Nazi Germany was an overwhelmingly Christian nation with similarly overwhelmingly self-identified Christian leadership. A census in May 1939, six years into the Nazi era and after the annexation of mostly Catholic Austria and mostly Catholic Czechoslovakia into Germany, indicates that 54% of the population considered itself Protestant, 41% considered itself Catholic, 3.5% self-identified as Gottgläubig (lit. "believing in God"), and 1.5% as "atheist". Protestants were over-represented in the Nazi Party's membership and electorate, and Catholics were under-represented.
Smaller religious minorities such as the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Baháʼí Faith were banned in Germany, while the eradication of Judaism was attempted along with the genocide of its adherents. The Salvation Army and the Seventh-day Adventist Church both disappeared from Germany, while astrologers, healers, fortune tellers, and witchcraft were all banned. Some religious minority groups had a more complicated relationship with the new state, for example the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) withdrew its missionaries from Germany and Czechoslovakia in 1938, but German LDS church branches were permitted to continue to operate throughout the war, however, they were forced to make some changes in their structure and teachings. The Nazi Party was frequently at odds with the Pope, who denounced the party by claiming that it had an anti-Catholic veneer.
There were differing views among the Nazi leaders as to the future of religion in Germany. Anti-Church radicals included Hitler's personal secretary Martin Bormann, the propagandist Alfred Rosenberg, and Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Some Nazis, such as Hans Kerrl, who served as Hitler's Minister for Church Affairs, advocated "Positive Christianity", a uniquely Nazi form of Christianity which rejected Christianity's Jewish origins and the Old Testament, and portrayed "true" Christianity as a fight against Jews, with Jesus depicted as an Aryan.
Nazism wanted to transform the subjective consciousness of the German peopleits attitudes, values and mentalitiesinto a single-minded, obedient "national community". The Nazis believed that they would therefore have to replace class, religious and regional allegiances. Under the Gleichschaltung (Nazification) process, Hitler attempted to create a unified Protestant Reich Church from Germany's 28 existing Protestant churches. The plan failed, and was resisted by the Confessing Church. Persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany followed the Nazi takeover. Hitler moved quickly to eliminate political Catholicism. Amid harassment of the Church, the Reich concordat treaty with the Vatican was signed in 1933, and promised to respect Church autonomy. Hitler routinely disregarded the Concordat, closing all Catholic institutions whose functions were not strictly religious. Clergy, nuns, and lay leaders were targeted, with thousands of arrests over the ensuing years. The Catholic Church accused the regime of "fundamental hostility to Christ and his Church". Many historians believe that the Nazis intended to eradicate traditional forms of Christianity in Germany after victory in the war.
Background
Christianity has ancient roots among Germanic peoples dating to the missionary work of Columbanus and St. Boniface in the 6th–8th centuries. The Reformation, initiated by Martin Luther in 1517, divided the German population between a two-thirds majority of Protestants and a one-third minority of Roman Catholics. The south and west remained mainly Catholic, while north and east became mainly Protestant. The Catholic Church enjoyed a degree of privilege in the Bavarian region, the Rhineland and Westphalia as well as parts in south-west Germany, while in the Protestant north, Catholics suffered some discrimination.
Bismarck's Kulturkampf ("Culture Struggle") of 1871–1878 had seen an attempt to assert a Protestant vision of German nationalism over Germany, and fused anticlericalism and suspicion of the Catholic population, whose loyalty was presumed to lie with Austria and France, rather than the new German Empire. The Centre Party had formed in 1870, initially to represent the religious interests of Catholics and Protestants, but was transformed by the Kulturkampf into the "political voice of Catholics". Bismarck's "Culture Struggle" failed in its attempt to eliminate Catholic institutions in Germany, or their strong connections outside of Germany, particularly various international missions and Rome.