Exclusive Space as a Criterion for Salvation in German Protestantism during the Third Reich

Recent years have witnessed an expansion in the use of spatial conceptions for historical analysis.1 In the fields of Study of Religion and Theology specifically, researchers such as Kim Knott have introduced ‘space’ as an analytical category.2 This term is distinctly polysemic, encompassing, in the religious arena, physical space such as a church, mosque, or synagogue; geographic space such as a region or country; but also social space, perhaps a Baptist women’s choir or a Protestant congregation. In a broad sense, the first two areas, that is, physical and geographical, might be perceived as constructed space, and the third by its content. Our Baptist women’s choir, for instance, is a space in which women of Baptist belief meet in order to sing together. Thus, we already note a certain exclusivity by which entry into this space is governed: one must be a woman, wish to sing, and adhere to the Baptist faith in order to belong. Our Baptist women’s choir, however, is still not an ‘exclusive space,’ as its boundaries are permeable. It would be possible for this choir to accept men into its ranks, perhaps because there was no men’s choir available for those who would like to sing in a group. It would also be possible that the choir numbers among its members someone who does not sing, but performs administrative duties for the group. Furthermore, it would be possible to include non-Baptist members if appropriate, say, for inter-religious projects. In what follows, the term ‘exclusive space’ will extend the spatial conception regarding religion to the feature of ‘race’ (race referring to a racist categorization of humans). For this purpose, ‘exclusive space’ is to be understood in the sense that only a specific group of individuals ever has access to it. ‘Outsiders’ can never enter this ‘exclusive space.’ In this context, then, space becomes a social

construction that coheres with the sociological approach of spatial conception, as, for example, Kim Knott has discussed in her work on boundaries in different religious spheres.
ForK nott, "it is boundaries -themselvesc onstructed and invested with meaning -that define containers and position people and objects, thatgenerate margins, and encourage, permit or prohibit crossings.I nsides and outsides […] are themselvesc onstituted by boundaries."³ As such, the boundary is the decisive criterion for constructings paces.
The interior,orspace, then, is not characterized primarilybyits content,but rather by its boundaries. This boundary buildingprocess features built-in differentiation. To take as imple example, we might consider the insider and the outsider,that is, those who belong within the space -or thosepermitted to enter itand thosew ho do not belong within or are not permitted to enter it.⁴ Defining space in this wayn ot onlym akes it possible to clarify who belongst ot he ingroup, but also the definition of the actual in-group using this mechanism. By excluding 'others,' criteria are presented to the in-group which must be fulfilled in order to belong.I nt his indirect way, the in-group is defined by the 'others.'⁵ Recalling our Baptist women'schoir,wehaveanexample of aspace defined by boundaries (it is, after all, a Baptist women's choir)w hich are somewhat porous.Int he present article, Idiscuss as pace thatdid not evolve naturally,⁶ but, like countries or buildings,w as constructed intentionallyw ith exclusive entry criteria. In this respect,one might think of apopularclub, in which entrance selection is made on the basis of style, appearance, social status, or connections.  Kim Knott, "Inside, Outside and the Space in-between: Territories and Boundaries in the Studyo fR eligion," Temenos:N ordic Journal of Contemporary Religion 44 (2008): 41-66,h ere at 45.  Ibid., 44.  Forthis mechanismasexpressed in the example of national identities,see Elfie Rembold and Peter Carrier, "Spacea nd Identity:C onstructions of National Identities in an Ageo fG lobalization," National Identities 13 (2011): 361-77,esp. 362-5. And see OliverZimmer, "Boundary Mechanisms and Symbolic Resources:Towards aProcess-oriented Approach to National Identity," Nations and Nationalism 9( 2003): 173 -93. Duringt he nineteenth century it was important for Catholics and Protestants for the own identity to refera tt he differencesb etween the own confession and the 'other';s ee AnthonyJ .S teinhoff, "Ein zweites konfessionelles Zeitalter?N achdenken über die Religion im langen1 9. Jahrhundert," Geschichte und Gesellschaft 30 (2004): 549 -70, herea t5 61.  Fort he so-called 'Borderscapes Concept' as ad ynamic social process, see Chiara Brambilla, "Exploringthe Critical Potential of the BorderscapesConcept," Geopolitics 20 (2015): 14 -34.For ac ritical overview on Borderscapes,s ee Elena Dell'agnese and Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary, "Introduction. Borderscapes: From Border Landscapes to Border Aesthetics," Geopolitics 20 (2015): 4-13.
