Was Martin Luther, the great leader of Protestant thought, a Jew / Muslim Hater who fathered the HOLOCAUST ?

Question

The father of the HOLOCAUST in Germany :::

Did I not tell you earlier that a Jew is such a noble, precious jewel that God and all the angels dance when he farts?---Martin Luther (Germany)

“What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews?
First, their synagogues should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it. And this ought to be done for the honour of God and of Christianity, in order that God may see that we are true Christians.
Secondly, their homes should be likewise broken down and destroyed.
Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayerbooks and talmuds in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught.
Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threats of death to teach anymore.” – Martin Luther

“If I find a Jew to baptize, I shall lead him to the Elbe bridge, hang a stone around his neck, and push him into the water, baptizing him with the name of Avraham!.. I cannot convert the Jews. Our lord Christ did not succeed in doing so; but I can close their mouths so that there will be nothing for them to do but to lie upon the ground.” – Martin Luther

“I hope I shall never be so stupid as to be circumcised; I would rather cut off the left breast of my Catherine and of all women.” --- Martin Luther

“If we are to remain unsullied by the blasphemy of the Jews and not wish to take part in it, we must be separated from them and they must be driven out of the country.” – Martin Luther

Jesus did not call them Abraham's children, but a "brood of vipers" [Matt. 3:7]. Oh, that was too insulting for the noble blood and race of Israel, and they declared, "He has a demon' [Matt 11:18]. Our Lord also calls them a "brood of vipers"; furthermore in John 8 [:39,44] he states: "If you were Abraham's children ye would do what Abraham did.... You are of your father the devil. It was intolerable to them to hear that they were not Abraham's but the devil's children, nor can they bear to hear this today.------Martin Luther

Learn from this, dear Christian, what you are doing if you permit the blind Jews to mislead you. Then the saying will truly apply, "When a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into the pit" [cf. Luke 6:39]. You cannot learn anything from them except how to misunderstand the divine commandments...------Martin Luther

St. John Chrysostom: “I know that many people hold a high regard for the Jews and consider their way of life worthy of respect at the present time... This is why I am hurrying to pull up this fatal notion by the roots ... A place where a whore stands on display is a whorehouse. What is more, the synagogue is not only a whorehouse and a theater; it is also a den of thieves and a haunt of wild animals ... not the cave of a wild animal merely, but of an unclean wild animal ... When animals are unfit for work, they are marked for slaughter, and this is the very thing which the Jews have experienced. By making themselves unfit for work, they have become ready for slaughter. This is why Christ said: “as for my enemies, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them and slay them before me’ (Luke 19.27).”



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Therefore be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer self-glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously and veheming his eyes on them.---------Martin Luther


Moreover, they are nothing but thieves and robbers who daily eat no morsel and wear no thread of clothing which they have not stolen and pilfered from us by means of their accursed usury. Thus they live from day to day, together with wife and child, by theft and robbery, as arch-thieves and robbers, in the most impenitent security.
--------Martin Luther


However, they have not acquired a perfect mastery of the art of lying; they lie so clumsily and ineptly that anyone who is just a little observant can easily detect it.

But for us Christians they stand as a terrifying example of God's wrath.-----Martin Luther


...but then eject them forever from this country. For, as we have heard, God's anger with them is so intense that gentle mercy will only tend to make them worse and worse, while sharp mercy will reform them but little. Therefore, in any case, away with them!-------Martin Luther


However, we must avoid confirming them in their wanton lying, slandering, cursing, and defaming. Nor dare we make ourselves partners in their devilish ranting and raving by shielding and protecting them, by giving them food, drink, and shelter, or by other neighborly acts..------Martin Luther



If we wish to wash our hands of the Jews' blasphemy and not share in their guilt, we have to part company with them. They must be driven from our country.-----Martin Luther


They [rulers] must act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set in proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this instance. Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses did...

If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs.----Martin Luther


Martin Luther: [ in his last sermon, four days before he died, ] called for practical measures: burn their synagogues, confiscate all books in Hebrew, prohibit Jewish prayers, force them to do manual labour, and drive them out of Germany.


