Luther, the Jews, and We

The Holocaust and Luther

On April 13/14, 2026, the state of Israel observes "Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day" to remember the death and heroic resistance during the 1930s and 1940s when over six million Jews were murdered by Germans and their allies. Eighty-one years after the end of the Second World War, we now live in an age when the Holocaust is denied or distorted in various way. Especially social media help spread this unjustified attack on a historical reality.

Of course, as every historical event, the Holocaust is not just subject to denial. The Holocaust is also subject to interpretation: What were its causes? What are its lessons? What is the proper assessment of this event? Is it unique, and if so, how?

Even among Jews, the interpretation of the Holocaust, as well as its meaning and lessons, is controversial. Some, typically known as Zionists, see it as the last straw that convinced Jews and their Western political allies that a sovereign "Jewish state" had to be founded somewhere--the modern state of Israel was founded in the former province of Palestine in 1948--because the Holocaust proved that Jews could not safely live anywhere else in the world, at least not without a nation of their own as a backup.

Other Jews, however, see it as a sign of God's punishment for integrating too readily with the nations among whom Jews have been living for centuries. For them, the modern state of Israel is not the inevitable "next step" after 1945.

Christian responses to the Holocaust are also varied. Some see it as a call to radically rethink the relationship of Jews and Christians "after Auschwitz." For them, the notion (prominently featured in the New Testament, for instance in Romans 9 or Galatians 3) that those who believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah--Jews and Gentiles--are the true Israel is a key cause of secular, "scientific" (i.e., race-based) antisemitism that arose in the 19th century and culminated in the Holocaust. Some therefore advocate for a "two-covenant" theology that teaches that Jesus is the way to the one true God only for the Gentiles, while the Jews have a more or less direct access to the one true God since Abraham.

Other Christians take a more nuanced approach to the causes of the Holocaust and therefore see no need to make such drastic theological changes. This nuanced view is in keeping with contemporary historical research into the causes of "Hitler and the Holocaust" that locates its causes more in the economic, scientific, political, and philosophical developments of the 19th century, not in the 1st century or the 16th century.

How does Luther fit into these larger discussions? Luther is frequently mentioned among the causes of the Holocaust, even by those who recognize that Luther did not advocate for the physical eradication of all Jews, because leading Nazis and German Christians--e.g., Julius Streicher--pointed to the late Luther's writings against the Jews as their personal motivation for signing up for Hitler's race-based, genocidal antisemitism. Other Christians pointed to Christ's own antagonism to "the Jews" of his day as a motivation to join forces with Hitler.

While this is sadly true--Christians and others have pointed to Christ and/or Luther to justify their participation in atrocities, in 1930s and 1940s Germany as well as in other places and at other times (e.g., the members of the "Second Klan" in the U.S.)--the question is: What does the reference back to Christ and Luther by these individuals mean? Does it fatally discredit Christianity or at least Lutheranism as a whole? Does it fatally discredit all religions? Or does it only discredit a specific form of Christianity and Lutheranism?

While I can certainly understand those who say that they cannot be Christians (or Lutherans) because of the atrocities committed by those who invoked Christ (or Luther) as motivator for these atrocities, it's important to distinguish between invoking Christ's name and being a Christian. That's what Christ himself does in Matthew 7:21-23. And 1 John 2:19 distinguishes between those who "went out from us" but did not "continue with us" and those who are truly "of us" because they do "continue with us," that is, the apostles and their teachings (1 John 1:1-4). Indeed, those who use the Christian faith to justify and cover up their own immoral actions do so against God's Word and cause God to be dishonored among unbelievers, as it says in Romans 2:17-29, Galatians 5:13, and elsewhere.

The problem of legitimate and illegitimate interpretations of God's Word is therefore as old as the Bible. Indeed, the proper understanding of God's Word is the central problem of humanity that is almost as old as the world itself (Genesis 3:1-7). Otherwise, there would have been no need for God to send the prophets--and finally his Son and the apostles--to call fallen sinners back to his Word.