In the article, Itry to connect this mechanism of inclusion -or rather,exclusion -to religion. Specifically, Idiscuss defining race as the criterion for accessing a particularf orm of religion which then crafted ad istinct pattern of exclusion.

Racea saBoundaryf or ReligiousS alvation
Let us begin by clarifyingw hat is meant by ar eligiouslym otivated exclusion based on race. Fort his purpose, Is hall define race and racism,a nd discuss the grounds on which ar acialc ategorizationi sm ade.
George Frederickson defined racism by ethno-culturald ifferences, which he further characterizes as congenital, indelible, and unchangeable. Here, he is referring to features such as language, traditions, and familyr elations which are regarded as characteristics of an imaginary collective.⁷ To this characterization Iw ould add, as at ypicalf eature of racial concepts, the alleged behavioral patterns of such ac onstructed collective.B yt his Ir efer to persisting ideas such as 'Jewishgreed' or 'the inability of Africans to accommodatetowestern standards.' Fredrickson mentions af urther feature of racism,r elevant in this context: "Racism is expressed in practices,i nstitutions, and structures which find their alleged justification or validation in the recognitiono fagroup as 'the others.'"⁸ In what follows, Iwill not use the term 'racism' in contexts that admit of the possibility of assimilation. It was from this assimilationt hat the possibility of conversion within the confines of institutionalized religion evolved.
Boundaries are drawnt od ifferentiateo neself from 'the other.' Hence( national)identity is constructed in the process of defining 'the other,' aparticularly relevant point with respect to building group identity.O ne separates from 'the other' to demarcatethe features of one'sown or in-group-identity.⁹ If these identity boundaries are understood as insuperable due to innate characteristics,we are dealing with ar acial -or racist -conceptualization.
To take an obvious example, let us consider skinc olor.I fo ne is denieda ccess to agroup because of his/her skin color,this is racist behavior.I tr ules out the possibilityt hat 'the other' could ever become part of the 'in-group,' One might even call this racial exclusion on the grounds of innate and irreconcilable barriers.
In Nazi Germany, the cohabitation of Germansa nd Jews was portrayeda s impossible. The Jews, here 'the others,' had to be separated from the Germans. These 'raciallyothered' people weredenied access to society:they wereactually excluded from being part of society.¹⁰ This concept resurfaced in the apartheid regime in South Africa, and in the formerr acial restrictions of the U.S. judicial system. Exclusion from social and political participationi nt he U.S. and South Africa, however,was not directed at religion. The 'raciallyothered' could participate in the dominant religion of the 'standard culture.' Despite their oppression, Americanand South African people of color could join the Christian community.
While the American church communities wereoften in the past divided into Whites and people of color,with separately held services,a ccess to Christianity itself was not denied. Racial exclusion in religion to createa ne xclusive space, however,i ss omething else again. In what follows, Is how that some people in Germanyw ered enieda ccess because of theira lleged belongingt oas pecific race. This meant denial of religious salvation, because such salvation rested on sacraments such as baptism and Communion. Ultimately, this endedinexclusion from the Christian community itself. Onlyp eople of the 'right' race were able to receive the holys acraments and the divinem essage of the clerical doctrine. There wasn oa venue for the 'others' to become Christian or to maintain their status. In this way, the space in which religion could be practiced or experienced was defined by race. This racial boundary determinedw ho would partake of religious salvation. The boundary became the distinguishing feature -preciselyasKnott presented in her discussion of space in the sphere of religion.¹¹

The Creation of an ExclusiveS pace forS alvation -The German Christian Church Movement and the De-Judaization of Christianity
In the first part of the present article, Id rew my examples from Christianityb ecause my empirical case-study, presented below,dealswith the realization of the aforementioned racial-religious concept in twentieth-century German Protestantism.
