Religious Policies

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Single Party States

Objective: Impose ideology and philosophy

Eliminate or subjugate organizations with rival ideologies,

value systems, and rival power groups: Religion

.

Religion = Threat to single-party states

Traditions

Wealth

International connections

Support of powerful figures: Pope


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CHURCH-STATE RELATIONSHIP

In order to remove the church, Hitlers approach would be to seek control of

them through harmony and laterreduce their influence to finally replace

them.

Nazi Germany the Churches reactions to Nazism were divided.

Similarities Differences

Share similar ideals:

traditional values

Hostility to communism

respect for nationalism

importance of family life

Churches:

Love

Cooperation

Nazism:

Hate

Struggle

Set new assert ive Aryan faith.


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Changes in the Church

Churches before 1933:

Catholic: Powerful, range of bodies. 1/5 votes in Weimar election

Protestants: Over 40 million members. 28 state based churches

Religious organizations during the third Reich where:

The Reich Church: Coordinated religion

German Christians: SA of the church

Confessional Church: Defended protestant church

German Faith Movement: Replace Christianity with new Nazi paganfaith


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CONTROL

Protestant Churches: Support German Christians to instill Nazism in Christianity

Establish the Reich Church to combine all Protestants within onestructure.

Require pastors to take an oath of loyalty to Hitler.

AS A RESULT:opposit ion raised by th is effor t to Nazify it organized in the

Confess ional Church div id ing the Protestant communi ty evenmore.

Catholic Church: Set agreement to gain support: the Concordat.

Papacy agreed to dissolve the Centre Party and cease to interfere inpolitics

Nazis agreed that the Church could keep control of its education andyouth institutions.


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REDUCE INFLUENCE

Attacked and discredited church interference in politics.

Targeted the young, encouraged them to join the Hitler's youth anddisbanded religious education from schools.

200 priests were accused of sexual misbehavior.

Encouraged Germans to abandon their churches launching aChurch Secession Campaign.

No clear strategy and measures taken were uneven

Attacks were reduced as opposition rose from the Church.

THE GOVERNMENT INTENDED TO REPLACE

CHRISTIANITY WITH THE NEW GERMAN MOVEMENT


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REACTIONS

German people: Most of the population wasChristianand supported Hitler. Many criticizedgovernment measures against the Churches and

blamed the radicals around Hitler, not the greatleader himself.

Churches:Protect their institutions and beliefs.The pope issued the With Burning Grief:encyclical that complained about the governmentnot respecting the Concordat and other aspectstheirdisliked about Nazism.


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AFTERMATH

800 protestant pastors where arrested 50 were severely imprisoned

Almost half of the Christian clergy whereharassed in some way

The relationship between the State and the

Church was a complex one that reflected the feareach side had of the other. Both the State and

the Church felt they were threatened by thepower of each other due to the influence they

could exert on the German people.


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Nazis ideals

Volksgemeinschaft

healthy and Aryan community who worked for the

good of the nation

Gemeinschaftusgunfahig (opposite):

Outsider had to be excluded from the

community. Ideological (Communists)

Biological (Jews & hereditary illnesses)

Social (work-shy)


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German View

Source 1:The Aryan race is tall, long

legged, slim. The race is

narrow-faced, with a narrow

forehead, a narrow highbuilt

nose and a lower jawand prominent chin, the skin

is rosy bright and the blood

shines through .... the hair is

smooth, straight or wavy -possibly curly in childhood.

The colour is blond

Description of a pure

Aryan. From a leaflet The

Nazi Race, 1929.A boy and a girl used in a

Nazi poster.


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Policies

Law allowing compulsory sterilization of

the hereditary ill

350,000 were sterilized and 100 died.

Put to sleep policy: killing the incurably

ill, including the; maniac depression,

hereditary epilepsy, hereditary blindness,

hereditary deafness and serious physical

deformities.

Asocial, homosexuals, religious sects and

gypsies also suffered policies of the Nazi

regime.


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Anti-Semitic policies

Prejudice against or hostility towardsJews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic

background, culture, and/or religion.

The Night of the Broken Glass - Hitlersdesire to eliminate completely the Jews

from Germany

Final Solution - Nazi Germany's planand execution of the systematic genocide

of European Jews during World War II

5 million Jews were executed.


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Bibliography

Elliot, B.J. Hitler and Germany, second

edition. London: Modern Times, 1991.

Hide, John and Hunton, Chris. Weimar &

Nazi Germany. London: John Murray,

2000.

Saver, John. Nazi Germay 1933-1945.

London: Hodder & Stoughtone, 1995.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism

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