Accordingly, it does make a big difference whether those who invoked Christ and Luther to participate in the Holocaust did so legitimately. What I mean is this: It's easy to pick bits and pieces out of some writing and cite it to support whatever. That is certainly true for the Bible. This was the reason why the bible was branded as a "book of heretics" by those who opposed Luther: It seems to justify anything and everything.

But not every appeal to the authority of the Bible is correct or valid because that, as Luther wittily observed, would mean that a text is a "wax nose" whose meaning can be manipulated at will by those who have the power to enforce their interpretations.

To make a broader point, then, not every interpretation of a given text--including Luther's writings against the Jews--is valid just because one or more people have arrived at it. Interpretation, moreover, is not a democratic process where the majority rules: Just because many in Germany believed that Christ (or Luther) would have endorsed their genocidal actions against the Jews and others whom their perceived to be "inferior races" does not make it so.

The question then is: what did Luther mean, and what does that mean for us, when he advised the political leaders of his day to practice "sharp mercy" when it came to dealing with the Jews?

Luther and the Jews

There is no doubt that Luther believed that Jesus Christ is the one Savior for Jews and Gentiles alike. As can be seen in his seminal 1523 treatise Jesus Christ Is a Jew by Birth, Luther was an ardent defender of the "Christological meaning" of the Old Testament. In other words, Luther--who served as a professor of the bible at Wittenberg University and who regularly lectured on Old Testament books--believed and taught that, simply put, the many promises of a future savior (the Messiah) found in the Old Testament had been fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary.

That's why the bulk of Luther's 1523 treatise on Jesus the Jew seeks to demonstrate that key texts of the Old Testament--Genesis 3, Genesis 22, Genesis 49, 2 Samuel 7, Isaiah 7, and Daniel 9--only make sense when read as predicting a Savior who is both human AND divine, i.e., Jesus of Nazareth. Luther never wavered from this meaning. Because this is the position the New Testament--and therefore the Holy Spirit himself--had taken on this meaning (e.g., Matthew 1:23).

This "Christological interpretation" of the Old Testament was common among Christian theologians all the way back to Christ and his apostles. Christ clearly taught that the Scriptures--the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms--were fulfilled in him (e.g., Luke 24:44; John 5:39). And the apostle Paul told King Agrippa that he was "saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come--that the Christ would suffer, that he would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles" (Acts 26:22-23; see Romans 1:1-7, etc.).

However, beginning already in the Middle Ages and increasing in number in the 16th century, some Christian interpreters of the Old Testament began to take more seriously the Jewish-Rabbinical exegetical tradition, even when it came to texts that had almost unanimously been regarded as foretelling the incarnation, birth, life, ministry, death, and ascension of Jesus of Nazareth.

Evidently, these Jewish exegetes did not believe that Jesus of Nazareth had been promised anywhere in the Old Testament. Continuing the tradition of the Talmud (and, in fact, the tradition of those contemporaries of Jesus who rejected his messianic claims and viewed him as in league with the devil, see, e.g., John 10:19-21), these exegetes and the Judaism they represented had a very negative attitude about Jesus: He was born to an adulterous mother. He healed by magic. He died by stoning and hanging. And he ended up being punished in hell.

Luther sharply criticized the Christian interpreters who desired to "learn" from scholars who knew Hebrew but had such a negative attitude about Jesus. Why? Because with the meaning of the Old Testament the truth of the New Testament and of Christianity was at stake. To put it bluntly, if the Old Testament--beginning in Genesis 3--does not foretell that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, then Christianity is not just a waste of everybody's time. Then it is a lie.

As noted, Luther never changed his position on the relationship between the Old Testament and Jesus of Nazareth. What does change is the practical advice Luther gives for how to deal with--live with--those who, like the Jews who were living in Europe--including Saxony--at the time--did not believe in Jesus: In his 1523 treatise, Luther recommended that unbelieving Jews should be treated in love, that they should be integrated into society, that they should be taught patiently. Twenty years later--even in his last sermon--he recommended that they should be driven out of the land, as had been done, e.g., in England in 1290, in France in 1306, and in Spain in 1492. (The Protestants (Huguenots) in France in 1685—and my Lutheran ancestors in the archbishopric of Salzburg in 1731--would also be expelled from their homes. Indeed, in response to the rebellious peasants, Luther advised Christians everywhere to be prepared to leave a country where the gospel was not permitted to be preached.)

