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Day of No Return:
In the mid-1930s, a brave young theological student refused to preach Nazi doctrine and was denied ordination in the German Lutheran church. He struggled to resist the Nazi takeover of the church, but, with his life in danger, was ordered out of the coun
308 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
About the author
Kathrine Kressmann Taylor
20 books137 followersBorn Kathrine Kressmann, she married Elliott Taylor in 1928. Her first and most famous book, "Address unknown", was initially published by Story magazine. As both the editor and her husband deemed the story "too strong to appear under the name of a woman", she took on the pseudonym Kressman Taylor, which she used for the rest of her professional life.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 4, 2018
Recently having found Katherine Kressmann Taylor's book (Address Unknown) by chance mentioned on an OTR (old time radio) quiz show_ Information Please, which was a chilling read, I saw this book mentioned as an addition on that subject of Nazi Germany. I found Day of No Return, as disturbing but it's focus was what the Nazi regime did on the infiltration of the Lutheran church. I was not aware at what lengths they went to try to destroy the belief in God and their attempt to make Hitler a God.
The story is based on a young theological student who refused to give up his faith to the Nazi state. Kressmann Taylor was introduced to this young man with the help of the FBI, so his story could be told to awaken the American public but the author fictionalized the details to prevent any harm to his loved ones in Germany. Being of German ancestry, I was heartened to hear about the resistance that many Germans refused to let their hearts and minds turn away from God. There are many good books about showing all the atrocities of Germany at this epoch but what makes this book special is it was published during the height of Nazism (1942) and the realism that it was written during those times and not in the distant future, makes it so much more interesting. This Kindle edition has besides the original text, additional information about the real life of the young pastor who has quite an impressive family history. A must read IMO.
The story is based on a young theological student who refused to give up his faith to the Nazi state. Kressmann Taylor was introduced to this young man with the help of the FBI, so his story could be told to awaken the American public but the author fictionalized the details to prevent any harm to his loved ones in Germany. Being of German ancestry, I was heartened to hear about the resistance that many Germans refused to let their hearts and minds turn away from God. There are many good books about showing all the atrocities of Germany at this epoch but what makes this book special is it was published during the height of Nazism (1942) and the realism that it was written during those times and not in the distant future, makes it so much more interesting. This Kindle edition has besides the original text, additional information about the real life of the young pastor who has quite an impressive family history. A must read IMO.
August 15, 2021
A medio camino entre la novela y el ensayo, este libro nos narra la penetración de la ideología nazi en las diversas capas de la sociedad alemana y cómo chocó con la Universidad y la Iglesia a las que intentó someter por la fuerza.
Nazismo y religión, podría ser el título de esta obra, de contenido interesante, pero que me ha resultado monótona - al punto del abandono - por la manera en que está relatada.
Contado desde el punto de vista de un joven estudiante de Teología, hijo de un pastor de la Iglesia luterana, nos explica en detalle la progresiva infiltración de los nazis, tanto en la Iglesia como en la Universidad, y todos los mecanismos de presión y disuasión que utilizaron para enfrentarse a las creencias generalizadas de la población.
Comienza explicando los orígenes del movimiento fascista como resultado de la derrota alemana en la primera guerra mundial:
Hubo una atmósfera fétida en las ciudades de Alemania durante los años de la posguerra que transmitió su aliento a toda la generación que creció con la República. Era como si las tensiones de la catástrofe recurrente, la derrota, la vergüenza de la paz, la inflación y la miseria absoluta hubieran aplastado los rasgos sencillos y firmes de la gente, de manera que se movían en un círculo perplejo y frenético sobre el cadáver en descomposición de sus creencias antiguas y estables.
Cuando Hitler surge como líder fuerte, se le quiere atribuir un poder extraordinario para que la población confíe en su capacidad de sacarlos de la terrible situación y su ideología se establece como una religión paralela:
Sé de hombres que fueron a la cárcel sólo porque criticaron la teoría nazi del carácter divino del Estado. Incluso la inspiración divina de Hitler se está convirtiendo en algo que no hay que cuestionarse. El Estado es Dios. Esa es la religión que están predicando.
A partir de aquí, el enfrentamiento con la religión tradicional está servido, con el agravante de que el cristianismo tiene su origen en la cultura judía, su enemigo acérrimo:
Tenemos que apartar de nuestro camino la sangre viscosa e impura que anhela contaminar la noble corriente de vida de nuestra propia sangre y de nuestros ideales. No nos inclinaremos ante la imagen del Dios Judío que Su raza traidora ha introducido sutilmente entre las naciones arias.
El nazismo promoverá el movimiento de los llamados cristianos alemanes, fieles a la ideología de Hitler, que buscan suplantar a los pastores luteranos en sus parroquias con propuestas extremas como:
El Crucifijo debe cambiarse por otro símbolo. Es propio de la psicología de una raza oriental de esclavos el adorar una figura rota, acompañada por las enseñanzas de docilidad y humildad. El Crucifijo nos ha engañado y conducido a la debilidad de culto. El alma nórdica reconoce por fin que el auténtico Jesús es Jesús el héroe, el fuerte que hizo restallar el látigo en el templo, el Cristo ario que nuestras almas reconocen y aclaman y cuyo Reino estamos construyendo aquí en la tierra.
Todo el proceso se nos explica de manera prolija, desde sus inicios, a través de clases y asambleas de estudiantes universitarios, sermones de diversos párrocos, discursos oficiales, disquisiciones religiosas, pequeños y grandes incidentes - en conjunto quizá demasiada información para el que busque una novelización de los hechos con acción rápida y personajes interesantes.
Leyendo los apéndices del libro, donde se nos desvela la auténtica identidad del narrador, Karl Hoffman, que huyó a Estados Unidos a principios de los años 40, hay un párrafo que explica algunas cosas sobre la génesis de este libro:
Con el respaldo no oficial del gobierno y gracias a una subvención privada, Until That Day estaba destinado a la lista de éxitos de ventas del Club del Libro del Mes y a convertirse en película, pero todo se canceló tras el ataque japonés a Pearl Harbor, después del cual se hizo innecesario despertar sentimientos antifascistas en Estados Unidos.
Por tanto, se trata de un libro de encargo, escrito a tres bandas y con una intencionalidad política. Creo que por eso me ha transmitido una sensación de desgana por parte de la autora, que seguramente vio limitas sus opciones creativas. Nada que ver con su magnífico Paradero Desconocido, que había publicado con anterioridad y que fue un gran éxito de ventas.
3 estrellas por el contenido, 2 por la forma
Nazismo y religión, podría ser el título de esta obra, de contenido interesante, pero que me ha resultado monótona - al punto del abandono - por la manera en que está relatada.
Contado desde el punto de vista de un joven estudiante de Teología, hijo de un pastor de la Iglesia luterana, nos explica en detalle la progresiva infiltración de los nazis, tanto en la Iglesia como en la Universidad, y todos los mecanismos de presión y disuasión que utilizaron para enfrentarse a las creencias generalizadas de la población.
Comienza explicando los orígenes del movimiento fascista como resultado de la derrota alemana en la primera guerra mundial:
Hubo una atmósfera fétida en las ciudades de Alemania durante los años de la posguerra que transmitió su aliento a toda la generación que creció con la República. Era como si las tensiones de la catástrofe recurrente, la derrota, la vergüenza de la paz, la inflación y la miseria absoluta hubieran aplastado los rasgos sencillos y firmes de la gente, de manera que se movían en un círculo perplejo y frenético sobre el cadáver en descomposición de sus creencias antiguas y estables.
Cuando Hitler surge como líder fuerte, se le quiere atribuir un poder extraordinario para que la población confíe en su capacidad de sacarlos de la terrible situación y su ideología se establece como una religión paralela:
Sé de hombres que fueron a la cárcel sólo porque criticaron la teoría nazi del carácter divino del Estado. Incluso la inspiración divina de Hitler se está convirtiendo en algo que no hay que cuestionarse. El Estado es Dios. Esa es la religión que están predicando.
A partir de aquí, el enfrentamiento con la religión tradicional está servido, con el agravante de que el cristianismo tiene su origen en la cultura judía, su enemigo acérrimo:
Tenemos que apartar de nuestro camino la sangre viscosa e impura que anhela contaminar la noble corriente de vida de nuestra propia sangre y de nuestros ideales. No nos inclinaremos ante la imagen del Dios Judío que Su raza traidora ha introducido sutilmente entre las naciones arias.
El nazismo promoverá el movimiento de los llamados cristianos alemanes, fieles a la ideología de Hitler, que buscan suplantar a los pastores luteranos en sus parroquias con propuestas extremas como:
El Crucifijo debe cambiarse por otro símbolo. Es propio de la psicología de una raza oriental de esclavos el adorar una figura rota, acompañada por las enseñanzas de docilidad y humildad. El Crucifijo nos ha engañado y conducido a la debilidad de culto. El alma nórdica reconoce por fin que el auténtico Jesús es Jesús el héroe, el fuerte que hizo restallar el látigo en el templo, el Cristo ario que nuestras almas reconocen y aclaman y cuyo Reino estamos construyendo aquí en la tierra.
Todo el proceso se nos explica de manera prolija, desde sus inicios, a través de clases y asambleas de estudiantes universitarios, sermones de diversos párrocos, discursos oficiales, disquisiciones religiosas, pequeños y grandes incidentes - en conjunto quizá demasiada información para el que busque una novelización de los hechos con acción rápida y personajes interesantes.
Leyendo los apéndices del libro, donde se nos desvela la auténtica identidad del narrador, Karl Hoffman, que huyó a Estados Unidos a principios de los años 40, hay un párrafo que explica algunas cosas sobre la génesis de este libro:
Con el respaldo no oficial del gobierno y gracias a una subvención privada, Until That Day estaba destinado a la lista de éxitos de ventas del Club del Libro del Mes y a convertirse en película, pero todo se canceló tras el ataque japonés a Pearl Harbor, después del cual se hizo innecesario despertar sentimientos antifascistas en Estados Unidos.
Por tanto, se trata de un libro de encargo, escrito a tres bandas y con una intencionalidad política. Creo que por eso me ha transmitido una sensación de desgana por parte de la autora, que seguramente vio limitas sus opciones creativas. Nada que ver con su magnífico Paradero Desconocido, que había publicado con anterioridad y que fue un gran éxito de ventas.
3 estrellas por el contenido, 2 por la forma
May 18, 2022
I sought this novel out after reading Kathrine Kressmann Taylor’s perfect goose-bump of a short story Address Unknown. That story, originally published in 1938, received much-deserved notoriety in its time and was later republished as a stand-alone paperback with an afterword by the author's son giving the back story of this riveting epistolary exchange between two Germans, one a Jew and one a budding Nazi, at a pivotal time in history. It is an international best-seller.
I'm guessing Kressmann Taylor's son, Charles Douglas Taylor (who contributed back-of-book comprehensive and illuminating histories about and by the real man* on whom Day of No Return was based), was motivated by the short story's success to self-publish (through Xlibris) this 2016 American edition of this out-of-print novel that has only 4 reviews on Goodreads. I would like to remedy its unmerited obscurity.
Day of No Return, first published in 1942, is equally necessary and horrifying. And it should be read by Americans who love democracy and are frazzled by our current history. If you enjoy reading history, this novel may be for you. I'll explain:
I was not brought up with a religion and one of the good parts of that is that I have no sense of any religion being superior and am comfortable with a live and let live attitude. But this background has also made me obtuse to the dynamism of religious fervor and power and how it can be used to take over and demolish democracy. For all its flaws, our Constitution and the founders were absolutely brilliant in their proclamation of a republic with a separation of church and state—a separation which insidious forces are eroding as I type.
The similarities of the trajectory of Germany into a Nazi regime and what's going on now in the USA are unmistakable. But without the knowledge of the historical precedent, we Americans are missing the chance to do a course correction.
If you are not interested in religion, some of this book could be daunting—the changing politics affecting the German Lutheran church and its pastor, as told by the pastor's son. Even if church doctrine and politics are not your thing, I encourage you to read this, because it is identical to what is happening here in the States with a carefully choreographed merging of State and willing Evangelicals and the impending elimination of women's rights to their own bodies by establishing the primacy of one religion's beliefs and codifying it into law. (Jews and Buddhists have entirely different beliefs about what constitutes an in-utero person, not to mention all the beliefs of people who do not ascribe to any organized religion, not to mention the plethora of individual traumas and circumstances that determine a woman's choice to give birth or not.)
In Germany, citizens got drawn by the magnetism of power—a leader who established a cult and declared it a religion. This religion that is not a religion takes over organized religion, pushing out people who truly believe in God and loving their neighbor. It's like a virus. And what's left is a religion called "German Christians" which has zero to do with the Golden Rule or a Loving God, let alone mercy. And it happens step by carefully choreographed step
—like judges here being appointed who'll do away with women's right to bodily autonomy;
—like election officials being replaced by people with loyalty to a party or doctrine rather than democratic elections;
—by having a so-called member of the fourth estate act as a propaganda machine;
—by enacting legislation to encourage people to spy on one another, investigate miscarriages, and prosecute anybody who may have broken the Christian Right's ban on abortion.
Unlike the USA, there was no established separation of church and state in Germany's former republic, however this allowed the Nazis to take over the customary teaching of religion in schools, substituting Nazi (aka "German Christian") doctrine and "Aryan blood theory" for Lutheran spiritual teaching
—which sounds a lot like the book banning now happening in Florida and elsewhere.
It is really all about power, not about beliefs. But people who believe are pulled into it; so are people who feel lost or victimized or disparaged. And those who merely go about their lives, ignoring the whole thing, oblivious to what is happening on what seems to them to be the edges of their comfort, don't have a chance.
People with a church background will have a much easier time with this novel than I did and perhaps appreciate more of the intricacies of the Lutheran resistance to what happened. But if you can't get into anything religious, I hope that, through this little review, you can still hear and heed the warning and message this book has for this moment in American history:
We must vote in huge numbers to protect the separation of church and state. Ignoring this virus is not an option if we want to keep democracy as we've known it.
I live in New York State where our representatives overwhelmingly support democracy, but I intend to try to affect the larger republic through participation in an organization called Vote Forward—sending nonpartisan letters to sluggish registered voters in states with upcoming midterm elections, simply stating why voting is important to me.
If you are a Christian who believes in separation of church and state and a democratic republic, you might feel called to action by the heroic resistance of the Lutherans recounted in this book. What that action might be, I have no idea.
If you are living in Putin's Russia right now, there is a whole other level of stuff for you in this book.
____________
* Rev. Leopold Bernhard (b. 1915, d. 1985)**, the real pastor whose story this is, escaped to the USA, subsequently was threatened by Nazi supporters in this country, reported his experience to the FBI, who arranged the meetings with Kressmann Taylor. She wrote his story (this book) under the title Until That Day with unofficial government backing and private financial support. The book was on track to be a best-seller, Book-of-the-Month Club pick, and movie, but all of that was cancelled after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, "which made it unnecessary to raise anti-fascist sentiments in America. (226)"
**An unfinished autobiography of Bernhard's is included in the back of this book. (I didn't read it. Maybe eventually I will.)
*** BR Note: The Nazi Christianity is referred to in this book as a "pagan" religion in a disparaging way. This is a misuse of the word. Paganism in truth is an authentic religion deriving from Ancient Greece and Rome whose practitioners believe in the sacredness of nature. There was no reverence for anything other than Hitler and Aryan blood in the Nazi Christianity.
