page_title: Kirchenkampf
section_title: Protestant churches
hierarchical_section_title: Kirchenkampf / Nazi persecution of the Christian churches / Protestant churches
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Scherl BIlderdienst: Wehrkreispfarrer Müller Verbindungsmann Hitlers zur Evangelischen Kirche. Reichskanzler Hitler hat den Wehrkreispfarrer Müller aus Königsberg als Verbindungsmann zu den amtlichen Stellen der Evangelischen Kirche berufen. Pfarrer Müller soll an den Bestrebungen zur Schaffung einer Deutsch-Evangelischen Landeskirche beteiligt werden und die Auffassungen des Reichskanzlers vertreten. U.B.z.: Pfarrer Müller, der der Glaubensbewegung "Deutsche Christen" angehört. 13977-33
context_page_description: Kirchenkampf is a German term pertaining to the situation of the Christian churches in Germany during the Nazi period. Sometimes used ambiguously, the term may refer to one or more of the following different "church struggles":
  the internal dispute between the German Christians and the Confessing Church over control of the Protestant churches;
  the battle between the Nazi regime and the Protestant church bodies; and
  the battle between the Nazi regime and the Roman Catholic Church.
  When the Nazis took power in 1933, 95.2% of Germans were Christian, with 62.7% being Protestant and 32.5% being Catholic. Many historians maintain that Hitler's goal in the Kirchenkampf entailed not only ideological struggle, but ultimately the eradication of the churches. Other historians maintain no such plan existed. The Salvation Army, Christian Saints, Bruderhof, and the Seventh-day Adventist Church all disappeared from Germany during the Nazi era.
  Nazi ideology was hostile to traditional Christianity in various respects and the Nazi Party saw the Church Struggle as an important ideological battleground.
context_section_description: Kershaw wrote that the subjugation of the Protestant churches proved more difficult than Hitler had envisaged. With 28 separate regional churches, his bid to create a unified Reich Church through Gleichschaltung ultimately failed, and Hitler became uninterested in supporting the so-called "German Christians " Nazi-aligned movement. Historian Susannah Heschel wrote that the Kirchenkampf is "sometimes mistakenly understood as referring to the Protestant churches' resistance to National Socialism, but the term in fact refers to the internal dispute between members of the Bekennende Kirche Confessing Church and members of the [Nazi-backed] Deutsche Christen German Christians for control of the Protestant church."
  In 1933, the "German Christians" wanted Nazi doctrines on race and leadership to be applied to a Reich Church but had only around 3,000 of Germany's 17,000 pastors. In July, church leaders submitted a constitution for a Reich Church, which the Reichstag approved. The Church Federation proposed the well-qualified Pastor Friedrich von Bodelschwingh to be the new Reich Bishop, but Hitler endorsed his friend Ludwig Müller, a Nazi and former naval chaplain, to serve as Reich Bishop. The Nazis terrorized supporters of Bodelschwingh, and dissolved various church organizations, ensuring the election of Muller as Reich Bishop. But Müller's heretical views against Paul the Apostle and the Semitic origins of Christ and the Bible quickly alienated sections of the Protestant church. Pastor Martin Niemöller responded with the Pastors Emergency League which re-affirmed the Bible. The movement grew into the Confessing Church, from which some clergymen opposed the Nazi regime.
  By 1934, the Confessional Church had declared itself the legitimate Protestant Church of Germany. Despite his closeness to Hitler, Müller had failed to united Protestantism behind the National Socialist Party. In response to the regime's attempt to establish a state church, in March 1935, the Confessing Church Synod announced:
  We see our nation threatened with mortal danger; the danger lies in a new religion. The Church has been ordered by its Master to see that Christ is honoured by our nation in a manner befitting the Judge of the world. The Church knows that it will be called to account if the German nation turns its back on Christ without being forewarned".
  The Nazis response to this synod announcement was to arrest 700 Confessing pastors. Müller resigned. To instigate a new effort at coordinating the Protestant churches, Hitler appointed another friend, Hans Kerrl to the position of Minister for Church Affairs. A relative moderate, Kerrl initially had some success in this regard, but amid continuing protests by the Confessing Church against Nazi policies, he accused churchmen of failing to appreciate the Nazi doctrine of "Race, blood and soil" and gave the following explanation of the Nazi conception of "Positive Christianity", telling a group of submissive clergy:
  The Party stands on the basis of Positive Christianity, and positive Christianity is National Socialism... National Socialism is the doing of God's will ... God's will reveals itself in German blood ... Dr Zoellner and [Catholic Bishop of Münster] Count Galen have tried to make clear to me that Christianity consists in faith in Christ as the son of God. That makes me laugh ... No, Christianity is not dependent upon the Apostle's Creed ... True Christianity is represented by the party, and the German people are now called by the party and especially the Fuehrer to a real Christianity ... the Fuehrer is the herald of a new revelation".
  At the end of 1935, the Nazis arrested 700 of Confessional Church pastors. When in May 1936, the Confessing Church sent Hitler a memorandum courteously objecting to the "anti-Christian" tendencies of his regime, condemning anti-Semitism and asking for an end to interference in church affairs. Paul Berben wrote, "A Church envoy was sent to Hitler to protest against the religious persecutions, the concentration camps, and the activities of the Gestapo, and to demand 
caption: Ludwig Müller, Hitler's choice for Reich Bishop of the German Evangelical Church, which sought to subordinate German Protestantism to the Nazi government.[83][verification needed]
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