The book under review is a doctoral dissertation in divinity (Munich, 1975). The author, a Brazilian pastor of German descent, is a member of the Evangelische Kirche Lutherischen Bekenntnisses in Brasilien (EKLBB, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brazil). In Brazil, the EKLBB has been purely and simply known as the Igreja dos Alemães. As the author saw for himself, the sermon, preached in German, was not understood by some seventy percent of the congregation. He proposed, therefore, that in future the sermon should be given in the language of the country. But the answer was: it is impossible to be Protestant without being German. It was this experience which led the author to investigate the relationship between the church and deutschtum within the EKLBB. His intention was to retrace the path of the EKLBB from a church of immigrants to an indigenous church in Brazil.
The book consists of the following parts: chapters 1-3 deal with German immigration in Brazil in the nineteenth century. In chapters 4 and 5, the author discusses the relationship between the church and deutschtum within the EKLBB, and in chapters 6 to 8 the development of two (out of four) synods of the EKLBB is described.
The study is based on material from church archives in the Federal Republic of Germany. The archives of the EKLBB were not thrown open to the author. His detailed bibliography, which for the most part consists of theological literature and, to a lesser extent, of historical writings, includes only titles in German and Portuguese. Books and articles in English (especially with regard to Brazilian history) are missing completely.
For readers of the HAHR, the historical background of the study is of special interest. Although the author states explicitly that his theme must he seen “in the context of Brazilian history” (p. 16), the historical background of his study remains relatively obscure. After all, we know quite a bit more about annexationist plans by German imperialism against southern Brazil than the author believes. It is a pity, therefore, that the following doctoral thesis should have escaped his attention: Jürgen Hell, “Die Politik des Deutschen Reiches zur Verwandlung der drei brasilianischen Südstaaten in ein überseeisches Neudeutschland, 1890-1914 (Ph.D. Diss., University of Rostock, 1966). In it, the author could have found a wealth of material concerning the political aspects of his theme. This is all the more astounding since he lists in his bibliography a book entitled Der deutsche Faschismus in Lateinamerika, 1933-1943 (Berlin, 1966) which includes an article by J. Hell. Apparently, the author has not given adequate consideration to the books contained in his own bibliography. The same goes for Klaus J. Bade’s book about Friedrich Fabri (Freiburg, 1975), which is mentioned twice, but nothing else. In conclusion, it should be noted that Tordesillas is spelled Tordesilhas (p. 28), the author obviously mistaking this place for a Portuguese town.
