Martin Luther
the Source of Anti-Semitism in Germany
by Andreas and Vivian Fischer
Image source Hitler: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S33882 / CC-BY-SA
Contempt for Human Dignity in Germany
Silence fills the Concert Hall in Berlin. There is an oppressive atmosphere in the room. A sense of helplessness and disappointment spreads among the attendant crowd. Many people have gathered on this 23rd February of 2012 in memory of the victims killed by neo-Nazis. Their lives were snuffed out and their dreams with them.
Many have tears in their eyes. The silence is interrupted by a father who lost his son. Ismail Yozgat steps to the pulpit. He is not asking for compensation money, he says. His wish is that the perpetrators will get punished and that the street where his son was born and murdered will be renamed in his honor. Not everybody can be bought with money.
The pain caused by the loss of a loved one and the massive, false suspicions by German authorities following the murder, cannot be recompensed with money.
Then, our chancellor Angela Merkel asks this question in her speech:
How could this happen? Why did we not take notice any earlier? Why could we not prevent this from happening?
[...]
She continues: The right-wing extremists acted with unfathomable contempt for human dignity. And yet, we must try to find out how and through whom they became that way. We must do everything we can to prevent other young men and women from growing up to harbour such contempt for human dignity. [...]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the Berlin Concert Hall on Feb. 23 of 2012
How could this happen?
In order to answer this question, we would like to shed some light on the main source of anti-Semitism in Germany. Anti-Semitism has existed long before National Socialism:
It is the year 1483. It is the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern age – a time of drastic changes.
Just shy of midnight, on November 10th, a child is born. Nobody knows that this newborn boy would later become a dark figure of light and change Germany in an unprecedented way. The child is given the name "Martin Luder". In the year of 1517, this self-proclaimed ‚Luther’ begins to operate publicly. He starts a movement and develops it into the institution of the Lutheran Church.
Various myths have been spread about the life and work of Martin Luther. They can not change the fact that he was a hate preacher through and through. His own publications confirm this fact in a shocking way. There has never been a preacher before or after him throughout the religious scene of Germany who could compare to him in that respect.
The theology of his very own approach on "love thy neighbor" revolutionized the Germans’ attitude. German history proves what kind of havoc Luther’s beliefs were able to wreak.