Importantly, Luther was not dogmatic about his practical advice. Other early Lutherans (e.g., John Brenz and Justus Jonas) continued Luther's earlier stance that emphasized peaceful coexistence and exemplary Christian living as offering opportunities for the patient evangelism of Jews.

Yet this is the key point: Luther's recommendation of "sharp mercy" is a practical recommendation driven by prudential considerations, i.e., considerations of how and when to do things to achieve legitimate goals. It is not a doctrine that is required for church fellowship.

In other words, Luther's relation to the Jews (and others with whom he vehemently disagreed such as Catholics and Anabaptists) fits neatly into his important and fundamental distinction of doctrine and life which I discuss in my book on God's Masks.

According to this distinction, Luther taught that there can be no compromises or changes when it comes to doctrine, i.e., the teaching going on in the church. This is because doctrine is given by God in his Word, the Bible. Because God and his Word do not change, the church's doctrine does not change either. Because God and his Word are one, the church's doctrine is one, like a golden ring. One cannot agree with God in one area but disagree with him elsewhere.

Life, on the other hand, is ours to live on earth. In this life, compromising on the law's demands guided by prudence might be necessary to preserve outward peace so that the proclamation of the gospel might proceed. Or, as Luther explained in his sermon on Romans 13:8-10, love must always be the supreme law over all laws--and love always seeks what is best for the neighbor.

In 1523, Luther believed that tolerating the Jews among Christians was the prudent thing to do to persuade them of the truth of the Christian faith. By the late 1530s or early 1540s, Luther's assessment of the practical necessities had changed: Because he feared that the toleration of those whose teachings blasphemed Christ would cause the government to share the sins of others (1 Tim. 5:22), he advocated for the expulsion of the Jews to non-Christian lands, in keeping with earlier practices in other European countries.

Scholars have offered various explanations for this practical change. Was it Luther's disappointment that there were no mass conversions of Jews now that the gospel in its truth and purity had come to light again? Was it Luther's concern about the spread of judaizing tendencies among Christian scholars and groups such as the Anabaptists moving about in Germany in a dynamic situation in the late 1520s and 1530s, where it was not clear at all that the newly discovered faith would survive? Was it reading the 1530 book The Whole Jewish Faith by the Jewish convert to Lutheranism Anton Margaritha which Luther had read to him during mealtime?

I think that the second and third factors probably changed Luther's practical advice. But for our purposes, the key thing to know is this: Luther viewed how the government should treat the Jews (and other deviating from the true faith, such as Catholics and Anabaptists) as a practical question that should be decided based on prudential considerations in furtherance of peace and the proclamation of the gospel. Changing circumstances--and new information (e.g., Margaritha's book)--might result in a reassessment of what is prudent in a given situation.

On the other hand, the doctrine that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah promised and expected in the Old Testament is not subject to any prudential considerations. Either it is true at all times, in all places, and for all people. Or it is not true at all.

Luther, the Jews, and We

When considering what all this means for us today, it is important to analyze what happened to Luther and his teachings on the Jews in the 19th and 20th century and to perform this analysis in Luther's own relevant categories--doctrine and life. As outlined in my above-referenced book on God's Masks, the cultural and theological earthquake that was rationalism and the Enlightenment--it became the dominant intellectual framework in the 18th and 19th century--caused a reassessment of Luther.

While there had always been an interest in Luther's life among his followers, his theology had been the dominant interest for the first 200 years. Then, at the end of the age of Lutheran Orthodoxy, the interest definitely, and irreversibly, shifted to "the man Luther." This means that instead of viewing him as a faithful teacher of God's Word, he came to be lauded (or condemned) as an advocate for freedom of conscience and individualism against overbearing authorities in church and state: Luther not only talked the talk but also walked the walk and was, like many advocates for freedom in the 18th and 19th centuries, punished and persecuted by the repressive authorities of his day, especially the papacy.

