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120-633: The German Christians , an antisemitic and racist pressure group and Kirchenpartei , gained enough power on boards of the member churches to be able to install Ludwig Müller to the office of Reichsbischof  [ de ] in the 1933 church elections. The German Protestant Church Confederation was subsequently renamed the German Evangelical Church. In 1934, the German Evangelical Church suffered controversies and internal struggles which left member churches either detached or reorganised into German Christians-led dioceses of what

240-569: A Kirchenkampf with other evangelical Christians. Their opponents founded the Confessing Church in 1934, which condemned the German Christians as heretics and claimed to be the true German Protestant Church. The Nazis found the German Christians useful during the initial consolidation of power, but removed most of its leaders from their posts shortly afterwards; Reichsbischof Müller continued until 1945, but his power

360-569: A pressure group and a movement within the German Evangelical Church that existed between 1932 and 1945, aligned towards the antisemitic , racist , and Führerprinzip ideological principles of Nazism with the goal to align German Protestantism as a whole towards those principles . Their advocacy of these principles led to a schism within 23 of the initially 28 regional church bodies ( Landeskirchen ) in Germany and

480-525: A cohesive, Nazified whole." The Nazis were able to put Gleichschaltung into effect due to multiple legal measures enacted by the Reich government during the 20 months following 30 January 1933, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany . When Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor on 30 January 1933, the Nazi Party had control of only five of the seventeen German Länder (states). However,

600-726: A declaration of protest. After World War II, Theophil Wurm , Landesbischof of Württemberg, invited representatives of the surviving German regional Protestant church bodies to Treysa for 31 August 1945. As to co-operation between the Protestant churches in Germany, strong resentments prevailed, especially among the Lutheran church bodies of Bavaria right of the river Rhine, the Hamburgian State, Hanover, Mecklenburg , Saxony , and Thuringia , against any unification after

720-431: A decree which forbade all kinds of Confessing Church activities, namely appointments of pastors, education, examinations, ordinations , ecclesiastical visitations, announcements and declarations from the pulpit, separate financial structures and convening Synods of Confession; further the decree established provincial ecclesiastical committees. Thus, the brethren councils had to go into hiding, and Kerrl successfully wedged

840-522: A form of Christianity that did not stress the belief in human sinfulness . Some of them went so far as to call for the total removal of all Jewish elements from the Bible , including the Old Testament . Their symbol was a traditional Christian cross with a swastika in the middle and the group's German initials "D" and "C". It was claimed and remembered by the German Christians, as a "fact", that

960-720: A long history, dating to the mid-nineteenth-century. At the time of the Weimar Republic , its largest grouping was the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB). This was an umbrella organization that was formed in July 1919 and was originally composed of 52 unions with about 8 million workers. It was generally affiliated with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and was on the left of the political spectrum. In March 1920, it

1080-641: A merger, but one had never materialised due to strong regional self-confidence and traditions as well as the denominational fragmentation of Lutheran , Calvinist and United churches . In 1920, Swiss Protestant churches came together in the Schweizerischer Evangelischer Kirchenbund (SEK) . Following their example, the then 28 territorially defined German Protestant churches founded the Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchenbund (DEK) in 1922. This

1200-409: A new law empowered Kerrl to legislate by way of ordinances within the German Evangelical Church, circumventing any synodal autonomy. Kerrl managed to gain the very respected Wilhelm Zoellner (a Lutheran, until 1931 General Superintendent of the old-Prussian ecclesiastical province of Westphalia ) to form the Reich's Ecclesiastical Committee ( Reichskirchenausschuss , RKA) on 3 October 1935, combining

1320-543: A new national religion to complete the Reformation. The Associated German Religious Movement ( Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsche Glaubensbewegung ), founded in Eisenach at the end of 1933, was also an attempt to create a national religion outside and against the churches. It combined six earlier Nordic-völkisch oriented groups and a further five groups were represented by individual members. Jakob Wilhelm Hauer became

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1440-657: A prominent German woman—collected a list of terms employed in everyday speech by the Nazis, which he discussed in his book, LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii , published in English as The Language of the Third Reich . In this work, Klemperer contends that the Nazis made the German language itself a servant to their ideology through its repetitive use, eventually permeating the very "flesh and blood" of its people. For instance, if it

1560-526: A purpose, but the purpose must be concealed with such cleverness and virtuosity that the person on whom this purpose is to be carried out doesn't notice it at all. This was also the purpose of "co-ordination": to ensure that every aspect of the lives of German citizens was permeated with the ideas and prejudices of the Nazis. From March to July 1933 and continuing afterward, the Nazi Party systematically eliminated or co-opted non-Nazi organizations that could potentially influence people. Those critical of Hitler and

1680-621: A reformed intrinsic folk-religion ( German : arteigene Volksreligion ). They found their model in the Berlin Hofprediger Adolf Stoecker , who was politically active and tried to position the Christian working-classes and lower-middle-classes against what he perceived as Jewish Überfremdung . The Bayreuther Blätter devoted its June 1892 issue to a memorial of Paul de Lagarde and it emphatically recommended his work to its readers. Ludwig Schemann , one of

1800-512: A single Nazi body. Existing leaders of voluntary associations were either unceremoniously ousted, or knuckled under of their own accord. Many organizations expelled leftish or liberal members and declared their allegiance to the new state and its institutions. The whole process ... went on all over Germany. ... By the end, virtually the only non-Nazi associations left were the army and the Churches with their lay organizations. For example, in 1934,