In 1927,t wo youngp astors in Thuringia founded ag roup that later became known as the "German Christian Church Movement" (Kirchenbewegung Deutsche Christen). Iuse the term "German-Christians" to referspecificallytothis ideological group, and not to the general population of Christians in Germany. Letm e note from the outset that we are not dealinghere with an isolated phenomenon mostlyf ound on paper.T ob es ure, there weres everal small groups of the socalled volkisch movement in Germany in the first half of the twentieth century that counted no more than1 ,000 members. Fore xample, the "German Nobility Society" (Deutsche Adelsgenossenschaft), established in 1920,f eatured an "Aryan-paragraph" (Arier-Paragraph)t hat restricted membership in this society to Aryans.¹² But this and similar societiese xerted little influenceo nb roader parts of the German society.¹³ The German Christian Church Movement,b yc ontrast,t ook control of the whole regional church in Thuringia during the church elections in 1933.¹⁴ In the following years, the Movemente xpanded its ecclesial-political influencet o other Protestant regional churches in the Third Reich. By the end of the 1930s, it supervised six Protestantr egional churches (Landeskirchen)i nN azi Germany, and had forgeda llianceswith other regional churches. The evangelical regional churches,w hich sympathizedw ith the German Christian Church Movement, adopted its German-Christian conception of religion. This Protestant movement,which was active until 1945, held significant swayoverGermany'sregional churches.
German-Christian religious doctrine was grounded in the racial subdivision of humankind. Accordingly, it understood the different races as reflecting ad ivine hierarchical order.T his racist doctrine was not onlya(scientific) theory; it alsof ormed the basis for German-Christian action: Exclusive Space as aC riterion forS alvation in GermanP rotestantism and in the question of the elimination of this influence, the indispensable and unavoidable fundamental question of the present German religious situation is posed.¹⁵ German-Christians believed that they grasped the hierarchical order of the world. 'Miscegenation' and 'Internationalism' werev iewed as rebellion against the divine plan. Important factors influencingt he effectiveness of the German Christian Church Movementw ereP rotestantism, the interdependence of Christianity (in Germany) and National Socialism, as well as ar adical anti-Semitism. 18 The German Christian Church Movement explicitlys oughtt oi mpose as econd reformation of Protestant Christianity in Germany. As Walter Grundmann (1906 -1976), professor of Volkisch Theologyand New Testament in Jena/Thuringia and scientific director of the "Institute for the Studyand Eradication of Jewish Influenceo nG erman Church Life" (Institut zurE rforschung und Beseitigung des jüdischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben),¹⁶ pointed out: Letu sb ec lear about this:I ts eemed impossible to people during Luther'st ime that one could be Christian without acknowledgingt he Pope'sa uthority -which for us is am atter of course. Todayitseems just as improbable to manyofusthat one can sustain Christianity and the Church without the sacred-historical referencet ot he historyoft he Old Testament […]. We arec onvinced that the history of the coming decades will confirm our view [of the German Christians; D.S.].¹⁷ God often sentholymen to his chosen people -the German-Christians believed these to be Germans. Not surprisingly,t hey considered Martin Luther to have been the first among these holym en. Protestantism, then, was aG erman belief system for this churchm ovement.A nd, rejecting "Jewish influence" on the church, the German-Christians wanted to imposeL uther'sr eformation under the 'Führer' Adolf Hitler,s ent by God.
