The Calvinist (Reformed) and Lutheran Protestant churches had existed in parallel after Prince-Elector
John Sigismund declared his conversion from
Lutheranism to
Calvinism in 1617, with most of his subjects remaining Lutheran. However, a significant Calvinist minority had grown due to the reception of thousands of Calvinists refugees fleeing oppression by the Catholic
Counter-Reformation in
Bohemia, France (
Huguenots), the
Low Countries, and
Wallonia or migrants from
Jülich-Cleves-Berg, the
Netherlands, Poland, or
Switzerland. Their descendants made up the bulk of the Calvinists in Brandenburg. At issue over many decades was how to unite into one church.
Royal attempts to merge Lutherans and Calvinists , King of Prussia and Prince of Neuchâtel One year after he ascended to the throne in 1798, Frederick William III, being Supreme Governor of the Protestant Churches, decreed a new common
liturgical agenda (service book) to be published for use in both the Lutheran and Reformed congregations. The king, a Reformed Christian, lived in a denominationally mixed marriage with the Lutheran
Queen Louise, which is why they never partook of Communion together. A commission was formed in order to prepare this common agenda. This liturgical agenda was the culmination of the efforts of his predecessors to unify the two Protestant churches in Prussia and in its predecessor, the
Electorate of Brandenburg. Major reforms to the administration of Prussia were undertaken after the defeat by
Napoléon's army at the
Battle of Jena-Auerstedt. As a part of these reforms, the separate leadership structures of both the Lutheran Church (with its chief body, the all-Prussian (Lutheran Upper
Consistory), 1750–1808, and the Reformed Churches (with their chief bodies, the all-Prussian Französisches Oberkonsistorium /Consistoire supérieur (French Supreme Consistory); 1701–1808, and the all-Prussian German-speaking Reformed Kirchendirektorium (Church Directory); 1713–1808) were abolished and the tasks of the three administrations were taken on by the t (Section for the
cult and public instruction), also competent for the Catholic church and the Jewish congregations, forming a department in the
Prussian Ministry of the Interior. Under the influence of the centralising movement of
absolutism and the
Napoleonic Age, after the defeat of Napoléon I in 1815, rather than reestablishing the previous denominational leadership structures, all religious communities were placed under a single
consistory in each of the then ten
Prussian provinces. When Prussia finally received a parliament in 1847, some church leadership offices included a seat in the
first chamber of non-elected, but appointed members (succeeded by the
House of Lords of Prussia as of 1854). A number of steps were taken to effect the number of pastors that would become Union pastors. Candidates for ministry, from 1820 onwards were required to state whether they would be willing to join the Union. All of the
theological faculty at the
Rhenish Frederick William's University in Bonn belonged to the Union. An
ecumenical ordination vow in which the pastor avowed allegiance to the Evangelical Church was also formulated.
Quarrels over the union In 1821, the administrative umbrella comprising the Protestant congregations in Prussia adopted the name
Evangelical Church in the Royal Prussian Lands. At Christmas time the same year, a common liturgical agenda was produced, as a result of a great deal of personal work by Frederick William, as well by the commission that he had appointed in 1798. The agenda was not well received by many Lutherans, as it was seen to compromise the wording of the
Words of Institution to the point that the
Real Presence was not proclaimed. More importantly, the increasing coercion of the civil authorities into church affairs was viewed as a new threat to Protestant freedom of a kind not seen since the Papacy. In 1822, the Protestant congregations were directed to use only the newly formulated
Agenda for
worship. This met with strong objections from Lutheran pastors around Prussia. Despite the opposition, 5,343 out of 7,782 Protestant congregations were using the new agenda by 1825. Frederick William III took notice of , who had become his subject by the annexation of
Royal Saxon territory in 1816, and who had helped the king to implement the agenda in his Lutheran congregations. In 1823, the king made him the
Provost of
St. Petri Church(then the highest ranking ecclesiastical office in Berlin) and an
Oberkonsistorialrat (supreme consistorial councillor) and thus a member of the Marcher Consistory. He became an influential confidant of the king and one of his privy councillors and a referee to Minister Stein zum Altenstein. After in 1818, 16 provincial synods – in German parlance a
synod is a church parliament rather than the district it represents – had convened. Minister Stein zum Altenstein and the King were disappointed over the outcome, especially after the Marcher provincial synod, disliking the whole idea of parishioners' participation in church governance. The king then preferred a rather top-down organization and introduced the ecclesiastical leadership function of
general superintendents, which had already existed in some provinces before the reform. In 1828, Neander was appointed first General Superintendent of the
Kurmark (1829–1853). Thus Neander fought in three fields for the new agenda, on the governmental level, within the church, and in the general public, by publications such as
