When the Church Struggle began, the Protestant Churches and almost all of Germany were being restructured. On April 3-4, 1933, the German Christians held their inaugural nationwide parliament in Berlin.
They met mainly to discuss two major adoptions to maintain their “purity” which was the Aryan clause and the Führer principle. “The slogans of the conference were: Gleichschaltung (the alignment of all sectors with Nazi goals), the Führer principle, the Reich church, and racial conformity. A number of theologians now began to ponder whether a ‘Reich church’ and ‘racial conformity’ might help the church gain the influence it desired”.
The largest issue was dealing with the adoption of the Aryan clause. The German Christian sect was already starting to see everyone outside of them as a potential betrayer. At this meeting, the German Christian leaders had already begun to denounce Lutheran Church leaders (including, Otto Dibelius, General Superintendent of the Mark of Brandenburg). Dibelius was seen as an outside threat to German Christian ideology, and he was in many aspects profoundly opposed to them. Among those being attacked that day was Dr. Hermann Kapler, President of the German Evangelical Church Federation. The German Christians saw both Dibelius and Kapler as threats mainly because their beliefs did not line up with their rigid doctrine. Their social cohesion depends upon total sharing of all aspects of group life and is reinforced by the assertion of group unity against the dissenter. In this case, Otto Dibelius and Dr. Hermann Kapler are the dissidents of the German Christians’ Faith Movement, and non-conformists must be taken care of right away.
On 16 April [1933] Hossenfelder [a German Christian Leader] proposed to German Evangelical church president Kapler that a German Christian representative should attend all sessions of the High Church Council, the Church Senate, the consistories, and the provincial church councils; Kapler refused. On 22 April [1933], a state commissar was temporarily appointed to oversee the regional church of Mecklenburg. The assigning of a state commissar was one of first really big strategies for the German Christians. This stratagem has more meaning than an individual might consider at first glance. The German Christians used this position to help gain control of this particular region (Mecklenburg-Schwerin). While Hitler’s preparation for the Protestant Churches’ inclusion was starting to take roots, resistance broke out over the incident that occurred in the province of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. As stated previously, the Minister-President (Walter Granzow) assigned a State Commissar (Walter Bohm) without the sanction of the Protestant Churches’ headship. The ministers of that region broke out in a tumult and deprecated Bohm. By April 25, 1933, the commissioner was withdrawn, and a committee was to be appointed by the church which would consult with the state authorities on desirable administrative changes.”
The Protestant Churches authority’s disapproval of Walter Bohm was successful. This incident truly illustrated the power of the Protestant Churches’ voice in Germany. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website, “Opposition ranged from non-compliance with Nazi regulations to attempts to assassinate Hitler.” Group participation, of Protestant Churches’ ministers, did not have an effect because of their lack of action; resistance mainly came in the form of individual participation on the Protestant Churches part (including, Dietrich Bonhoeffer5 and Corrie Ten Boom6). Dr. Hermann Kapler, President of the German Evangelical High Consistory, during all the chaos called for a conference to recreate the Protestant Churches’ structure.
On April 23, 1933, with the new church charter was Dr. Hermann Albert Hesse (Elberfeld Seminary Director), and he was representing the Reformed Church. Dr. August Marahrens (Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran National Land Church in Hanover) was also in attendance, and he represented the Lutherans. This new church charter was an obvious attempt on the part of Dr. Kapler to preclude the progression of the GCFM. This restructuring made the twenty-eight provincial churches more unified in body structure. This maneuver kept the German Christians from being able to capture these provincial churches. The reform of the constitution of German Protestantism is the dictate of the hour, and must be initiated forthwith. The aim of the reform is the creation of a federal German Evangelical Church, based on, and without prejudice to the Confession. This ploy was moderately successful; hence, the Manifest of Loccum as it would later be known was approved on May 27, 1933. A new Reich Bishop had to be approved following the acceptance of the Manifest of Loccum, which was the new church charter. The GCFM preferred Ludwig Müller with little surprise to anyone at that time.