The term 'Germanisation' (Germanisierung)refers to araciallymotivated concept of religion with an exclusive character.I twas directed against Jewishinfluences and churchm embers who weren ot 'ethnicallyG erman.' Such racial approaches to Christianity weren ot new:t hey had been af eature of German Protestantism since the earlytwentieth century.¹⁸ In 1914, for example, an evangelical group in Vienna sought to split the Austrianc hurch into aG erman one and aS lavic one, so that each race would have its own church and organization.¹⁹ But the German Christian Church Movement was the first to connect the idea of aGerman Christianity with the racist doctrine of apolitical movement -National Socialism. Hitler was assigned the role of messiahi nG erman-Christian doctrine: "Führerb yt he grace of God,"" Führer,s ent by God,"" God'si nstrument," and "German prophet": Thus,A dolf Hitler'sN ational Socialism hammers against the last gate, stands in the concealed dark placeo fe very true fighter, stands there -this is completelyd ifferent and new -as the German people, in order to be forgivenf or its sins and to be blessed for its holyw orld mission. Because his natureist ruthful no matter what questions he raises,because he, with an unprecedentedpassionatefervor,recognizes the eternal Creator'swill, he will soon step over the threshold into the kingdom of the last knowledge for the salvation of the world for the next three and four centuries.Then again will be the time when piety is not ad isease, not af light from the world, but health and strength, where one adores and fights and works and sees worship in it.Then history will write: the best National Socialists werealso the best Christians, and Adolf Hitler has set the soul of the German people free to meet their Creatora nd Savior Jesus Christ!²⁰ This racist doctrine was constitutive of the German-Christians' ideology. "Miscegenation" was seen as aviolation of "the order of God." And "biological miscegenation" was just the beginning.R eligion, too, was deemed "raciallyp redestined." According to German-Christians,G od revealed Himself to people of different nations in different ways,sothat every nation would have its own realization of Christianity. As such, for Siegfried Leffler (1900Leffler ( -1983, the church can "not circumvent the heavy altercation with the new [NationalS ocialism], if it continues to aim at spreading the enlightened idea of God from within the people, and at illustrating the eternal power of God as Creator to the nation."²¹  At this time, this conception was often combined with the idea that Jesus was not aJ ew but an Aryan; see Heschel, The Aryan Jesus, 26-66.  See Dirk Schuster,D ie Lehre vom "arischen" Christentum: Das wissenschaftliche Selbstverständnis im Eisenacher "Entjudungsinstitut" (Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2017), 48. More examples regarding the topicc an be found in the followingp ages.  Siegfried Leffler, "Nationalsozialismus und Christentum," Briefe an DeutscheC hristen 1 (1932): 2-4, herea t4 .O nt his topic, see Dirk Schuster, ""Führer vonG ottes Gnaden"-Das deutsch-christliche Verständnis vomErlöser Adolf Hitler," Zeitschrift für Religions-und Geistes-geschichte6 8( 2016): 277-85.  Leffler, "Nationalsozialismus und Christentum," 2.

Exclusive Spacea saCriterion forS alvation in German Protestantism
The political agitation of the German-Christians wasn ot particularlya imed at other Christian confessions in Germany, such as Catholicism. In this, we see that the real restriction of religious salvation was based on racial conception. Fort he German Christian Church Movement,P rotestantismw as reserved for members of the Nordic,o rG ermanic, race. With their international scope, other Christian belief systems, such as worldP rotestantism and au niversal papacy,²² wered eemed 'Jewish' ideas in the eyes of the German-Christians, and anathemat od ivine creation.²³ While the German-Christians accused the German Catholics of following a falsified doctrine, introducedbyforeign racial influences, the latter werestilleligible for religious salvation because of their belongingt ot he allegedly 'right' race. In this way, German-Christians cherished the idea of bridging the schism of the Christian church in Germanya nd eventuallyo fu niting all Germansi n one "national church" (Nationalkirche), based on the concept of race. Faith in the Christian God and the raciallyc onstructed membership of the German people wereofgreater significance in the attainment of salvation than singular confessional voices.
