"It Is the State . . ."

Chubby, goateed little Dr. Friedrich Otto Dibelius is a German Evangelical churchman whose outspoken Christian integrity often made the Nazis unhappy. Today, 67-year-old anti-Nazi Dibelius, now Bishop of Berlin, is still outspoken and is turning the heat on the occupation authorities.

At a press conference before the recent Berlin convention of the Evangelical churches, Bishop Dibelius declared that Germany's un-Christian cult of the state seemed to have been contagious. Said he: "In the Anglo-Saxon countries . . . the ideology is getting nearer & nearer to the totalitarian state system. If an American who died 50 years ago were to wake up now he would hardly recognize his country, where people are being forced to serve in the army and to serve the state in all sorts of ways. It is the state that always prevents understanding among the people."

On behalf of German Protestantism, the Bishop later made three specific demands:

P: An end to secularization of German life, particularly in the schools. The Church demands Christian schools with Christian training of teachers--also a greater share of influence on German newspapers and broadcasting stations.

P: A return to the Reformation principle that the State's function is merely to protect the people from anarchy.

P: A national economy based on Christian responsibility, rather than capitalism or "Christian Socialism," which is too much influenced by Marxism and materialism. Work for reparations payments, the Bishop said, is soulless, senseless and equal to slavery.

"Today," said he, "everybody in Germany is completely in the power of the state--through the Housing office, Economics office, Labor office . . . between the three of them . . . [the individual] is effectively subjugated. . . . This state of affairs leads ultimately to slavery. . . .

"Only a minority of Germans realize to what a low level of moral degeneracy we have fallen. The Church is the spokesman for that minority, but the Church has now seen itself and the nation faced with the prospect of a new totalitarianism. To combat that, more than a campaign for Christianity on an individual basis is needed. The Church must take its stand, and that is why--in a sense--I gave the signal."

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