Karl Eschweiler

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Karl Eschweiler (5 September 1886 – 30 September 1936) was an academic

theologian in Germany, who, as a so-called brown priest, publicly promoted cooperation and reconciliation between the church and the Nazi regime from 1933 onwards.[1] He believed that a dictatorship would benefit the church, as it would stem the tide of secularist modernism that he saw as eroding the church’s authority.[2]

Early life and education

Karl Eschweiler was born at

Archdiocese of Cologne in 1910. He served initially as a parish priest before pursuing full-time doctoral studies in theology at Bonn University. At the time of the Weimar Republic, Bonn was a centre for ‘progressive’ Catholic scholarship.[5]

Theological development

In his

condemnation by Pius X. He drew particularly on the thought of Enlightenment theologian Johann Michael Sailer,[6] addressing himself here (and in articles such as the 1926 work ‘die zwei Wege der neueren Theologie’[7]), to questions of the role of human intellect in the knowledge of God, and of how the grace of God could ‘perfect’ human nature in modern, mass society so that people could live ‘fuller’ lives with a disposition towards God.[8] At the same time, he also began his critique of the state as he experienced it in the Weimar Republic
.

For him, the (Roman Catholic) church has, through its doctrines, liturgy, instruments and structures, an objective reality. Through it, Jesus Christ is present in history. Eschweiler argued that it had an authority similar to that of the state, though each exercises sovereignty in its respective arena.[9] The state is sovereign over all other governing authorities provided it does not usurp the authority that rightly belongs to the church. Although the individual, and the church, should obey legitimate civil authority, Eschweiler argues that the Weimar regime was not such an authority, urging that the church should support a shift to an authoritarian state – provided this demonstrated a receptivity to the ongoing Christ.[10][11] He saw Weimar as espousing diversity (bad in itself, in his view), with a liberal individualist concept of rights, and noted that Article 137 of the Weimar Constitution stated that there exists no state church.[12] In Eschweiler's view, a powerful corrective to the chaos that, ethnically, morally, and religiously tolerant Weimar democracy had brought to Germany, was needed.[13] An authoritarian – but not totalitarian - state, supported by a powerful church with its own legitimate sphere of action free from state interference, and to which the state's leaders were accountable, was the (transitional) solution Eschweiler saw as necessary.[14] Eschweiler maintained that the Protestant and Catholic churches were witness to God's revelation, and that while the state was ultimately accountable to God, it was indirectly accountable to the church as God's proper representative on earth.[15]

Theology under the Nazi regime

By 1928, Eschweiler was teaching theology at the Theological Faculty at

Cardinal Pacelli, Vatican Secretary of State in Germany, to instigate canonical proceedings against him.[19] As a result, he was suspended from priestly ministry in August 1934 (together with his colleague, canonist Hans Barion), though reinstated in September 1935, having forsworn his support for the law.[20] When he died, still relatively young, in September 1936, some sources say that he chose to be buried in his Nazi uniform, with a Nazi service and Catholic funeral mass.[21]

Historian Robert Krieg has noted that views such as those of Eschweiler, while not uncommon among Catholic theologians and bishops under Hitler, were by no means a necessary outcome of a Catholic worldview. Archbishops Schulte and Bertram, as well as Bishop Kaller among others, were all notable opponents of the regime, despite sharing something of Eschweiler's vision for what the role of the church and the faithful individual in the modern state should be.[22]

