in the Storm of the Times.” In presenting it to his ministers in the Hesse Conference, A. Sachsenmaier, the conference president, sought to map a course that would neither place the church in harm’s way nor betray the cause of the gospel. His main premise was that God’s law provided room for flexibility, since he is a God of freedom. Regarding the Fourth Commandment, Sachsenmaier


argued that in times of total war, it was necessary to work on the Sabbath: “Te unshakable principle is: the seventh day of the week is and remains the holy day of the Lord, and it is to be recognized and kept holy as such.” But, he reasoned, the application of the law depended on the circumstances. Nature, he thought, offered an important lesson: When a storm blows across the land, the tree will bend with it and thus survive the storm. Aſter the storm passes, the tree will stand upright again. Without this flexibility to bend, the tree would be uprooted. Te apostate Reformed Adventist movement had refused to bend, and so it was banned. “We are still here, thanks to flexibility,” he concluded. Aſter the war, as Minck defended the German church against


charges of apostasy by the General Conference, he used yet another interesting concept in explaining German Adventist policy. Te two German words for apostatizing are abfallen, meaning “to fall away,” and abweichen, meaning “to turn aside” or take a detour. German Adventists had not apostatized, he explained, but merely detoured. “It is not apostasy, but merely turning out of the road to go around an obstacle and then to come back into the road.”


Assessment In our assessment of Adventist policy and what motivated it, we must resist the temptation to reduce what was really a complex set of factors, which surely varied from person to person. Yet, by their own admission, German Adventist leaders were guided by one consideration above all others: to keep the church from being outlawed. Tis is why they lent pen, pulpit, and church institutions to the Nazi cause. Tis is why respect for conscience applied only when it did not endanger institutional interests. Tis is why they adapted theology to meet their need. It was institutional reasoning above all else that led to compromise. Render unto Caesar! Given the Adventist emphasis on


prophecy and the coming time of trouble predicted in Daniel 12:1, KJV, it is revealing that when it did come, they were ill- equipped to meet the crisis without sacrificing their principles. It seems that German Adventists, along with other Christians,


did not grasp the nature of a totalitarian state. In 1935, Martin Niemöller had explained in one of his sermons that in such a


state, it was “no longer possible to determine which things were God’s and which were Caesar’s: Caesar wants it all.” German Adventist leaders were caught in a three-way tug between God, the state, and the church. Tey chose the church. But saving the institutional church came at significant cost.


While lauding the state’s policies in many sectors, they were silent when people were arrested at will by the government, in the name of national security, and sent to prison or concentration camps; when Germany waged aggressive and pre-emptive war; and when German special forces carried out ethnic cleansing, rounding up millions and exterminating them. By serving the state in the way they did, lending their support despite evidence of evil, in effect they became part of the Nazi cause and an accomplice in its deeds. Willingly or unwillingly, Adventist speakers and writers led their listeners and readers to believe that Nazi policies were in the people’s best interest, and in keeping with God’s commission to the church. As insiders, leaders had the confidence of their people, which made their propaganda more effective than the Nazi Party’s own.


Were They Wrong? Should German Adventists have followed a different course? Minck and his colleagues thought not. If they had to do it over again, they could not imagine any strategy other than the one that had guided them. Aſter all, the Adventist ship was safely in port. Tey believed God had given them wisdom to steer the right course. In a passionate defense of their policy, Minck argued that the


alternative was not simply the prohibition of the church and its institutions, but untold suffering and even death for thousands of Adventists. “No widows or orphans accuse us today” because they lost a husband or father, he wrote to J. L. McElhany, then- president of the General Conference. “Believe me, Brother McElhany, it would have not been difficult to make martyrs of the 500 ministers and 43,000 members. More than once, a mere shrug of the shoulder would have been enough, and the entire denomination would have been outlawed and the work smashed. My associates and I were not ready to make such a decision, and I believe to this day that we have acted correctly.” Should a policy be judged on the basis of principle or of


consequences? Te Adventist church in Germany survived the Tird Reich, but not as the voice of truth in a chorus of lies, not as a light illuminating the darkness of evil, and not as an instrument of peace and justice.


1 Adolf Minck, “Reformation,” Jugend-Leitstern, Vol. 11, No. 4 (1933), pp. 51-52. 2 Der Adventbote, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Feb. 15, 1934).


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