" We will, of course not tell them about Wotan...." Goebbels, Secret Conferences of Josef Goebbels

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DEFINITIONS OF THE CHURCH

The relationship between Hitler's Third Reich and the Church, both Catholic and Protestant was not an easy relationship to define. To begin the discussion one has to realize that when using such a generic term as "The Church" one generally is referring to Institutions who throughout history have aligned themselves with beliefs in Jesus Christ and the Gospel, but the degree of beliefs and doctrines are so diverse within groups which use the name of Christ as to render discussions unusable without first specifying and defining "Which Church" is being discussed.

CATHOLICISM & THE THIRD REICH

To complicate matters even further, the relationship of the Church to the Third Reich is not easily defined. The Catholic position claims that they were opposed to Hitler's Final Solution and the Holocaust, claiming that Pius was a friend of the Jews. But documents which have surfaced since suggest a complicated relationship: The Papacy of Pius saw the 3rd Reich Fascists as strong anti-communists and sought to aid their fight against communism. They promised aid to the Jews of Rome, but when the time of deportation and death came, the aid was not forthcoming and the Papacy was silent: the Jews were deported and killed. The Catholic Church aided the Nazis and their wealth to escape the fall of Berlin and justice against war criminals; they defined the escapees as 'catholics in need of help'. Later, the Roman Church aided through the Vatican Bank in hiding massive holdings of confiscated wealth: all this is a matter of public documentation ^1-3 Adding more confusion, individual catholics including priests and nuns aided in rescue and resistance efforts against the Nazis; on the other hand, many Catholics were Nazis (e.g. Hoess, the Commandant of Auschwitz) and Hitler even had a Jesuit as an advisor⁴

Protestantism & the Third Reich

In Germany at the turn of the century, many changes came about in traditional Protestantism. Most of Germany's Protestant population was German Christian, or Lutherans. German Christianity hailed for hundreds of years from the influence of Martin Luther's Reformation. By the time of the first world war and shortly after, though, the Protestantism of Germany and much of Europe had become cold and philosophical. Bultmann's "higher criticism" gutted the Gospel of all but 'metaphor' and a new liberalism took hold: there was less dedication to Jesus Christ as Lord, Redeemer and Savior than to the traditions of church wishing to fall in line to a more moderate belief of Jesus as philosopher and teacher. Most of the Church fell into a semi-comfortable working relationship with the Reich: they agreed to keep silent on even atrocities: Hitler paid the pensions of aging pastors. It was not only a monetary motivation though, those churches and pastors who stood against Hitler faced serious penalties including the closing of churches, censorship, imprisonment, fines and even death. Most chose a position of non-intervention in efforts to keep safe from an oppressive regime. Many, though fell headlong into the Nazi re-definition of Christianity: where the Old Testament became taboo as a corrupt Jewish book, Jesus became a model of the Aryan 'superman' or was discounted and Paul was typified as a Jew with an 'inferiority complex'. ⁵

THE CONFESSING CHURCH

Only a few evangelical or 'social-gospel' pastors refused to yield to the Reich, among them Bonhoeffer, Niemoller and Barth: they were sorely persecuted and their churches and publications were ransacked hounded and closed.⁶ Bonhoeffer died a martyr's death, Niemoller was imprisoned and Barth had to expatriate to Switzerland. The "Confessing Church" whose position is declared in the "Barmen Declaration" signed by Barth and others. Only the Confessing Church's doctrine and stance against the Third Reich was clear: no Fuhrer(leader) but Christ, and no State intrusion into the Church. The Reich's plan for the confessing church was equally clear: they considered their stance treasonous and demoralizing to the war effort: they sought to totally eradicate an organized form of the Believing Church: and by the end of the war most of their leaders, pastors and congregates were either in prison or concentration camps, dead, or expatriated.

THE REICH'S PLAN FOR THE CHURCH

The Reich may have had a strong Anti-Communist stance, but their strange bedfellows in the Vatican while supporting that stance, were either marginally aware or watchfully aware of what the Reich planned to do with all remaining State Churches, Catholic and Protestant. Statements by those in Hitler's Inner Circle such as Himmler and Goebbels showed clearly that after the war, once their utopian Reich was established and rooted in all of Europe, they did not find a tolerable place for the Church as an institution. ⁷ The quote at the beginning of this article denotes Goebbels instructions to his propaganda officers, that the beliefs of the Nazis which included strong Norse/Volkische Mysticism with the warrior-god Wotan or woden, would not find co-existence with the Christ of Heaven, but rather dethrone Him as the God of Germany. Robert Ley, a National Socialist orator, early in the war decried the position of the Church in Germany: infallibility belonged no more to God or the Church, but to the Fuhrer:

You must say: "Citizens, stay calm! The Führer is always right!" They may ask: "How do you know that?" You will answer: "I believe it." "And who tells you that?" ""The Führer is always right. I sense it.".....The people will obey him blindly and follow him blindly. The Führer is always right. Every last citizen must say this." ⁸

To the public, the Nazi's plans for the Church never appeared: there was an occasional remark about the weakness of the Church compared to the Reich, a re-establishment of Volkish holidays such as solstices and May Day, but Goebbels, Hitler and Eichmann all made references, some vague some distinct as to the need to 'pacify' the Church for the sake of the war effort. Certain theologians such as Kittel re-interpreted the Gospels and traditional theology so as to fit in with the ideals of the Reich: the adherence to "God and Country", law and order, appealed to almost every German, the re-interpretations were gradual. Martin Buber once stated that Kittl was the theologian that made Anti-Semitism "theologically acceptable". Notions of obedience to ecclesiastical authority were already entrenched in church doctrine: the "fuhrerprinzip" or leadership principles of moral authority and culpability belonging to a superior fit neatly in. The emasculation of the Church was the first order, the second was the placation and use of the Church during war time, and the last plan, almost unknown outside of Nazi leadership was the future eradication of the Church which Hitler felt necessary for the totality of rule he deemed necessary to rule Europe⁹ The plan, very simply was to over time, erase the Church as an institution in the new Reich, in the Third millenium. Replacing it would be a Volkische mysticism, nordic mythology which identified the Fuhrer as a divine ceasar and 'warrior-divinity', along with aspects of occultism and speculations so bizarre (such as the belief in a hollow earth ) that they defied belief in the 20th century. The Roman Church, which had aligned itself in a position of anti-communism, was soon confronted with a Fascism that wished to do the same thing to the Church as an institution: erase it. Toward the end of the war, much of Europe including the Vatican became a free-for-all as all alliances began to collapse and every institution an nation sought to confiscate as much of the treasury of Europe: land and wealth, as they possible could. Sixty five years later, the Nazi Plan for the Church did not succeed, although the neo-nazi movement has grown worldwide and influenced the Church and its doctrine, and the confiscated wealth of the victims of the Holocaust is still in litigation. The Nazis did not succeed in their overthrow of the Churches of Germany, but they did not entirely fail either.