Religion in Nazi Germany 1933-1945

Nazi Ideaology
1. No actual ideology on religion
  1. Christianity, in theory, an inferior race
    1. Jesus was a Hewbrew
2. Many Nazis wanted to eradicate Christianity
  1. Hitler less outspoken
    1. Due to the fact that the majority of the German Population were regular church goers
3. Hitler's view on Christianity
  1. 'Neither of the denominations has any future left. That won't stop me stamping out Christianity in Germany root and branch. One is either Christian or Geman. You cannot be both.'
  2. Instead of Christianity, the Nazis were going to introduce Teutonic paganism
4. Based around Alfred Rosenberg's ideas
  1. The propagation of 'Blood and Soil' ideology
  2. The replacement of Christian ceremonies such as marriage and baptism with the pagan equivilents
  3. The wholesale rejection on Christian ethics
    1. These were closely linked to racial and nationalist views
Protestants
1. The German Evangelical curch
  1. The German Christians
    1. Pressure group of Nazi supporters which operated within the German Evangelical church
    2. Considered themselves the SA of the chuch
      1. Wore SA or SS uniforms whilst conducting services
      2. Hung swastika flags in their churches
    3. Fused Nazi ideology and their faith together to make a militant, aggressive and crusading form of Christianity
      1. Thought of church members as soldiers fighting for Christ and the fatherland with Hitler being portrayed with the national messiah
  2. The Reich Church
    1. Was formed when the 28 churches were brought together and formed the Reich Church
      1. This was under Nazi control
    2. When Ludwig Muller became head of the Reich church
      1. All elected bodies with in the church were abolished
        Church re-organised under a leadership principle
      2. July 1933
    3. Mass rally at the Sports Palace in Berlin
      1. All pastors who had not sworn allegiance to the new regime were dismissed
        All non-Aryan pastors were also dismissed
    4. Had to adopt the Aryan paragrpah
      1. 18 Pastors who had converted to Christianity from Judaism had to be dismissed
    5. By the end of 1933 Reich Church had been successfully coordinated in to the Volksgemeinshft
  3. Strongly anti-communist and anti-Semitic.
    1. Main area of support for the Nazis during elections
    2. Crossed over with Nazi ideology
  4. Made up of 28 separate churches
2. The Confessional Church
  1. Not all Pastors or congregations supported the changes to the church
    1. In September 1933, Martin Neimhollier and Dietrich Bonhoeffer established the Pastor's emergency league
      1. Evolved in to a break away church
        The confessional church
  2. Resisted state interference
    1. Re-established a theology based on the bible and not the Nazis ideology
  3. It was in direct deffiance to the Nazi policy of Gleichschaltung
    1. The Nazis therefore failed to coordinate the church in Nazi Germany
Catholics
1. The Condordat
  1. In July 1933, the regime and the Vatican came to an agreement
    1. The Vatican recognise the regime and would not interfere with it's politics
      1. In return the Nazi regime would not interfere with the church and the church could keep it's schools, youth groups and lay organisations
    2. The Nazi regime soon broke the agreement
      1. Summer 1933: The Nazis seized property belonging to Catholic Lay organisations and forced them to close
      2. Catholic newspapers were ordered to drop the word Catholic from their titles
      3. During the Night of the Long Knives a number of leading Catholics within Germany were executed
  2. Some Catholic priests by 1935-36 had began to speak out about the Nazi regime
    1. Permission to hold public meetings were restricted
    2. Catholic newspapers and magazines were heavily censored
    3. Membership to the Hitler Youth became compulsory causing the church youth groups to struggled to keep hold of its members
2. The Papal Encyclical, 1937
  1. Pope Pius XI condemned the hatred that the Nazis poured upon the church
    1. Gestapo and SS agents were placed inside church organisations to spy on them
    2. Tight restriction of Catholic press
    3. Pilgrimages and processions restricted
    4. Youth groups closed down
    5. Catholic charities banned
    6. Monasteries closed down and their property seized
    7. Propaganda portrayed the church as corrupt due to the sex scandals brought to light
      1. 200 Priests arrested and tried on sex charges
    8. Church schools were being closed down
      1. By 1939 all Catholic schools converted in to community schools
3. Much harder to get them to conform to Gleichschaltung
  1. Part of an international church
    1. Leader in religious matters was the Pope
  2. Less susceptible to Nazi ideology
4. Less likely to vote for the Nazi party in elections
  1. After the Nazis had been elected they were prepared to compromise with them
    1. They viewed Communism a far bigger evil than Nazism
      1. Also shared the nazis anti-Semitic view
5. By the summer of 1939 the power and influence of the catholic church had been severely weakened
  1. Was forced to retreat
  2. No organised resistance against the Nazi regime as a whole
The German Faith movement
1. Some leading Nazis thought the way to undermine the churches in Nazi Germany was to create a new religion
2. Richard Darre believed that the way foreword was to go back to preChristian Paganism which focused on Nordic Gods
  1. These were seen to be more Aryan than Christianity
  2. Christmas was replaced with the celebration of the Winter solstice
3. The German Faith movement was never more than a fringe cult
  1. Only had 40,000 members at its height
  2. However Himmler said that; 'We live in an age of final confrontation with Christianity. It is part of a mission of the SS to give the German people over the next 50 years the non-Christian ideological foundations for a way of life appropriate to their own character.'
How successful were the Nazis? How much did life change for the German people?
1. The Nazis were not very successful in trying to covert people to change to their ideology. some did go but not many. This shows that the German people felt more strongly about their religion than Hitlers view point on religion as a whole.

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Religion in Nazi Germany 1933-1945

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	Created by BethanyKJN about 10 years ago