by J.K. McKee

Even though it ended over sixty years ago, World War II significantly changed the face of Planet Earth. While initially starting out as a conflict between the Axis powers of Germany and Italy, against the Allied powers of Britain and France—the conflict would grow to include the Soviet Union, Japan, and the United States, and many other countries of the world. This sustained, total war—a conflict where economies were solely concerned at building the war machine—would kill over 70 million people. Its aftermath would see the decline of the British Empire as a major global power, and the rise of the United States and Soviet Union as superpowers. World War II was responsible for the creation of the atomic bomb, and the founding of the United Nations. New advances in technology, and later space exploration, would come as a direct result of one of the world’s worst ever conflicts.

Almost all of us have been affected by World War II, likely having family members who participated in some way. My paternal grandfather, who had served in the Army as a young man, was actually too old for active military service (having been born in 1903), but his engineering degree and patents instead allowed him to help manage a Douglas aircraft plant. My maternal grandfather had just finished his Ph.D prior to the war, and had taken a teaching position at Ole Miss. When the war began, he received a commission in the Navy and was sent to Annapolis to teach midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy. Suffice it to say, knowing about World War II, and all of those who were affected by it, has always been an important part of my family, because it so dramatically changed my grandparents’ lives.

As Messianic Believers, there are two significant parts of World War II that we pay close attention to: the Holocaust and the later creation of the State of Israel. We take the phenomenon of Hitler’s so-called Final Solution very seriously, and the fact that the Nazi party really did try to exterminate all of the Jews in Europe. Every year, during seasons such as Purim or on Yom HaShoah, we pledge ourselves to never let such a tragedy happen again! We rightly consider the causes of anti-Semitism that had grown throughout Germany, and that allowed many—who should have known better—to conspire with a tyrannical Nazi regime.

There are many intriguing aspects of World War II that each of us can explore. When I visited London this past Summer, I made it a point to visit both the Imperial War Museum and the underground Churchill Cabinet Rooms. Many of us are familiar with the resilience of the British against the Nazis, and how the City of London itself was affected by the Blitz. When I was an undergraduate in college in 2001, I had the opportunity to hear Sir Martin Gilbert, Winston Churchill’s official biographer, give a lecture on “Churchill and the Jews” (now a book by the same title). The single man who can be credited with saving the Western world from the Nazi regime was very pro-Jewish, Zionist, and saw the dangers of Hitler long before anyone else did.

But these are some of the more obvious aspects of World War II that we should already be discussing. The issue of the Germans themselves is much more complicated, and when Purim or Yom HaShoah occur in various Messianic circles, I find that the Germans are often not treated very fairly. Attitudes that are not becoming of born again Believers can manifest themselves—attitudes that would not even be found in a Jewish community that has tried to dialogue with Germany and reconcile since the end of the war. Basically, any attempt made by any German to oppose Hitler because of his tyranny and dictatorialism is quickly forgotten, or even just summarily dismissed.

The need for us as Messianic Believers to be a bit more fair to the German people is not only because here in the United States Germans make up the single largest European ancestry (even larger than the single British ancestries of English, Irish, and Scottish). We need to be more fair because many Germans did actually oppose Hitler. The recent MGM-United Artists film, Valkyrie, is a dramatic portrayal of the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt of Adolf Hitler and coup to overthrow his government and the SS. Many in the German political and military hierarchy had realized that Hitler was an utter madman, that his policies regarding state control were tyrannical, and that the world would never forgive Germany for what it did to the Jews unless good men stood up and opposed him. In 1944, it became apparent that Germany would not be able to win the war with the Allied invasion of France having succeeded, and with the Soviets gaining ground on the Eastern Front. A peace would have to be negotiated with the Allies if Germany were to survive at all.

Because of the sheer control that Hitler was able to command over his military, staging a coup against him would have to be done very carefully, lest his replacement end up being worse (i.e., someone like Heinrich Himmler). A plan called Operation Valkyrie had already been drawn up in the event of an emergency effecting Hitler’s government, where a reserve army would take control of Berlin, and then subsequent orders would be issued to the rest of the Reich. The plotters against Hitler augmented the plan so that once he was assassinated, his death could be made to look like radicals from the SS had taken over. The legitimate military sworn to die for Hitler would then inaugurate Operation Valkyrie and consolidate the chaos that would ensue following the Führer’s death. A plan actually meant to salvage Hitler’s Third Reich would be used to destroy it! Once he was out of the way, a more moderate German government could come to power that would stop Hitler’s aggressive and dictatorial policies, hopefully negotiating a peace with the Allies.

We know that none of this succeeded, and that the assassination attempt on Hitler that July 20 failed. The conspirators were identified and summarily shot as traitors against the Reich. Their attempts at saving what they saw as “Holy and Sacred Germany”—something stolen by the Nazis—are noted by the filmmakers as many Germans did stand up and oppose the regime of Adolf Hitler. Unlike other films or documentaries that try to demonize Germany and the German people, Valkyrie tries to show another side. It demonstrates to those, often used to seeing movies about Hitler being an evil madman blindly followed by all Germans—that many of his own did oppose him.

Many of us are aware of Germans such as the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who opposed the Nazis. We are aware of people like Corrie Ten Boom who opposed the Nazis, and others here and there. Theologians such as Gerhard Von Rad were drafted into military service (to die on the front lines) because they were favorable to the “Jewish Scriptures” and demonstrated some affection for the Jews. But a film like Valkyrie makes us also consider those in politics and the military who opposed the Nazis. And yes, the July 20, 1944 attempt on Hitler was not the only one. In fact, there were some twenty attempts to assassinate Hitler from within!

The travesty of the Holocaust is not that of genocide, as genocide has happened from earliest human history. The travesty is that one of the most advanced countries on Earth was directly responsible for genocide. The Jews were an easy target, and the Nazi propaganda machine took negative stereotypes about the Jews and used it to their advantage. Many people in Germany saw the evil embodied by Hitler and stood up for it. My own Aunt Renate’s mother left Germany in the late 1930s to come to New York City—escaping Hitler’s Germany—for goodness’ sake!

I would urge you to go out and see the film Valkyrie. See how there were some good Germans who stood up to Hitler. Do not allow yourself to fall for the idea that all Germans during World War II went along with Hitler, or that they were all anti-Semitic. The German people will forever have to carry the scars of Nazism and the Holocaust. Yet as Believers we have the awesome responsibility to let their pleas for forgiveness, restitution, and reconciliation be heard. It is my prayer that in the days to come, the cordial and constructive relationship that is today seen in secular Jewish-German and Israeli-German relations, can also be seen in Messianic approaches toward Germany and Germans. See Valkyrie, and see how many Germans did indeed try to save their own “Holy and Sacred Germany.”