Gathering The Opposition in The Emergency Covenant of Pastors
On September 11, 1933 Gerhard Jacobi, pastor of William I Memorial Church, Berlin, gathered ca. 60 opposing pastors, who clearly saw the breach of Christian and Protestant principles. Weschke and Günter Jacob proposed to found the Pfarrernotbund, and so they did, electing Pastor Martin Niemöller their president. On the basis of the theses of Günter Jacob its members concluded that a schism was a matter of fact, a new Protestant church was to be established, since the official destroyed churches were anti-Christian, heretical and therefore illegitimate. Each pastor joining the Covenant - until the end of September 1933 2,036 out of a total of 18,842 Protestant pastors in Germany acceded - had to sign that he rejected the Aryan paragraph.
In 1934 the Covenant counted 7,036 members, after 1935 the number sank to 4,952, among them 374 retired pastors, 529 auxiliary preachers and 116 candidates of ministry.
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