5/18/22 Update
As everyone who lives in the United States is probably aware, Saturday, 5/14/22, a white supremacist vigilante took it upon himself to carry out his mission to murder, directed by the Nazi-espoused "Replacement Theory" now given wide publicity by Fox News and the internet. This morning, historian Heather Cox Richardson, in her free newsletter Letters from an American , quoted President Biden's remarks at the site of the Buffalo mass murder:
I'm guessing Kressmann Taylor's son, Charles Douglas Taylor (who contributed back-of-book comprehensive and illuminating histories about and by the real man* on whom Day of No Return was based), was motivated by the short story's success to self-publish (through Xlibris) this 2016 American edition of this out-of-print novel that has only 4 reviews on Goodreads. I would like to remedy its unmerited obscurity.
Day of No Return, first published in 1942, is equally necessary and horrifying. And it should be read by Americans who love democracy and are frazzled by our current history. If you enjoy reading history, this novel may be for you. I'll explain:
I was not brought up with a religion and one of the good parts of that is that I have no sense of any religion being superior and am comfortable with a live and let live attitude. But this background has also made me obtuse to the dynamism of religious fervor and power and how it can be used to take over and demolish democracy. For all its flaws, our Constitution and the founders were absolutely brilliant in their proclamation of a republic with a separation of church and state—a separation which insidious forces are eroding as I type.
The similarities of the trajectory of Germany into a Nazi regime and what's going on now in the USA are unmistakable. But without the knowledge of the historical precedent, we Americans are missing the chance to do a course correction.
If you are not interested in religion, some of this book could be daunting—the changing politics affecting the German Lutheran church and its pastor, as told by the pastor's son. Even if church doctrine and politics are not your thing, I encourage you to read this, because it is identical to what is happening here in the States with a carefully choreographed merging of State and willing Evangelicals and the impending elimination of women's rights to their own bodies by establishing the primacy of one religion's beliefs and codifying it into law. (Jews and Buddhists have entirely different beliefs about what constitutes an in-utero person, not to mention all the beliefs of people who do not ascribe to any organized religion, not to mention the plethora of individual traumas and circumstances that determine a woman's choice to give birth or not.)
In Germany, citizens got drawn by the magnetism of power—a leader who established a cult and declared it a religion. This religion that is not a religion takes over organized religion, pushing out people who truly believe in God and loving their neighbor. It's like a virus. And what's left is a religion called "German Christians" which has zero to do with the Golden Rule or a Loving God, let alone mercy. And it happens step by carefully choreographed step
—like judges here being appointed who'll do away with women's right to bodily autonomy;
—like election officials being replaced by people with loyalty to a party or doctrine rather than democratic elections;
—by having a so-called member of the fourth estate act as a propaganda machine;
—by enacting legislation to encourage people to spy on one another, investigate miscarriages, and prosecute anybody who may have broken the Christian Right's ban on abortion.
Unlike the USA, there was no established separation of church and state in Germany's former republic, however this allowed the Nazis to take over the customary teaching of religion in schools, substituting Nazi (aka "German Christian") doctrine and "Aryan blood theory" for Lutheran spiritual teaching
—which sounds a lot like the book banning now happening in Florida and elsewhere.
"They are not teaching our boys to be Christians any more. [says one distraught mother] They are teaching them to worship the state, to worship the Fuehrer instead of God. They make fun of the Bible,' a woman with tear-smudged cheeks began. (180)"But nothing is as it seems.
It is really all about power, not about beliefs. But people who believe are pulled into it; so are people who feel lost or victimized or disparaged. And those who merely go about their lives, ignoring the whole thing, oblivious to what is happening on what seems to them to be the edges of their comfort, don't have a chance.
People with a church background will have a much easier time with this novel than I did and perhaps appreciate more of the intricacies of the Lutheran resistance to what happened. But if you can't get into anything religious, I hope that, through this little review, you can still hear and heed the warning and message this book has for this moment in American history:
We must vote in huge numbers to protect the separation of church and state. Ignoring this virus is not an option if we want to keep democracy as we've known it.
I live in New York State where our representatives overwhelmingly support democracy, but I intend to try to affect the larger republic through participation in an organization called Vote Forward—sending nonpartisan letters to sluggish registered voters in states with upcoming midterm elections, simply stating why voting is important to me.
If you are a Christian who believes in separation of church and state and a democratic republic, you might feel called to action by the heroic resistance of the Lutherans recounted in this book. What that action might be, I have no idea.
If you are living in Putin's Russia right now, there is a whole other level of stuff for you in this book.
____________
* Rev. Leopold Bernhard (b. 1915, d. 1985)**, the real pastor whose story this is, escaped to the USA, subsequently was threatened by Nazi supporters in this country, reported his experience to the FBI, who arranged the meetings with Kressmann Taylor. She wrote his story (this book) under the title Until That Day with unofficial government backing and private financial support. The book was on track to be a best-seller, Book-of-the-Month Club pick, and movie, but all of that was cancelled after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, "which made it unnecessary to raise anti-fascist sentiments in America. (226)"
**An unfinished autobiography of Bernhard's is included in the back of this book. (I didn't read it. Maybe eventually I will.)
*** BR Note: The Nazi Christianity is referred to in this book as a "pagan" religion in a disparaging way. This is a misuse of the word. Paganism in truth is an authentic religion deriving from Ancient Greece and Rome whose practitioners believe in the sacredness of nature. There was no reverence for anything other than Hitler and Aryan blood in the Nazi Christianity.
