Religion in Nazi Germany - Organized Religion in Germany 1933-1945

Organized Religion in Germany 1933-1945

Christianity in Germany has, since the Protestant Reformation, been divided into Catholicism and Protestantism. As a specific outcome of the Reformation in Germany, the large Protestant denominations are organized into Landeskirchen (roughly: Federal Churches). The German word for denomination is Konfession. For the large churches in Germany (Catholic and evangelisch i.e., Protestant ) the German government collects the church tax, which is then given to the Churches. For this reason, membership in the Catholic or Protestant (evangelische) Church is officially registered. It is important to keep this official aspect in mind when turning to such questions as the religious beliefs of Adolf Hitler or Joseph Goebbels. Both men were excommunicated through latae sententiae by virtue of their public statements and actions, having ceased to attend Catholic Mass or engage the Catholic Sacraments long before 1933. Yet, neither had individually, or officially, "left" the Church, or refused to pay its church taxes. It is apparent they were politically motivated. For this reason Historian Richard Steigmann-Gall argues that "nominal church membership is a very unreliable gauge of actual piety in this context" and determining someone's actual religious convictions should be based on other criteria.

Historians have taken a look at the numbers of people who left their church in Germany 1933-45. The option to be taken off the church rolls (Kirchenaustritt) has existed in Germany since 1873, when Otto von Bismarck had introduced it as part of the Kulturkampf aimed against Catholicism. For parity this was made possible for Protestants, too, and for the next 40 years it was mostly they who took advantage of it. Statistics exist since 1884 for the Protestant churches and since 1917 for the Catholic Church.

An analysis of this data for the time of the Nazi rule is available in a paper by Sven Granzow et al., published in a collection edited by Götz Aly. Altogether more Protestants than Catholics left their church, however, overall Protestants and Catholics decided similarly. The spike in the numbers from 1937-38 is the result of the annexation of Austria in 1938 and other territories.The number of Kirchenaustritte reached its "historical high" in 1939 when it peaked at 480,000. Granzow et al. see the numbers not only in relation to the Nazi policy towards the churches, (which changed drastically from 1935 onwards) but also as indicator of the trust in the Führer and the Nazi leadership. The decline in the number of people who left the church after 1942 is explained as resulting from a loss of confidence in the future of Nazi Germany. People tended to keep their ties to the church, because they feared an uncertain future.

Ninety percent of the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS or SD members withdrew from their churches, changing their religious affiliation to God-believing but non-church affiliated, while nearly 70% of the officers of the Schutzstaffel SS did the same.