The Reich Interior Ministry and the Evangelical Kirchenkampf, 1933

Abstract

The substantial literature on Adolf Hitler's accession to and consolidation of power during 1933-1934 clearly reveals the early efforts to achieve what the National Socialist regime called Gleichschaltung (policy of coordination). Equally clear is the fact that the application of this strategy to the evangelical churches set off the complex confrontation between state and church which became known as the Kirchenkamp]. It would thus seem a reasonable assumption that the National Socialist state, apparently clairvoyant in matters political, attempted to bring the churches into line fully conscious of its methods and its ultimate objectives. A closer examination of the events, however, casts doubt upon such an assumption. There is no doubt about the reality of the struggle which set the National Socialist German Workers' party (NSDAP)-oriented Deutschen Christen against a variety of individuals and groups representing the church establishment. Nor can the interest of the state in general, and the NSDAP in particular, in evan gelical affairs be questioned.1 To suggest, however, that the party possessed a well-defined set of immediate and long-range goals toward the churches implies a degree of uniformity that did not in fact exist. On the contrary, the party leadership was of several minds as to the best means of dealing with the church question. In this regard, one must note especially the role of a small coterie of bureaucrats in the Ministry of the Interior. Though, except for Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, they re mained largely in the background of the drama, their effect upon the church issue was material.2