References

  1. ^ Eschweiler, Karl (1933) Die Kirche im neuen Reich, in Deutsches Volkstum 15 (June 1933), pp 451 – 458
  2. ^ Krieg, Robert (2004) Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany, New York: Continuum, p 54
  3. ^ Drumm, Joachim (1996) ’Eschweiler, Karl’ in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, Freiburg: Herder 1993–2001 (vol 5) (3rd edition), p 881
  4. ^ Krieg, Robert (2004) Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany, New York: Continuum, p 31
  5. ^ Dempf, Alois (1969) Fortschrittliche Intelligenz nach dem ersten Weltkrieg, in Hochland 61 (1969) pp 234 – 42
  6. ^ Krieg, Robert (2004) Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany, New York: Continuum, p 33
  7. ^ Eschweiler, Karl (1926) Die zwei Wege der neueren Theologie, Augsburg: Benno Filser, passim
  8. ^ Krieg, Robert (2004) Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany, New York: Continuum, p 34
  9. ^ Eschweiler, Karl (1930) Johann Adam Möhlers Kirchenbegriff: Das Hauptstück der katholischen Auseninandersetzung mit der deutschen Idealismus, Braunsberg: Herder, passim
  10. ^ Eschweiler, Karl (1930) Johann Adam Möhlers Kirchenbegriff: Das Hauptstück der katholischen Auseninandersetzung mit der deutschen Idealismus, Braunsberg: Herder, passim
  11. ^ Krieg, Robert (2004) Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany, New York: Continuum, p 38
  12. ^ Krieg, Robert (2004) Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany, New York: Continuum, p 39
  13. ^ Krieg, Robert (2004) Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany, New York: Continuum, p 41
  14. ^ Krieg, Robert (2004) Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany, New York: Continuum, p 42
  15. ^ Krieg, p.40
  16. ^ Eschweiler, Karl (1933) Die Kirche im neuen Reich, in Deutsches Volkstum 15 (June 1933) pp 451 – 458, at p 451
  17. ^ Krieg, Robert (2004) Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany, New York: Continuum, p 46
  18. ^ Krieg, Robert (2004) Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany, New York: Continuum, p 49
  19. ^ Krieg, Robert (2004) Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany, New York: Continuum, p 50
  20. ^ Heiber, Helmut (1994) Universität unterm Hakenkreuz (Part 2, volume 2), Munich: Saur, pp 96 – 98; Thomas Marschler, Kirchenrecht im Bannkreis Carl Schmitts. Hans Barion vor und nach 1945, Bonn: nova & vetera 2004, 28-49.
  21. ^ Krieg, Robert (2004) Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany, New York: Continuum, pp 50 - 51
  22. ^ Krieg, Robert (2004) Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany, New York: Continuum, passim

Sources

  • Dempf, Alois (1969) Fortschrittliche Intelligenz nach dem ersten Weltkrieg, in Hochland 61 (1969), pp 234 – 42
  • Drumm, Joachim (1996) ’Eschweiler, Karl’ in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, Freiburg: Herder 1993–2001 (vol 5) (3rd edition)
  • Eschweiler, Karl (1926) Die zwei Wege der neueren Theologie, Augsburg: Benno Filser. Digital Edition, ed. by Thomas Marschler (2010)
  • Eschweiler, Karl (1928) Die Philosophie der spanischen Spätscholastik auf den deutschen Universitäten des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts, in: Spanische Forschungen der Görres-Gesellschaft I, Aschendorff, Münster 1928, 251-325.
  • Eschweiler, Karl (1930) Johann Adam Möhlers Kirchenbegriff: Das Hauptstück der katholischen Auseninandersetzung mit der deutschen Idealismus, Braunsberg: Herder
  • Eschweiler, Karl (1933) Die Kirche im neuen Reich, in Deutsches Volkstum 15 (June 1933), pp 451 – 458
  • Heiber, Helmut (1994) Universität unterm Hakenkreuz (Part 2, volume 2), Munich: Saur.
  • Krieg, Robert (2004) Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany New York: Continuum.
  • Marschler, Thomas (2004), Kirchenrecht im Bannkreis Carl Schmitts. Hans Barion vor und nach 1945. Bonn: nova & vetera.
  • Eschweiler, Karl (2010), Die katholische Theologie im Zeitalter des deutschen Idealismus. Die Bonner theologischen Qualifikationsschriften von 1921/22. Aus dem Nachlaß herausgegeben und mit einer Einleitung versehen von Thomas Marschler. Münster: Monsenstein und Vannerdat 2010. LXXII + 302 S., 19.50 Euro.
    ISBN 978-3-86991-180-9
    .
  • Marschler, Thomas, Karl Eschweiler (1886–1936). Theologische Erkenntnislehre und nationalsozialistische Ideologie = Quellen und Studien zur neueren Theologiegeschichte 9 (Regensburg 2011).
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