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How did the situation in Germany after World War I affect how churches reacted to the Nazi Party's rise?

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How did the situation in Germany after World War I affect how churches reacted to the Nazi Party's rise?

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After their devastating loss in World War I, Germany was in a state of political, economic, and social turmoil. The Nazi Party, whose leader was Adolf Hitler, capitalized on the nation's desperation and rose to power. At first, the churches in Germany, specifically the Protestant churches, were hesitant to confront and rebel against the Nazi regime. Furthermore, many church leaders believed that the Nazis could bring stability and order, which was once present before World War 1, to a nation that needed it. Church leaders also viewed the Nazi's goal of stregthening nationalism and traditional values as aligning with their own beliefs. However, when the Nazis began to implement policies that were in conflict with Christian teachings, the churches began to speak up against the regime. Specifically, the Nazi policies on aspects such as racial purity and the treatment of Jews and other minority groups were disagreed with by church leaders. For example, the Aryan Paragraph was written during the Nazi era and aimed to exclude Jews and other non-Aryans from aspects of public life and establish a hierarchy of races with the Aryan race at the top. In addition, The Confessing Church was particularly opposed the Nazi regime becuase they though the Nazis' policies were in conflicted with Christian teachings. In the end, the Nazis continued to persecute the churches and their leaders and religious leaders were arrested.

Sources:

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-german-churches-and-the-nazi-state

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Lauren's Question: How did the Nazis try to influence or control religious groups in Germany? Were they successful?

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Lauren's Question: How did the Nazis try to influence or control religious groups in Germany? Were they successful?

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The Nazis had a widespread antisemitism ideology. They used propaganda (spreading fake news or an extended lie to further advance opinions on them to better themselves) and violence (burning synagogues and killing innocent Jews) to manipulate others. The Nazis propaganda "incited hatred and fostered a climate of indifference to their fate". This aided in the hatred of Jews. Because the Nazis were so persuasive and manipulative antisemitism spread through the party and others who wanted to be a part of it. When Hitler was elected chancellor he was found to be very persuasive. The Germans were looking for someone to lead them and Hitler was the person to step up. The Nazis also wanted their religion to be superior and the only one. They were successful, the Nazis became the #2 party and gained thousands of followers.

Sources:
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-propaganda
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-german-churches-and-the-nazi-state

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"task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly."

Communicating the Nazi Message

Nazi Following the seizure of power in 1933, Hitler established a Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda headed by Joseph Goebbels. The Ministry's aim was to ensure that the Nazi message was successfully communicated through art, music, theater, films, books, radio, educational materials, and the press.

There were several audiences for Nazi propaganda. Germans were reminded of the struggle against foreign enemies and Jewish subversion. During periods preceding legislation or executive measures against Jews, propaganda campaigns created an atmosphere tolerant of violence against Jews, particularly in 1935 (before the Nuremberg Race Laws of September) and in 1938 (prior to the barrage of antisemitic economic legislation following Kristallnacht ). Propaganda also encouraged passivity and acceptance of the impending measures against Jews, as these appeared to depict the Nazi government as stepping in and "restoring order."

Real and perceived discrimination against ethnic Germans in east European nations which had gained territory at Germany's expense following World War I, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland, was the subject of Nazi propaganda. This propaganda sought to elicit political loyalty and so-called race consciousness among the ethnic German populations. It also sought to mislead foreign governments-including the European Great Powers-that Nazi Germany was making understandable and fair demands for concessions and annexations.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union , Nazi propaganda stressed to both civilians at home and to soldiers, police officers, and non-German auxiliaries serving in occupied territory themes linking Soviet Communism to European Jewry, presenting Germany as the defender of "Western" culture against the "Judeo-Bolshevik threat," and painting an apocalyptic picture of what would happen if the Soviets won the war. This was particularly the case after the catastrophic German defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943. These themes may have been instrumental in inducing Nazi and non-Nazi Germans as well as local collaborators to fight on until the very end.

The Role of Film

(1938), depicted the Films in particular played an important role in disseminating racial antisemitism, the superiority of German military power, and the intrinsic evil of the enemies as defined by Nazi ideology. Nazi films portrayed Jews as "subhuman" creatures infiltrating Aryan society. For example, The Eternal Jew (1940), directed by Fritz Hippler, portrayed Jews as wandering cultural parasites, consumed by sex and money. Some films, such as The Triumph of the Will (1935) by Leni Riefenstahl , glorified Hitler and the National Socialist movement. Two other Riefenstahl works, Festival of the Nations and Festival of Beauty and promoted national pride in the successes of the Nazi regime at the Olympics. 1936 Berlin Olympic Games

The Role of Newspapers

Newspapers in Germany, above all Der Stürmer (The Attacker), printed cartoons that used antisemitic caricatures to depict Jews. After the Germans began World War II with the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Nazi regime employed propaganda to impress upon German civilians and soldiers that the Jews were not only subhuman, but also dangerous enemies of the German Reich. The regime aimed to elicit support, or at least acquiescence, for policies aimed at removing Jews permanently from areas of German settlement.

