Paul Leo

German emigrants have contributed much to the life of Lutheran churches in the United States, from before the time of Mühlenberg through the generation of Walther and the Fritschels into the twentieth century, when emigration dwindled to a trickle. Little attention has been paid to the few who came in the wake of Adolf Hitler's seizure of power in the 1930s. This book recounts the dramatic story of one, Paul Leo, who reminds us not only of Lutheran responses to the persecution of the church under National Socialism but also of Jewish contributions to the Lutheran tradition.

Paul Leo was a great-grandson of the composer Fannie Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, sister of Felix, and granddaughter of the influential Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Paul's father was a professor of classical languages at the University of Göttingen. Paul completed his theological studies in Tübingen and Marburg with a doctorate in New Testament before becoming an active, dedicated pastor in the territorial church of Hannover, finally serving as a pastor in Osnabrück. His first wife died at the birth of their daughter Anna. Leo was conscious of his Jewishness and obligation it placed upon him as a Christian Jew.

Overcoming the prejudices of colleagues, he became a respected member of the Osnabrück pastoral collegium, but after 1933 his colleagues in the Confessing Church there showed varying degrees of support. After bis imprisonment in Buchenwald in 1938, he realized that he and Anna had to flee. An artist friend, Eva Dittrich, daughter of a superintendent in the territorial church of Hannover and a leading young sculptress, decided to flee at the same time and managed to get permission to join Leo's brother's family in moving to Venezuela, where Leo later went to marry her. In the meantime, Leo received an invitation that allowed him and bis daughter to enter the United States in 1939. A university friend, Otto Piper, who had become professor at Princeton Seminary, arranged for him to teach at Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh. The position was temporary, but two congregations in Texas (formerly Iowa Synod) called him to be their pastor, and he found his new home in the American Lutheran Church.

Johann Michael Reu invited Leo to lecture at Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque for special gatherings. Leo's lectures made such a favorable impression that in 1950 he was called to the seminary faculty to teach New Testament. There Eva renewed her artistic career, and Paul was a popular instructor and an effective teacher of pastors. He died while lecturing on the Greek word evangelion. His training by the leading classical liberal professors at Tübingen and Rudolf Bultmann in Marburg shaped his scholarship, but bis commitment to the Lutheran confessional tradition led him to conclusions that made him fit well into the faculty of Reu, Bodensieck, and Salzmann. He once commented that the problem of racism could he solved only on the basis of the "absolute validity of the Bible as God's revelation and the absolute power of Christ as Lord of the church".

In lively fashion this popular biography recounts in some detail Leo's life in Germany and the challenges of his adjustment to life in the United States as well his contributions to students, colleagues, and the church at Wartburg Seminary. The volume invites more research into Leo and others like him who came in the mid-twentieth century from other countries to give witness to the Lutheran confession of the faith.

Robert Kolb
CONCORDIA SEMINARY
SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI