1937

Summary

1 MEMORANDUM BY BISHOP BELL, FEBRUARY 1937

Private and Confidential

Visit to Berlin

January 28 - February 1, 1937

I left Harwich on the evening of January 27th, and arrived in Berlin on Thursday, January 28th, at 4.30 p.m. Here Professor Adolf Keller met me. We first went to the office of the Society of Friends to arrange an interview, and then to the Furstenhof Hotel, Potzdamerplatz. Keller had been in touch with the British Embassy about a possible introduction to Baron von Neurath whom he wanted me to see, so I called there and saw Sir Eric Phipps. He was very kind but said that anything in the nature of political intervention was very much resented, and he could not give me an introduction unless on the instructions of the Foreign Office. He thought that if it were desired to see Baron von Neurath I ought to write a personal letter myself. He himself thought that as Ribbentrop was nearer the Führer it would be better to get in touch with him.

In the evening, after dinner, Hanns Lilje came.

January 28. Talk with Hanns Lilje. Lilje had made most of the plans for seeing people, and had taken great trouble. He was anxious that I should see Baron von Neurath and said he had reason to believe that an interview would be welcomed by the Baron. It was agreed that I should write personally to him. Lilje said that the situation in the Church was much more serious than it had been. In particular the two leading now in the Church Ministry were hostile and were very dangerous. He mentioned Muhs and Schimanowsky — an ex-Pastor who had left the Church and was now in charge of the Police Department in the Church Ministry. Lilje also laid special stress on the suppression of the Evangelical Weeks. They were not actually forbidden as such, but they were made impossible, or deprived of their speakers. Thus Lilje had himself just been forbidden, that morning, through the Secret Police under orders from the Church Ministry, to enter the Province of Schleswig-Holstein for five weeks. The Evangelical Week due there was not forbidden, nor was his preaching forbidden, but he himself forbidden to enter. So Bishop Meiser had been forbidden to preach at Erfurt, and Bishop Marahrens had been forbidden to go to Lübeck.