Free An Honourable Defeat by Anton Gill

Socialism.
    Dahlem was the richest parish in Germany. Among his parishioners, Niemöller counted Kurt von Hammerstein, Hans Oster and other members of the future Resistance. It is a feature of the Resistance that many of its members were, or became, devout Christians — and it has been argued that faith was a form of ‘inner emigration’ for some of them, [22] though equally it may have been an attestation of their right to think independently. In the latter case, they could not have chosen a better champion than Niemöller.
    But Resistance within the Church was not a simple matter; when Niemöller raised his voice against the Nazis, it was not against all aspects of their rule. Nazi anti-Semitism, for example, was no more singled out for initial criticism by the Church than it was by the Army. The Church’s first consideration was its own independent right to exist. Its Resistance, therefore, was against Gleichschaltung . For his part, Hitler naturally wanted to bring the Church into line with everything else in his scheme of things. He knew he dare not simply eradicate it: that would not have been possible with such an international organisation, and he would have lost many Christian supporters had he tried to. His principal aim was to unify the German Evangelical Church under a pro-Nazi banner, and to come to an accommodation with the Catholics.
    At the time there were three Protestants to every two Catholics in Germany, but the Church was more than a house divided against itself along the main sectarian line, and this was to the Nazis’ advantage.
    To take the Evangelical Church first. Every state in post-Reformation Germany had its own sect. In 1919 there were thirty-eight different Calvinist, Lutheran and United Churches under the domination of the Old Prussian Union, though this number was reduced by ten under an amalgamation move in 1922. Although the Church was seen — and saw itself — as apolitical, not interfering in the affairs of state, German Church leaders were conservative at heart and had watched some of the liberal and pro-secular developments of the Weimar Republic with dismay. The new authority, representing as it seemed the solid old values of Imperial Germany, was seen by some as a great opportunity — under Gleichschaltung — to unify the disparate sects. Hitler knew this, and exploited it. In doing so he caused the lines of division within the Evangelical Church to be redrawn along political rather than sectarian lines. But also he thus indirectly obliged the Church to look at its own meaning afresh.
    Hitler’s supporters within the Church formed the movement of German Christians, which upheld the idea of a Reich bishop and the unification of all sects under him. The movement also sought the nazification of the Church in that the Church would accept all the totalitarian and racist aspects of National Socialist policy. Hitler’s candidate for the bishopric was Ludwig Müller, an Army chaplain whose chief claim to fame (and this is how Hitler must have heard of him) was that he had converted Blomberg to the idea of Nazism. Milner was not a forceful or convincing character, however, and once it was realised that he was a political tool rather than a spiritual leader, many of those who might have supported him in the interests of Church unity withdrew their support despite his Nazi backing. In the elections for Reich bishop, which took place in the spring of 1933, another candidate was elected: Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, a pious and respected churchman from the famous community of Bethel.
    The victory was short-lived, for Hitler was not about to let the Church get its own way. To begin with, he tried to put pressure on it through political control. Bodelschwingh, unable to muster wholehearted support in protest at this, resigned, but still the Prussian Church would not accept the commissioner appointed to bring it into line. Hindenburg had to intervene, and Hitler again had to retreat. But not