The Protestant Churches nominated Fredrick von Bodelschwingh. He was also known as Friedrich the Younger to differentiate him from his father. The Protestant Churches authority’s scheme is nothing less than pure genius by nominating Friedrich the Younger. Bodelschwingh’s father was renowned all throughout Germany for his work at Bethel Home for Epileptics. His father, Reverend von Bodelschwingh, had helped in the establishment of numerous schools for training deacons and deaconesses. He also instituted the initial workers colony, at Wihelmsdorf, to rehabilitate vagrants. For the Protestant Churches, Friedrich the Younger was a sure venture. Needless to say, Friedrich the Younger won the election almost hands down. On the other hand, he resigned only about a month later (June 24, 1933) in objection against the actions of the German Christians assigning of a state commissar, August Jäger.
B. The Assimilation of the Mainstream Protestant Churches
At this time, restructuring tore through Germany like the bubonic plaque through a small town literally capturing everyone in its path. It seemed as if every organization was being revamped. In retrospect, it is astonishing how quickly German society was restructured to serve Nazi purposes, but it is important to recognize that many new structures were initially created parallel to, not in place of, old ones. It would have taken Hitler years to dismantle the bureaucracy he inherited; his tactic was to set up organizations that gradually took over or absorbed the existing structures. In some parts of the civil service, this was accomplished fairly rapidly.
Barnett’s interpretation of how Hitler absorbed bureaucracies fits quite well with the GCFM. Though Hitler claimed that he did not back any particular denomination, he clandestinely sponsored the German Christians who spread his “Nazi Gospel” to Germans throughout the country. As Barnett eloquently explained, Adolf Hitler’s objective was to progressively absorb mainstream Protestantism into a unified Volk church. In his mind, the Protestant Reich Church would be based on cultural characteristics as well as limited Christian doctrine. To adequately run such an organization, the National Socialist and the German Christians needed to announce a leader who would be proficient of such vigorous demands.
On April 26, 1933, Hitler’s announcement declared, “Inasmuch as the events of the last few days have made it necessary to take a stand in relation to a series of questions which concern the relation of the State to the Evangelical Church, I appoint as my representative with full powers to deal with the affairs of the Evangelical Church in so far as these questions pertain to it Army Chaplain Müller of Königsberg. He has special commission to promote all efforts directed towards the creation of our Evangelical German National Church…” “Ludwig Müller was born on June 23rd, 1883, at Gütersloh, in Westphalia. He became a pastor in 1909. During the war (WWI) he was an army chaplain in Flanders, and a naval chaplain with the German fleet in the Dardanelles. After the war he became an army chaplain at Cuxhaven. Thus his chief experience was of a military character, and his outlook in keeping with his experience.”
Müller was man whom had a profound amount of “nationalism” engrained within him. Hitler’s tactic to synchronize the Protestant Churches was finally starting to take hold. As noted earlier, Hitler was creating “parallel structures” to the Protestant Churches in hopes that he could assimilate the organization to control the state with much less resistance. Hitler’s assigning of Müller as his representative was certainly no accident. Müller was prominent for his support of National Socialism and Hitler himself. When at length Hitler had came to power after thirteen years of struggle Müller was one of those who regarded it as nothing less than a miracle wrought by God Himself. Hitler strategically intended to get Chaplin Müller over the German Christians. Hitler’s definitive plan was for the Protestant Churches to be incorporated into the GCFM leaving Ludwig Müller (who Hitler could direct easily) over the complete Protestant Reich Church body. Thus, Hitler would establish an ecclesia that supported the Nazi regime which he could manage with minimal confrontation.