5/18/22 Update
As everyone who lives in the United States is probably aware, Saturday, 5/14/22, a white supremacist vigilante took it upon himself to carry out his mission to murder, directed by the Nazi-espoused "Replacement Theory" now given wide publicity by Fox News and the internet. This morning, historian Heather Cox Richardson, in her free newsletter Letters from an American , quoted President Biden's remarks at the site of the Buffalo mass murder:
“What happened here is simple and straightforward,” Biden said, “Domestic terrorism. Violence inflicted in the service of hate and a vicious thirst for power that defines one group of people being inherently inferior to any other group. A hate that through the media and politics, the Internet, has radicalized angry, alienated, lost, and isolated individuals into falsely believing that they will be replaced—that’s the word, “replaced”—by the “other”—by people who don’t look like them and who are therefore, in a perverse ideology that they possess and [are] being fed, lesser beings.”
Biden called on “all Americans to reject [that] lie.” He condemned “those who spread the lie for power, political gain, and for profit.” “[T]he ideology of white supremacy has no place in America,” he said. “Silence is complicity.”
January 18, 2023
“Day of No Return” was originally published in 1942 under the title “Until That Day”.
I’ve read a fair amount of books on WWII, but until this book, I’ve never heard of the German Christian movement or the Confessing Church. I used google multiple times while reading this book.
“Day of No Return” was very interesting and I enjoyed learning something new.
I’ve read a fair amount of books on WWII, but until this book, I’ve never heard of the German Christian movement or the Confessing Church. I used google multiple times while reading this book.
“Day of No Return” was very interesting and I enjoyed learning something new.
August 6, 2021
Es difícil de calificar este libro. Primero porque está muy bien escrito con una prosa muy cuidada. Luego porque es una versión novelada de una historia real... Pero en contra tiene, para mi, lo que cuenta. Los detalles de su vida me hicieron agradable la lectura pero me saturó todo lo que tiene que ver con la religión. Es extremadamente detallista en ese aspecto. El libro narra la germinación del nazismo desde el punto de vista de un pastor luterano. Como los nazis convirtieron sus eslogan en una religión, y como " convencieron" a la gente para que les siguiera. Todo narrado en primera persona con una voz cargada de emotividad...el final me ha gustado, soy una clásica de este tipo de finales. Tres estrellitas porque en muy pocos momentos ha conseguido captar por completo mi atención.
June 6, 2023
Kathrine Kressmann Taylor’s Address Unknown was a revelation to me last summer, and I have been eagerly anticipating Day of No Return since. This novel was originally published as Until That Day by Kressmann Taylor, though its reception was disrupted by the attack on Pearl Harbor and the US entering the war.
Unlike Address Unknown, an epistolary novel about business partners, Day of No Return is a bildungsroman about a young man training for the priesthood in 1930s Germany. Based on the true story of Leopold Bernhard, the novel shares his life story through the pen of Kressmann Taylor, who wrote the novel under strict conditions of Bernhard’s anonymity. He came to the United States fleeing persecution. His own Gary, IN congregation threatened his life when he made clear his positions on the invasion of Poland, so he was moved by the FBI to a different congregation in the Northeast, where he met Kressmann Taylor. Karl Hoffman is the fictional name of Bernhard’s character.
The novel considers the Lutheran Church in Germany affected by the rise of Hitler through Karl’s eyes as a seminary student. Nazism is presented as a religion counter to Christianity. An emphasis on the blood-based nature of the state religion is held up against the Lutheran liturgy, and the narrative harnesses the liturgy for storytelling to great effect. The moment when Karl witnesses a “German Christian” (Nazi-affiliated) priest denying communion to congregants with Jewish blood gave me chills.
Karl and his father, a priest (based not on Bernhard’s real father but on his priest in Germany), become involved with the Confessing Church, and Martin Niemöller is a memorable character in the narrative. Though Niemöller’s 1946 poem “First they came…” is not in the narrative, of course, the same line of thought is argued; Niemöller’s influence must have been strong on Bernhard’s thought.
There is so much fascinating detail in this eyewitness account of the Lutherans who resisted Nazism with their theology and their lives. Though Karl remains a student in Berlin in the novel, Bernhard also went to Switzerland and studied under Emil Brunner and Karl Barth. His political theology and Christology are delightfully Barthian--this would make an excellent source for a seminary paper. Chapter 8 alone should be included in political theology sourcebooks. In my avid reading of religious fiction, I have not yet encountered a novel that was so powerfully a work of political theology. (And now I am wishing that some powerful novelist takes into hand the story of St Óscar Romero….)
I highly recommend Day of No Return to anyone curious about the Confessing Church or the Lutheran Church in Germany in the 1930s. The narrative is so tight you could bounce a Pfennig off it. It struck an even deeper chord in me than Address Unknown, perhaps due to its length and my affection for coming-of-age novels, but certainly because it speaks hard but beautiful truths about Christianity in the face of disgusting ideologies and state persecution.
In its republished version as Day of No Return, this book includes a draft of Bernhard’s autobiography and his curriculum vitae. Many details were changed to protect Bernhard’s family in Germany during the war. They visited Bernhard in the US but decided to return to Germany, living a different city that “had nothing to bomb.” They died in the bombing of Dresden.
