As of: January 30, 2024, 5:27 p.m
By: Andrea Kästle
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“Meiser's attitude towards the Jews who did not allow themselves to be baptized was not ambivalent, but consistently negative.” Wolfgang Haas (l.) and Hans Wiedmeyer in front of the theological studies seminar on Bischof-Meiser-Straße in Pullach.
Wiedmeyer is a historian himself; he has studied the topic intensively for three years and also researched it in archives.
© Andrea Kästle
The Pullach History Forum is calling for Bischof-Meiser-Straße to be renamed.
Pullach
- Munich and Nuremberg renamed their Bischof-Meiser streets in 2007, and two years ago Bayreuth also erased the street name from the city map.
The community of Pullach also has a Bischof-Meiser-Strasse, and renaming the 300-meter-long route on the left bank of the Isar has been under discussion for three years now.
The renaming was requested by the local history forum, whose speakers Wolfgang Haas and Hans Wiedmeyer came to the conclusion after intensive research: “Although Meiser rejected the rowdy anti-Semitism of the street, he propagated the justification patterns for the systematic disenfranchisement of people of Jewish origin.”
The pivotal point of the discussion in connection with the street renaming is Meiser's attitude towards Jews.
In your opinion, was he anti-Semitic?
Hans Wiedmeyer
: How else could one describe someone who does not regard Jewish fellow citizens, most of whom have been fully integrated for generations, as Germans because of an alleged racial difference, who attributes to this minority a 'corrosive' influence that undermines their alleged economic, political and cultural dominance through professional , who wants to combat teaching, immigration and publication bans, who rejects children from mixed religious marriages as 'racially inferior mixed races'?
They refer to three essays that Meiser published in the 'Evangelisches Gemeindeblatt' in 1926. In the same texts he also writes that God created Christians and Jews 'for mutual support'; he warns Christians to 'protect the Jews'.
Hans Wiedmeyer
: It is cynical if you first stigmatize a group of people as inferior and as pests, but then ask them not to hurt them.
One can only recommend reading his texts through the eyes of a Jew.
Anyone who doesn't get scared doesn't take what is written seriously.
The historian Nora Schulze has found confirmation that Meiser copied the passages about the Jews.
Wolfgang Haas
: Of course, Hans Meiser did not invent the anti-Semitic thought patterns, he took them from the ethnic-German nationalist, anti-liberal, anti-democratic poison kitchen and then published them as his own, and that at a time when the NSDAP was still an insignificant splinter party, The Evangelical Community Gazette had a circulation of 50,000 copies.
The fact that one person copies the other is what makes things so dangerous.
A stream of tradition emerges, so that in the end the last follower believes it himself: 'The Jews are our misfortune!'
According to your findings, was he also a convinced National Socialist, can you say that?
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Hans Wiedmeyer:
He wholeheartedly welcomed the National Socialists' seizure of power and contributed to its consolidation.
And the National Socialists, in turn, supported his election as regional bishop after Meiser's predecessor, Friedrich Veit, was forced out of office because of his dissident views.
It is significant that at Meiser's inauguration in June 1933, all three guests of honor were important Nazi officials, including Hermann Esser, Hitler's first-name friend and one of the worst anti-Semitic agitators.
He also had problems with those in power; wasn't he even imprisoned at one point?
Wolfgang Haas
: That's not true, he was only placed under house arrest in his apartment for a few days in October 1934 because he had not submitted to the Reich Church government.
In the end he was received by Hitler and rehabilitated.
In any case, he was repeatedly defamed and subjected to criminal proceedings
.
Wolfgang Haas
: Bullying towards church leaders was generally the order of the day during the Nazi era, but Hans Meiser got off very lightly compared to other bishops.
When he is referred to in party organs as a 'friend of Jews', which he takes, it should be noted, as a slur, it is based on a misunderstanding: these Nazis only knew a small quote from the series of articles from 1926, which is why Hans Meiser published his complete texts at the beginning of 1937 once sends his dean.