Covering up Atrocities and Mass Murder

During the implementation of the " ," the mass murder of European Jews, SS officials at Final Solution killing centers compelled the victims of the Holocaust to maintain the deception necessary to deport the Jews from Germany and occupied Europe as smoothly as possible. Concentration camp and killing center officials compelled prisoners, many of whom would soon die in the gas chambers, to send postcards home stating that they were being treated well and living in good conditions. Here, the camp authorities used propaganda to cover up atrocities and mass murder.

In June 1944, the German Security Police permitted an camp-ghetto, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (today: Czech Republic). The SS and police had established Theresienstadt in November 1941 as an instrument of propaganda for domestic consumption in the German Reich. The camp-ghetto was used as an explanation for Germans who were puzzled by the deportation of German and Austrian Jews who were elderly, disabled war veterans, or locally known artists and musicians "to the East" for "labor." In preparation for the 1944 visit, the International Red Cross team to inspect the Theresienstadt ghetto underwent a "beautification" program. In the wake of the inspection, SS officials in the Protectorate produced a film using ghetto residents as a demonstration of the benevolent treatment the Jewish "residents" of Theresienstadt supposedly enjoyed. When the film was completed, SS officials deported most of the "cast" to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center.

Mobilizing the Population

The Nazi regime used propaganda effectively to mobilize the German population to support its wars of conquest until the very end of the regime. Nazi propaganda was likewise essential to motivating those who implemented the mass murder of the European Jews and of other victims of the Nazi regime. It also served to secure the acquiescence of millions of others-as bystanders -to racially targeted persecution and mass murder.

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

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Nazi propaganda had a key role in the persecution of Jews. Learn more about how Hitler and the Nazi Party used propaganda to facilitate war and genocide.

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Aryn's Question: What was the "Confessing Church" movement? How did it respond to the Nazi government and why?

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Aryn's Question: What was the "Confessing Church" movement? How did it respond to the Nazi government and why?

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The "Confessing Church" movement was a Protestant Christian movement in Germany that emerged during the time of the Nazi regime. The movement arose in opposition to Nazi government-sponsored efforts to align Nazi ideology with the church's teachings. This was because the Nazi regime sought to control all aspects of German society, including religion, so the German Protestant Church became a clear target for Nazi manipulation. As a result of the movement, a continuous debate between those who strived for a "nazified" church and those who opposed it surfaced. As the author writes about the effects of this debate, he states, "Both the Confessing Church and the "German Christians" remained part of the German Evangelical Church, and the result was a Kirchenkampf, or "church struggle" within German Protestantism". The "Confessing Church" movement denied the efforts by the Nazis to combine Nazi ideology with the church's teachings because they believed that the church's only allegiances were to God and scripture, not wordly authorities such as the government. Furthermore, as the "Confessing Church" movement continued to resist Nazi influence, many religious leaders associated with the movement were arrested, imprisoned, or expelled from their positions within the church.

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Background

The population of Germany in 1933 was around 60 million. Almost all Germans were Christian, belonging either to the Roman Catholic (ca. 20 million members) or the Protestant (ca. 40 million members) churches. The Jewish community in Germany in 1933 was less than 1% of the total population of the country.

How did Christians and their churches in Germany respond to the Nazi regime and its laws, particularly to the persecution of the Jews? The racialized anti-Jewish Nazi ideology converged with antisemitism that was historically widespread throughout Europe at the time and had deep roots in Christian history. For all too many Christians, traditional interpretations of religious scriptures seemed to support these prejudices.

The attitudes and actions of German Catholics and Protestants during the Nazi era were shaped not only by their religious beliefs, but by other factors as well, including:

Backlash against the Weimar Republic and the political, economic, and social changes in Germany that occurred during the 1920s

Anti-Communism

Nationalism

Resentment toward the international community in the wake of World War I, which Germany lost and for which it was forced to pay heavy reparations

These were some of the reasons why most Christians in Germany welcomed the rise of Nazism in 1933. They were also persuaded by the statement on "positive Christianity" in Article 24 of the 1920 Nazi Party Platform, which read:

"We demand the freedom of all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not jeopardize the state's existence or conflict with the manners and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The Party as such upholds the point of view of a positive Christianity without tying itself confessionally to any one confession. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit at home and abroad and is convinced that a permanent recovery of our people can only be achieved from within on the basis of the common good before individual good."

Despite the open antisemitism of this statement and its linkage between confessional "freedom" and a nationalistic, racialized understanding of morality, many Christians in Germany at the time read this as an affirmation of Christian values.

Protestant Churches in Nazi Germany

The largest Protestant church in Germany in the 1930s was the German Evangelical Church, comprised of 28 regional churches or Landeskirchen that included the three major theological traditions that had emerged from the Reformation: Lutheran, Reformed, and United. Most of Germany's 40 million Protestants were members of this church, although there were smaller so-called "free" Protestant churches, such as Methodist and Baptist churches.