"The man Luther"--his actions divorced from his doctrine--also became of interest to the conservative response to the emerging political and philosophical liberalism (embodied in the French Revolution) that sought to find its footing in speculations about race and nature. In due course, Luther's theological opposition to the Jews--grounded in the Old Testament--was transformed into a cultural and racial antagonism that even disposed of the Old Testament and parts of the New as "Jewish." While there is a non-deadly solution to a cultural antisemitism--"conversion" to the dominant culture--there is no such solution for a racial antisemitism. Because one's race was perceived as unchanging and determinative of one's actions--causing, e.g., irreconcilable enmity between "the Jewish race" and the "Aryan race"--a race war became necessary to decide the matter once and for all in the "final solution" that was the Holocaust.

Importantly, with the devaluation of what mattered most to Luther--doctrine, especially the doctrine concerning Christ, i.e., the gospel (promised in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New)--came the focus on Luther's practical advice regarding the Jews. What Luther considered to be a prudential advice that is eminently changeable and subject to attenuation became effectively an unchangeable, scientific law that had to be enforced by mortal combat in the context of social/racial Darwinism--either us or them.

This is where leading Lutheran theologians in 19th/20th century Germany--e.g., Paul Althaus and Werner Elert--failed. Instead of focusing on what mattered most to Luther--the defense of doctrine, including the integrity of the Scriptures and the distinction of doctrine and life--they mostly became passive bystanders or willing servants of a system that had the extermination of millions of Jews as its stated goal. Blinded by the racial ideology of their time, they did this instead of defending life and peace in the "kingdom of the world" for the sake of the proclamation of the gospel. They could have done so by showing that trying to put Luther's advice into practice in the 20th century--if it ever was prudent--would be highly imprudent, as it was foreseeable that it would have catastrophic consequences for the lives and property of Jews and Christians, believers and unbelievers alike.

Their failure did have catastrophic consequences. Six million Jews were killed by Germans and their applies. Millions of Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, and others were killed as well. Many more were displaced, including my own parents and grandparents.

Would any intervention have made a difference? It is hard to tell, especially when considering the factor of time.

By 1933, when Hitler rose to power, his racial antisemitism was not something new in Germany, as prior propagandists (including Hitler himself) had already prepared the ground. At the same time, the Nazis--in church and state--understood that they had to mobilize Germans for the impending race war not just on a military level but also on an intellectual and spiritual level.

The 450th anniversary of Luther's birth in 1933 was part of this effort, as it celebrated Luther as Hitler's forerunner: Luther was portrayed as the prophet and epitome of Germanness. Hitler's rise to power completed the German nation's self-realization. Part of this "spiritual rearmament" was also the publication of various digests of the "relevant" writings by Luther. In keeping with the dark times, they were short on doctrine and focused on the harsh "late Luther," not the tolerant Luther of 1523.

In the process, these treatises supported denying what Luther's 1523 treatise emphatically affirmed--that Jesus of Nazareth, the Savior of the word, was a Jew by birth! These treatises therefore have a dual purpose: Rearm Germans for the race war. And thereby show that “the real” Christ and Luther are not at all like the Nazi understanding of Christianity as a Jewish sect that had sapped Germans of their vitality and was therefore a disadvantage in the impending race war.

In hindsight, this enthusiasm that uncritically melds into one National Socialism, Germany, Christianity, and Luther seems almost inevitable. Even someone like Dietrich Bonhoeffer had a limited command of Luther as a resource in the struggle against a deadly dictatorship. Luther simply hadn't been researched, understood, and taught in a way that questioned the culture and politics of the day. Instead, as noted, Luther, over the past century, had come to be seen as the incarnation of Germanness. This Luther was full of nationalist pathos but devoid of Christian doctrine.

