The Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt
The statement in which the leaders of the German Protestant churches, meeting representatives of the World Council of Churches in October 1945, confessed a “solidarity of guilt” with the German people.
Read the text at ekd.de ↗Introduction by the Evangelical Church in Germany ↗
The newly formed council of the Evangelical Church in Germany held its first full session at Stuttgart on 18 and 19 October 1945 and there welcomed representatives of the World Council of Churches. The declaration it made before them is short. It says that through “us” endless suffering has been brought on many peoples and countries; that the churches had struggled for years against the spirit of National Socialism; and that they accuse themselves of not having confessed more courageously, prayed more faithfully, believed more joyfully and loved more ardently.
It was signed by eleven men, among them Theophil Wurm, Otto Dibelius, Hanns Lilje and Martin Niemöller. The EKD’s own introduction notes that the text names no particular crime and that it was fiercely disputed in Germany as soon as it was published. See the Execution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Cited in
- 9 April 1945, firm date