1920-692: A subject to the Kirchenkampf (struggle of the churches) to Adolf Hitler . It officially disbanded in 1945 after the war ended. It was succeeded by the Protestant Church in Germany in 1948. In 1933, the German Christians took leadership in some member churches of the German Protestant Church Confederation. A new designation was voted on and adopted, with the organisation now being called

2040-540: A system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society "from the economy and trade associations to the media, culture and education". Although the Weimar Constitution remained nominally in effect until Germany's surrender following World War II , near total Nazification had been secured by the 1935 resolutions approved during the Nuremberg Rally , when the symbols of

2160-401: Is a spiritual reality ... certainly there will never be a Volkstum without the precondition of, for example, the blood unit. But once a Volkstum is begotten, it may exist as a spiritual reality ... even foreign blood may be lent [in]to it. How great the significance of blood might be in intellectual history, but the rule is, even if one is born into a Volkstum , the spirit and not

2280-509: Is the inner strength and finest flower in the intellectual life of a people, but it can only strongly affect expression in popular culture ... a deep connection between Christianity and Germanness can only be achieved when it is released from this unnatural connection, wherever it stands nakedly approached by the Jewish religion. For the authors of the Thesen , the "angry thunder-god" Jehovah

2400-725: The Arbeitsdienst (Labor Service) and the armed forces . Girls became part of the Jungmädel (Young Maidens) at age ten and at age fourteen were enrolled in the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Maidens). At eighteen, BDM members generally went to the eastern territory for their Pflichtdienst , or Landjahr , a year of labor on a farm. By 1940, membership in the Hitler Youth numbered some eight million. The German trade union movement had

2520-651: The Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte —she was praised for fighting against the "ridicule of Christ" and "showing the way for German Christians". The Berlin section was founded by Wilhelm Kube in 1932. The group achieved no particular notoriety before the Nazi assumption of political power in January 1933. In the Prussian church elections of November 1932, German Christians won one-third of

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2640-613: The Pfarrernotbund (Emergency Covenant of Pastors) led by pastor Martin Niemöller . In consequence of the 1934 meeting, many member churches distanced themselves from the increasingly Nazi-controlled Reich Church due to controversies pertaining to its constitution, the nazification of its theology, leadership, incorporation of its youth organisations into the Hitler Jugend, etc. Such churches became neutral or followed

2760-599: The Bund' s ideas. Jesus should be a "tragic-Nordic figure" against the Old Testament's "religious idea", with the Old Testament replaced by a "German myth". Each biblical story was to be "measured under German feelings, so that German Christianity escapes from Semitic influence as Beelzebub did before the Cross." In 1925 groups such as the Bund united with ten völkisch , Germanophile , and antisemitic organisations to form

2880-544: The Deutsche Schriften have for a long time belonged to our most precious books, and we consider Lagarde's unabashed exposure of the inferiority of Semitic religious instincts and the pernicious effects on Christianity as an achievement that deserves our admiration and gratitude." In 1896 Arthur Bonus advocated a "Germanisation of Christianity". Max Bewer alleged in his 1907 book Der deutsche Christus ( The German Christ ), Jesus stemmed from German soldiers in

3000-521: The Law on the Trustees of Labour that decreed an end to collective bargaining. It established Trustees of Labour , who were appointed by Hitler and charged with regulating labor contracts and maintaining labor peace. Since their decisions were legally binding, strikes were effectively outlawed. An all-embracing recreational organization for workers, called Kraft durch Freude ("Strength Through Joy")

3120-541: The Ludington Daily News , YHWH was ordered to be erased from Protestant churches within the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union by Friedrich Werner (Jurist)  [ de ] , the president of its executive board (Evangelical Supreme Church Council; EOK). His order said the name of the 'God of Israel' (which contemporarily has Judaic connotations) must be obliterated wherever it

3240-578: The National Socialist Factory Cell Organization . Leipart and other union leaders were taken into "protective custody" and sent to concentration camps. Violence was inflicted on many and, in the most brutal incident, four union officials were beaten to death in Duisburg . Two days later, other non-SPD-aligned union amalgamations, such as the conservative German National Association of Commercial Employees and

3360-538: The Reichstag election of 5 March 1933 , violent episodes increased in intensity, with SA stormtroopers ransacking trade union offices, assaulting staff, destroying furniture and equipment, stealing funds and burning documents. By 25 March, union offices in some 45 towns throughout the Reich had been attacked. At this point, the trade unions began to distance themselves from the SPD in an attempt to seek an accommodation with

3480-652: The Volk and of the struggle" and "the great exploiter of humanity, the evil enemy of our Volk [would] finally be destroyed". In the same year, 1921, the Protestant-dominated and völkisch -oriented League for German Churches ( Bund für deutsche Kirche ) was founded in Berlin. Andersen, pastor Ernst Bublitz , and teacher Kurd Joachim Niedlich brought out the twice-monthly The German Church ( Die Deutsche Kirche ) magazine, which in 12,000 articles advanced

3600-533: The Weimar Republic , the Protestant Church in Germany now operated as a federation of 28 regional (or provincial) churches. The federation operated officially through the representative German Evangelical Church Confederation ( Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchenbund (DEKB)); the League was itself established in 1922 by the rather loose annual convention called Church General Assembly ( Kirchentag ), which

