Christelijke ethiek tussen Geest en tijdgeest: Alfred Dedo Müller’s vergeten Ethik Translated title: Christian Ethics between Spirit and Zeitgeist: Alfred Dedo Müller's Forgotten Ethik

Abstract

The German theologian Alfred Dedo Müller (1890–1972) has become known for his crucial contribution to the establishment of practical theology as an independent discipline. He is also known for his commitment to religious socialism and for his involvement in new liturgical movements. However, none of the historical accounts about this important theologian has paid attention to his Ethik, published in 1937. In that study Müller explicitly expresses sympathies for Nazi-conceptions about Volkstum, the Jews, the Führer-state, the need for racial hygiene, and the Nurnberg laws. Although he advocates the killing of innocent humans in no way, he may be criticised for failing to identify the dangers of Nazism, for not speaking up more loudly, and for de facto providing the Nazis with theological justification of their politics. After World War II, Müller expresses regret about the deceptions and the crimes of Nazism. However, he neither makes any reference to his own role nor does he see reasons to alter his theological method of ‘radical realism’.