Topography of Terror

Hi, I’m Pastor Lutzer. Many of us are touring the city of Berlin as part of a larger journey through important historical sites in Germany. Right now, we are about to enter what is known as the Topography of Terror. This place reveals much about the depths of the human heart. Those who walk through these exhibits are often sobered by the brutal reality of what the Gestapo did here in Germany. People were not just tortured to death — they were tortured far more than necessary, long before they were ultimately killed.

Carl Jung, a psychologist whom I rarely quote, once said: “Just when people were congratulating themselves on having abolished the belief in demons, it turned out that instead of haunting the attic or old ruins, the demons were flitting about in the heads of apparently normal Europeans.” Tyrannical, oppressive, intoxicating ideas and delusions were widespread, and people began to believe the most absurd things, just like those who are possessed.

Now, let me speak to you personally as we reflect on the human heart. The Bible says that “the heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” The next verse declares, “I, the Lord, search the heart.” So, I want to ask you a very penetrating question: Could you become a monster? Could you become someone who tortures other human beings? Most of us would confidently say, “No, I don’t think that’s possible.” But I urge you to consider that it could be possible.

The Germans were ordinary people. They were not inherently different or uniquely evil, though the influence of demonic power was certainly evident in Hitler’s life and rule. But the truth is, when cultural streams become so powerful and overwhelming, people are willing to override their consciences to commit evil, if that’s what it takes to survive or fit in with the group.

One critical aspect of totalitarianism is this: in such a state, the individual is nothing; the group, the state, is everything. People fall in line and can commit great evils in the name of the collective good. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn reflected deeply on this, saying that “the line between good and evil does not run among continents, borders, or races, but through every human heart.” He also remarked that the horrors carried out under Nazi Germany, as well as the atrocities committed in Soviet Russia, could happen in any era, even in the West.

These atrocities happen when people forget God, when they lose sight of their individual accountability before Him, and become entirely devoted to the state or the “spirit of the times.” That’s what happened here. We are touring this site to learn from the past, so that we do not commit the same evils in the future.

Thank you so much for joining us. This is Pastor Lutzer, speaking to you from Berlin, as we reflect on the darkness of the human heart here at the Topography of Terror. And terror it was. Thank you.