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Answer 1

For centuries, the Jewish People upset a Roman Catholic Church that did its best to define our relationship through inquisitions, and we upset the arch-enemy of the church, Martin Luther, who, in his call to burn the synagogues and the Jews within them, showed an admirable Christian ecumenical spirit.

And it is because we became so upset over upsetting you, dear world, that we decided to leave you - in a manner of speaking - and establish a Jewish state. The reasoning was that living in close contact with you, as resident-strangers in the various countries that comprise you, we upset you, irritate you and disturb you. What better notion, then, than to leave you (and thus love you) - and have you love us and so, we decided to come home - home to the same land we were driven out 1,900 years earlier by a Roman world that, apparently, we also upset.


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Answer 2

The two errors of Luther, it can be seen, contain within them two seeds of truth; salvation is indeed the work of God, and not the work of Man, and Scripture is indeed the very Word of God, which should be accorded the highest authority; but Luther goes wrong when he takes these very true principles and elevates them to the point that they exclude the other truths involved. If salvation is God's work, it is also true that part of God's work is drawing Man up to the status of sonship, so that Man now becomes privileged to share in the work of God - a co-worker with God, as St. Paul put it; if Scripture should be given the highest authority, the next highest authority in the hierarchy is not the individual believer, but the "God-breathed" Magisterium of the Church (cf. Jn. 20:21-23). There can be no eliminating this Divinely appointed "middle man," and substituting the authority of the individual for the authority of the Church.

In sum, we can take these two foundational pillars of the Reformation, and demonstrate how they contain necessary truths in their essence; but we must also show how they unnecessarily truncate the truth, and thus become enemies of the very principles they wish to promote. The Protestant truths here are hampered because they are left incomplete; sola scriptura needs to be understood as prima scriptura, so that the truth concerning the Church can be admitted into the discussion; sola fide needs to be understood as sola gratia, so that the truth about Divine sonship can be allowed to flourish.

Answer 3

In historical context I don't think Martin Luther's opinion on Jews was different than any other person with a religious background during the time period. What sets him apart is that he started the Reformation. Which Hitler like to use to justify a few things. Was it wrong? In my opinion yes.

Answer 4

Thanks. This is old news though. "Ohhh, Martin Luther hated the Jews!" So what? A lot of people did in those days, and a depressingly large number of people still do.

He did NOT father the Holocaust. Sure he stoked the fires of Anti-Semitism, but never, EVER take responsiblity for that kind of brutality from those who perpetrated it. The SS, the Nazi party, and all of post-Weimar Germany (as well as other sections of Europe, I'm looking at you Vichey France) are responsible for those atrocities. Never try to foist it on an ideal or a dead religoius thinker, this was human brutality pure and simple.

Answer 5

Martin Luther was not the only one in Europe who had a thing against Jews. He predates the Holocaust by so many centuries that it is doubtful he had any direct influence. Just add him to the mix.

Answer 6

Martin Luther wasn't the nicest person at the best of times anyway. In his declining years, he apparently got even worse.

The Lutheran church (in the U.S. at least) has formally renounced Luther's antisemitic writings, in part because of the violence they had once been used to justify.

Unfortunately, the words now exist and those who wish to hate never bother with the footnotes.

Answer 7

What people forget to mention is that ALL of those quotes came from the end of Martin Luther's life. In quotes from the beginning of his life, he professed great love for the Jews. So what happened? He got old and cranky.

Answer 8

Yeah, nothing new here. Check out the major sects of Lutheranism and you'll see they have recognized what he said about Jews, and don't agree. This was covered years ago.

Answer 9

Yes, he was a Jew hater and Hitler did admire this about him and used some of Luther's own terminology in his propaganda (i.e. calling Jews rats and vermin). The Catholic church was also a proponent of Jew hatred and didn't speak out against the Holocaust because it was serving their purpose.

atheist

Answer 10

Martin Luther was a great man of God.......and I thank God for what he did in exposing the heresy of the catholic church