Religion in Nazi Germany

Question 1

why was the control of religion important in Nazi Germany?

Answer 1

• church was very influential in personal lives
• wanted to reduced church’s power to have undivided loyalty
• In his first speech as chancellor, Hitler acknowledged the ‘central’ role that Christianity played in Germany. However, this approach did not last long.

Question 2

in 1935, what was the division of people among religions in Germany?

Answer 2

~45 million Protestant Christians, 22 mill Catholic Christians, 500,000 Jews and 25,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses

Question 3

what policy did Hitler adopt towards Catholics and why?

Answer 3

As Catholics had a single, central leader in the Pope, infiltrating and taking control of the religion was extremely difficult so Hitler opted for a policy of conciliation towards Catholics.

Question 4

what was kulturkampf?

Answer 4

conflict between civil government and religious authorities especially over control of education and church appointment

Question 5

why did bishops want to work with hitler?

Answer 5

frightened of bad relations like under bismarck (Kulturkampf)

Question 6

when was the Nazi Concordat with the Vatican?

Answer 6

July 1933

Question 7

what did the Nazi Concordat with the Vatican do?

Answer 7

agreed that Nazis wouldn’t interfere in Catholic church and Vatican would diplomatically recognise Nazi regime

Question 8

when was the Ministry for Church Affairs set up?

Answer 8

1935

Question 9

what did the Ministry for Church Affairs do?

Answer 9

• range of anti-religious policies aimed at undermining the influence of religion on the German people
• broke concordat
• started arresting priests
• catholic newspapers banned

Question 10

when were crucifixes removed from schools?

Answer 10

1936

Question 11

when were all catholic schools closed?

Answer 11

1939

Question 12

how did the attitude of the regime towards catholics change in the late ’30s?

Answer 12

intensified oppressive policies - members of the Catholic Clergy were killed and imprisoned for opposing regime

Question 13

who was Johannes Neuhäusler?

Answer 13

a catholic priest imprisoned by the Nazis

Question 14

what was the pope’s response to the increased oppression of Catholicism in the ’30s?

Answer 14

1937 - ‘with burning anxiety’ letter to churchs said nazis were ‘hostile to christ and his chruch’ but had little effect as people too scared to speak out

Question 15

when was the ‘with burning anxiety’ letter?

Answer 15

1937

Question 16

why did hitler increase the oppression of Catholicism in the ’30s?

Answer 16

he felt catholics listened to the pope more than him

Question 17

who was archbishop galen?

Answer 17

an archbishop who openly criticised nazis for terror tactics, euthanasia, conc camps and was placed under house arrest (example of individual not institutional opposition)

Question 18

what was the nazi attitude to protestantism and why?

Answer 18

thought they were easier to control (no external leader and many different factions) so nazis thought the state could accommodate Protestantism

Question 19

what is a quote said by a German protestant priest?

Answer 19

“German first, Christian second”

Question 20

what was the confessing church?

Answer 20

a rebellious church group formed by Neimoller (a protestant pastor) directed at the regime’s ecclesiastical policy, stressing the church’s autonomy from political interference, and the German Christian movement (not at its overall political and social objectives, though many objected to things like T4)

Question 21

when was the confessing church founded?

Answer 21

1934

Question 22

who was Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

Answer 22

a key founding member of the confessing church who opposed nazis from start, then joined resistance and helped jews escape and planned to assassinate hitler

Question 23

when was Bonhoeffer arrested?

Answer 23

April 1943 by Gestapo - imprisoned at Tegel prison for 1.5 years - then transferred to Flossenburg concentration camp

Question 24

when and why was Bonhoeffer killed?

Answer 24

• accused of being associated with July Plot - tried along with other accused plotters
• hung 9 April 1945 during the collapse of the Nazi regime.

Question 25

how many pastors belonged to the confessing church?

Answer 25

~7000

Question 26

what happened as a result of the protest statement read from the pulpits of confessing churches in March 1935?

Answer 26

Nazi authorities reacted forcefully by arresting over 700 pastors.

Question 27

when was the protest statement read from the pulpits of confessing churches?

Answer 27

march 1935

Question 28

when was the Reich church established?

Answer 28

1933 under the leadership of Muller

Question 29

what was the aim of the Reich church?

Answer 29

to be a new national church

Question 30

what were some aspects of the Reich Church?

Answer 30

• instructed preachers to exclude any teaching from the Old Testament, as this was considered a Jewish document.
• cross became swastika
• merged bible with mein kampf
• embraced many of the nationalistic and racial aspects of Nazi ideology
• supported a “nazified” version of Christianity.

Question 31

how many jehovah’s witnesses were killed in concentration camps?

Answer 31

1/3

Question 32

what was the german faith movement?

Answer 32

a religious movement in Nazi Germany which sought to move Germany away from Christianity towards a religion that was based on Germanic paganism and Nazi ideas.

Question 33

who belonged to the german faith movement?

Answer 33

• initially invited various different groups, including religious free-thinkers (at first even including Jews), racialists, and political opponents of the Nazis, to join a group that was seemingly antagonistic to the Nazi Church
• racialists did not believe Jews should be included in the movement, leaving only racialists and those who had abandoned German Christianity (i.e. unconventional) to compose the German Faith Movement.

Question 34

what did ceremonies of the german faith movement involve?

Answer 34

sermons, german classical music, political hymns

Question 35

how many people followed the german faith movement?

Answer 35

~200,000 followers at its height (less than 0.3% of the population) - most out of fear

Question 36

what were the main ideas of the german faith movement?

Answer 36

• ‘blood and soil’ ideology
• syncretism of Christian ceremonies with pagan equivalents; the most favoured pagan deity being the sun
• cult of Hitler’s personality
• spread of ‘norse paganism’ throughout Germany

Question 37

what was the ‘blood and soil’ ideology?

Answer 37

nationalist slogan expressing Nazi Germany’s ideal of a racially defined national body (“Blood”) united with a settlement area (“Soil”).- rural and farm life forms idealized as a counterweight to urban ones - tied to lebensraum