PASTORS' DILEMMA

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 131, 6 June 1938, Page 9

PASTORS' DILEMMA

RELIEF IN GERMANY

OATH TO HITLER NOT

NEEDED LONDON, June 4. The Berlin correspondent of "The Times" says that the Reich Church Ministry, by making a number of concessions, has released pastors from the dilemma in which the recent, decree necessitating their taking the oath of loyalty to Herr Hitler placed them. > It is understood that Dr. Werner, State head of the Evangelical Church, has accepted the viewpoint that the Church authority is not in a position to demand a political oath. He has ruled that Church officials administering the oath to do s.a.in the capacity of State officials. He has also disclaimed those interpretations of the qath which appeared to place the obligation of loyalty to Herr Hitler above the obligation to Christ. Under a decree issued recently by Dr. Werner, Germany's 10,000 Protestant pastors- had to choose between dismissal and taking the oath of loyalty to Herr Hitler, and of obedience to the laws of the State as prescribed for civil servants. This involved great conflict of conscience for the pastors because, by taking the oath, they would be committed to unreserved obedience to the State Church authority. FREUD ON WAY TO LONDON VIENNA, June 5. After various delays owing -to theauthorities seizing his passport, the Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud has gone to London, accompanied by his family. SCHUSCHNIGQ'S MARRIAGE DENIED VIENNA, June 4/ An official spokesman has denied that Dr. Kurt von Schuschnigg, former Austrian Chancellor, has married. According to the Berlin correspondent of the "News Chronicle," Dr. von Schuschnigg, of whose whereabouts his bride is unaware, married by proxy through his brother Arthur, Countess Vera Fugger von Babenhausen, in the private chapel of the first district Dominican Church, Vienna. A letter from the husband which was handed the bride after the ceremony said, "By now we should be man and wife. This makes me very happy. A thousand kisses. (Signed) Kurt."