3720-702: The "Dejudaisation Institute") was founded, led by Siegfried Leffler and Walter Grundmann . One of its main tasks was to compile a "People's Testament" ( Volkstestament ) in the sense of what Rosenberg called a "Fifth Gospel", to announce the myth of the "Aryan Jesus". It became clear in 1994 that the Testament's poetic text was written by the famous ballad-poet and proprietor of the Eugen-Diederichs-Verlag, Lulu von Strauß und Torney  [ de ] . Despite broad church support for it (even many Confessing Christians advocated such an approach, in

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3840-473: The "manliness" of Jesus Christ and compared him to the Norse god Baldr . In 1921 Andersen wrote Der deutsche Heiland (The German Saviour), in which he opposed Jewish migration as an apocalyptic decision: Who will win, the six-cornered star or the Cross? — The question is, for now, not yet evident. The Jew goes on his way purposefully, in any case ... his deadly hatred will defeat his opponent. When

3960-576: The "we-consciousness" of the collective Volk, but the mandates of Nazi "coordination" remained: pay homage to the Führer, expel all foreigners, sacrifice for the German people, and welcome future challenges. While greater German social and economic unity was produced through the Gleichschaltung initiatives of the regime, it was at the expense of individuality and to the social detriment of any nonconformist; and worse—it contributed to and reinforced

4080-586: The 400th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation , in 1917, Flensburg pastor Friedrich Andersen , writer Adolf Bartels , and Hans Paul Freiherr von Wolzogen presented 95 Thesen on which a "German Christianity on a Protestant basis" should be founded. It stated: The newer racial research has finally opened our eyes to the pernicious effects of the blood mixture between Germanic and un-German peoples and urges us, with all our forces, to strive to keep our Volkstum pure and closed. Religion

4200-662: The Christian Good Friday is celebrated, it should at least not weigh in his dreams; ... otherwise there could come a whole lot of terrible Golgothas, where Jews across the whole world dance their jubilee songs on the grave of Christianity as heirs of a murdering people, singing to the Jahu they destroyed. Against the "contamination by Jewish ideas", mainly from the Old Testament, the Churches and Germany should (he argued) be "mutually benefits and supports", and then Christianity would win back its status as "a religion of

4320-501: The Church, and no real qualifications for the job, other than his commitment to Nazism and a desire to exercise power. When the federation council met in May 1933 to approve the new constitution, it elected Friedrich von Bodelschwingh as Reichsbischof of the new Protestant Reich Church by a wide margin, largely on the advice and support of the church leadership. Hitler was infuriated with

4440-606: The Confessing Church. The Gestapo increased its suppression, undermining the readiness for compromises among the Confessing Church. Zoellner concluded that this made his reconciliatory work impossible and criticised the Gestapo activities. He resigned on 2 February 1937, paralysing the Ecclesiastical Committee which lost all recognition among the opposition. Kerrl now subjected Müller's chancery of

4560-639: The Dejudaisation Institute Memorial was unveiled in Eisenach at the behest of eight Protestant regional churches. It is intended to be understood as the Protestant churches’ confession of guilt and as a memorial to the victims of the church’s anti-Judaism and antisemitism. Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against

4680-552: The German Christian Working Group ( deutschchristliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft ). The Christian-Spirit Religious Society ( Geistchristliche Religionsgesellschaft ), founded in 1927 in Nuremberg by Artur Dinter , saw more effect in the churches, striving for the 'de-Judification' ( Entjudung ) and the building of a non-denominational People's Church ( Volkskirche ). The proposed abolition of

4800-553: The German Evangelical Church became fractured into various groups that bore an unclear legal status in relation to each other: Müller's influence declined after more constant clashes in the German Evangelical Church, triggering the foundation of the Ministry for Church Affairs led by Hans Kerrl on 16 July 1935. A decree, issued by Kerrl in September 1935, appointed a committee led by Wilhelm Zoellner (Church of Westphalia) to head

4920-519: The German Evangelical Church directly to his ministry and the national, provincial and state ecclesiastical committees were soon after dissolved. Although the church was initially supported by the regime, the Nazis eventually lost interest in the experiment after it failed to supplant or absorb traditional Protestant churches. After 1937, relations between the Reich Church and the Nazi government began to sour. On 19 November 1938, as reported on in

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5040-565: The German Evangelical Church. In its early stages, it remained a loose confederation of churches just like its predecessor. It included the vast majority of Protestants in what was now Nazi Germany , excluding those affiliated with the free churches like the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church . In a 1933 vote to the Reichssynode , the German Christians were able to elect Ludwig Müller , a pro-Nazi pastor, to

5160-595: The Jews had killed Christ , which appealed to and actively encouraged existing antisemitic sentiments among Christians in Nazi Germany. The forerunner of the ideology of the German Christians came from certain Protestant groups of the German Empire. These groups sought a return to perceived völkisch, nationalistic, and racist ideas within traditional Christianity, and looked to turn Christianity in Germany into

5280-640: The Jews: "Not since the days of Schopenhauer and Wagner is the German thinker so mightily opposed this alien people, which desecrates our holy possessions, poisons our people, and seeks to wrest our property from us so as to completely trample on us, as Lagarde has" It was this image of Lagarde, the antisemitic prophet of a purified and heroic Germany, which the political Wagnerites and the Bayreuther Blätter kept alive. Houston Stewart Chamberlain , Wagner's son-in-law and intellectual disciple, wrote: "For us,

5400-616: The Language of the Third Reich , historians Robert Michael and Karin Doerr define Gleichschaltung as: "Consolidation. All of the German Volk's social, political, and cultural organizations to be controlled and run according to Nazi ideology and policy. All opposition to be eliminated." This accords with the general description provided by historian Jane Caplan, who characterized the term as "the coordination of German institutions into

