THE YOUNGEST MARTYR OF THE CONFESSING CHURCH: PASTOR HELMUT HESSE (MAY 11, 1916 TO NOVEMBER 24, 1943)

“And you, Lord, side with the Jews, bring together the chased people of Israel. We beg you, Lord, that you may save these good people, and we beg you for the evil people, that you may change their hearts.”

- Pastor Helmut Hesse

            Let us remember the youngest martyr of the Confessing Church during Nazi Germany, Pastor Helmut Hesse. As the German Resistance had inspired the comrades of Unit 1012, let us not forget them and remember them as heroes who stood against evil.

  

Helmut Hesse the youngest martyr of the Confessing Church

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.ekir.de/www/service/6900.php]

We, as fellow Christians, must not endure any longer that the church in Germany remains silent about the persecution of Jews. The church bears responsibility right now as even so called privileged Jews are deported. Every ‘non-Aryan’ in Germany today is in danger of being murdered and therefore the church has to take sides: whether to act as priests or Levites or as Samaritans? This is a question of charity. The Jewish question is an evangelical one, not a political question. The [Confessing] church has to support the Jews and to resist any ‘Christian Antisemitism’ within its own community… The church has to resist any attempt, to eliminate the Jews whatever the cost and must regard this attempt, to eliminate the Jews whatever the cost and must regard this attempt as an attack on the church and Christ. This resistance is necessary as a testimony against the violation of the Ten Commandments. In public, in sermons and speeches the bishop have to bear witness, to instruct the conscience of the Jews, the Christian communities, as well as the persecutors.

- A Letter to Bavarian Bishop Hans Meiser