The space in which salvation was ap ossibility,then,was ar acial one. That accounts for whyS candinavians, who had such raciala ffinity to the 'German Aryan race,' were granted access to salvation by the German Christian Church Movement. This spatial orientation becomes patent in the caseo ft he so-called 'JewishC hristians.' 'JewishChristians' wereindividuals who wereeither converts to Christianity, or Christians with Jewish ancestors who converted to Christianity. Church records (Kirchenbücher), the same documents used by the Nazis to determine who was Jewishand who was not,made this differentiation an easy matter. This criterion was ac entral one for the German-Christian religious doctrine. The German people was regarded as God'sc hosen people and the German-Christians sawt he Germans in ac ontrary position to the outcast Jewry: first and foremost another religion, but aforeign race that intrudes,that wants racial chaos in order to exercise dominion itself. ²⁴ No less af igure thanJ esus himself, along with the earlyC hristians, were marshalled in the battle against the Jews: accordingt ot he German-Christians, it was they who had initiated the struggle in the first place. Furthermore,God re-vealedH imself in historical figures such as Martin Luther,F rederick the Great, and even Otto vonB ismarck. ForG erman-Christians, who sawt he revelation of God in historical events, God revealed Himself in German history,which led to the conclusiont hat Germansw ereG od'sc hosen people.²⁵ ForG erman-Christians, Adolf Hitler had been divinelys ent to the German people in their greatest misery.Itwas the declared goal of this group to complete Luther'su nfinished reformation undert he God-sent FührerA dolf Hitler.T hus, in 1933,they began to 'liberate' doctrines and liturgy from "alleged Jewish" influences,expanding this practice to the communities undertheir influence. Immediatelya fter the Nazis dismissed all alleged Jews from the civil service,the German-Christians followed suit in theirc hurches.I mportantly, here the term "alleged Jews" does not necessarilyr efer to an adherent to the Jewish faith. Fort he most part,people who weret hus raciallycategorized merelyh ad ancestors of Jewish descent.T he German-Christians dismissed all such persons, although they wereP rotestant Christians by confession. They then divided the church community into two groups:C hristians and 'Jewish Christians.'²⁶ They would not permit a 'German' pastor to perform sacred rites such as christenings or Communion on the latter.These Jewish Christians could not paychurch taxes because they weren ol onger perceiveda sp art of the Christian community.The  Walter Grundmann, Religion und Rasse: ein Beitrag zur Frage "nationalerA ufbruch" und "lebendigerC hristusglaube" (Werdau: Meister,1933), 7.  Forthis idea, which does not originatefromthe German-Christians but rather has been part of Protestant thinkings incet he nineteenth century,s ee Hartmut Lehmann, "The Germans as a Chosen People: Old Testament Themes in German Nationalism," in Hartmut Lehmann, Religion und Religiosität in der Neuzeit: Historische Beiträge, eds.Manfred Jakubowski-Tiessen and Otto Ulbricht (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &R uprecht,1996), 248 -59.  Fore xample, the regional church of the Palatinate( Pfalz), which had close connections to the German Christian Church Movement,d eclined ap roposition in March 1939,a ccording to which all Jewish Christians weretobeexcluded from the church. The background to this, however,was that at that time no Jewish Christians weremembers of the regional church of the Palatinate. Nevertheless,t he church leadership emphasized that Christians of Jewish origin were not welcome in the church. Roland Paul, "Antisemitismus und Haltung zur Judenverfolgung," in Protestanteno hne Protest: Die evangelische Kirche der Pfalz im Nationalsozialismus,vol. 1: Sachbeiträge, eds.Christoph Picker et al. (Speyer: Verlagshaus Speyer,2 016), 359 -60.
