Reich Wing Christianity

The Christian Faith of Nazis and Their Supporters in the 1930s and 1940s

(Image: Deutsche Christen flag) The relationship between Christianity and Nazism during the 1930s and 1940s is a complex and contentious subject. Nazi Germany was an overwhelmingly Christian nation, with approximately 54% of the population identifying as Protestant and 41% as Catholic in a 1939 census. This religious landscape shaped the interactions between the Nazi regime, its supporters, and Christian institutions in Germany, among Axis powers, and even within Allied nations like the United States. The Nazi Party’s engagement with Christianity was marked by a mix of pragmatic manipulation, ideological conflict, and varying degrees of support or resistance from Christian communities.

Christianity in Nazi Germany: A General Overview

In 1933, when Adolf Hitler rose to power, Germany was a predominantly Christian country, with the German Evangelical Church (Protestant) and the Roman Catholic Church serving as major societal pillars. The Nazi regime, however, sought to control all aspects of German life, including religion, viewing independent churches as potential threats to its totalitarian ideology. The Nazis’ approach to Christianity was not monolithic; it ranged from co-opting Christian rhetoric to suppressing religious institutions that resisted their agenda.

The Nazi Party’s official stance, as articulated in Point 24 of the 1920 Nazi Party Platform, stated: “The Party as such represents the viewpoint of Positive Christianity without binding itself to any particular denomination.” This vague endorsement was a tactical move to appeal to Germany’s Christian majority while allowing the Nazis to reinterpret Christianity to align with their racial and nationalist ideology. Positive Christianity sought to purge Christianity of its Jewish roots, rejecting the Old Testament and portraying Jesus as an “Aryan” figure, a distortion considered apostate by mainstream Christian churches.

Despite this, the Nazi regime’s relationship with Christianity was fraught with tension. While some Nazis, like Dietrich Eckart and Walter Buch, saw Nazism and Christianity as compatible, others, including Joseph Goebbels, Martin Bormann, and Alfred Rosenberg, were openly hostile to organized religion, viewing it as a rival to Nazi ideology. The regime’s long-term goal, as noted by historian Michael Phayer, was the “total elimination of Catholicism and of the Christian religion,” though this was a gradual objective due to Christianity’s deep roots in German society.

Protestantism and Nazism

The Protestant churches in Germany, particularly the German Evangelical Church, were diverse, comprising Lutheran, Reformed, and United traditions across 28 regional churches. This fragmentation made Protestantism more susceptible to Nazi influence than the more centralized Catholic Church. The German Evangelical Church, aka the Protestant Reich Church, was a successor to the German Protestant Church Confederation from 1933 until 1945.

The pro-Nazi “German Christian” (Deutsche Christen) movement emerged in the early 1930s, aiming to fuse Christianity with National Socialism. This group sought to create a “racially pure” church, rejecting Jewish influences and promoting Nazi ideals like nationalism and anti-Semitism. German Christians were a pressure group and a movement within the German Evangelical Church that existed between 1933 and 1945, aligned towards the antisemitic, racist, and Führerprinzip ideological principles of Nazism with the goal of aligning German Protestantism as a whole towards those principles.

The German Christians gained significant support, with two-thirds of Protestant voters backing them in a 1933 election to unify the Protestant churches under Ludwig Müller, a Nazi sympathizer appointed as Reich Bishop. Müller’s leadership aimed to align the church with Nazi goals, and many Protestant clergy and laypeople embraced this synthesis. For example, Paul Althaus, a prominent Lutheran theologian, described the Nazi rise to power in 1933 as “a gift and miracle from God,” reflecting the enthusiasm of some Protestants for Hitler’s regime. Similarly, a Lutheran diocesan magazine, Allgemeine Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirchenzeitung, welcomed Hitler’s rise as a “great thing [that] God has done for our Volk.”

However, not all Protestants supported the Nazis. The Confessing Church (Bekennende Kirche), formed in 1934, opposed the German Christians and resisted Nazi attempts to “Nazify” the church. Led by figures like Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Confessing Church emphasized allegiance to God and scripture over the state. Its founding document, the Barmen Confession of Faith, declared that the church’s loyalty was to Christ, not Hitler. Despite this resistance, the Confessing Church was a minority, representing one-fourth to one-third of Germany’s 40 million Protestants, and its members faced persecution, including arrests and imprisonment. Niemöller, for instance, was detained in Dachau from 1938 to 1945, and Bonhoeffer was executed in 1945.

Protestants were over-represented in the Nazi Party’s membership and electorate, with rural and small-town Protestant middle-class communities forming a significant base of support. This support often stemmed from shared conservative values, such as anti-communism and nationalism, which aligned with Nazi propaganda. However, the Confessing Church’s resistance highlights that Protestant responses were not uniform, with some clergy and laypeople risking their lives to oppose Nazi policies, particularly anti-Semitism.

Catholicism and Nazism

The Catholic Church in Germany, representing about one-third of the population, was more unified under the authority of the Vatican. Catholics were generally less supportive of the Nazis than Protestants, largely due to the Catholic Centre Party (Zentrum), which had historically protected Catholic interests in a predominantly Protestant country. Catholic regions, such as Bavaria and the Rhineland, showed lower electoral support for the Nazis, and Catholic leaders denounced Nazi doctrine before 1933.

In July 1933, Hitler signed a Concordat with the Vatican, promising to respect the Catholic Church’s autonomy in exchange for its withdrawal from political activities. The Concordat was a strategic victory for Hitler, enhancing his international legitimacy, but he quickly violated its terms by suppressing Catholic schools, youth organizations, and newspapers. By 1936, the regime was staging “immorality” trials against Catholic clergy, accusing them of offenses like homosexuality, and by 1941, Goebbels banned all Catholic media. An estimated one-third of German Catholic priests faced some form of reprisal, with 400 sent to the Priest Barracks at Dachau.