-----
“But the one thing [the Nazis] were attacking did not lie in an organization. There was a look in men’s eyes--but you could not arrest them for that. There was hope in patient faces--but how are you to prove that hope is treason? There were words sounding in the air, commands from an unseen Leader, and against them the Nazis’ countercommands rang futilely down the wind. And the words were: ‘Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me.’”
“It is a truism that the wider world a man feels himself a part of, the less likely he is to be seduced by notions of the superiority of some narrow group. Conversely, the walls that shut us in with your pride and our degradation turned Germany into a hothouse in whose soil the myth of Aryan supremacy flourished sadly.”
“‘There isn’t any way to protect yourself from the truth, except to like it,’ he told me.”
“‘You believe in salvation by the blood of Christ and I believe in salvation by the strong red stream that flows in all Aryans….You and I, Karl,’ he shouted, ‘you and I--and who would have thought it? We shall both be saved by blood!’”
“If the voice of their brother’s blood cried out to them from the ground, there were many who answered in the stony words of Cain: ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’”
“Will the folds of the swastika hide forever the Crucifix, the symbol of our salvation?”
“The centuries-old prayers, the poetry of the creeds, the chants so many times reiterated sounded like words adrift in the midst of the martial display around us, and in the singing of the Kyrie there was a sound that was almost sobbing. Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us.”
“‘The old Jewish superstitions which disfigure our [Christian] faith must be lopped off and with them must go the Jews who are responsible for them.’ …. ‘There won’t be any Christianity when those fellows get through lopping it off,’ muttered Juhann to me under his breath.”
“And I wondered, looking with fear toward the future, how much longer we could call ourselves Christians who sat by and watched the waters of life refused to the thirsty.”
“It was startling to realize that these people and hundreds like them made their correct appearances at church, yet were completely ignorant that the Church was fighting for its very life and that on the other hand a rival religion had arisen, preaching a harsh and cruel paganism and that their very sons were walking the streets shouting its bombastic shibboleths.”
“Violence will breed counterviolence. The Nazis preach courage but have not yet learned that courage and brutality aren’t synonymous. You can’t blame your own crowd for reacting violently when they’ve been pricked too far.”
“‘We have only one savior and he is Adolf Hitler,’ the Baron told me over and over again. ‘He is saving the people now, and it is the people’s duty to worship him. Why should we allow anyone to teach them that they have a different Saviour?’” [sic]
“No man can ask more of his life than to use it for something greater than himself. The fruit from the seed we are sowing may not ripen in our time. But we can trust the outcome without question. The truth is never defeated.”
“We are exiles in our familiar place. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in this strange land?”
“The truth of God is not destroyed. It stands secure against violence and against the defeats of time.”
“How great a hope is ours and how great a responsibility, if in the days to come we are to stand before the world, a people who love the Lord our God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves.”
Unlike Address Unknown, an epistolary novel about business partners, Day of No Return is a bildungsroman about a young man training for the priesthood in 1930s Germany. Based on the true story of Leopold Bernhard, the novel shares his life story through the pen of Kressmann Taylor, who wrote the novel under strict conditions of Bernhard’s anonymity. He came to the United States fleeing persecution. His own Gary, IN congregation threatened his life when he made clear his positions on the invasion of Poland, so he was moved by the FBI to a different congregation in the Northeast, where he met Kressmann Taylor. Karl Hoffman is the fictional name of Bernhard’s character.
The novel considers the Lutheran Church in Germany affected by the rise of Hitler through Karl’s eyes as a seminary student. Nazism is presented as a religion counter to Christianity. An emphasis on the blood-based nature of the state religion is held up against the Lutheran liturgy, and the narrative harnesses the liturgy for storytelling to great effect. The moment when Karl witnesses a “German Christian” (Nazi-affiliated) priest denying communion to congregants with Jewish blood gave me chills.
Karl and his father, a priest (based not on Bernhard’s real father but on his priest in Germany), become involved with the Confessing Church, and Martin Niemöller is a memorable character in the narrative. Though Niemöller’s 1946 poem “First they came…” is not in the narrative, of course, the same line of thought is argued; Niemöller’s influence must have been strong on Bernhard’s thought.
There is so much fascinating detail in this eyewitness account of the Lutherans who resisted Nazism with their theology and their lives. Though Karl remains a student in Berlin in the novel, Bernhard also went to Switzerland and studied under Emil Brunner and Karl Barth. His political theology and Christology are delightfully Barthian--this would make an excellent source for a seminary paper. Chapter 8 alone should be included in political theology sourcebooks. In my avid reading of religious fiction, I have not yet encountered a novel that was so powerfully a work of political theology. (And now I am wishing that some powerful novelist takes into hand the story of St Óscar Romero….)
I highly recommend Day of No Return to anyone curious about the Confessing Church or the Lutheran Church in Germany in the 1930s. The narrative is so tight you could bounce a Pfennig off it. It struck an even deeper chord in me than Address Unknown, perhaps due to its length and my affection for coming-of-age novels, but certainly because it speaks hard but beautiful truths about Christianity in the face of disgusting ideologies and state persecution.
