Hitler, Holocaust, and Bonhoeffer

This past weekend I participated, along with 17 other religious leaders, in a project to produce study materials for a DVD entitled “Theologians Under Hitler.” Was there a connection between Protestant Liberalism and the embrace of Nazism and support of the Holocaust by such theological luminaries as Gerhard Kittle, Paul Althaus, and Emanuel Hirsch? Does the rejection of Protestant Liberalism by Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer help explain their resistance to Hitler? I suspect so. Liberal and higher critical thinking had already accustomed the generation of preachers leading up to 1933 to stand above the Bible, making use of it for human purposes rather than standing under it to hear the voice of God. And Hitler did his best, often successfully to co-opt German Christianity for his nationalistic purposes.