5520-604: The Napoleonic system of établissements publics du culte for the Calvinist , Jewish, Lutheran , and Roman Catholic congregations and umbrellas remained in effect. Karl Lueger 's antisemitic Christian Social Party is sometimes viewed as a model for Adolf Hitler's Nazism. Hitler praised Lueger in his book Mein Kampf as an inspiration. In 1943, Nazi Germany produced the biographical film Vienna 1910 about Lueger, which

5640-440: The Nazi Party and the state were fused (see Flag of Nazi Germany ) and German Jews were deprived of their citizenship (see Nuremberg Laws ). The tenets of Gleichschaltung also applied to territories occupied by the Nazis . Gleichschaltung is a compound word that comes from the German words gleich (same) and schaltung (circuit) and was derived from an electrical engineering term meaning that all switches are put on

5760-552: The Nazi program, as were the equivalent bureaucrats in the states, but Nazification took place at every level. Civil servants rushed to join the Nazi Party, fearing they would lose their jobs if they did not. At the local level, mayors and councils were terrorized by Nazi stormtroopers of the SA and SS into resigning or following orders to replace officials and workers at local public institutions who were Jewish or belonged to other political parties. The Gleichschaltung also included

5880-488: The Nazis acted swiftly to eliminate any potential centers of opposition arising in the remaining states. Immediately following the Reichstag election of 5 March 1933, the central government began in earnest its campaign to take over the state governments that it did not yet control, and within a very short period they achieved dominance over the administration in every state. The pattern was in each case similar: pressure on

6000-467: The Nazis came to power at the end of January 1933, there was some sentiment for a general strike by SPD politicians and trade unionists, but the national leadership was wary of such an action in the face of the worst unemployment crisis the nation had experienced. Though there were some sporadic isolated incidents, no general policy of resistance was undertaken. The Nazis embarked on a policy of violence and intimidation against all their opponents, including

6120-404: The Nazis were suppressed, intimidated, or murdered. Every national voluntary association, and every local club, was brought under Nazi control, from industrial and agricultural pressure groups to sports associations, football clubs, male voice choirs, women's organizations—in short, the whole fabric of associational life was Nazified. Rival, politically oriented clubs or societies were merged into

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6240-537: The Nazis were surprised. The most highly organized and powerful trade union movement in Europe offered no resistance and disappeared virtually overnight. In its place, the German Labor Front ( German : Deutsche Arbeitsfront or DAF), a Nazi Party organization led by Ley, was established on 10 May. Its goal was coordination of the entire labor force under Nazi leadership. On 19 May, the government enacted

6360-501: The New. In 1927 the Protestant Church League ( Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchenbund ) reacted to the growing radicalisation of German Christian groups with a Churches Day in Königsberg , aiming to clarify Christianity's relation to "Fatherland", "Nation", " Volkstum ", "Blood", and "Race". Many local church-officers tried to delineate, such as with regards to racism, but this only served to show how deeply it had intruded into their thinking. Paul Althaus , for example, wrote: Volkstum

6480-427: The Old Testament was in part fiercely opposed among Christian German nationalists, seeing it as a racist attack on the foundations of their faith from inside and outside. Theologian Johannes Schneider, a member of the German National People's Party ( Deutschnationale Volkspartei or DNVP) (a party fairly close to the political aims of the NSDAP), wrote in 1925: Whoever cheapens the Old Testament will soon also lose

6600-452: The Old Testament and the Ten Commandments , nor even the New Testament, which they held to be of Jewish influence that had to be "cleaned" so that the child Jesus could be used as a model for "self sacrifice" and "male heroism". In 1920 minister Karl Gerecke published Biblical anti-Semitism in the Volksverlag of Ernst Boepple , one of the founders of the German Workers' Party . Dietrich Eckart , an early mentor of Hitler, also emphasised

6720-402: The Old-Prussian Evangelical Supreme Church Council, to form an Ecclesiastical Council of Confidence ( Geistlicher Vertrauensrat ). This council exercised ecclesiastical leadership for the church from early 1940 and afterwards. On 22 December 1941, the German Evangelical Church issued a request for the relevant authorities "to take suitable measures so that baptized non-Aryans remain separate from

6840-412: The Protestant minister Wilhelm Brachmann  [ de ] established an Institute of Religious Studies as part of the Advanced School of the NSDAP . The German Christians were organised as a Kirchenpartei (church party, i.e. a nominating group ) in 1931 to help win elections of presbyteries and synods (i.e. legislating church assemblies) in the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union ,

6960-481: The Protestant opposition to Nazism that established an alternative umbrella organisation of their own that became known as the Confessing Church . The Reich Church ultimately ended up being a confederation of those German Protestant churches that espoused a single doctrine named Positive Christianity , which was compatible with Nazism . Although it aimed to eventually become a unified Protestant state church for all of Nazi Germany , this attempt utterly failed as

7080-412: The Protestant resistance like Dietrich Bonhoeffer , Martin Niemöller and others were arrested. In 1939, Müller tried to regain his position in the German Evangelical Church but failed to do so. After 1937, the German Evangelical Church was not considered an issue in the Kirchenkampf by the Nazis as it became heavily controlled by the Ministry until 1945. In August 1945, the German Evangelical Church

7200-415: The Reich Church instead of Müller. It was received positively by intact churches and even confessing parts of the German Evangelical Church. In 1936, the committee denounced the teachings of the German Christians-controlled Church of Thuringia , and the regime feared that the Confessing Church would gain more support due to this. In February 1937, the committee was removed by the Nazis and leading figures of

