Thomas Kelly’s 1938 Visit to Nazi Germany

Thomas Kelly’s 1938 visit to Germany joined Quaker concern for a threatened community with a profound change in his own spiritual outlook. Sent to assess the situation of German Friends and express the care of American Quakers, he encountered a climate of fear that followed him home and made the comforts of his life at Haverford difficult to accept unchanged.

A Quaker mission under Nazi rule

In the summer of 1938, Kelly went back to Germany on a trip arranged by Rufus Jones and others. American Quakers were concerned about the welfare of Friends living under Nazi rule. Many German Quakers welcomed Kelly, remembering his earlier visit; his task was to assess their circumstances and offer the love and concern of Quakers in the United States.

Censorship and the cost of speaking

At one point, Kelly crossed the border into France so that he could write home without German censorship. He told his wife that his letters could not safely name people or places. The caution reflected more than a restriction on correspondence: he warned that even an incidental account might expose people to imprisonment, separation from family, or death. The need to withhold names made the dangers of ordinary communication part of what Kelly had to report.

A changed understanding of privilege and love

What Kelly witnessed altered how he regarded his own circumstances. The contrast between the suffering he had seen in Germany and his comfortable life amid the park-like surroundings of Haverford made him ask what he could offer a world in crisis. He came to understand the inhumanity around him as a consequence of love’s absence, and sensed that the final nature of God was love. The visit thus pressed a spiritual conviction into direct relation with political suffering: belief in divine love demanded a reckoning with the conditions in which people were forced to live.

Return and aftermath

Kelly returned to the United States in September 1938. He was the last person off the ship and seemed dazed; the return to Haverford’s comfort proved difficult. The intense experiences of divine presence he had known earlier were brief, and he passed through spiritual dryness, recognizing that changes in his life were needed. In the aftermath, he renewed his relationship with his family and showed them more love, including playing with his children after teaching. The German visit did not yield an easy resolution, but it sharpened the question that shaped his response at home: how a life of faith could answer suffering with love.