As revealed earlier, one of the grounds for Friedrich von Bodelschwingh’s departure came from an action taken by Dr. Bernhard Rust (Prussian Minister of Education and the Arts). On June 24, 1933, in a telegram to the Evangelical Church, “The situation of people, state, and church requires elimination of the existing confusion. I therefore nominate as the leader for the church department, [August] Jäger, as the [state] commissar with full authority over the area for all Evangelical National Churches of Prussia to take the necessary steps ….” August Jäger was pronounced as the new state commissar, and he tore through the Protestant Churches like a tornado. He decommissioned clerics left and right. His appointment to the state commissar position was a major blow to the Protestant Churches authority’s tactical warfare. Jäger being appointed to office came about from the retirement of Dr. Kapler on June 22, 1933. When Dr. Kapler stepped down, the Protestant Churches were in a dilemma. They had to assign someone, but they could not do this without German Christian interference. Kapler was replaced by the Protestant Churches with Ernst Stoltenhoff (former Rhineland General Superintendent). Stoltenhoff did not see the Nazi State as a real danger, unlike Dr. Kapler who was strongly opposed to the Nazi State.
The German Christians quickly used this to their advantage by getting Jäger into office. Jäger did not consider whether his actions were illegal or not. He would assign German Christians to church offices, and he helped them gain control of the Protestant Churches without any threat of repercussions.
“That same day he dissolved the representative bodies of the various churches of Prussia. He dismissed Professor Dr. August Hinderer, the head of the Evangelical Press Service, and had his officers searched by the SA. The superintendents general of the Provincial churches were replaced by new church commissioners. Everywhere German Christians were put in administrative posts, among the most important appointments being those of Dr. Friedrich Werner as president and Pastor Hossenfelder as vice-President of the Supreme Church Council of Prussia.”
Ludwig Müller was not left out; he was named as the new chairman to the Church Federation Office. The GCFM had gained rapid momentum by this point. Jäger did not only assign German Christians to these church offices, but also some of these men were Sturm Abteilung (S.A.) officers. This maneuver is a clear sign that Jäger’s intentions were more political than religious. On the other hand, the Protestant Churches’ leadership countered quickly, and their disapproval rolled in like a tidal wave. On this occasion, confrontation did not just come from the leaders of the Protestant Churches; even normal laymen realized the severity of losing these offices to German Christian and S.A. soldiers. [On July 2, 1933] In Steglitz Pastor Grossmann was arrested by an S.A. commando—the first arrest in the church struggle.”
After a constant effort Bodelschwingh got through to Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, who told Hitler to take care of these circumstances. Hitler wanted these tribulations solved via Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, and they were in large part. The state commissars were withdrawn and the suspensions of the general superintendents and church councilors revoked. Müller assisted Frick in the formation of a new charter commission, and on July 11, 1933, the charter was concluded. On 14 July [1933] Hitler proclaimed that work on the constitution was complete. Soon afterward, on 23 July [1933], he made the surprise announcement of general church elections.
With this new church constitution came the new church elections, the GCFM’s members were really getting on top of things prior to this election. The Völkischer Beobachter, the National Socialist newspaper, as detailed this event: “Attention! Church Elections! Everyone to the Polls! Every Party comrade will carry out his electoral duties on Sunday, 23 July, [1933] the day of the church election. That hardly needs to be said. It is equally obvious that he (Adolf Hitler) will give his vote to the ‘Faith Movement of the German Christians’.” By this time, Adolf Hitler started to become bolder about his support for the German Christians. The odd thing about Hitler was that he always pretended like that he did not care if the Protestant Churches or the German Christians were in control, yet on this particular election, Adolf Hitler openly admitted that he supported the German Christians. Hitler declared:
“In making clear what my position is in regard to the evangelical church elections, I am acting purely in my capacity as the political Führer…The strong state must welcome the chance to lend support to those religious groupings which, for their part, can be useful to it. The evangelical confessions have, in fact, seen the rise of a movement among the church people, the ‘German Christians’, which is determined to do justice to the great tasks of our time by working for the unification of the evangelical provincial churches and confessions…In the interests of the recovery by the German nation of its former greatness, which I regard as being inseparably bound up with the National Socialist movement, it is understandable that I should wish that the results of the new church elections should assist our new policies for nation and state”.
