The Nazi Policies towards the Church and Resistance

• Weimaran Nazi Germany


  Period of Nazi rule in Germany after the Weimar Republic
• Many people in Germany in the 1930s were Christians
• Christianity taught peace and tolerance


  This was a direct opposite of the Nazis' beliefs about strength and violence
• How the Nazis set up to control religious views

  1. Initially tried to work with the churches

  2. Contradiction of aims became a problem

  3. Hitler turned on the churches
• Catholic Center party


  Political party in Germany with Catholic support
• Hitler made a Concordat (agreement) with the Pope in 1933


  Promised to allow Catholics to worship freely and allow Catholic schools to continue teaching their own curriculum
• Hitler did not keep these promises
• Catholic priests were increasingly arrested and sent to concentration camps
• Catholic schools were closed or forced to teach the Nazi curriculum
• Catholic youth clubs such as the Catholic Youth League were banned in 1937
• The Pope realized he had been tricked and criticized the Nazi government
• Reich Church (Reichskirche)


  United Protestant churches under Nazi control, led by Ludwig Müller
• The Reich Church was not allowed to let Jews convert or be baptized, and Jewish teachings in the Old Testament were deleted from the Bibles
• Hitler tried to put the Nazi stamp on the Christian Church using the police state to control the actions and teachings of the church
• Some members of the Christian faith resisted the changes by speaking out or refusing to participate in Nazi rules
• Pastor's Emergency League (Pfarrernotbund or PEL)


  Group of Protestant pastors who opposed the joining of Protestant churches into the Reich Church and the removal of Jewish texts from the Old Testament
• The PEL set up a separate Confessing Church in 1934, with around 6,000 Protestant pastors joining
• In 1936, the Nazis arrested 800 pastors, including the leaders of the Confessing Church, and sent them to concentration camps
• Catholic priests also spoke out against the Nazis, and in 1935 and 1936, the Nazis arrested 400 priests and imprisoned them in the Dachau Concentration Camp
• Martin Niemöller


  Protestant pastor who initially supported the Nazis but later became a vocal critic and was arrested and sent to a concentration camp
• Martin Niemöller: '"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."'
• Niemöller continued to have mixed feelings about the Nazis, even offering to fight for them in World War II if they released him