Luther in Beziehung auf die evangelische Kirchen-Agende in den Königlich Preussischen Landen (1827). In 1830, the king bestowed him the very unusual, title of honorary bishop. The king also bestowed titles on other collaborators in implementing the Union, with the honorary title of bishop, such as Eylert (1824), (1832), and (1836). Debate and opposition to the new agenda persisted until 1829, when a revised edition of the agenda was produced. This liturgy incorporated a greater level of elements from the Lutheran liturgical tradition. With this introduction, the dissent against the agenda was greatly reduced. However, a significant minority felt this was merely a temporary political compromise with which the king could continue his ongoing campaign to establish a civil authority over their
freedom of conscience. In June 1829, Frederick William ordered that all Protestant congregations and clergy in Prussia give up the names
Lutheran or
Reformed and take up the name
Evangelical. The decree was not to enforce a change of belief or denomination, but was only a change of nomenclature. Subsequently, the term
Evangelical () became the usual general expression for Protestant in the German language. In April 1830, Frederick William, in his instructions for the upcoming celebration of the 300th anniversary of the presentation of the
Augsburg Confession, ordered all Protestant congregations in Prussia to celebrate the
Lord's Supper using the new agenda. Rather than having the unifying effect that Frederick William desired, the decree created a great deal of dissent amongst Lutheran congregations. In 1830,
Johann Gottfried Scheibel, professor of theology at the
Silesian Frederick William's University, founded in
Breslau the first Lutheran congregation in Prussia, independent of the Union and outside of its umbrella organisation Evangelical Church in the Royal Prussian Lands. In a compromise with some dissenters, who had now earned the name
Old Lutherans, in 1834 Frederick William issued a decree, which stated that Union would only be in the areas of governance, and in the liturgical agenda, and that the respective congregations could retain their denominational identities. However, in a bid to quell future dissensions of his Union, dissenters were also forbidden from organising
sectarian groups. In defiance of this decree, a number of Lutheran pastors and congregations – like that in Breslau – believing it was contrary to the Will of God to obey the king's decree, continued to use the old liturgical agenda and sacramental rites of the Lutheran church. Becoming aware of this defiance, officials sought out those who acted against the decree. Pastors who were caught were suspended from their ministry. If suspended pastors were caught acting in a pastoral role, they were imprisoned. Having now shown his hand as a tyrant bent on oppressing their religious freedom, and under continual police surveillance, the Evangelical Church in the Royal Prussian Lands began disintegrating.
Old Lutheran schism By 1835, many dissenting Old Lutheran groups were looking to emigration as a means to finding
religious freedom. Some groups emigrated to the United States and to Australia in the years leading up to 1840. They formed what are today the
Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (the second largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S), and the
Lutheran Church of Australia, respectively. With the death of Frederick William III in 1840, King
Frederick William IV ascended to the throne. He released the pastors who had been imprisoned, and allowed the dissenting groups to form religious organisations in freedom. In 1841, the Old Lutherans who had stayed in Prussia convened in a general
synod in Breslau and founded the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Prussia, which merged in 1972 with Old Lutheran church bodies in other German states to become today's
Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church (, or SELK). On 23 July 1845, the royal government recognised the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Prussia and its congregations as legal entities. In the same year the Evangelical Church in the Royal Prussian Lands reinforced its self-conception as the Prussian State's church and was renamed as the
Evangelical State Church of Prussia ().
Foreign commitment of the Church , then ''Supreme Governor of the Evangelical Church of Prussia's older Provinces'', and Queen
Augusta Victoria after the inauguration of the
Evangelical Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem (
Reformation Day, 31 October 1898). At the instigation of Frederick William IV the Anglican
Church of England and the Evangelical Church in the Royal Prussian Lands founded the
Anglican-Evangelical Bishopric in Jerusalem (1841–1886). Its bishops and clergy proselytised in the
Holy Land among the non-Muslim native population and German immigrants, such as the
Templers. But Calvinist, Evangelical, and Lutheran
expatriates in the Holy Land from Germany and Switzerland also joined the German-speaking congregations. in Rechov
Beer-Hofmann # 15 (רחוב בר הופמן) A number of congregations of Arabic or German language emerged in
Beit Jalla (Ar.),
Beit Sahour (Ar.),
Bethlehem of Judea (Ar.),
German Colony (Haifa) (Ger.),
American Colony (Jaffa) (Ger.),
Jerusalem (Ar. a. Ger.),
Nazareth (Ar.), and
Waldheim (Ger.). With financial aid from Prussia, other German states, the , the , and others, a number of churches and other premises were built. But there were also congregations of emigrants and expatriates in other areas of the
Ottoman Empire (2), as well as in
Argentina (3),
Brazil (10),
Bulgaria (1),
Chile (3),
Egypt (2),
Italy (2), the
Netherlands (2),
Portugal (1),
Romania (8),
Serbia (1), Spain (1),
Switzerland (1),
United Kingdom (5), and
Uruguay (1) and the foreign department of the Evangelical Supreme Church Council (see below) stewarded them.