Hitler’s speech, before these church elections, is without question in favor of the German Christians. By giving such a speech, he almost automatically ensured victory for the German Christians in the elections to come. His address to the German people did prove to be sufficient, and the German Christians won about two-thirds of the seats in these elections. In opposition, the Protestant Churches’ leaders leisurely recognized the influence from Hitler’s speech; they overtly started to contest the nearly predetermined elections of July 23, 1933. The prearranged elections were not the only quandary for the Protestant Churches’ leadership. They had a monstrous restructuring process that was going on, and the reform was accommodating for the Nazi State.
The end of July through the early part of August was arguably one of the most difficult times for the Protestant Churches. They were trounced in the church elections, and the entire church governments’ representatives were being made over. On July 24, 1933, General Superintendent Otto Dibelius and a number of High Church Council members asked to be released from office.” Many of the Protestant Churches were beginning to merge into one another. These consolidation developments were creating additional problems; the reductions were making the Protestant Churches easier to control for the German Christians. To be more coherent, this is exactly what Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime had been planning since the Church Struggle began. The parallel organization or German Christians were now absorbed completely into the mainstream Protestant Churches. After the months of July and August, it was nearly impossible to determine which organization was which. This bewilderment was mainly because the Protestant Churches and the German Christians were now one national ecclesia a Protestant Reich Church.
C. The Protestant Reich Church
The verification of a Protestant Reich Church exists in nearly all of Germany at this instance. Synods were slowly becoming all German Christian representatives. In many synods delegates appeared in brown shirts, and there was a scant resemblance to the traditional tone and spirit of such bodies in the past. Of the seventy-nine elected members of the synod in Schleswswig-Holstein, seventy-five were German Christians.” The churches were also facing major constitutional modifications such as the introduction of the Aryan clause and the Führer principle into the ecclesia sponsored church doctrine.
The German Christians were even attacking the former Protestant Churches’ hierarchal arrangements. In other words, they were altering the titles of these offices in an attempt to confound the Protestant Churches’ leadership, so that they could elect their own officials. They did this by eradicating some of the old positions and renamed them something else in order to dissolve the old authority. As mentioned previously, the adoption of the Aryan clause was quite dissimilar for the church than with the state’s induction. The Aryan clause for the church meant that any pastor who was not of Aryan descent was banned from ministry. This concept opened an array of positions for the German Christians to fill as well. In Berlin the German Christians’ growing power was demonstrated by [Federal Marshal] Göring’s appointment of Ludwig Müller as a Prussian state counselor on 4 August [1933].”
This approach of positional name switching by the German Christians was very effective. On September 5, 1933, Ludwig Müller was selected to one of these positions whose name had been changed. The position that Müller filled once was called the Superintendent General, but when he assumed this position it was titled the First Bishop of Prussia. With the Aryan clause being firmly established, The (Gospel and Church) group—the representatives of the section which later formed the Confessional Church—leaves the Synod.” With these men extracting themselves in protest, their representation in power had departed as well. The German Christians currently made up the entire synod which was not good for the Protestant Churches’ former leadership. In the emergency there was founded a Pastors’ Emergency League which resisted the Aryan paragraph. A vow (dated for the month of October, 1933) of the League drafted by Martin Niemöller states:
1.) “I engage to execute my office as Minister of the Word, holding myself bound to the Holy Scriptures and to the Confessions of the Reformation as the true exegesis of the Holy Scriptures.
2.) I engage to protest, irrespective of the sacrifice involved against every violation of the Confessional position.
3.) I hold myself responsible to the utmost of my ability for those who are persecuted on account of this Confessional position.
4.) Under this vow I testify that a violation of the Confessional position is perpetrated by the application of the Aryan paragraph within the Church of Christ.”
Conceivably, the counter-tactic by the Protestant Churches’ previous leadership was the only reason that the organization endured. Hitler and the Nazi regime devoured numerous bureaucracies by setting up similar structures beside them, and they carefully crafted and sculpted the organization until the original bureaucracies eventually were not there anymore. Hitler and the Nazi regime did this with the entire country, not only with the Protestant Churches’ structure. It is astounding to see the difference in the Nazi regime’s stance toward the Protestant Churches when Hitler first took the Chancellor position which promoted religious liberty; however, no autonomy was mentioned by September, 1933.