7320-485: The Roman garrison in Galilee and his preaching showed the influence of "German blood". He concluded that the Germans were the best Christians among all peoples, only prevented from the full flowering of their spiritual faculties by the materialistic Jews. Julius Bode , however, concluded that the Christianisation of the Germans was the imposition of an "un-German" religious understanding, and that Germanic feeling remained alien to it and so should remain exempt from it. On

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7440-401: The SPD-affiliated trade unions. In an effort to safeguard his organization and its members, Leipart declared the ADBG politically "neutral" within weeks of the Nazis coming to power. Meanwhile, Party leaders convinced conservative elements among the police, the judiciary, prison administrators and civil servants that suppression of the labor movement was justified. Following the Nazi gains in

7560-410: The Twentieth Century ( Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts ) resonated in these circles and gave them renewed impetus. His polemic against all "un-German" and "root-stock" elements in Christianity was directed against the Christianity and the denominational organisations of the time. Marxism and Catholic Internationalism were attacked as two facets of the Jewish spirit, and Rosenberg stated the need for

7680-413: The attendant foundation of the opposing Confessing Church in 1934. Siegfried Leffler was a co-founder of the German Christians. During the period of the German Empire , before the Weimar Republic , the Protestant churches ( Landeskirchen ) in Germany were divided along state and provincial borders. Each state or provincial church was supported by and affiliated with the regnal house —if it

7800-427: The authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. Nazification Final solution Parties The Nazi term Gleichschaltung ( German pronunciation: [ˈɡlaɪçʃaltʊŋ] ), roughly " coordination ", was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler —leader of the Nazi Party in Germany —successively established

7920-418: The blood. On this basis, the radical German-Christians' ideas were hardly slowed down. In 1928 they gathered in Thuringia to found the Thuringian German Christians' Church Movement ( Thüringer Kirchenbewegung Deutsche Christen ), seeking contact with the Nazi Party and naming their newsletter "Letters to German Christians" ( German : Briefe an Deutsche Christen ). Alfred Rosenberg 's book The Myth of

8040-411: The construction of the Autobahn . It was the largest of the many organizations established by the Nazis and a propaganda success. Workers were also brought in line with the party through activities such as the Reichsberufswettkampf , a national vocational competition. Many unemployed people were also drafted into the Reich Labour Service where they were given uniforms and tools and put to work;

8160-424: The context of a statement entitled "Towards Renovation of the Relationship of Christians and Jews ( Zur Erneuerung des Verhältnisses von Christen und Juden ), the Synod of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland stated that it recognised and "confess, with dismay, the co-responsibility and guilt of German Christians for the Holocaust." On May 6, 2019, eighty years after the founding of the “Dejudaisation Institute”,

8280-641: The disappearance of unemployed people from the streets contributed to the perception that the Nazis were improving the economic conditions of Germany. Historian Claudia Koonz explains that the word Gleichschaltung stems from the arena of electricity , where it refers to converting power from alternating current to direct current , which is called " rectification " in English; the word Gleichschaltung translates literally as "phasing". Used in its socio-political sense, Gleichschaltung has no equivalent in any other language. The Nazis also used other similar terms, such as Ausschaltung , which constituted

8400-407: The ecclesiastical life of the German congregations", a call for strict segregation between "non-Aryan" Protestants, and German Protestant congregations and facilities. Many German Christian-dominated congregations followed suit. The Confessing Church's executive together with the conference of the state brethren councils (representing the Confessing Church adherents within the destroyed churches) issued

8520-421: The elevation of Müller to the DEK bishopric: in late summer the old-Prussian general synod (led by Müller) adopted the Aryan paragraph , effectively defrocking clergy of Jewish descent and even clergy married to non-Aryans. With their Gleichschaltungspolitik and their attempts to incorporate the Aryan paragraph into the church constitution so as to exclude Jewish Christians, the German Christians entered into

8640-485: The experiences during Nazi rule. It was decided to replace the former German Federation of Protestant Churches with the new umbrella Protestant Church in Germany, provisionally led by the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany , a naming borrowed from the Reich's brethren council organisation. Notes Bibliography German Christians (movement) German Christians ( German : Deutsche Christen ) were

8760-461: The federal system allowed for a great deal of regional autonomy. The German Christians were, for the most part, a "group of fanatically Nazi Protestants." They began as an interest group and eventually came to represent one of the schismatic factions of German Protestantism. Their movement was sustained and encouraged by factors such as: The German Christians were sympathetic to the Nazi regime's goal of "co-ordinating" ( see Gleichschaltung )

8880-514: The first Reich's Synod of Confession ( erste Reichsbekenntnissynode ) held in Wuppertal - Barmen between 29 and 31 May 1934, it called itself the Confessing Church . On 16 July 1935, Hanns Kerrl was appointed Reichsminister for Church Affairs, a newly created department. He started negotiations to find a compromise and dropped the extreme German Christians, trying to win moderate Confessing Christians and respected neutrals. On 24 September 1935,

9000-620: The formation of various organizations with compulsory membership for segments of the population, particularly the youth of Germany. Boys first served as apprentices in the Pimpfen (cubs), beginning at the age of six, and at age ten, entered the Deutsches Jungvolk (Young German Boys) and served there until joining the Hitler Youth proper at age fourteen. Boys remained there until age eighteen, at which time they entered into

