Below is a chronological overview of all of the individuals and groups of the Christian resistance profiled in the exhibition.
Click on a name to access the biography view with various exhibition windows documenting a selected individual’s biography and resistance.
Pre 1933
Nikolaina Gschlössl
Champion of the full pastoral office for women, Social Democrat and opponent of Nazi racial ideology.
1933-1934
Ernst Lohmeyer
Professor of theology at the University of Breslau, critic of anti-Semitism.
Hans Asmussen
Hans Asmussen, witness of Altona’s Bloody Sunday in 1932, Confessing Church pastor and docent.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Pastor, most prominent representative of the Confessing Church and member of the military resistance.
Friedrich von Bodelschwingh
Head of the Bethel institutions and opponent of "euthanasia".
George Bell
English bishop and leading exponent of ecumenism, supporter of the Confessing Church.
Hans Philipp Ehrenberg
Hans Ehrenberg, foe of anti-Semitism and helper of victims of racial persecution.
Karl Barth
Swiss professor of theology who influenced the Confessing Church profoundly.
Karl Steinbauer
Pastor of the Confessing Church, Opponent of the Nazis, Critic der Bavarian Church Government
1935-1939
Helmut Gollwitzer
Pastor of the Confessing Church with contacts in the military resistance.
Elisabeth Schmitz
Advocate of the church’s solidarity with persecuted Jews.
Martin Niemöller
Pastor of the Confessing Church and Adolf Hitler’s “personal prisoner”.
Margarete (Marga) Meusel
Social worker, champion of solidarity with racially persecuted Christians.
Werner Sylten
Pastor of the Confessing Church, aided “non-Aryan” Christians.
Johannes Koch
Pastor of the Confessing Church, criticized Jew-baiting and refused to take the oath to the "Führer".
Paul Robert Schneider
Pastor of the Confessing Church, murdered in Buchenwald concentration camp.
Wilhelm Freiherr von Pechmann
Banker, Layperson in Senior Church Posts and Critic of Regional Bishop Meiser
Otto and Gertrud Mörike
Pastor and his wife, refused to participate in the 1938 “elections”, helped persecuted Jews.
Rupert Mayer
“Not even in death did Father Mayer fall …”
1939-1942
Martin Gauger
Jurist of the Confessing Church and conscientious objector.
Gerhard Dedeke
Confessing Church pastor and opponent of Nazi church policy.
Clemens August Graf von Galen
Bishop of Münster, courageous opponent of the “euthanasia” program.
Katharina Staritz
City vicar in Breslau, helped Christians of Jewish descent.
Hans Buttersack
Conservative opponent of National Socialism and attorney of the Confessing Church in Nassau.
Theophil Wurm
Bishop of the Regional Church of Württemberg, opponent of Nazi church policy and euthanasia programs.
Willem Adolf Visser 't Hooft
Dutch ecumenist and the German resistance’s contact in Switzerland.
1943-1945
NKFD Council for Church Affair
Theologians held prisoners of war who worked propagandistically for an end to the war and the fall of the Hitler regime
Johannes Schröder
Wehrmacht chaplain, active in the National Committee for Free Germany.
Gerhard Krause
Pastor, opponent of the Nazi's weltanschauung, condemned to death for undermining the war effort.
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
Jurist, presided with Yorck von Wartenburg over gatherings at the Kreisau estate discussing measures against the Nazi re
The Breslau Synod of 1943
An important impetus to the church’s assumption of global responsibility.
The Kreisau Circle
The Kreisau Circle, an exceptional group of political and intellectual resistance, formed in early 1940.
Georg Maus
Religion teacher, resigned from the Nazi Teachers’ Association , charged with “undermining the war effort”.
Karl-Heinz Becker
An Astute Opponent of National Socialism
Elisabeth von Thadden
Headmistress, executed in 1944 for “undermining the war effort”.
Elisabeth Goes
Pastor’s wife and helper of persecuted Jews.
Max Josef Metzger
Catholic priest, pacifist, ecumenist and social reformer. Executed in 1944.
Johanna and Eugen Stöffler
Pastor and wife, members of the Church-Theological Society in Württemberg, aided persecuted Jews.
The Parsonage Chain
Group of pastors that hid Jews threatened with deportation and extermination.