Despite this persecution, Catholic responses were mixed. Some Catholic leaders openly resisted Nazi policies. Others initially expressed loyalty to the “Fatherland” but later supported resistance efforts, such as aiding Jews through Caritas aid agencies. However, the Catholic hierarchy often adopted a cautious approach, avoiding direct confrontation to preserve the church’s existence.

Catholic resistance was more pronounced among individuals. For example, Erich Klausener, leader of Berlin’s Catholic Action movement, spoke out against Nazi oppression and was murdered by the SS in 1934. Similarly, Catholic priests like Heinrich Maier actively worked with the Allies, though sometimes against the wishes of their superiors. Despite these efforts, many Catholics acquiesced to Nazi rule, particularly when it aligned with anti-communist or nationalist sentiments.

Christian References

Hitler consistently self-identified as a Christian in public, and even on occasion as a Catholic, specifically throughout his entire political career, despite criticising biblical figures. He frequently invoked Christianity in public to gain support, though his private views were more skeptical. In a 1922 speech, he declared: “We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity… in fact our movement is Christian.” In a 1933 radio address, he stated: “Today Christians … stand at the head of [Germany]. I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity … We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit.” Of course, he recognized the political necessity of aligning with Christianity to succeed in elections.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote: “The two Christian denominations look on with indifference at the profanation and destruction of a noble and unique creature who was given to the world as a gift of God’s grace,"  emphasizing the preservation of the supposed Aryan race as a divine mission.

Other Nazi leaders were less restrained in their anti-Christian sentiments. Joseph Goebbels, in an 8 April 1941 diary entry, wrote: “He [Hitler] hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity.” Alfred Rosenberg, a key Nazi ideologist, argued in The Myth of the Twentieth Century that Christianity had been distorted by Jewish influences and proposed a “Nordic” faith to replace it. Hans Kerrl, the Reich Minister for Church Affairs, claimed that “Positive Christianity” rejected the Apostles’ Creed and Christ’s divinity, asserting that “the Fuhrer is the herald of a new revelation.”

Christian Faith Among Axis and Allied Supporters

Among Axis powers, the relationship between Christianity and Nazism varied. In Italy, the Fascist regime under Mussolini maintained a closer relationship with the Catholic Church, formalized through the 1929 Lateran Treaty. Italian propaganda, such as the magazine La difesa della razza, blended Catholic imagery with anti-Semitic rhetoric, presenting Fascism as a defender of Christianity against the “Jewish threat.” Unlike Nazi Germany, where anti-clericalism was more pronounced, Italian Fascism leveraged Catholicism to bolster its legitimacy, with figures like Cardinal Adeodato Piazza publicly blessing Italian troops.

In other Axis-aligned countries, such as Bulgaria, Catholic figures like Angelo Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII) worked to protect Jews, contributing to Bulgaria’s “miracle of the Jewish people,” where deportations were largely prevented. This suggests that Catholic resistance to Nazi anti-Semitism was more effective in some Axis contexts than in Germany.

In Allied nations, particularly the United States, Christianity shaped responses to Nazism and the Holocaust. American Christians, predominantly Protestant but with a significant Catholic minority, viewed Nazism with concern, particularly its persecution of European Christians. A 1944 survey indicated that nearly all Americans believed in God, with many attending church regularly. However, American Christian responses were often slow to address the Jewish plight, focusing instead on the threat to democracy and Christian institutions. For example, the Federal Council of Churches and US Catholic bishops issued a joint condemnation of Kristallnacht in 1938, but broader action against the Holocaust was limited.

Some American Christian leaders, like Henry Smith Leiper, expressed solidarity with persecuted European Christians, while others, like Father Charles Coughlin, a Catholic priest, promoted anti-Semitic views that echoed Nazi propaganda. Coughlin’s radio broadcasts in the 1930s spread anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, illustrating how Christian faith could be manipulated to align with extremist ideologies even in Allied nations.

Analysis and Legacy

The Nazi regime exploited Christianity’s cultural significance to gain legitimacy, particularly through the German Christian movement and the Concordat with the Vatican. However, the regime’s anti-Semitic and totalitarian goals were fundamentally at odds with Christian teachings, leading to persecution of clergy and suppression of religious institutions. While some Protestants and Catholics resisted, particularly through the Confessing Church and individual acts of defiance, many Christians acquiesced to or actively supported the regime, driven by nationalism, anti-communism, or anti-Semitism rooted in historical Christian prejudices.

In Axis countries, the Catholic Church’s influence varied, with Italy aligning more closely with Fascism, while in Allied nations like the US, Christian responses were shaped by domestic concerns and selective outrage. The failure of many Christian leaders to confront Nazi anti-Semitism directly, as noted by historian Victoria Barnett, reflects a broader lapse in moral vision.

The Nazis eventually gave up their attempt to co-opt Christianity, and made little pretence at concealing their contempt for Christian beliefs, ethics and morality. Unable to comprehend that some Germans genuinely wanted to combine commitment to Christianity and Nazism, some members of the SS even came to view German Christians as almost more of a threat than the Confessing Church.

The majority of German Protestants did not side with either the “German Christians" or the Confessing Church. Both groups also struggled with significant internal disagreements and divisions. The legacy of this period underscores the dangers of religious institutions compromising with authoritarian ideologies and the importance of resisting propaganda that distorts faith for political purposes.