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The Confessing Church
The Confessing Church
The Confessing Church was a German protestant church that came about in an attempt to halt the Nazi ideals of intervening in the running of the German church. The protestants of Germany were largely in support of the Nazi regime at first, as the Nazis presented ideals similar to those of the days of the empire with a strong leader, like the Kaiser, which the church was in favour of. However, as the Nazis grew stronger, so did the resistance. Key figures like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoller opposed the Nazi takeover of the church, they favoured the separation of the throne and the alter , and as the German Christians (the Nazi church) gained control of much of the religion in Germany resistance needed to be formed. The resistance formed the Confessing Church, a church that opposed both the intervention of the Nazis and the ideological views of the Nazis. The Confessing Church issued a memorandum to the Nazi party, stating that the Confessing Church:
protested the regime's anti-Christian tendencies denounced the regime's anti-Semitism demanded that the regime terminate its interference with the internal affairs of the Protestant church
arresting several hundred dissenting pastors murdering Dr. Friedrich Weiler, office manager and legal advisor of the second preliminary church executive of the Confessing Church, in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp
confiscating the funds of the Confessing Church forbidding the Confessing Church from taking up collections of offertories Niemoller and Bonhoeffer were both executed