Exclusive Spacea saCriterion forS alvation in German Protestantism separated JewishC hristian communities were later partlyd issolved, and the affected people weree xpelled from church. But expulsion was not always necessary.These 'JewishChristians' left of their own accord, emigrated, or became victims of the Holocaust.After the end of the war,the exclusion of JewishChristians from the Christian community during the Third Reich was criticized in an expert report commissioned by the Protestant regional church of Thuringia. However, the samer eporta lsos tressed that the Jewish community -albeit not Jewish Christians -posed ad anger to Christianity as aw hole.²⁷ The German-Christians created ar eligious community that wasd efined on the one hand as Protestant Christian, and on the other as belongingt ot he Aryan or Nordic race. The 'JewishC hristians' who livedi nt he area of influence of the GermanChristian Church Movement stood no chance of rejoiningthe Protestant church. The border was preciselyt heir 'racialb ackground.' They were banned from church services,b aptism, Communion, and religious instruction. Salvation in Christian terms wasn ot possiblef or these individuals: onlyt hose who belonged to the 'right' race werea llowed access.
It is at this point that the demarcation described by Kim Knott becomeso bvious: access to salvation was about race, pure and simple. Christenings and Communion are sacraments for Protestants,a nd fundamentso ft he faith for religious Christians. Access to these essential religious acts was reserved for those belongingtothe supposed right race under the leadership of the German Christian Church Movement,r egardless of whether the individual could forgo participation in the HolyC ommunion accordingt oh is or her own individual beliefs.
The key point is that access was deniedt ot his ritual completely, if one of these individuals was defined as Jewisho rp artlyJ ewish.
Thus far,r acial theory could be proclaimed as God'so verall plan. One could explain, with recourse to German history,why Adolf Hitler was the supposed 'Führer' sent by God. It was even possible to creater eligious space(s) to which accessibility and in which the attainment of salvation wered efined by race. Yeto ne hurdle remained: the history of Christianity and its traditions. According to the New Testament,J esus wasaJew. The German Christian Church Movement, as one of the most influential Protestant groups in the Third Reich, needed to legitimize its racialized conception of religion. It had to provide concrete evidence as to whyonlyAryans weregranted salvation and not,for example,JewishChristians. Towards this goal, six Protestant regional churches,led by the German Christian Church Movement,foundedthe "Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish InfluenceonG erman Church Life" in 1939.M oret han  See Schuster,D ie Lehre vom "arischen" Christentum, 256 -57. fifty academics contributed to this anti-Semitic research institute, which was aimed at the 'de-Judization' of Christianity. The members of the Institute produced purported evidence in genealogical works on Jesus' parents that the latter had been Jewishf rom ar eligious point of view,b ut could not have been so racially. The research tried to demonstrate Aryan origins in these Galileans. Jesusw ould then have been at least partlyo fA ryan descent.²⁸ And Jesus was supposedt oh aves pearheaded the struggle against Judaism. Accordingt o their racial ideology, the Aryan and Jewish racesh aveb een at each other's throats since antiquity.A ll biblical and extra-biblical evidence which depicted Jesusa saJeww as considered falsified by Jews. Besides this alleged evidence of Jesus not being Jewish, the Institute produced a 'Jew-free' (judenrein)C hristianity for contemporary times. This was an active process to fulfill their aim of finishing Luther'sR eformation for a 'Jew-free' Christianityi na' Jew-free' Third Reich.²⁹ Relying on publications of the Institute penned by well-known scholars such as JohannesL eipoldt (1880-1965), Carl Schneider (1900-1977), and Hans Heinrich Schaeder (1896-1957, the GermanC hristian Church Movementw as able to construct their Aryan Christianitya nd adducee vidence that Jesush ad not been Jewish. Johannes Leipoldt, Professor of New Testament Studies in Leipzig,f or example, attestedt hat ancient Judaism accepted non-Jews within its ranks. However,t hese converts wereo nlyJ ews by religion, not by race. And the nature of race cannot be altered, irrespective of the particular religion to which an individual adheres.F ollowingthis line of thinking,the New Testament scholarp ositionedJ esus' declarations and actions in direct contrastt ot he 'nature of the Jew':J esus preached Christian charity and acted accordingly. Such Christian charity,however,issupposedlyforeign to Jews duetotheir raciallydetermined 'nature.' Thisi sw hy,a ccordingt ot he Institute scholars, helpfulness always arises from self-interest in Jews, never from conviction.