9120-799: The government founded the Deutscher Reichsbund für Leibesübungen , later the Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen , as the official sports governing body. All other German sport associations gradually lost their freedom and were coopted into it. Besides sports, another more important part of the "co-ordination" effort was the purging of the civil service, both at the Federal and state level. Top Federal civil servants—the State Secretaries—were largely replaced if they were not sympathetic to

9240-661: The group's "leader and representative" by acclamation, and other members included philosopher Ernst Bergmann (1881–1945), racial ideologue Hans F. K. Günther , writer Ernst Graf zu Reventlow , historian Herman Wirth , Ludwig Fahrenkrog , and Lothar Stengel-von Rutkowski . In 1939 with the approval of eleven of the German Protestant regional churches the Eisenacher Institute for the Study and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life (called

9360-642: The historiography of the Kirchenkampf in the so-called "church-historical working group", but they had little effect from then on in theology and politics. Other former members of the German Christians moved into the numerically insignificant religious communities known as the Free People's Christian Church ( Freie Christliche Volkskirche ) and the People's Movement of Free Church Christians ( Volkskirchenbewegung Freie Christen ) after 1945. In 1980, in

9480-404: The hope that the disaffiliation of 1937 to 1940 could be curbed), the first edition of the text did not meet with the expected enthusiastic response. After 1945, the remaining German Christian currents formed smaller communities and circles distanced from the newly formed umbrella of the independent church bodies Protestant Church in Germany . German Christian-related parties sought to influence

9600-864: The individual Protestant churches into a single and uniform Reich church, consistent with the Volk ethos and the Führerprinzip . The editor Professor Wilhelm Knevels of the journal Christentum und Leben (i.e. Christianity and Life) also worked for the " Institute for Research and the Elimination of Jewish influence on German Church Life "—and his journal published articles like "Heroic Christianity" (" Heroisches Christentum ", 1935) and "Why not only God? Why Jesus?" (" Warum nicht nur Gott? Warum Jesus? ", April 1942). The "Martin Luther Memorial Church" ( Martin-Luther-Gedächtniskirche ), which

9720-484: The largest of the independent Landeskirchen . They were led by Ludwig Müller , a rather incompetent "old fighter" who had no particular leadership skills or qualifications, except having been a longtime faithful Nazi. He was advised by Emanuel Hirsch. In 1931 the book Salvation from chaotic madness by Guida Diehl, the first speaker of the National Socialist Women's League, got an admiring review by

9840-779: The liberal Hirsch-Dunckersche Gewerkvereine  [ de ] , placed themselves under the Action Committee for the Protection of German Labor, headed by Robert Ley , the Stabschef (chief of staff) of the Nazi Party organization. The last remaining union umbrella agency, the Christian-oriented Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (1919–1933)  [ de ] was absorbed at the end of June. Throughout this process, there were no strikes, no demonstrations and no protests. Even

9960-542: The meeting ended with Protestant churches declaring their loyalty to the state, removing Müller was not a subject to discussion for Hitler. After that, member churches began to either reorganise or detach from the German Evangelical Church. Initially, there was little resistance to the attempt to introduce elements of Nazi ideology into church doctrine. Most of the resistance came from confessing communities ( bekennende Gemeinden ) within " intact  [ de ] " and " destroyed churches  [ de ] " (see below) and

10080-525: The member churches that left rejoined. In 1936, the Zoellner committee denounced German Christians and increasingly leaned towards the Confessing Church and its positions. In 1937, the Nazis removed the Zoellner committee and reinstalled German Christians into the leading position. In 1937–1945, the German Evangelical Church was controlled by German Christians and the Ministry. It was no longer considered

10200-408: The most prolific of Bayreuth Germanics and racists, and later the author of a full-length biography of Lagarde, summarised his life and work and concluded that "for the comprehension of Lagarde's whole being one must above all remember that he always considered himself the prophet and guide of his people — which of course he actually was." For Schemann his legacy consisted largely of his struggle against

10320-480: The neutral and moderate groups to reconcile the disputing church parties. The official German Evangelical Church became subordinate to the new bureaucracy, and Müller lost power but still retained the now meaningless titles of German Reich's Bishop and old-Prussian State Bishop. In November, Kerrl decreed the parallel institutions of the Confessing Church were to be dissolved, a move which was protested and ignored by Confessing Church leaders. On 19 December, Kerrl issued

10440-416: The new Weimar government, but the anti-disestablishmentarians prevailed in substance: churches remained public corporations and retained their subsidies from the government. Religious instruction in the schools continued, as did the theological faculties in the universities. The rights formerly held by the princes in the German Empire simply devolved to church councils. Accordingly, in this initial period of

10560-412: The non-Nazi state governments to place a National Socialist in charge of the police; threatening demonstrations from SA and SS troops in the big cities; the symbolic raising of the swastika banner on town halls; the capitulation with hardly any resistance of the elected governments; the imposition of a Reich Commissar under the pretext of restoring order … Despite the semblance of legality, the usurpation of

10680-584: The office of Reichsbischof  [ de ] ("Reich Bishop"). On 20 December 1933, Müller merged the church's Protestant youth organisations into the Hitler Jugend without consulting their leadership or any member churches. Many in the German Evangelical Church resisted this idea and a discussion began. Müller tried to silence it by introducing discipline and using the powers of the elected office. His attempts failed, prompting Adolf Hitler to meet with Protestant leaders on 25 January 1934. Although

10800-448: The old federated church with its representative league. This church reorganisation had been a goal of the German Christians for some time, as such a centralisation would enhance the coordination of Church and State, as a part of the overall Nazi process of Gleichschaltung . The German Christians agitated for Müller to be elected as the new Church's bishop ( Reichsbischof ). Müller had poor political skills, little political support within

