The Wittenberg Sau

The October 2020 issue of Smithsonian magazine contains an interesting and disturbing article about "the Judensau" sculpture on the city church in Wittenberg, Germany, birthplace of the Protestant Reformation. The article, "Hatred in Plain Sight," was written by Carol Schaeffer, who is a freelance journalist and a former Fulbright scholar in Germany. To read the piece, go here.

Schaeffer's article raises the troubling question about why this clearly anti-Semitic sculpture is still on the outside upper wall of St. Mary's Church. (See the picture at the left.) Schaeffer does a fine job of describing the controversy about the 700-year-old Wittenberg "Judensau" (lit. "Jew's pig"). As she notes, such sculptures of Jews and pigs began appearing in European architecture already in the 1300s. In the wake of the Holocaust, some of them were taken down and even destroyed. More recently, in view of the rise of the ultra-nationalist party "Alternativ für Deutschland" (AfD) and of neo-Nazi violence in Germany, some people have renewed the call to dismantle such Judensau sculptures. One such person is Michael Düllmann, who is the son of former Nazis and was himself a one-time Christian theology student. (After dropping out of Göttingen University and living on a kibbutz in Israel, he returned to his native country, where he converted to Judaism.) 

Düllmann, who is now 76 years old, is quoted extensively in the article. I remember seeing him in Lutherstadt Wittenberg on October 31, 2017, the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the posting of Martin Luther's famous theses. On that day, he carried a sign that read, "Was will diese Kirche sein: Kirche des Evangeliums oder 'Judensau' Kirche?" [What does this church want to be: a church of the gospel or a 'Jew's pig' church?] Since then, he has argued in an official German court that the Wittenberg Judensau should be taken down because it defames and offends Germany's Jewish community. He now sees his legal fight as a fight (as described by Schaeffer) "for the heart of German culture, of which Luther is a foundational part." She quotes him further, "All German culture was poisoned by [Luther] with hatred of Jews and anti-Semitism.... Luther was once a hero to me, and is now my opponent" (p. 68).

Mr. Düllmann raises important criticism and difficult questions, even if his lawsuit was struck down by that German court and is now under appeal to a European-Union court. The article's treatment of Martin Luther's anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism is also important to consider in this regard. (I have addressed this issue before: that post) The article also does a fine job of raising another difficult question: how should a community (a city, a state, a nation) remember its difficult and troubling past? For my take on that problem, see an earlier post here.

While Schaeffer's article is well worth reading, it does leave out some important contextual information. While she notes that in the early 1980s, when the church was undergoing renovation in anticipation of the 500th anniversary of Luther's birth (1983), there was serious deliberation about whether or not to remove the Wittenberg "Sau." Prior to this time, for many years, the exterior of St. Mary's, like so many other buildings in that industrial part of Communist East Germany, was covered in soot from the coal burning and by the effects of air pollution from nearby chemical plants. The Judensau was barely visible. But that renovation would now uncover what had been covered by the industrial pollution. In a strange way, the action of "uncovering" the polluted Judensau connects now to one of the meanings conveyed by the 1988 Mahnmal ("warning memorial") beneath it: you can't hide the terrible past. "You can't cover up injustice," to quote Pr. Friedrich Schorlemmer from the article. (He was among those who sometimes preached at the Castle Church in Wittenberg.) The memorial plate beneath the Judensau was consecrated on 9 November 1988--50 years after "the Night of Broken Glass" (Kristallnacht) and one year before the wall came down.

What Ms. Schaeffer does not report is that some Jews were also involved in the decision to keep the Wittenberg Sau atop the outside corner of St. Mary's Church (now also a Unesco World Heritage site). The congregation did not make its decision in isolation.  At that time, in the early 1980s, the superintendent of the district of the Protestant Church that includes Wittenberg reached out to a nearby Jewish community (probably in Magdeburg), and he was told by them in so many words, "Keep the sculpture on the church. The church will have to deal with it." While the superintendent himself, Pastor Steinwachs, wanted to remove the sculpture, these Jews argued against his view. The idea was to have a corresponding Mahnmal on the ground beneath the sculpture. So it was not merely "those in charge of the project" who "decided that the Judensau would remain..."; some regional Jews also had a voice in that decision: "Don't take it down. Don't put it in a museum. Keep it where it is, and you'll have to deal with it."

Nor does the article mention that each year the two Protestant churches in Wittenberg have a service of remembrance to mark the Holocaust, to mark the anniversary of Kristallnacht, and to mark the day that Auschwitz was liberated. Those are solemn occasions for those two congregations in Wittenberg.

Finally, the article could have drawn attention to the cedar tree that is planted beside the Mahnmal. According to my friend, Pr. Steve Godsall-Myers, who served as an ELCA pastor in Wittenberg for many years, that tree was planted sometime after the fall of the Wall. It was planted by a group of Sunday-school children from St. Mary's Church. In a special ceremony, it was planted as a symbol of peace and reconciliation beside the Mahnmal. As Pr. Godsall-Myers told me, "The fact that [the cedar tree] has thrived and grown over the years is a sign of what can grow out of hatred and bad will."

I personally agree with the decision of the German court against Mr. Düllman's position. That court rightly noted that what makes the difference here is the Mahnmal--the "warning monument," which is the bronze sculpture beneath the Judensau. That was Pastor Schorlemmer's position, too, echoed as well by the current pastor of St. Mary's, Pr. Block. When visitors are told about the anti-Semitic Wittenberg Sau, they cannot help but be confronted by the Mahnmal--and the nearby cedar tree.

As Pastor Godsall-Myers recently told me, "I am not sure the issue [of the Wittenberg Judensau] will ever go away - maybe it should not. It should always cause some dis-ease."