The Nazis and the Churches

Question 1

What did Hitler sign with the Catholic Church?

Answer 1

• Hitler signed a Concordat with the Catholic Church in 1933
• This meant that Hitler agreed to leave the Catholic Church alone and allowed it to keep control of its schools
• In return, the Church agreed to stay out of politics

Question 2

What did Hitler try to do to the Protestant Churches?

Answer 2

• Hitler tried to get all of the Protestant Churches to come together in one official Reich Church
• The Reich Church was headed by the Protestant Bishop Ludwig Müller
• However, many Germans felt that their true loyalty lay with their original Churches in their local areas rather than with this state-approved Church

Question 3

What alternative religion did Hitler encourage?

Answer 3

The pagan German Faith Movement

Question 4

Who were the main Christian opponents?

Answer 4

• The Catholic Bishop Galen
• Pastor Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Protestant ministers)

Question 5

What did The Catholic Bishop Galen do?

Answer 5

• He criticised the Nazis throughout the 1930s
• In 1941 he led a popular protest against the Nazi policies of killing mentally and physically disabled people, forcing the Nazis to temporarily stop
• Had very strong support
• This was risky for the Nazis and they didn’t want to silence him and cause more trouble while Germany was at war

Question 6

What did Pastor Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer do?

Answer 6

• Pastor Martin Niemöller was one of the most high-profile critics of the Nazi regime in the 1930s
• Along with Bonhoeffer, he formed an alternative Protestant Church to the official Reich Church
• These church leaders suffered a similar fate to Hitler’s political opponents
• Pastor Martin spent a few years in a concentration camp for resisting the Nazis
• Bonhoeffer preached against the Nazis until the Gestapo stopped him in 1937

Question 7

Who led the Confessing Church?

Answer 7

Pastor Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Question 8

What was the name of the Church that the Nazis created?

Answer 8

The German Christians Church (Deutsche Christen)

Question 9

What was the Aryan Paragraph?

Answer 9

A clause that excluded non-Aryans and Jews from having proper rights in the German Christians Church.

Question 10

What was the Barmen Declaration?

Answer 10

• Founding statement of the Confessing Church
• It said that Christians needed to be obedient to God, not a worldly Führer
• No political laws should ever clash with the Church and its core beliefs