Download Catholic Church

Germany 1918–1939:
The Christian churches
Introduction
Article 24 of the Nazi Party program demanded "liberty for all religious denominations in the
State so far as they are not a danger to...the moral feelings of the German race. The party stands
for positive Christianity." However, that rosy view of the future for Christianity changed as the
following views from the Minister for Church Affairs in 1937 show. "Positive Christianity is
National Socialism. National Socialism was the doing of God's will. God's will reveals itself in
German blood. The Führer is the herald of a new revelation." There was little room in German
life for what was traditional Christianity. Below is the path the Nazis took.
Catholic Church
Hitler promised early in 1933 that he would respect the churches and hoped to improve relations
with the Vatican. He did this to buy time and to give an air of respectability to his regime. The
Catholic Church had first tried to cooperate with the Nazis in the hope that they would be treated
fairly.
On 20 July he signed a concordat (an agreement) with the Vatican which guaranteed the freedom
of the Catholic religion and its right to regulate its own affairs.
Almost immediately Hitler broke the agreement. He did this through:
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dissolving the Catholic Youth League
arresting and charging thousands of Catholic priests, nuns and lay leaders on trumped-up
charges
suppressing scores of Catholic publications
violating the sanctity of the confessional* (done by Gestapo agents).
The Catholic Church's public disillusionment with Hitler came on 14 March 1937 when Pope
Pius XI issued an encyclical (a statement) Mit Brennender Sorge, attacking the Nazi government.
*In the confessional a Catholic can speak directly to a priest in private, confess their sins and ask
for God's forgiveness. What is said in the confessional is supposed to be private and confidential.
This was abused by the Gestapo in order to find out the inner thoughts of ordinary Germans.
Protestant churches
The Protestants were a divided group in Germany. Only about 150 000 belonged to churches
such as the Baptists and Methodists. The rest belonged to twenty-eight Lutheran and Reformed
Churches of which the largest was the Church of the Old Prussian Union with 18 million
members.
The more fanatical Nazis among the Protestants organised, in 1932, The German Christians'
Faith Movement, whose most active leader was Ludwig Mueller. This group supported the Nazi
doctrines of race and the leadership principle and wanted a Reich Church which would bring
together all Protestants.
Opposed to the German Christians was the Confessional Church led by Martin Niemoeller, a
former German U-boat captain and an early supporter of the Nazis. This group opposed the
Nazification of the Protestant churches and rejected the Nazi racial theories and the antiChristian doctrines of Rosenberg (a Nazi philosopher).
The majority of German Protestants "sat on the fence and eventually, for the most part, landed in
the arms of Hitler" (Shirer). The founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther, had been a strong antiSemite and a strict believer in absolute obedience to political authority. This tradition was still
strong among German Protestants in the 1930s.
Despite the lack of resistance from the Protestant churches, Hitler still had problems with them.
In July 1933 Hitler established a new Reich Church, but there was a struggle over who would
lead the church. Hitler intervened directly. In 1934 Pastor Niemoeller and his Confessional
Church claimed that they were the legal Protestant Church of Germany. Hitler then began
arresting Confessional Church pastors and later confiscated their funds and forbade them making
collections. Pastor Niemoeller was arrested in July 1937 and was confined in concentration
camps until the end of the war. In the face of terror there was little further public resistance.
Conclusion
By late 1938 the majority of Protestant clergy took an oath binding themselves legally and
morally to obey the commands of the Führer. The conclusion of the attacks on the churches is
best summed up in some of the thirty articles of the National Reich Church:
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The Reich Church has the power to control all churches within the borders of the Reich.
Only Reich Church orators are to speak in the churches, not priests or pastors.
The Bible is no longer to be published. Mein Kampf is to replace it as the most important
document in the Reich Church.
There are to be no crucifixes, bibles or pictures of saints in the Church.
On the altars there is to be nothing but Mein Kampf and a sword.
The Christian cross must be removed and replaced by the swastika.