The Church

• Why did the Church oppose Nazi ideology?

  • the Nazis were against the Churches teachings of tolerance
  • Jesus was Jewish and Nazi ideology was against this
  • Hitler declared that Christianity was a rebellion against the natural law of natural selection
• The German Faith Movement:

  • based on teutonic Pagan beliefs (before Christian beliefs) from Germany's history
  • alternative to Christianity
  • never fully outlined
  • only 5% of the population joined
  • 4 Main themes
  • promoted by Alfred Rosenberg
• The German Faith Movement 4 main themes:

  • propagation of the Blood and Soil ideology
  • replacement of Christian ceremonies
  • wholesale rejection of Christian ethics
  • the cult of Hitler's personality
• Protestantism and the Reich Church:

  • pastors (originally) encouraged people to vote for the Nazis
  • many Protestants liked the Nazi ideology on traditional families
  • Hitler wanted to control the Protestant Church
  • 1933 --> creation of the Reich Church under Ludwig Muller
  • Ludwig Muller => fanatical Nazi, Christ was Aryan, popular with youth, highly anti semitic, remove Jewish roots
  • Reich Church => Mein Kampf used, unite Protestant Church, Jewish teachings removed, The Swastika on our breasts the Cross in our hearts
• Opposition from Protestantism: THE CONFESSIONAL CHURCH

  • Martin Niemoller -> former voter for Nazi, but didn't agree with the Aryan paragraph, was anti-semitic but changed, arrested in 1937
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer -> arrested and killed by the Nazis, introduced private confessions, linked to an assassination attempt on Hitler
  • 7000/17000 pastors joined the church
  • 1936 800 Pastors arrested
  • secret
  • Niemoller delivered a speech that said we must obey God rather than man
• Catholic Church:

  • loyalty to the Pope not to Hitler, which threatened the Nazi ideology
  • 20 million Catholics
  • Catholic Church was mainly centralised, which meant that resistant would've been a stronger force
  • 1933 -> concordant in which Hitler said that Catholics would be respected (this didn't happen)
  • 1937 -> Papal Encyclical ==> With Burning Concern
  • Priests under surveillance
• Conflict from Catholicism:

  • crucifixes removed from churches, and schools were closed
  • Goebbels published Catholic sex scandals that resulted in 200 Priests being arrested
  • Priests spoke out -> Archbishop of Munster -> Euthanasia -> stopped publically
• How effective was Church opposition?

  Loyalty to the Church was strong and opposition was varied as Protestant Church had stronger opposition than the Catholic Church