Germany

Germany matters in the book as a place where political terror became concrete in the lives of Quakers and where visitors from the United States were forced to reckon with the consequences of fear and the absence of love. Thomas Kelly’s 1938 visit turned concern for German Quakers into a personal moral crisis, while Douglas Steere’s repeated journeys connected religious solidarity with organized peace work.

Germany under Nazi rule

Kelly’s visit took place in the summer of 1938, when American Quakers were concerned for the welfare of Quakers living under Adolf Hitler. German Quakers who remembered Kelly from an earlier visit welcomed him. He had been asked to assess their situation and convey the love and concern of Quakers in the United States. Germany was therefore not simply a destination: it was the setting for a relationship of responsibility between people living under Nazi rule and those able to visit from abroad.

The danger shaped even ordinary communication. To write home without German censorship, Kelly crossed the border into France. He warned his wife that he could not safely include names or places in his letters. A casual anecdote, he explained, might have grave consequences: imprisonment, beatings with clubs, family separation, or death. The need to leave identifying details unwritten made the risks of life under the regime visible in the form of his correspondence itself.

Quaker visits and solidarity

Kelly’s journey was arranged by Rufus Jones and others as a response to concern about German Quakers. His welcome by people who remembered his previous visit gave the mission a personal dimension, but its purpose was also practical: to understand their circumstances and bring them reassurance from American Friends. The visit joined observation with an explicit expression of care.

Douglas Steere also went to Germany while Adolf Hitler was in power. After establishing important European relationships during his 1933–34 sabbatical, Steere made a risky visit in 1937 to encourage German Quakers. He returned in 1940, after war had begun in Europe. These journeys belonged to his wider commitment to peace: Steere was active in the Fellowship of Reconciliation and chaired its American section from 1954 to 1966. His work placed spiritual fellowship alongside public opposition to war, rather than treating religious concern as separate from political danger.

Kelly’s moral reckoning

The contrast between Germany and Kelly’s American life unsettled him. At Haverford College, he lived in comfortable circumstances amid parklike surroundings, while the world was aflame. Seeing the suffering of people in Germany made him question what he could offer a suffering world. The contrast was not merely between safety and danger; it forced him to examine what privilege required of him.

Kelly came to understand the inhumanity he witnessed as a consequence of the absence of love. He sensed that God was helping him recognize love as God’s final nature. Germany thus changed the meaning of his religious reflection: the divine presence was no longer only a matter of inward experience, but also a measure by which human conduct and indifference could be judged.

Narrative significance

The book presents Germany through acts of encounter rather than as a general political history. Kelly’s guarded letters disclose how fear governed speech and threatened families; Steere’s repeated visits show how Quaker concern could take the form of continued presence and encouragement. Together, these accounts make Germany a test of religious responsibility: the suffering encountered there exposed the distance between comfortable belief and love made active in a world at risk.