10920-484: The part of the unions were to prove futile, as the Nazis had already begun to plot a complete takeover of the trade union movement, as demonstrated by Goebbels' diary entry of 17 April: On 1 May we shall arrange May Day as a grandiose demonstration of the German people's will. On 2 May the trade union offices will be occupied. Coordination in this area too. There might possibly be a row for a few days, but then they will belong to us. We must make no allowances anymore. … Once

11040-549: The portfolio of the state interior ministries from which they controlled the police, installing Nazi adherents and purging opponents. Most coalition cabinets that the Nazis formed were with the participation of their conservative nationalist ally, the German National People's Party (DNVP). The "Law Against the Founding of New Parties" (14 July 1933) banned all parties except the Nazi Party. The DNVP members of

11160-549: The powers of the Länder by the Reich was a plain breach of the Constitution. Force and pressure by the Nazi organizations themselves – political blackmail – had been solely responsible for creating the 'unrest' that had prompted the alleged restorations of 'order'. The terms of the emergency decree of 28 February provided no justification since there was plainly no need for defence from any 'communist acts of violence endangering

11280-401: The press and all means of social communication. This included oversight of newspapers, magazines, films, books, public meetings and ceremonies, foreign press relations, theater, art and music, radio, and television. To this end, Goebbels said: [T]he secret of propaganda [is to] permeate the person it aims to grasp, without his even noticing that he is being permeated. Of course propaganda has

11400-474: The regime. On 28 April, the ADGB agreed to move toward unification with the conservative Christian and the bourgeois liberal trade union groups, to form a single national labor organization in the new Nazi state. Leipart also supported the announcement by Goebbels that May Day would be celebrated as a public holiday for the first time, a long-sought goal of the labor movement. However, any efforts at reconciliation on

11520-507: The rejection of his candidate, and things began to change. By June 1933 the German Christians had gained leadership of some Landeskirchen within the DEK and were, of course, supported by Nazi propaganda in their efforts to reverse the humiliating loss to Bodelschwingh. After a series of Nazi-directed political maneuvers, Bodelschwingh resigned and Müller was appointed as the new Reichsbischof in July 1933. Further pro-Nazi developments followed

11640-609: The remaining coalition cabinets eventually either joined the Party or were replaced by Nazis, resulting in one-party government in all the Länder . One of the most critical steps towards Gleichschaltung of German society was the introduction of the "Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda" under Joseph Goebbels in March 1933 and the subsequent steps taken by the Propaganda Ministry to assume complete control of

11760-539: The removal or "switching off" of anyone who stained or soiled the German nation. This seemingly clinical terminology captured both the mechanical and biological meaning for members of German society; as one German citizen visiting London explained, "It means the same stream will flow through the ethnic body politic [ Volkskörper ]." Former University of Dresden professor of romance languages, Viktor Klemperer —dismissed from his post for being Jewish in 1935 and who only survived his time in Germany due to being married to

11880-863: The river Rhine , the portion of Bavaria which forms today's Free State (without the Palatinate left of the Rhine), and the Evangelical State Church in Württemberg , refused to dissolve their church bodies as independent entities, and the Berlin-based Landgericht I court restored the largest church body, the by then already merged Evangelical Church of the Old-Prussian Union by its resolution in November

12000-494: The same circuit so that all can be activated by throwing a single master switch. Its first use is credited to Reich Justice Minister Franz Gürtner . It has been variously translated as "coordination", "Nazification of state and society", "synchronization", and "bringing into line". English texts often use the untranslated German word to convey its unique historical meaning. In their seminal work on National Socialist vernacular, Nazi-Deutsch/Nazi-German: An English Lexicon of

12120-610: The same year, thus resuming independence. Consequently, the German Evangelical Church, created as a merger, then continued to exist as a mere umbrella. Some Protestant functionaries and laymen opposed the unification. Many more agreed but wanted it under Protestant principles, not imposed by Nazi partisans. The Protestant opposition had organised first among pastors by way of the Emergency Covenant of Pastors and then—including laymen—developed into grassroots meetings establishing independent synods by January 1934. At

12240-568: The seeking of Lebensraum , and the violent mass destruction of human life deemed somehow less valuable by the National Socialist government of Germany. The Gleichschaltung measures were used to give the Nazi regime the appearance of legality. Thousands of decrees, including many of the Gleichschaltung laws, were based explicitly on the Reichstag Fire Decree, and hence on Article 48. The Reichstag renewed

12360-477: The social and racial exclusion of anyone deemed an enemy by National Socialist doctrine. The Nazi Gleichschaltung or "synchronization" of German society—along with a series of Nazi legislation —was part and parcel to Jewish economic disenfranchisement, the violence against political opposition, the creation of concentration camps, the Nuremberg Laws, the establishment of a racial Volksgemeinschaft ,

12480-681: The state'. The only such acts were those of the Nazis themselves. The following table presents an overview of the process of Gleichschaltung as it was applied to the Nazification of the German Länder governments. While, strictly speaking, the Gleichschaltung process did not start until after the Nazi seizure of power at the Reich level at the end of January 1933, the table also presents earlier Nazi Party successes in infiltrating and taking charge of several German state administrations during 1930–1932. In most of these instances, they took