Structures and bodies of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia The Evangelical State Church of Prussia stayed abreast of the changes and was renamed in 1875 as the '''Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces''' (). est. in 1850, renamed the Church Chancery in 1951), seated in Jebensstraße # 3 (Berlin, 1912–2003) and the legislative General Synod (). The General Synod first convened in June 1846, presided over by Daniel Neander, and consisting of representatives of the clergy, the parishioners, and members nominated by the king. The General Synod found agreement on the teaching and the ordination, but the king did not confirm any of its decisions. The Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces had substructures, called ecclesiastical province (; see
ecclesiastical province of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia), in the nine pre-1866 political provinces of Prussia, to wit in the
Province of East Prussia (homonymous ecclesiastical province), in Berlin, which had become a separate Prussian administrative unit in 1881, and the
Province of Brandenburg (Ecclesiastical Province of the March of Brandenburg for both), in the
Province of Pomerania (homonymous), in the
Province of Posen (homonymous), in the
Rhine Province and since 1899 in the
Province of Hohenzollern (Ecclesiastical Province of the Rhineland), in the
Province of Saxony (homonymous), in the
Province of Silesia (homonymous), in the
Province of Westphalia (homonymous), and in the
Province of West Prussia (homonymous). Every ecclesiastical province had a provincial synod representing the provincial parishioners and clergy, and one or more
consistories led by
general superintendents. The
ecclesiastical provinces of Pomerania and Silesia had two (after 1922), those of Saxony and the
March of Brandenburg, three – from 1911 to 1933 the latter even four – general superintendents, annually alternating in the leadership of the respective consistory. The two western provinces, Rhineland and Westphalia, had the strongest Calvinist background, since they included the territories of the former Duchies of
Berg,
Cleves, and
Jülich, the Counties of
Mark and
Tecklenburg,
Siegerland, and the
Principality of Wittgenstein, all of which had Calvinist traditions. Already in 1835, the provincial church constitutions () provided for a general superintendent and congregations in both ecclesiastical provinces with presbyteries of elected presbyters. This level of parishioners' democracy emerged in the other Prussian provinces only in 1874, when
Otto von Bismarck, in his second term as
Prussian Minister-President (9 November 1873 – 20 March 1890), gained the parliamentary support of the
National Liberals in the
Prussian State Diet (). Prussia's then minister of education and religious affairs,
Adalbert Falk, put the bill through, which extended the combined Rhenish and Westphalian presbyterial and consistorial church constitution to all of the
Evangelical State Church in Prussia. Therefore, the terminology is different, In the Rhineland and Westphalia a presbytery is called a
Presbyterium, and a member thereof is a
Presbyter, while in the other provinces the corresponding terms are
Gemeindekirchenrat ("congregation council") and
Älteste (
elder). Authoritarian traditions competed with liberal and modern ones. Committed congregants formed
Kirchenparteien, which nominated candidates for elections to the parochial
presbyteries and the provincial or church-wide general
synods. Obe strong
Kirchenpartei was the
Konfessionellen ("the denominationals"), congregants of Lutheran tradition, who had submitted in the process of uniting the denominations after 1817 and still fought the Prussian Union. They promoted
Neo-Lutheranism and strictly opposed the liberal stream of , promoting rationalism and a reconcialition of belief and modern knowledge, advocated by the
Deutscher Protestantenverein. Another
Kirchenpartei was the anti-liberal
Volkskirchlich-Evangelische Vereinigung (VEV, "People's Church-Evangelical Association"), By far the most successful
Kirchenpartei in church elections was the anti-liberal
Union, which had much in common with the
Konfessionellen, but affirmed the Prussian Union. Therefore, the
Positive Union often formed coalitions with the
Konfessionellen. King
William I of Prussia sided with the
Positive Union. In 1888 King
William II of Prussia could only appoint the liberal
Adolf von Harnack as professor of theology at the
Frederick William University of Berlin after long public debates and protests by the
Evangelical Supreme Church Council. The ever-growing societal segment of the workers among the Evangelical parishioners had little affinity to the Church, which was dominated in their pastors and functionaries by members of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy. A survey held in early 1924 determine that in 96
churches in Berlin,
Charlottenburg, and
Schöneberg, only 9–15% of the parishioners actually attended the services. Congregations in workers' districts, often comprising tens of thousands of parishioners, usually counted hardly more than a hundred congregants in regular services. William II and his wife
Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, who presided over the Evangelical Association for the Construction of Churches, often financed church construction for poor congregations and promoted massive programmes of church constructions especially in workers' districts, but could not increase the attraction of the State Church for the workers. However, it earned the queen the nickname
Kirchen-Juste. Most leading clerics and church functionaries were connected with the traditional Prussian elite; so the State Church considered
World War I to be a just war. Pacifists, like Hans Francke (Church of the Holy Cross, Berlin), Walter Nithack-Stahn (
William I Memorial Church, Charlottenburg [a part of today's Berlin]), and
Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze (Evangelical
Auferstehungsheim, Friedensstraße No. 60, Berlin) made up a small, but growing minority among the clergy. The State Church supported the issuances of nine series of
war bonds and subscribed itself for war bonds amounting to 41 million
marks (ℳ).
Territorial and constitutional changes after 1918 With the end of the Prussian monarchy in 1918 also the king's function as
summus episcopus (Supreme Governor of the Evangelical Church) ceased to exist. Furthermore, the
Weimar Constitution of 1919 decreed the
separation of state and religion. Thus its new constitution of 29 September 1922 the ''Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces'' reorganised in 1922 under the name
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union (, EKapU or ApU). which existed separately from the
Evangelical-Augsburg Church in Poland until 1945, when most of the former's congregants fled the approaching Soviet army or were subsequently denaturalised by Poland due to their German native language and expelled (1945–1950). The
United Evangelical Church in Poland also incorporated the Evangelical congregations in
Pomerellia, ceded by Germany to Poland in February 1920, which prior used to belong to the
Ecclesiastical Province of West Prussia, as well as the congregations in
Soldau and 32 further East Prussian municipalities, which Germany ceded to Poland on 10 January 1920, prior belonging to the
Ecclesiastical Province of East Prussia. The 17 congregations in
East Upper Silesia, ceded to Poland in 1922, constituted on 6 June 1923 as . The church formed an old-Prussian ecclesiastical province until May 1937, when the
German Polish Geneva Accord on Upper Silesia expired. Thus the plebiscite missed the minimum turnout and failed. A problem was the spiritual vacuum, which emerged after the church stopped being a state church.