At least his most important representatives should not doubt his anti-Semitism.
He supposedly ordered that the priests, even in regalia, have to greet people with the 'German greeting' in order to save religious education. Otherwise it would have been deleted.
Hans Wiedmeyer
: Meiser ordered the Hitler salute for pastors outside of religious education in 1936; it had been mandatory for schools since 1933 anyway.
From May 1938 he also had the pastors take an oath of loyalty to Hitler.
At some point his ingratiation became too much even for those in power; there is a corresponding letter from Martin Bormann.
Bischof-Meiser-Straße in Pullach.
In Ansbach, Kulmbach and Pfaffenhofen, whose city maps also contain streets named after the churchman, renaming was considered but rejected.
A corresponding debate is still ongoing in Schwabach.
Weiden agreed on a compromise - and left the street as it was called, but added an addition to the street sign.
© Andrea Kästle
And how did he behave towards the clergy who criticized the regime?
Wolfgang Haas
: Critical pastors were fired if even one parishioner took offense.
Bishop Meiser did not visit a single imprisoned priest in prison or even support him in his resistance.
In contrast, when it was safe to do so after 1945, he looked after war criminals, provided them with legal assistance and intervened on their behalf with state authorities.
At least he saved the regional church in Bavaria from being brought into line.
Hans Wiedmeyer
: But at what price!
In the long run, the church never did well if institutional self-preservation was most important to it.
As the Pullach local council repeatedly emphasizes, he helped 126 Jews leave the country.
Wolfgang Haas:
That's to his credit, even if the people concerned were all baptized - and the Gestapo approved of what he did.
At that time, the regime's maxim was: get as many Jews as possible out of the Reich.
Hans Wiedmeyer: Meiser didn't personally save these people.
The regional church council financed the relevant aid centers with 10,000 Reichsmarks each year.
Just for comparison: the removal of the stones from a destroyed synagogue, which the Jewish communities had to pay for themselves, cost around 30,000 Reichsmarks.
His silence on Kristallnacht is, of course, unbearable; he has never publicly opposed the persecution of the Jews. Would it have been dangerous for him to take a position?
Hans Wiedmeyer
: The fact is that not a single German bishop was imprisoned or even murdered.
Not even those who protested against human rights violations.
In contrast, many ordinary clergymen were brutally persecuted if they resisted.
Shouldn't Richard-Wagner-Strasse in the community also be renamed? Wagner was definitely an anti-Semite.
Wolfgang Haas
: Richard Wagner was actually ambivalent: he had Jewish friends.
In addition, like Hans Meiser, he did not hold a moral guardianship, but expressed himself as a private citizen.
The interview was conducted by Andrea Kästle.
Denazification systematically undermined
When it comes to Bishop Hans Meiser, it is often said that the controversial churchman was an “ambivalent personality”.
Wolfgang Haas and Hans Wiedmeyer, former German and history teachers, have little use for the formulation; they say that Meiser courted the Nazis wherever he could in the early years.
At the end of 1933, he expressed his relief to the state synod that with the arrest of Social Democrats and Communists, “old enemies of the church ... were overthrown.”
Then in 1939, after the victory over Poland, he thanked God that “centuries-old injustice has been broken and the way has been cleared for a new order of peoples.”
In connection with Stalingrad, he banned public memorial services for the many soldiers who had been sentenced to death by the Wehrmacht judiciary.
And in 1943, when he already knew about the deportations to the extermination camps, he wrote about the “fight to the death” between Judaism and the National Socialist state.
After the war, says Wiedmeyer, he systematically undermined the denazification of his people; 200 Protestant Bavarian pastors were in the party: “Wilhelm von Pechmann, who was synod president until 1922, always urged him to finally take a stand against National Socialism and the persecution of Jews.
But Meister didn't do that.
Pechmann ultimately converted to Catholicism out of sheer desperation over the attitude of his church.” Incidentally, Meiser did not come to Pechmann’s funeral.