As a matter of fact, the former Protestant Churches’ authority was merely hanging on by a thread as a sect themselves. “What happened to the religious tolerance that the NSDAP preached in its twenty-five point program or for that matter that Hitler himself had declared to the Reichstag?” All of these promises were merely Hitler’s devious plan, a wolf disguised as a sheep in the pasture to dull the Protestant Churches leaders’ senses. Succeeding the German Christians’ takeover, Ludwig Müller was named as Reich Bishop. He immediately selected a Spiritual Ministry which of course was representatives from the GCFM and these men included: Joachim Hossenfelder (United Church), Dr. Friederich Werner, Dr. Otto Weber (Reformed), and Bishop Simon Schöffel (Lutherans).
D. The Disintegration of the German Christian Faith Movement
The Protestant Churches’ leadership was now the influential members of the Pastors’ Emergency League (PEL), and the German Christians were now the Protestant Reich Church called the German Evangelical Church. This may sound a bit perplexing; however, most of the leadership from the Protestant Churches left the church. The majority of these ministers joined the PEL (whose leaders were Martin Niemöller, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Karl Barth). The PEL also expanded with new additions coming from a variety of diverse laymen from all over Germany. Despite the gloomy appearance that the PEL seemed to be facing, the Protestant Reich Church was about to condemn itself with its own actions.
Protestant outrage reached its peak after the national ‘German Christian’ rally, held at the Berlin Sportspalast on November 13, 1933. The Berlin Sportspalast or Sports Palace Rally assisted components of the PEL to recognize the true vision of spreading Nazi propaganda throughout the Protestant Reich Church. Decorated with swastikas and banners proclaiming the unity of Christianity and National Socialism, the hall was filled. Most of the men, who were considerate to the German Christians, now turned their back in revulsion. A series of speakers called for the removal of all pastors unsympathetic to National Socialism, the formation of a separate church for Christians of Jewish descent, and for implementation of the ‘Aryan Paragraph’ and the removal of the Old Testament from the Bible.”
The Protestant Reich Church was becoming patent on its objectives as being more political than spiritual. The last straw for the PEL almost certainly came from the abandonment of the Old Testament in the Bible. Dr. Reinhold Krause, leader of the GCFM in Berlin, proudly boasted:
“What Protestants really wanted was not so much a new constitution for the church or new church authorities but the completion of the national mission of Martin Luther by a second German Reformation. This will result no in an authoritarian, clergy-dominated church, but rather in a church for the German people, a church able to accommodate the whole breadth of a racially attuned experience of God. In this outward form, too, it will be structured in the truly German manner to be expected in the Third Reich”.
“Can our Reich church, our provincial church, achieve this? Only, my evangelical compatriots, if it renounces all violation of religious life, and turns its back on any ‘Christianity on command’. The first priority is to win over the flood of those who are returning to the church. This requires a feeling for the homeland, and the first step towards the church becoming at home in Germany is the liberation from all that is un-German in liturgy and confession, liberation from all these stories about cattle-dealers and pimps. This book has been characterized quite rightly as one of the most questionable books in the world’s history. It just will not do for German Christians pastors to explain: ‘We stand where we have always stood—on the basis of the Old Testament’, although, on the other hand, the guiding principles speak of ‘racially attuned Christianity.’ In practice the one excludes the other”.