Otto Dibelius, since 1925 general superintendent of
Kurmark within the
Ecclesiastical Province of the March of Brandenburg, published his book
Das Jahrhundert der Kirche (
The century of the Church), in which he declared the 20th century to be the era when the Evangelical Church may for the first time develop freely and gain the independence God would have wished for, without the burden and constraints of the state church function. He regarded the role of the church as even the more important, since the state of the
Weimar Republic – in his eyes – would not provide the society with binding norms any more, thus this would be the task of the church. The church would have to stand for the defense of the Christian culture of the
Occident. In this respect Dibelius regarded himself as consciously anti-Jewish, explaining in a circular to the pastors in his general superintendency district of
Kurmark, "that with all degenerating phenomena of modern civilisation Judaism plays a leading role". His book was one of the most read on church matters in that period. However, these secessions were still compensated by baptisands and migrants. In the early and mid-1920s the annual number of secessions amounted to about 80,000. Especially in the country-side, there often were no developed
Kirchenparteien, thus activist congregants formed common lists of candidates of many different opinions. In the inter-war years the general synod convened five times. All those, covering the territory of former monarchies with a ruling Protestant dynasty, had been state churches until 1918 – except of the Protestant church bodies of territories annexed by Prussia in 1866. Others had been no less territorially defined Protestant minority church bodies within states of Catholic monarchs, where – before 1918 – the Roman Catholic Church played the role of state church. In fact, a merger was permanently under discussion, but never materialised due to strong regional self-confidence and traditions as well as the denominational fragmentation into Lutheran, Calvinist and
United and uniting churches. Following the
Schweizerischer Evangelischer Kirchenbund (Swiss Federation of Protestant Churches) of 1920, the then 29 territorially defined German Protestant church bodies founded the
Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchenbund (German Federation of Protestant Churches) in 1922, which was no new merged church, but a loose confederacy of the existing independent church bodies.
Under Nazi rule In the period of the
Third Reich the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union fell into deep disunity. Most clerics, representatives and parishioners welcomed the Nazi takeover. Most Protestants suggested that the mass arrests, following the
abolition of central civic rights by
Paul von Hindenburg on 28 February 1933, hit the right persons. On 20 March 1933
Dachau concentration camp, the first official premise of its kind, was opened, while 150,000 hastily arrested inmates were held in hundreds of spontaneous so-called
wild concentration camps, to be gradually evacuated into about 100 new official camps to be opened until the end of 1933. On 21 March 1933 the newly elected
Reichstag convened in the
Evangelical Garrison Church of
Potsdam, an event commemorated as the
Day of Potsdam, and the locally competent Gen.-Supt.
Dibelius preached. The Nazi Reich's government, aiming at streamlining the Protestant churches, recognised the
German Christians as its means to do so. On 4 and 5 April 1933 representatives of the German Christians convened in Berlin and demanded the dismissal of all members of the executive bodies of the 28 Protestant church bodies in Germany. The German Christians demanded their ultimate merger into a uniform German Protestant Church, led according to the Nazi
Führerprinzip by a Reich's Bishop (), abolishing all democratic participation of parishioners in presbyteries and synods. The German Christians announced the appointment of a Reich's Bishop for 31 October 1933, the
Reformation Day holiday. Furthermore, the German Christians demanded to purify Protestantism of all Jewish patrimony, proposing the abandonment of the
Old Testament. In a mood of an emergency through an impending Nazi takeover functionaries of the then officiating executive bodies of the 28 Protestant church bodies stole a march on the German Christians. Functionaries and activists worked hastily on negotiating between the 28 Protestant church bodies a legally indoubtable unification on 25 April 1933 three men convened, , president of the old-Prussian
Evangelical Supreme Church Council– representing United Protestantism –
August Marahrens, state bishop of the
Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Hanover (for the Lutherans), and the Reformed , director of the preacher seminary in
Wuppertal, to prepare the constitution of a united church which they called the German Evangelical Church too. This caused the later confusion when the streamlined Reich church and the
Confessing Church alike identified as being the legitimate church of that name. The Nazi government compelled the negotiators to include its representative, the former
army chaplain Ludwig Müller from
Königsberg, a devout
German Christian. The plans were to dissolve the
German Evangelical Church Confederation and the 28 church bodies and to replace them by a uniform Protestant church, to be called the
German Evangelical Church (). On 27 May 1933 representatives of the 28 church bodies gathered in Berlin, and, against a minority voting for
Ludwig Müller, elected
Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, head of the
Bethel Institution and member of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, Reich's Bishop, a newly created title. The German Christians strictly opposed that election, because Bodelschwingh was not their partisan. Thus the Nazis, who were permanently breaking the law, stepped in, using the streamlined Prussian government, and declared the functionaries had exceeded their authority.
