “was a reaction of the Teutonic mind against the Roman.”

The results were as to be expected. “The direct influence of the Reformation was at first unfavourable to scientific progress, for nothing could be more at variance with any scientific theory of development of the universe than the ideas of the Protestant leaders” (A. D. White: “History of the Warfare of Science and Theology within Christendom”). Germany especially was doomed. She had shown so much promise and so much hope at the beginning of the Renaissance, hopes which the advent of Luther and the German Reformation had annihilated once and forever. Typical and true are the words with which the Cambridge Modern History concludes its chapter on the German Reformation. “With the decay of civic life went also the ruin of municipal arts and civilisation. . . . Intellectually, morally and politically, Germany was a desert, and it was called religious peace."

I thought it necessary in order to provide better understanding of what I shall have to say in my subsequent chapters, to point to these two changes which have taken place in the historical interpretation of the Reformation. First of all, the great and fundamental difference between the Lutheran movement and the various other lines of reformation; and secondly, the relation which the Reformation has to its historical predecessor, the Renaissance. I hope that even if I could not indicate the actual line of research taken by the various scholars in arriving at their conclusions, I have at least made it reasonably clear what those conclusions were, and how far they are different from what we might perhaps call the antiquated or traditional views.

Since I have to limit myself, however, I shall deal merely with two aspects of the German Reformation. First I shall discuss, at some length what seems to me the real and true personality of Martin Luther. I shall do this for two reasons. First of all, the German Reformation is unthinkable without the personality and character of Luther himself. “The original point of reference in an effort to understand German Protestantism is the person and the writings of Martin Luther.” “Luther is the German Reformation, the German Reformation Luther.” “The evangelical Reformation of the sixteenth century is unthinkable without Luther. It owed its origin directly to him and it bears the stamp of his personality.” “No German has ever influenced so powerfully as Luther the religious life, and through it, the whole history of his people; none has ever reflected so faithfully, in his whole personal character and conduct, the peculiar features of that life and history.” “Lutheranism is not a system worked out by Luther; it is the overflow of Luther's individuality. . . . It is that which explains the `reformer's' immense influence.” These are typical comments.

I could give many more quotations of the same kind from Lutherans and Catholics alike which would justify me in devoting some time to the personal character of the Reformer. For I am as much convinced as all other biographers that an understanding of Lutheranism, and its effect, is completely impossible without a full understanding of Luther's personality.

The second reason why I shall discuss Luther the man at some length is because I hope to be able to destroy the “Luther-legend” to some extent. Nothing, to my mind, is so harmful to a true understanding of historical facts as the existence of some old legends which have no reasonable explanation. One of Luther's biographers wrote about the “hopelessness to fight the Luther-legend”. I am not quite so much of a pessimist. I think it is my duty as a teacher to try and acquaint my pupils with the facts, or at least the facts as I see them, and to produce in them a state of mind in which they may investigate for themselves, see and read on their own—before they accept traditional legends, irrespective of whether there is a shadow of truth about them or not.

After I shall have dealt with the character and personality of Luther, I shall try and explain some of the Reformer's social and political doctrines. I do not propose to enter into any discussion of Luther's doctrine, of his explanations of and views about the Scriptures. “The doctrine is what is least interesting in the history of Luther and Lutheranism,” says Funck-Brentano in his famous biography of Luther.

It is not always fully realised that Luther had not merely a great influence on political and social life (apart from the purely religious aspect), but that he was a political and social figure in his own times. “Luther was more of a politician than a theologian,” says Houston Stewart Chamberlain, one of his greatest admirers. He was “above all a political hero”. “It was Luther's first thought to look in the Scripture for a political reformation”. Religious and social questions mingle together in the Reformation; it was in fact quite as much a social and political revolution as a religious movement”. “Thus it was no accident that Luther was called on to take a leading part in the controversies.” Thus it happened that “Lutheranism was political”, and it is certainly with justification that a Protestant church historian calls Luther “one of the greatest politicians of Germany” (H. Hermelink in “Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte”, vol. 29, 1908, p. 478).

After I have shown the personality and character of Martin Luther, his political and social teachings, I shall attempt to trace the influence exercised by the Reformer and his theories on the political life of Germany, and thus of Europe. It will then be the reader's task to decide whether I have proved my case when I stated that, in my opinion, the line from Luther to Hitler runs straight; and that one of the main causes, if not the main cause, which turned Germany into a country of barbarians, which produced a Germany attempting repeatedly to destroy all the values of western civilisation, was Martin Luther and his German Reformation.