“…Our provincial church will also have to see to it that all obviously distorted and superstitious reports should be expunged for the New Testament, and that the whole scape-goat and inferiority-type theology of the Rabbi Paul should be renounced in principle, for it has perpetuated a falsification of the Gospel, of the simple message: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’—regard your neighbor as your brother and God as your father. The fact is that the whole history of the development of dialectical theology from Paul to Barth has made a speculative exercise out of our God-Father. Theology has always tried to separate God and man, tried again and again to justify its own existence by proving that man is fallen, weighed down with original sin, and therefore in need of salvation the church can offer. We recognize no God/man division, except when man deliberately sets himself apart from God…”
The pastors did not seem to be disturbed over Jewish rights being relinquished; however, they ostracized what they felt was the “Word of God” being compromised. The German Christians were finally starting to disperse. Pastors from all over Germany started to withdraw their memberships from the German Christians or the German Evangelical Church. Intellectuals as well deviated from the GCFM following the grotesque events at the Sports Palace Rally, and these theologians were joining ranks with the PEL. “The general public was aroused, and began to take a new interest in theological discussions. The Emergency League—who were the younger pastors—began to win support in more conservative quarters. The older and more cautious Lutheran leaders joined in on their side. The Lutheran representative of the Reichs-bishop’s “Spiritual Ministry”, Dr. Schöffel, the Bishop of Hamburg, resigned his post. The South German Lutheran Bishops came in behind the Emergency League, as well as North German Lutherans and also Reformed. A special significance attached to a combined declaration made by the church leaders of Bavaria, Württemberg, Hanover, Thüringen, Oldenburg, Hamburg and Euten, which aimed particularly at Hossenfelder. They demanded a reconstitution of the Spiritual Ministry, which would make it more representative of the Church as a whole that the National Synod, which had been dominated by the German Christians.”
The campaign for absorbing the Protestant Churches had finally collapsed. The resulting scandal shattered the German Christian movement and its church government. Protestant churches all over diminished from the GCFM’s collapse. None of the German Christian privileged could calm the waters, and for Reich Bishop Müller the situation had become a double-edged sword. If Müller tried to calm the PEL, he angered the faithful followers of the GCFM. However, if he tried to back the GCFM, the PEL would probably have been quick to censure him. On November 15, 1933, Dr. Krause was renounced from his authority, by Müller. This ploy was an obvious attempt to stop the PEL from protesting the GCFM. Müller quickly deplored Dr. Krause’s speech given at the Sports Palace Rally; nonetheless, this effort did not seem to calm the dissent. As a matter of fact, Dr. Krause started his own movement (anti-German Christian Faith Movement) against Müller.
Another of the many desperate attempts to stop the chaos came on November 16, 1933, when the National Synod terminated all the decrees from the provincial synods. By doing this, the German Christians were rescinding the assertion of the Aryan clause. Nevertheless, this decree by the German Christians did not stop the chaos that was running rampant against them. On November 19, 1933, “The pastors of the Emergency League read from their pulpits a protest against the Church Government: it had failed to defend the faith”. By December, the Protestant Reich Church did not appear to most people that it would survive the winter. Much of the Protestant Reich Churches’ authority had been dissolved. The once proud authoritarians of the Protestant Reich Church were now starting their own fragmented movements. Before its derangement, the Spiritual Ministry, the leaders of the Protestant Reich Church passed a law on December 4, 1933. The edict hindered the Protestant Reich Church’s pastors’ capability to belong to: groupings, parties, or even leagues.
This declaration was an attempt to keep the Protestant Reich Church ministers from joining the opposition movement at that time namely, the Pastors’ Emergency League. This effort by Müller failed miserably, and Hossenfelder was finally forced to resign all of his posts in the Protestant Reich Church. With Hossenfelder’s departure, Müller assigned a new man to take his place (Christian Kinder). Kinder, principally, began his authority by disbanding the terms Faith Movement. There they proclaimed, “…henceforth the National Socialists of the Evangelical church would carry the name ‘German Christian Reich Movement.’” The name change of the movement was accompanied by new guiding principles. But the German Christians had reached their zenith. Although they continued to play a role in the succeeding years, it was a diminishing one. The failure of Müller to keep the German Christians thriving was a personal insult to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists throughout the Nazi State. Hitler and the regime supported the German Christians still, but they did it from a much greater distance throughout the movement’s existence.
