The German Evangelical Alliance (EAD) published a statement, asking the Jews “for forgiveness for the failings of our forefathers and the injustices committed by the Church and by Christians”.

The document is “an amendment and extension” to its 1946 Confession of guilt, which was released 80 years ago for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) in London.

Representatives of the EAD read out the text together during a commemorative service at the EAD’s Berlin office, situated in the immediate vicinity of the Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe.

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The date was “deliberately chosen”, they explain, to remember the night known as Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass), from 9 to 10 November 1938, when synagogues were burned, Jewish shops looted, and Jewish people persecuted, deported and murdered throughout Germany.

EAD: “Guilty before God”

The statement, carried out by the EAD’s Working Group on Israel, Judaism and the Middle East, acknowledges that “the 1946 confession of guilt failed to address important aspects of our failings and therefore remained incomplete”.

The EAD stresses that the marginalisation and incipient persecution of the Jewish population and other victim groups “were not condemned with the necessary clarity” in the 1946 document.

Moreover, “anti-Jewish measures were even justified using seemingly biblical arguments”.

“The leadership at that time thereby contradicted the Gospel and became guilty before God and the Jewish people. For this, the EAD asks the Jewish people for forgiveness”, underlines the statement.

Supporting Hitler

The EAD also feels “pain and shame” because its leaders at that time welcomed the ‘national uprising’ of 1933 and “pinned their hopes on Adolf Hitler’s seizure of power”.

“Hitler was hailed as the saviour sent by God for the people and the fatherland. This was a fatal misjudgement of the nature and aims of National Socialism”, they add.

The evangelical entity laments that “during the Nazi era, the EAD did not stand alongside the persecuted Jews, but declared the measures taken by the unjust state to be necessary”.

“It is still shameful that Jews are not safe in Germany today”

According to Reinhardt Schink, Chairman of the EAD, “at no point should one have been allowed to rely on this declaration, neither then nor now”.

“It is still shameful that Jews are not safe in Germany today”, he said at the presentation of the statement in Berlin.

The evangelical entity already publicly condemmed the antisemitic acts that took place after the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in several cities and towns of Germany in 2021.

In this new statement, the EAD pledges to “remain vigilant, clearly denounce injustice, and stand up for and protect Jewish people”.

“We resolutely oppose any form of anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel”, they conclude.

You can read the full statement here (in German)