Kittel's AntiSemitism and O.T. Sabotage (cont.)

Gerhard Kittel: Nazi Racial Propagandist

We here follow up with an epitome of the important discussion of Gerhard Kittel and his distortion of the O.T. text (adopted to this day by modern versions). Here are important excerpts from R. P. Ericksen's Theologians under Hitler (Yale U. Press, 1985), Chapter II:

"One clue is that [Kittel] was a National Socialist.  ...Kittel was a charter member [of the Nat. Inst. for the History of the New Germany], and he gave his expertise and reputation to the [Research Section on the Jewish Question] from 1936 onward.
In 1947...J.R. Porter (Theology) praises Kittel's "profound biblical scholarship" with no reference at all to his unseemly politics.  ... German historians have shown little interest in Kittel.  [But] his self-proclaimed role as theological expert on the 'Jewish Question' make him an important figure, especially under [the Nazi] regime.
...[Historian] L. Siegele-Wenschkewitz (1978) makes several mistakes;...to discuss 'Gerhard Kittel and the Jewish Question' and ignore his increasingly harsh work after 1933 is at best misleading. ...[she] also ignores much of the harshness of Die Judenfrage, harshness which Kittel himself acknowledged and justified, pleading with [German] Christians not to become sentimental or soft.
  She says, 'From a sympathizer of the presumably moderate Fuhrer, he became an opponent of the National Socialist politics of destruction.'  ...It seems clear that after a short time Kittel saw the error of his ways.  she concludes that Kittel's chief error was to misunderstand Hitler and his real attitude towards Christianity.  [Yet] there is very little evidence that Kittel experienced a change of heart prior to 1945, despite the abundant evidence [available to him] to correct his misunderstanding.
Kittel produced a body of work between 1933 and 1944 filled with hatred and slander towards Jews and warmly supportive  of National Socialist anti-Jewish policies (Siegle-Wenschkewitz has acknowledged this more recently).
...He took an evil stance.  It may or may not have been proper to try, convict and imprison Kittel in 1945. ... But it is relatively easier to conclude that Kittel was wrong, whether or not he was criminally guilty.  ...
He was linked to the single most objectionable aspect of Hitler's reign, the Jewish policy.  On both counts Kittel was singularly and distinctly wrong. ...
(Ericksen, p. 28-31)