churches

• the Nazi's wanted to create a unified protestant Reich church which failed due to the breakaway of the confessional church
• in August 1933 2/3 of those attending Prussian synod's wore Nazi uniforms
• in September 1933 one hundred pastors formed a breakaway movement. in October 1934 this was organised into the confessional church
• in July 1933 the Vatican signed a concordat with the government promising the church would not get involved with politics and likewise the Nazi's with the church.
• In Bavaria people still used greeting 'Gruss Gott' which was 'god be with you' instead of 'Heil Hitler'
• only 5% of children attended church schools in 1937; compared with 65% in 1935
• in 1937 over 100,000 christian's left the church
• Hitler said in 1933 'one is either Christian or a German. You cannot be both'
• in 1935 700 Prussian Protestant pastors arrested fir condemning Nazi neo-pagism (old religion)
• Pope Pius 11 disillusioned by Nazi failure to keep to terms of concordat, issued encyclical in 1937 'with Burning grief' attacking Nazi beliefs. smuggled into Germany and read on Palm Sunday in many churches.
• Bishop Clemens von Galen: catholic bishop, from 1934 preached criticising Nazi, especially the euthanasia in 1941 which caused upset with the government. he was too popular to be punished.
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer joined the confessional church in 1935, taught trainee pastors to resist Nazism, in 1940 banned from preaching, wanted allies to see the truth, arrested in 1943 and killed in Flossenburg concentration camp April 1945 just before the war ended.
• Martin Neimoller led protestant pastors breakaway, arrested on Hitler's orders 1937
• strongest opposition due to the position and power in the church, Nazi's never fully able to irradicate church support