In its republished version as Day of No Return, this book includes a draft of Bernhard’s autobiography and his curriculum vitae. Many details were changed to protect Bernhard’s family in Germany during the war. They visited Bernhard in the US but decided to return to Germany, living a different city that “had nothing to bomb.” They died in the bombing of Dresden.
-----
“But the one thing [the Nazis] were attacking did not lie in an organization. There was a look in men’s eyes--but you could not arrest them for that. There was hope in patient faces--but how are you to prove that hope is treason? There were words sounding in the air, commands from an unseen Leader, and against them the Nazis’ countercommands rang futilely down the wind. And the words were: ‘Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me.’”
“It is a truism that the wider world a man feels himself a part of, the less likely he is to be seduced by notions of the superiority of some narrow group. Conversely, the walls that shut us in with your pride and our degradation turned Germany into a hothouse in whose soil the myth of Aryan supremacy flourished sadly.”
“‘There isn’t any way to protect yourself from the truth, except to like it,’ he told me.”
“‘You believe in salvation by the blood of Christ and I believe in salvation by the strong red stream that flows in all Aryans….You and I, Karl,’ he shouted, ‘you and I--and who would have thought it? We shall both be saved by blood!’”
“If the voice of their brother’s blood cried out to them from the ground, there were many who answered in the stony words of Cain: ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’”
“Will the folds of the swastika hide forever the Crucifix, the symbol of our salvation?”
“The centuries-old prayers, the poetry of the creeds, the chants so many times reiterated sounded like words adrift in the midst of the martial display around us, and in the singing of the Kyrie there was a sound that was almost sobbing. Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us.”
“‘The old Jewish superstitions which disfigure our [Christian] faith must be lopped off and with them must go the Jews who are responsible for them.’ …. ‘There won’t be any Christianity when those fellows get through lopping it off,’ muttered Juhann to me under his breath.”
“And I wondered, looking with fear toward the future, how much longer we could call ourselves Christians who sat by and watched the waters of life refused to the thirsty.”
“It was startling to realize that these people and hundreds like them made their correct appearances at church, yet were completely ignorant that the Church was fighting for its very life and that on the other hand a rival religion had arisen, preaching a harsh and cruel paganism and that their very sons were walking the streets shouting its bombastic shibboleths.”
“Violence will breed counterviolence. The Nazis preach courage but have not yet learned that courage and brutality aren’t synonymous. You can’t blame your own crowd for reacting violently when they’ve been pricked too far.”
“‘We have only one savior and he is Adolf Hitler,’ the Baron told me over and over again. ‘He is saving the people now, and it is the people’s duty to worship him. Why should we allow anyone to teach them that they have a different Saviour?’” [sic]
“No man can ask more of his life than to use it for something greater than himself. The fruit from the seed we are sowing may not ripen in our time. But we can trust the outcome without question. The truth is never defeated.”
“We are exiles in our familiar place. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in this strange land?”
“The truth of God is not destroyed. It stands secure against violence and against the defeats of time.”
“How great a hope is ours and how great a responsibility, if in the days to come we are to stand before the world, a people who love the Lord our God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves.”
December 24, 2022
Très intéressant. Trop peu de pure théologie à mon goût mais ce n'était pas le principal sujet (résistance de l'Église en Allemagne nazie)
September 5, 2023
Abandonado. No conecto ni con la forma ni con el fondo. Y además tratando temas religiosos me echa mucho para atrás.
November 20, 2016
Please give my review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/review/R3N6VV1...
This is something of an historical artifact. This book was written in 1942 by Kressman Taylor based on her interview with a German Lutheran pastor who was under FBI protection. The story follows the main character, Karl Hoffman, as he embarks on his career as a theology student at just the moment that Hitler's National Socialists are taking over the German government and german society. Karl encounters the Nazis as opportunistic thugs at the University of Berlin, where he learns that the Nazis mean to have their Cult of German Blood taken very seriously. Although his father, a prestigious pastor in Magdeburg is initially skeptical of Karl's concerns, he too, along with the rest of Lutheran Germany, come to understand that the Nazis intend to take-over the Lutheran Church and reform its dogmas to reflect Nazi dogmas. Thus, we have a number of vivid descriptions of Nazis preaching their doctrine that the Old Testament is a Jewish document that should be eliminated, that the doctrine of original sin weakened the German spirit, that Germans need no salvation since they are saved in their blood and that Hitler was appointed by God as the German savior.
The history of the book is largely accurate. It does provide a window into the hurly-burly of 1933 when so much was changing. From what I've read in history, the doctrines that the book offers as the doctrines of the "German Christians" were its doctrines. Likewise, the mocker and anti-Christian assault that Karl suffers in the labor battalion has been described in bona fide history books. Some historical figures make their appearances, such as Niemoller, Rust and Schlichter. That last is odd in that some time is given to a character named Orlando, who is linked to Schlichter. As in history, Schichter is killed as part of the Rohm Putsch, and Orlando commits suicide in grief. As a literary matter I was unsure of the point of this character, although it did make the criminality of the Night of Long Knives more immediate.I was disappointed that we did not see the meeting at the Berlin Sportzplatz that kernelized the confessional movement.
I think that what we really get from this book is the feeling of what it was like to be a devout Lutheran at this time. As an interesting aside, the plight of the Jews is not mentioned in this book, except insofar as the Aryan Paragraph - a historical fact - ruined Lutheran church members whose grandparents had been Jewish. This fact is mentioned, but we do not see the suffering of the Jews.