He was also devoid of love and prudence: The Luther that was popular at the time--in keeping with the emphasis on a social Darwinist "struggle for survival"--was the Luther who advised harsh measures in the exceptional situation of the uprising of the peasants in the 1520s. Not the Luther who advised government leaders, as a rule, to practice prudence and restraint to avoid rebellion and bloodshed in the first place.

By the 1930s, Luther had also become devoid also of understanding the government as God's servant (Romans 13:4), instituted by God and subject to God's law. Instead, just like the self-confident princes in Luther's day, government had come to understand itself as having boundless, autonomous authority, whether given by God or not. The Luther who held government leaders to the standard of God's law of love and selfless service, the Luther who advocated for virtuous government in service to all, especially the poor and needy, had become lost in time.

We today can learn from the past 500 years, especially when it comes to the peaceful life together of Jews and Christians. But also when it comes to the peaceful coexistence of Christians and the members of other religions, including Muslims. We can also learn from the past when it comes to the various Christian denominations living together in peace. And we can do that without becoming agnostics or otherwise changing Christian doctrine by distinguishing, with Luther, between doctrine and life.

Thus, the key lesson, I think, should be that the gospel is proclaimed best when the government does what it can to preserve outward peace instead of imprudently executing abstract rules or ideologies--no matter how "true" or "godly" those rules or ideologies might appear to its proponents. Luther saw this appropriate moderation of necessary laws in love to preserve life and peace at home and abroad as the government's biggest task and challenge.

Arguably, the "late" Luther's advice regarding the treatment of Jews fell short of this fundamental insight, set forth, e.g., in his treatise on government which he also published in 1523, the same year as his early treatise on the Jesus the Jew. This is because Luther understood that giving practical advice in a difficult political situation is itself very difficult, which is why he gave the general rule to err on the side of counseling the government to exercise grace and mercy, not strict justice.

This restrained, prudent understanding of all state action at home and abroad, in war and peace, is consistent with the biblical anthropology that teaches that all humans are created in the image of God. Luther understood that a key part of that image was lost when humanity fell into sin--our ability to know God perfectly and live according to his will perfectly. Yet part of this image was not lost--our ability to speak, our ability to produce culture and the arts, our reason, our ability to know God's law to some extent. There is therefore still something divine in every human being which allows us to live together with other humans.

What's more, the image of God in us is to be brought back to its fullness by faith in Christ. The government has a key role to play when it comes to preventing humans from killing each other so that the image of God may be restored fully in all by Christ. That is God's fundamental purpose for the government in service of the gospel, whether this goal will be reached for all people or not. The government must therefore not become a brutal mass executioner or instigator of unrest or violence at home or abroad, thereby preventing humans from reaching their ultimate goal--the full restoration of God's image in all by faith in Christ.

In sum, properly understanding Luther's advocacy of harsh practical measures against the Jews (and others) in the late 1530s and early 1540s in the context of his theology leads to the conclusion that it would not be prudent to follow his practical advice on this point. Instead, we should live peacefully in a religiously and culturally diverse society by patiently teaching the gospel and humbly serving all neighbors in love as God's masks.

Further Reading

Kelly J. Baker, Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK's Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930 (2011).

Doris L. Bergen, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich (1996).

Johann Chapoutot, The Law of Blood: Thinking and Acting as a Nazi (2018).

Richard J. Evans, Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial (2001).

Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (2003).

Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power (2005).

Brigitte Hamann et al., Hitlers Wien: Lehrjahre eines Diktators, completely rev. ed. (2022).

Thomas Kaufmann, Luthers Judenschriften, 2nd, rev. ed. (2013).

Harry Oelke et al. (eds.) Martin Luthers "Judenschriften": Die Rezeption im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (2016).

Yakov M. Rabkin, What Is Modern Israel? (2016).

Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud (2007).

Thomas Weber, Becoming Hitler: The Making of a Nazi (2017).

Dorthea Wendebourg, So viele Luthers ...: Die Reformationsjubiläen des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (2017).