Johannes Schröder in the Resistance Against Hitler

Abstract: After joining the National Committee for a Free Germany, Military Chaplain Johannes Schröder, taken prisoner by the Soviets in Stalingrad, was able to address listeners in Germany over Radio Moscow from the fall of 1943 until the fall of 1945. More than eighty of his sermons and speeches have been preserved and published as a book in 2021. In this article, two of these pieces are published in an English translation, supplemented by an introduction that explains the historical context. Schröder openly demanded the overthrow of Hitler and the Nazi Regime in Germany. For Schröder, confessing German guilt was a precondition for the creation of a new Germany. While leaders of the Confessing Church like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemöller had been silenced by the Nazis, Schröder was able to explain the fundamental theological tenets that had been formulated at Barmen in 1934. Schröder’s speeches and sermons therefore offer an exciting new view of the resistance against Hitler.