Aryan Jesus

<p>Was Jesus a Nazi? During the Third Reich German Protestant theologians motivated by racism and tapping into traditional Christian anti-Semitism redefined Jesus as an Aryan and Christianity as a religion at war with Judaism. In 1939 these theologians established the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life. In <i>The Aryan Jesus</i> Susannah Heschel shows that during the Third Reich the Institute became the most important propaganda organ of German Protestantism exerting a widespread influence and producing a nazified Christianity that placed anti-Semitism at its theological center. <p/> Based on years of archival research <i>The Aryan Jesus</i> examines the membership and activities of this controversial theological organization. With headquarters in Eisenach the Institute sponsored propaganda conferences throughout the Nazi Reich and published books defaming Judaism including a dejudaized version of the New Testament and a catechism proclaiming Jesus as the savior of the Aryans. Institute members--professors of theology bishops and pastors--viewed their efforts as a vital support for Hitler's war against the Jews. Heschel looks in particular at Walter Grundmann the Institute's director and a professor of the New Testament at the University of Jena. Grundmann and his colleagues formed a community of like-minded Nazi Christians who remained active and continued to support each other in Germany's postwar years. <p/><br> <i>The Aryan Jesus</i> raises vital questions about Christianity's recent past and the ambivalent place of Judaism in Christian thought.</p>