Abolition of religious autonomy Once the Nazi government figured out that the Protestant church bodies would not be streamlined from within using the German Christians, they abolished the constitutional
freedom of religion and religious organisation, declaring the unauthorised election of Bodelschwingh had created a situation contravening the constitutions of the Protestant churches, and on these grounds, on 24 June the Nazi Minister of Cultural Affairs,
Bernhard Rust appointed
August Jäger as
Prussian State Commissioner for the Prussian ecclesiastical affairs (). This act clearly violated the status of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union as statutory body () and subjecting it to Jäger's orders (see
Struggle of the Churches, ). Bodelschwingh resigned as Reich's Bishop the same day. On 28 June Jäger appointed Müller as new Reich's Bishop and on 6 July as leader of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, then with 18 million parishioners by far the biggest Protestant church body within Germany, with 41 million Protestants altogether (total population: 62 millions). Kapler resigned as president of the
Evangelical Supreme Church Council, after he had applied for retirement on 3 June, and Gen.-Supt. Wilhelm Haendler (competent for Berlin's suburbia), then presiding the
March of Brandenburg Consistory retired for age reasons.), Dibelius, (superintendent of the Cölln Land I deanery in the southwestern suburbs of Berlin), (general superintendent of Berlin inner city), and (general superintendent of
Lower Lusatia and the
New March), thus decapitating the complete spiritual leadership of the
Ecclesiastical Province of the March of Brandenburg. Then the
German Christian Dr. iur. was appointed as provisional president of the
Evangelical Supreme Church Council, which he remained after his official appointment by the re-elected old-Prussian general synod until 1945. The new synods of the 28 Protestant churches were to declare their dissolution as separate church bodies. Representatives of all 28 Protestant churches were to attend the newly created
National Synod to confirm Müller as Reich's Bishop. Müller already now regarded himself as leader of that new organisation. He established a
Spiritual Ministerium (, seated in Berlin, Marchstraße # 2 in the former premises of the
German Evangelical Church Confederation), being the executive body, consisting of four persons, who were not to be elected, but whom he appointed himself.
Church under streamlined leadership On 15 July, the Nazi government lifted state control over the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, claiming the counter-constitutional situation were healed. Since the day Müller had become leader of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union he systematically abolished the intra-organisational democracy. On 4 August Müller assumed the title
State Bishop (), a title and function non-existing in the constitution of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, and claimed hierarchical supremacy over all clerics and other employees as is usual for Catholic
bishops. In the campaign for the premature re-election of all presbyters and synodals on 23 July the Nazi Reich's government sided with the German Christians. Under the impression of the government's partiality the other existing lists of opposing candidates united to form the list
Evangelical Church. The
Gestapo (est. 26 April 1933) ordered the list to change its name and to replace all its election posters and flyers issued under the forbidden name. Pastor () hosted the opposing list in the office for the homeless of his congregation in Mirbachstraße # 24 (now Bänschstraße # 52). The Gestapo confiscated the office and the printing-press there, in order to hinder any reprint. Thus the list, which had renamed into (), took refuge with the
Evangelical Press Association (), presided by Dibelius and printed new election posters in its premises in Alte Jacobstraße # 129, Berlin. The night before the election Hitler appealed on the radio to all Protestants to vote for candidates of the German Christians, while the
Nazi Party declared, all its Protestant members were obliged to vote for the German Christians. Thus the turnout in the elections was extraordinarily high, since most non-observant Protestants, who since long aligned with the Nazis, had voted. 70–80% of the newly elected presbyters and synodals of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union were candidates of the German Christians. In Berlin e.g., the candidates of
Gospel and Church only won the majority in two presbyteries, in Niemöller's
Dahlem Congregation, and in the congregation in Berlin-
Staaken-Dorf. In 1933 among the pastors of Berlin, 160 stuck to
Gospel and Church, 40 were German Christians while another 200 had taken neither side. German Christians won a majority within the general synod of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union and within its provincial synods – except of
the one of Westphalia –, On 5 and 6 September the same year the
General Synod of the whole
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union convened in the building of the former
Prussian State Council (Leipziger Straße No. 3, now seat of the
Federal Council (Germany)). Also here the German Christians used their new majority, thus this
General Synod became known among the opponents as the
Brown Synod, for brown being the colour of the Nazi party. When on 5 September , then
praeses of the unadulterated Westphalian provincial synod, tried to bring forward the arguments of the opposition against the
Aryan paragraph and the abolition of synodal and presbyterial democracy, the majority of German Christian synodals shouted him down. The German Christians abused the general synod as a mere acclamation, like a Nazi party convention. Koch and his partisans left the synod. The same law renamed the ecclesiastical provinces into bishoprics (, sg./pl.), each led – according to the new law of 6 September – by a provincial bishop () replacing the prior general superintendents. By enabling the dismissal of all Protestants of Jewish descent from jobs with the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, the official church bodies accepted the Nazi racist doctrine of
anti-Semitism. This breach with Christian principles within the range of the church was unacceptable to many church members. Nevertheless, pursuing
Martin Luther's
Doctrine of the two kingdoms (God rules within the world: Directly within the church and in the state by means of the secular government) many church members could not see any basis, how a Protestant church body could interfere with the anti-Semitism performed in the state sphere, since in its self-conception the church body was a religious, not a political organisation. Only few parishioners and clergy, mostly of Reformed tradition, followed
John Calvin's doctrine of the
Kingdom of Christ within the church
and the world. Among them were
Karl Barth and
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who demanded the church bodies to oppose the abolition of democracy and the unlawfulness in the general political sphere. Especially pastors in the countryside – often younger men, since the traditional pastoral career ladder started in a village parish – were outraged about this development. , Eugen Weschke, and , three pastors from
Lower Lusatia, regarded the introduction of the
Aryan paragraph as the violation of the confession. In late summer 1933 Jacob, pastor in Noßdorf (a part of today's
Forst in Lusatia/Baršć), developed the central theses, which became the self-commitment of the opponents.