Historically the German Evangelical Church viewed itself as one of the pillars of German culture and society, with a theologically grounded tradition of loyalty to the state. During the 1920s, a movement emerged within the German Evangelical Church called the Deutsche Christen, or "German Christians." The "German Christians" embraced many of the nationalistic and racial aspects of Nazi ideology. Once the Nazis came to power, this group sought the creation of a national "Reich Church" and supported a "nazified" version of Christianity.

The Bekennende Kirche-the "Confessing Church"-emerged in opposition to the "German Christians." Its founding document, the Barmen Confession of Faith, declared that the church's allegiance was to God and scripture, not a worldly Führer. Both the Confessing Church and the "German Christians" remained part of the German Evangelical Church, and the result was a Kirchenkampf, or "church struggle" within German Protestantism-an ongoing debate and struggle for control between those who sought a "nazified" church, those who opposed it, and the so-called "neutral" church leaders whose priority was the avoidance both of church schism and any kind of conflict with the Nazi state.

The most famous members of the Confessing Church were the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed for his role in the conspiracy to overthrow the regime, and Pastor Martin Niemöller, who spent seven years in concentration camps for his criticisms of Hitler. Yet these clergymen were not typical of the Confessing Church; despite their examples, the Protestant Kirchenkampf was mostly an internal church matter, not a fight against National Socialism. Even in the Confessing Church, most church leaders were primarily concerned with blocking state and ideological interference in church affairs. Yet there were certainly members of the clergy and laity who opposed and resisted the regime, including some who aided and hid Jews.

The Roman Catholic Church in Nazi Germany

The Catholic Church was not as sharply divided by different ideological factions as the Protestant church, and it never underwent an internal Kirchenkampf between these different factions. Catholic leaders were initially more suspicious of National Socialism than their Protestant counterparts. Nationalism was not as deeply embedded in the German Catholic Church, and the rabid anti-Catholicism of figures such as Alfred Rosenberg, a leading Nazi ideologue during the Nazi rise to power, raised early concerns among Catholic leaders in Germany and at the Vatican. In addition, the Catholic Centre Party had been a key coalition governmental partner in the Weimar Republic during the 1920s and was aligned with both the Social Democrats and leftist German Democratic Party, pitting it politically against right-wing parties like the Nazis.

Before 1933, in fact, some bishops prohibited Catholics in their dioceses from joining the Nazi Party. This ban was dropped after Hitler's March 23, 1933, speech to the Reichstag in which he described Christianity as the "foundation" for German values. The Centre Party was dissolved as part of the signing of a 1933 Concordat between the Vatican and Nazi governmental representatives, and several of its leaders were murdered in the Röhm purge in July 1934.

Summary

In both German churches there were members, including clergy and leading theologians, who openly supported the Nazi regime. With time, anti-Nazi sentiment grew in both Protestant and Catholic church circles, as the Nazi regime exerted greater pressure on them. In turn, the Nazi regime saw a potential for dissent in church criticism of state measures. When a protest statement was read from the pulpits of Confessing churches in March 1935, for example, Nazi authorities reacted forcefully by briefly arresting over 700 pastors. After the 1937 papal encyclical Mit brennender Sorge ("With burning concern") was read from Catholic pulpits, the Gestapo confiscated copies from diocesan offices throughout the country.

The general tactic by the leadership of both Protestant and Catholic churches in Germany was caution with respect to protest and compromise with the Nazi state leadership where possible. There was criticism within both churches of Nazi racialized ideology and notions of "Aryanism," and movements emerged in both churches to defend church members who were considered "non-Aryan" under Nazi racial laws (e.g., Jews who had converted). Yet throughout this period there was virtually no public opposition to antisemitism or any readiness by church leaders to publicly oppose the regime on the issues of antisemitism and state-sanctioned violence against the Jews. There were individual Catholics and Protestants who spoke out on behalf of Jews, and small groups within both churches that became involved in rescue and resistance activities (for example, the White Rose and Herman Maas).

After 1945, the silence of the church leadership and the widespread complicity of "ordinary Christians" compelled leaders of both churches to address issues of guilt and complicity during the Holocaust-a process that continues internationally to this day.

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

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How did Christians and their churches in Germany respond to the Nazi regime and its laws, particularly to the persecution of the Jews? Learn more.

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Catholic clergy and Nazi officials give the Nazi salute

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Grace Anne's Question: 5) Were there times when churches worked together with the Nazi Party? Why did they do this and what did it look like?

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Grace Anne's Question: 5) Were there times when churches worked together with the Nazi Party? Why did they do this and what did it look like?

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There were times when churches worked together with the Nazi Party. Although not all, some did because they believed that the Nazi's could protect their religion and provide a stable environment for them to express their beliefs. An example is the Catholic Church, they signed a treaty that protected the rights of the Catholic Church in Germany. Some even believed that working with the Nazi Party strengthened their nationalism. Showing their support to Germany was a party of their religion and proved their loyalty. Another reason that churches worked together with the Nazi Party was because they saw communism as a threat. The Nazi's proposed an anti-communism regime and some churches were intrigued by this if they felt that their religion and society could be threatened by communism. In contrast, some churches did go against the Nazi's and faced consequences.

sources:
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-german-churches-and-the-nazi-state