12600-565: The trade unions are in our hands the other parties and organizations will not be able to hold out for much longer. Accordingly, 1 May 1933 was declared the Day of National Labor, a day of parades, speeches and propaganda displays to celebrate the unity of the German labor movement with the nation, featuring SA military bands, swastika flags and fireworks. It culminated with a huge rally and speech by Hitler at Berlin Tempelhof Airport that

12720-536: The vote. Hitler was appointed Chancellor on 30 January 1933 and the process of Gleichschaltung was in its full sway in the first few months of the regime. In late April 1933 the leadership of the 1922-founded German Evangelical Church Confederation , in the spirit of the new regime, agreed to write a new constitution for a brand new, unitary "national" church, which would be called the German Evangelical Church ( Deutsche Evangelische Kirche or DEK). The new and unified national DEK would completely replace and supersede

12840-431: Was Protestant—in its particular region; the crown provided financial and institutional support to its church. Church and state were therefore, to a large extent, combined on a regional basis. Monarchies of Roman Catholic dynasties also organised church bodies that were territorially defined by their state borders. The same was true for the three republican German states within the pre-1918 Empire. In Alsace-Lorraine

12960-521: Was attended by over one million people. Many workers, particularly those in state employment, were compelled to participate by threats of dismissal for not attending. The next day, as Goebbels had indicated, the German labor movement was crushed under a wave of unprecedented violence at the hands of SA and SS troops. All SPD-supported trade union offices were occupied, their newspapers and periodicals were discontinued, their banks and credit unions were closed and their assets were confiscated and turned over to

13080-531: Was built in Berlin from 1933 to 1935 included a pulpit that showed the Sermon on the Mount with a Stahlhelm -wearing Wehrmacht soldier listening to Jesus and a baptismal font which featured an SA stormtrooper. The swastikas were removed after the war and the former church has been reconstructed as a memorial to Nazi crimes against humanity. Under the authority of Alfred Rosenberg and his religious theories

13200-483: Was composed of the members of the various regional churches. The League was governed and administered by a 36-member Executive Committee ( Kirchenausschuss ) which was responsible for ongoing governance between the annual conventions of the Kirchentag . Save for the organisational matters under the jurisdiction of the national League, the regional churches remained independent in other matters, including theology, and

13320-420: Was displayed in Protestant churches. On 1 September 1939, Kerrl decreed the separation of the ecclesiastical and the administrative governance within the official Evangelical Church. The German Christian Friedrich Werner, president of EOK, won over August Marahrens , State Bishop of the "intact" Church of Hanover , and the theologians Walther Schultz , a German Christian, and Friedrich Hymmen, vice president of

13440-562: Was effectively removed in favor of a government agency as a result of his obvious incompetence. The German Christians were supportive of the Nazi Party's ideas about race . They issued public statements in which they claimed that Christians in Germany with Jewish ancestors "remain Christians in a New Testament sense, but they are not German Christians." They also supported the Nazi Party platform's advocacy of " Positive Christianity ",

13560-405: Was given the predicate "special political value". With the end of World War I and the resulting political and social turmoil, the regional churches lost their secular rulers. With revolutionary fervor in the air, the conservative church leaders had to contend with socialists who favoured disestablishment . After considerable political maneuvering, state churches were abolished (in name) under

13680-414: Was instrumental in calling a general strike that led to the collapse of the right-wing Kapp Putsch that attempted to overthrow the republic. It was led from January 1921 by Theodor Leipart . Following the economic downturn of 1929 , the resulting sharp rise in unemployment caused a large drop-off in membership but, by 1932, it still represented an estimated 3.5 million workers in some 30 unions. When

13800-606: Was not a merger into a single church but a loose federation of independent ones. The founding of the German Evangelical Church was the result of work by the Kirchenpartei of the German Christians who had gained a large majority at the 1933 church elections. In September 1934, the merger finally failed when the synods of two of the 28 churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria right of

13920-446: Was officially dissolved by the council of the newly founded Protestant umbrella organisation called the Protestant Church in Germany . Under the Weimar Republic , the system of state churches disappeared with the German monarchies. At this point, the unification of the Protestant churches into a single organisation seemed like a possibility, albeit a remote one. Since unification, clergy and ecclesiastical administrators had discussed

14040-571: Was set up under the auspices of the German Labor Front. Hobbies were regimented and all private clubs, whether chess, football, or woodworking, were brought under the control of Strength Through Joy, which also provided vacation trips, skiing, swimming, concerts, and ocean cruises. Some 43 million Germans enjoyed trips via the Strength Through Joy initiative. This effort inspired the idea of Germans acquiring automobiles and

14160-429: Was sunny and pleasant, it was described as "Hitler weather", or if you failed to comply with Nazi ideals of racial and social conformity , you were "switched off." When the blatant emphasis on racial hatred of others seemed to reach an impasse in the school system, through radio broadcasts, or on film reels, the overseers of Nazi Gleichschaltung propaganda switched to strategies that focused more on togetherness and

14280-587: Was the same as the "Father" and "[Holy] Ghost", that Christ preached and that the Germans would have guessed. Childlike confidence in God and selfless love was, to them, the essence of the Germanic "people's-soul" in contrast to Jewish "menial fear of God" and "materialistic morality." Church was not an "institution for the dissemination of Judaism", and they felt religious and confirmation materials should no longer teach

14400-400: Was to become a single, unified Reich Church compatible with Nazi ideology for all of Nazi Germany . In 1935, in wake of controversies and church struggles, the Ministry for Church Affairs removed Ludwig Müller and installed a committee headed by Wilhelm Zoellner  [ de ] to lead the confederation. As a result, the German Evangelical Church regained partial support as some of

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