Likewise there is one scene where the Lutheran seminary students observe a Catholic Corpus Christi parade:
"We were aware that the Catholics were suffering persecution. Dr. Rosenberg, the powerful Nazi propagandist, had openly called the Catholic Church the "Anti-Christ," and while there was no attempt to impose Nazi leaders upon the Catholics as they were trying to do in the Lutherans' case, they were restrained not by any religious compunctions but rather by the strong international position of the Roman Church. The attacks were being made upon individual Catholic leaders, upon priests and nuns who were arrested in great numbers upon trumped-up civil charges, many of them being accused of the grossest immoralities in order to weaken their followers' confidence in them. These unhappy men and women had disappeared into the dark silence of the concentration camps. Leaders of the Catholic Youth organizations were arrested and many of them brutally beaten." (p. 106.)
That is virtually the only mention of the Catholic side of the Kirckenkampfe.
We might conclude from this that the various communities were neatly segregated by their mutual antipathies and suspicions.
This is fairly fast-moving book with action and suspense. I probably would have given it four stars if not for the history because the characters are subservient to the social forces that are calling the tune.
This is something of an historical artifact. This book was written in 1942 by Kressman Taylor based on her interview with a German Lutheran pastor who was under FBI protection. The story follows the main character, Karl Hoffman, as he embarks on his career as a theology student at just the moment that Hitler's National Socialists are taking over the German government and german society. Karl encounters the Nazis as opportunistic thugs at the University of Berlin, where he learns that the Nazis mean to have their Cult of German Blood taken very seriously. Although his father, a prestigious pastor in Magdeburg is initially skeptical of Karl's concerns, he too, along with the rest of Lutheran Germany, come to understand that the Nazis intend to take-over the Lutheran Church and reform its dogmas to reflect Nazi dogmas. Thus, we have a number of vivid descriptions of Nazis preaching their doctrine that the Old Testament is a Jewish document that should be eliminated, that the doctrine of original sin weakened the German spirit, that Germans need no salvation since they are saved in their blood and that Hitler was appointed by God as the German savior.
The history of the book is largely accurate. It does provide a window into the hurly-burly of 1933 when so much was changing. From what I've read in history, the doctrines that the book offers as the doctrines of the "German Christians" were its doctrines. Likewise, the mocker and anti-Christian assault that Karl suffers in the labor battalion has been described in bona fide history books. Some historical figures make their appearances, such as Niemoller, Rust and Schlichter. That last is odd in that some time is given to a character named Orlando, who is linked to Schlichter. As in history, Schichter is killed as part of the Rohm Putsch, and Orlando commits suicide in grief. As a literary matter I was unsure of the point of this character, although it did make the criminality of the Night of Long Knives more immediate.I was disappointed that we did not see the meeting at the Berlin Sportzplatz that kernelized the confessional movement.
I think that what we really get from this book is the feeling of what it was like to be a devout Lutheran at this time. As an interesting aside, the plight of the Jews is not mentioned in this book, except insofar as the Aryan Paragraph - a historical fact - ruined Lutheran church members whose grandparents had been Jewish. This fact is mentioned, but we do not see the suffering of the Jews.
Likewise there is one scene where the Lutheran seminary students observe a Catholic Corpus Christi parade:
"We were aware that the Catholics were suffering persecution. Dr. Rosenberg, the powerful Nazi propagandist, had openly called the Catholic Church the "Anti-Christ," and while there was no attempt to impose Nazi leaders upon the Catholics as they were trying to do in the Lutherans' case, they were restrained not by any religious compunctions but rather by the strong international position of the Roman Church. The attacks were being made upon individual Catholic leaders, upon priests and nuns who were arrested in great numbers upon trumped-up civil charges, many of them being accused of the grossest immoralities in order to weaken their followers' confidence in them. These unhappy men and women had disappeared into the dark silence of the concentration camps. Leaders of the Catholic Youth organizations were arrested and many of them brutally beaten." (p. 106.)
That is virtually the only mention of the Catholic side of the Kirckenkampfe.
We might conclude from this that the various communities were neatly segregated by their mutual antipathies and suspicions.
This is fairly fast-moving book with action and suspense. I probably would have given it four stars if not for the history because the characters are subservient to the social forces that are calling the tune.
September 28, 2024
Stupendo! Dovrebbe leggerlo chiunque, per conoscere l’avvento roboante del nazismo e come, nel loro piccolo, moltissime persone cercarono di opporsi e fecero il possibile rischiando la vita !!!
L’autrice, che ha uno stile magistrale, ha udito questa vicenda dalle labbra del protagonista e ha dovuto cambiare nomi per proteggere gli individui di cui parlava e le loro famiglie… io sono partita dal suo romanzo “Destinatario sconosciuto” un romanzo epistolare piccino, ma che lascia il segno e poi ho letto questo . Consigliato.
L’autrice, che ha uno stile magistrale, ha udito questa vicenda dalle labbra del protagonista e ha dovuto cambiare nomi per proteggere gli individui di cui parlava e le loro famiglie… io sono partita dal suo romanzo “Destinatario sconosciuto” un romanzo epistolare piccino, ma che lascia il segno e poi ho letto questo . Consigliato.
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