Emergency Covenant of Pastors On 11 September 1933 Gerhard Jacobi gathered c. 60 opposing pastors, who clearly saw the breach of Christian and Protestant principles. Weschke and Günter Jacob proposed to found the
Emergency Covenant of Pastors (), and so they did, electing Pastor Niemöller their president. a new Protestant church was to be established, since the official organisation was anti-Christian,
heretical and therefore illegitimate. Each pastor joining the Covenant – until the end of September 1933 2,036 out of a total of 18,842 Protestant pastors in Germany acceded – had to sign that he rejected the
Aryan paragraph.
Abolition of synods On 18 September 1933 Werner was appointed praeses of the old-Prussian general synod, thus becoming president of the church senate. For more and more purposes Germans had to prove their so-called
Aryan descent, which usually was confirmed by copies from the baptismal registers of the churches, certifying that all four grandparents had been baptised. Some pastors soon understood, that people lacking four baptised grandparents are helped a lot – and later even rescued their lives – if they were certified to be
Aryan by false copies from the baptismal registers. Pastor Paul Braune (Lobetal, a part of today's
Bernau bei Berlin) issued a memorandum, secretly handed out to pastors of confidence, how to falsify the best. But the majority of pastors in their
legalist attitude would not issue false copies. On 13 November 20,000 German Christians convened in the
Berlin Sportpalast for a general meeting. Dr. Reinhold Krause, then president of the Greater Berlin section of the German Christians, held a speech, defaming the
Old Testament for its alleged "Jewish morality of rewards" (), and demanding the cleansing of the
New Testament from the "scapegoat mentality and theology of inferiority" (), whose emergence Krause attributed to the Rabbi
(Sha'ul) Paul of Tarsos. A wave of protest flooded over the German Christians, which ultimately initiated the decline of that movement. On 25 November the complete Bavarian section of the German Christians declared its secession. So Krause was dismissed from his functions with the German Christians and the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union. Krause's dismissal again made the radical Thuringian subsection declare its secession by the end of November. However the
German Christian functionaries on the higher levels mostly remained aboard. On 4 January 1934 Ludwig Müller, claiming to have by his title as Reich's Bishop legislative power for all Protestant church bodies in Germany, issued the so-called
muzzle decree, which forbade any debate about the
struggle of the churches within the rooms, bodies and media of the church. The
Emergency Covenant of Pastors answered this decree by a declaration read by opposing pastors from their pulpits on 7 and 14 January. Müller then prompted the arrestment or disciplinary procedures against about 60 pastors alone in Berlin, who had been denounced by spies or congregants of
German Christian affiliation. The Gestapo tapped Niemöller's phone and thus learned about his and
Walter Künneth's plan to personally plea Hitler for a dismissal of Ludwig Müller. The Gestapo – playing
divide et impera – publicised their intention as a conspiracy and so the Lutheran church leaders Marahrens, Meiser, and Wurm distanced themselves from Niemöller on 26 January. Thus having usurped the power the
German Christian Müller forbade his unwelcome competitor as church leader, the
German Christian Werner, to discharge his duties as praeses of the
Church Senate and president of the
Evangelical Supreme Church Council. Werner then sued Müller at the
Landgericht I in Berlin. The verdict would have major consequences for the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union. Also opponents, legally consulted by Judge Günther (judge at the Landgericht court), Horst Holstein, Friedrich Justus Perels, and
Friedrich Weißler, covered Ludwig Müller and his willing subordinates with a wave of litigations in the ordinary courts in order to reach verdicts on his arbitrary anticonstitutional measures. Since Müller had acted without legal basis the courts usually proved the litigants to be right. On 3 February Müller decreed another ordinance to send functionaries against their will into early retirement. Müller thus further cleansed the staff in the consistories, the
Evangelical Supreme Church Council and the deaneries from opponents. On 1 March Müller pensioned Niemöller off, the latter and his
Dahlem Congregation simply ignored that. Willy Hahn, Oberstudienrat Georg Lindner, H. Michael, Willy Praetorius, Rabenau, Scharf, Regierunsgrat Kurt Siehe, and Heinrich Vogel, presided by Gerhard Jacobi. The Gestapo shut down one office of the
provincial brethren council after the other. Werner Zillich and Max Moelter were the executive directors, further collaborators were Elisabeth Möhring (sister of the opposing pastor Gottfried Möhring at St. Catharine's Church in
Brandenburg upon Havel) and Senta Maria Klatt (Congregation of St. John's Church, Berlin-
Moabit). The Gestapo summoned her more than 40 times and tried to intimidate her, confronting her with the fact that she, being partly of Jewish descent, would have to realise the worst possible treatment in jail. In the eleven deaneries covering Greater Berlin, six were led by superintendents, who joined the
Emergency Covenant of Pastors. Especially among the many rural
Pietists in the
Ecclesiastical Province of Pomerania the opposition found considerable support. While the German Christians, holding the majority in most official church bodies, lost many supporters, the
Confessing Christians, comprising many authentical persuasive activists, still remained a minority but increased their number. As compared to the vast majority of indifferent, non-observing Protestants, both movements were marginal. One pre-1918 tradition of non-ecclesiastical influence within church structures had made it into the new constitution of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union of 1922. Many of the churches, which had been founded before the 19th century, had a
