Standing Alone Against The Forces of Darkness

Recently, Sylvia and I had dinner with a number of old friends. One of them, Dennis, pointed me to a new book he had begun to read: Bonhoeffer—Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich by Eric Metaxas. Since I have read Bonhoeffer's writings plus several books about him, and since I have an abiding interest in the era in which he lived and died, I decided to download the book to my Kindle.

I commend the book to you with a few quotes, first from the opening chapter:

"At the beginning of the war, it was possible to separate the Nazis from the Germans and recognize that not all Germans were Nazis. . . Realizing that he needed to fuel the British war effort, Prime Minister Winston Churchill fused the Germans and the Nazis into a single hated enemy, the better to defeat it swiftly and end the unrelenting nightmare.

"When Germans working to defeat Hitler and the Nazis contacted Churchill and the British government, hoping for assistance to defeat their common enemy from the inside—hoping to tell the world that some Germans trapped inside the Reich felt much as they did—they were rebuffed. No one was interested in their overtures. It was too late. . ."

Again in Chapter 11, Nazi Theology:

"Hitler's attitude toward Christianity was that it was a great heap of mystical out-of-date nonsense. But what annoyed Hitler was not that it was nonsense, but that it was nonsense that did not help him get ahead. According to Hitler, Christianity preached "meekness and flabbiness," and this was simply not useful to the National Socialist ideology, which preached "ruthlessness and strength." In time, he felt that the churches would change their ideology. He would see to it."

And then back to Chapter 10, The Church and the Jewish Question:

"The German church was in turmoil. Some church leaders felt the church should make peace with the Nazis, who were strongly opposed to communism and "godlessness." They believed the church should conform to the Nazi racial laws and the Fuehrer Principle. They thought that by wedding the church to the state, they would restore the church and Germany to her former glory, before the Treaty of Versailles and the chaos and humiliation of the last twenty years. The moral degeneration of Weimar Germany was self-evident. Hadn't Hitler spoken of restoring moral order to the nation? They didn't agree with him on everything, but they believed that if the church's prestige were restored, they might be able to influence him in the right direction.

"There was at this time a group that stood solidly behind Hitler's rise to power and blithely tossed two millennia of Christian orthodoxy overboard. They wanted a strong, unified Reich church and a "Christianity" that was strong and masculine, that would stand up to and defeat the godless and degenerate forces of Bolshevism. They called themselves the Deutsche Christen (German Christians) and referred to their brand of Christianity as "positive Christianity." . . "

We Christians of the 21st century must learn from that sad time. The Lutherans of Nazi Germany sold their souls and their birthright for a mess of stew (Genesis 24:29-34). Bonhoeffer and a relatively small number of Confessing Church pastors stood alone against the Nazi forces of evil.

Reality or Verasimilitude?

One of my English profs in college often spoke about verasimilitude. I've wondered how I came to remember that phrase. I suppose because it struck me as rather significant. The Free Dictionary defines the word as

1.  the appearance or semblance of truth or reality; quality of seeming true
2. something that merely seems to be true or real, such as a doubtful statement [from Latin vērisimilitūdō, from vērus true + similitūdō similitude]

That's what I try to do with my historical novels., give them the appearance or semblance of truth or reality. I try to give them verasimilitude.


In the nineteenth century German historian Leopold von Ranke attempted to go beyond verasimilitude in writing about history. Impressed by the great leaps in science, he urged historians to write wie es eigentlich gewessen ist, how it actually has been. This phrase has been the source of much wrangling. What does it mean? Can a writer ever portray all that happened and why?  


We historical story tellers are not bound by such restrictions. One current example is the script for the movie Valkyrie. This story has the appearance or semblance of truth. It actually has many things that are true, but it certainly doesn't tell the whole story. Many background parts of the story were left out. This was not wie es eigentlich gewessen ist. Why do I say that?

Well, for one thing, the movie fails to tell the part that Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his family played in the plot to assasinate Hitler. Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor, hanged by the Nazis for the part he played, but also for helping some Jews to escape Germany. If you know nothing about him, please follow the links above, as well as the many others available online and elsewhere.

There were sinister forces, dark, unseen forces, at work behind the human events of WW II. In my novel, Freya's Child, I attempt to demonstrate that reality. When you read the novel you'll have to decide for yourself whether or not this was wie es eigentlich gewessen ist or merely verasimilitude.