“On the Parties”


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Protestant church governments were cautious with their statements on political developments. They imagined that they stood above parties in the face of conflicts. Church leaders thus left the Weimar democracy open to the assaults of its opponents from the right and left wing.


The church governments attempted to halt pastors’ growing politicization with various decrees. They urged political restraint quite generally, without addressing National Socialism explicitly.


A church statement against the Nazi’s body of racial and völkisch-pagan ideas was never issued because of the disparate views among church leaders. Nonetheless, one attendee of the meeting of the German Evangelical Church Committee in November of 1932 asserted that the NSDAP’s assessment of Christianity revealed a complete inversion of judgment in terms of the church’s knowledge and nature.


The Catholic Church on the other hand had been issuing firm statements against the National Socialists’ racism and nationalism since late 1930. In 1932, the Catholic bishops forbade their church members to join the Party.


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  • © Evangelisches Zentralarchiv in Berlin, Best. 7 Nr. 2046