patron holding the
ius patronatus, meaning that either the owner of a
manor estate (in the countryside) or a political municipality or city was in charge of maintaining the church buildings and paying the pastor. No pastor could be appointed without the consent of the patron (
advowson). This became a curse and a blessing during the Nazi period. While all political entities were Nazi-streamlined they abused the patronage to appoint Nazi-submissive pastors on the occasion of a vacancy. Also estate owners sometimes sided with the Nazis. But more estate owners were conservative and thus rather backed the opposition in the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union. So the congregations under their patronage could often keep or appoint anew a pastor of the intra-church opposition. On 9 August 1934 the
Second National Synod, with all synodals again admitted by the
Spiritual Ministerium, severed the uniformation of the formerly independent Protestant church bodies, disenfranchising their respective synods to decide in internal church matters. These pretensions increased the criticism among church members within the streamlined church bodies. On 23 September 1934 Ludwig Müller was inaugurated in a church ceremony as Reich's Bishop. The Lutheran church bodies of Bavaria right of the river Rhine and Württemberg again refused to merge in September 1934. The imprisonment of their leaders, Bishop Meiser and Bishop Wurm, evoked public protests of congregants in Bavaria right of the river Rhine and Württemberg. Thus the Nazi Reich's government saw, that the German Christians aroused more and more unrest among Protestants, rather driving people into opposition to the government, than domesticating Protestantism as useful beadle for the Nazi reign. A breakthrough was the verdict of 20 November 1934. The court
Landgericht I in Berlin decided that all decisions, taken by Müller since he decreed the
Führerprinzip within the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union on 26 January, the same year, were to be reversed. Meanwhile, Niemöller and other Confessing Church activists organised the second ''Reich's Synod of Confession'' in Berlin's
Dahlem Congregation on 19 and 20 October 1934. The synodals elected by all confessing congregations and the congregations of the
intact churches decided to found an
independent German Evangelical Church. Since the confessing congregations would have to contravene the laws as interpreted by the official church bodies, the synod developed an emergency law of its own. For the
destroyed church of the old-Prussian Union they provided for each congregation, taken over by a
German Christian majority a so-called
brethren council () as provisional presbytery, and a
Confessing congregation assembly () to parallelise the ''congregants' representation
. The Confessing congregations of each deanery formed a Confessing deanery synod
(), electing a deanery brethren council'' (). If the superintendent of a deanery clung to the Confessing Church, he was accepted, otherwise a
deanery pastor () was elected from the midst of the Confessing pastors in the deanery. Confessing congregants elected synodals for a
Confessing provincial synod as well as
Confessing State synod (), who again elected a
provincial brethren council or the
state brethren council of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union (colloquially
old-Prussian brethren council), and a
council of the Confessing ecclesiastical province ( of the respective ecclesiastical province) or the
council of the Confessing Church of the old-Prussian Union, the respective administrative bodies. Any obedience to the official bodies of the
destroyed church of the old-Prussian Union was to be rejected. The
Confessing Christians integrated the existing bodies of the opposition – such as the
brethren councils of the
Emergency Covenant of Pastors, and the independent synods (est. starting in January 1934) -, or established the described parallel structures anew all over the area of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union in November 1934. But soon Barth, Hesse, and Niemöller found the first
Preliminary Church Executive to be too compromising so that these
Dahlemites resigned from the ''Reich's Brethren Council''. Between end of 1934 and March 1937 the central office of the
Preliminary Church Executive was located in the
Burckhardt-Haus of the
school for social workers () of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union in Berlin's then # 27, Friedbergstraße (now Rudeloffstraße). With the verdict of the Landgericht I, and this turn in Hitler's policy Jäger resigned from his office as state commissioner. Müller refused to resign as Reich's bishop but had to unwind all measures taken to forcefully unite the church bodies. So besides the Confessing Church of the old-Prussian Union, founded in October 1934 also the official,
German Christian-dominated
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union reconstituted in November. The second
old-Prussian Synod of Confession (also old-Prussian
Dahlem Synod) convened in Berlin-Dahlem on 4 and 5 March 1935. The synodals decided that the
Confessing Church of the old-Prussian Union should unite with the destroyed official
Church of the old-Prussian Union. The synodals further adopted a declaration about the Nazi racist doctrine. The same month the declaration was read in all confessing congregations, that the Nazi racist doctrine, claiming there were a Jewish and an
Aryan race, was pure
mysticism. In reaction to that the Nazi government arrested 700 pastors, who had read this declaration from their pulpits. The official church ordered to read a declaration demanding the parishioners' obedience to the Nazi government. On Sunday Judica (7 April 1935) Confessing pastors held
rogations for the imprisoned