³⁰ It was for this very reason that Jesus of Nazareth had few followers among Jews. Ancient Greece, by contrast, which Leipoldtd eclared as belongingt ot he "Aryan race," "feels an intrinsic kinship with Jesus, considers his teachings and develops them further."³¹ Such publications -as well as thoseb yW alter Grundmann, who allegedly found genealogical evidence that Jesus was not aJ ew but "Aryan"³² -formed the basisf or the separation of Judaism and Christianity on ar acial footing.I f Jesush imself was not Jewish but rather struggled against Judaism on the grounds of racial differences between Jews and 'Aryans,' then contemporary Christianitym ust be cleansed of all Jewishi nfluences and 'elements.' Carl Schneider, Professor of New Testament Studies in Königsberg, even attempted to present anti-Semitism as the central messageo fe arlyC hristianity. According to him, the struggle against Judaism was one of the main motivesofJ esus of Nazareth. Schneider explained Jesus' purportedanimus towards the Jews by resorting once again to race: Jesusw as a "full-blooded Aryan" in line with National Socialist racial ideology.³³ Thus, claimed Schneider,C hristianityi nt he 'Third Reich' ought to be at the forefront of the fight against Judaism; after all, it had been involved in ar acialc onflict against 'the Jews' for the past 2,000 years.

Conclusion
The term 'space' can be used to refer to religion in ageographical or social wayof course there are manym orep ossibilities. Regarding social space, it can be said thatt his is primarily negotiated by the action of agents, "[…]t hrough the linking of the elements of social commodities and living creatures to each other by memory and perception processes, as well as through abstract notions and specific positioning."³⁴ These spaces describes ocial distancesb etween different positions³⁵ whereby boundaries define the entry criteria for agiven space. Religions and religious institutions typicallyf eature well-defined boundaries. Christianity,f or instance, is defined by the sacrament of baptism, by which one enters into the Christian congregation. An individual mayb ecome part of ar eligious community and thereby gain access to the space called religion by accepting givenentry criteria and rules of behavior.Thus, while boundaries can be rather clear,acceptance of such criteria can servet or ender them permeable.
In my case-study, however,s omething different was afoot.T he German Christian Church Movement did not construct geographical or cultural spaces that could be used to breach the borders of salvation. Hadthey done so, converts who considered themselves 'German' and 'Protestant' could have been invited in. My studyshows that,instead, this movement used race to build aspace with restricted accesst ot he divine. The racials ubdivision was perceiveda sp art of God'sc reation. Descent,m eaningt he religion one was borni nto or the religion of one'sancestry,defined this spatial boundary.Itwas onlywithin these borders that religion could be accessed. The possibility of belongingt oaspecific God and as pecific religion was thus circumscribed by exclusive racialb oundaries. Religious spaced efined by confession and race excluded the 'other' subjects from salvation in an absoluteway thatleft no possibilityofbecomingamember of the church. Onlym embers of the 'Aryan race' could inhabit this constructed space, and onlyt hey could receive divine salvation. While those who were refused admittancetothis space could still self-identifyasaChristian, the church denieds uch individuals access to the holys acraments because it did not deem them Christians, but rather Jews.
In this way, ar eligious space was constructed whose accessibility wasr estricted by race. This demarcation was justified by racist doctrine and legitimized by scientificr esearch that 'demonstrated' the proclaimed contrast between Jews on the one hand, and Germans as the Chosen People,onthe other.The last step towards adjustment of the religion with racist ideologya nd ar ealization of the German-Christian doctrinew as the 'de-Judization' of contemporary Christianity, as tep implemented by the Institute for the Studya nd Eradicationo fJ ewish Influenceo nG erman Church Life.
Exclusive Space as aC riterion forS alvation in GermanP rotestantism