Confessing Christians. From then on every Tuesday the brethren councils issued updated lists with the names of the imprisoned. Since the 28 Protestant church bodies in Germany levied contributions from their parishioners by a
surcharge on the income tax, collected and then transferred by the state tax offices, the official church bodies denied the confessing congregations their share in the contributions. Each congregation had its own budget and the official church authorities transferred the respective share in the revenues to the legitimate presbytery of each congregations, be it governed by German Christians or
Confessing Christians. The Nazi Reich's government now intended to drain this financial influx by a new decree with the euphemising title
Law on the Wealth Formation within the Evangelical Church Bodies (11 March 1935). Thus the Nazi Reich's government subjected the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union to governmental financial control. All budgets and remittances were to be confirmed by state comptrollers. On 11 April an ordinance ordered that salaries were only to be remitted to orderly appointed employees and all future appointments of whomsoever, would only take effect with the consent of the financial departments. Consistorial Councillor von Arnim-Kröchlendorff, a proponent of the Confessing Church, was appointed leader of the financial department for Berlin. He turned out to ignore the rules and to largely use his scope of discretion. But many other financial departments were chaired by sharp Nazi officials. Thus Confessing congregations outside of Berlin built up a new network of escrow accounts. All lawsuits on church matters, some still pending since 1 May 1933, were to be decided by the
Decision-Taking Office. Orderly courts could not overrule its decisions. With this power the
Decision-Taking Office blackmailed the Confessing Church to compromise. The
Decision-Taking Office refrained from acting as long as the Confessing Church co-operated. In fact the
Decision-Taking Office only acted up after the compromises failed in 1937. In the following years of compromising
Hermann Ehlers became a legal advisor of the
old-Prussian brethren council, until he was arrested from June to July 1937, which made him quit his collaboration.
Government response to the schism On 16 July 1935
Hanns Kerrl was appointed Reich's minister for ecclesiastical affairs, a newly created department. On 10 September 1935 the
old-Prussian brethren council convened preparing the upcoming third
old-Prussian Synod of Confession (also
Steglitz Synod). On 26 September, Confessing synodals from all over the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union convened for the third
old-Prussian Synod of Confession in the parish hall of Berlin's Steglitz Congregation in Albrechtstraße No. 81, organised by congregants of . , since 1932 director of the Evangelical Welfare Office for Berlin's borough of Zehlendorf (a part of today's
borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf), appealed to the synodals to take action for the persecuted Jews and Christians of Jewish descent. In her memorandum she explained – among other things – that a third of the so-called non-
Aryan Protestants was unemployed due to the ever-growing number of jobs prohibited for Jews as defined by the
Nuremberg Laws. She found clear words, calling the systematical impoverishment a
Cold Pogrom, aiming for and resulting in – as shown by the demographic development of German Jewry under Nazi persecution so far – the extinction of the German Jewry. She quoted a criticism from the
Church of Sweden, saying the new god of the Germans was the
Race, to which they would offer human sacrifices. While Supt. Albertz and Niemöller argued to discuss the memorandum, a majority of synodals refused and the memorandum was then laid ad acta. The synodals could only gain common sense about the fact, that persons of Jewish religion, were to be baptised, if they wished so. This was completely denied by the German Christians since 1932, reserving Christianity as a religion exclusively for Gentiles, but also some
Confessing Christians refused the baptism of Jews. Kerrl managed to gain the very respected Wilhelm Zoellner (a Lutheran, until 1931 general superintendent of Westphalia) to form the ''Reich's Ecclesiastical Committee
(, RKA) on 3 October 1935, combining neutral, moderate Confessing Christians
and moderate German Christians to reconcile the disputing church parties. So also the official German Evangelical Church'' became subordinate to the new bureaucracy, Ludwig Müller lost his say, but still retained the now meaningless titles of German Reich's Bishop and old-Prussian State Bishop. In the course of November state ecclesiastical committees and provincial ecclesiastical committees were to be formed. Kerrl appointed a state ecclesiastical committee (, LKA) for the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, led by Karl Eger, and further staffed with Supreme Consistorial Councillor Walter Kaminski (Königsberg), Pastor Theodor Kuessner (praeses of the East Prussian provincial Synod of Confession), Pastor Ernst Martin (Magdeburg), Supt. Wilhelm Ewald Schmidt (
Oberhausen) und Supt. Richard Zimmermann (, and praeses of the city synod of Berlin). In November Kerrl decreed the parallel institutions of the Confessing Church to be dissolved, which was protested and ignored by the brethren councils. On 19 December Kerrl issued a decree which forbade all kinds of Confessing Church activities, namely appointments of pastors, education, examinations, ordinations, ecclesiastical visitations, announcements and declarations from the pulpit, separate financial structures and convening Synods of Confession; further the decree established provincial ecclesiastical committees. Thus the
brethren councils had to go into hiding. The Confessing Church in the Rhenish and Westphalian ecclesiastical provinces blocked in fact the formation of provincial ecclesiastical committees until 14 February 1936. As a gesture of reconciliation the state ecclesiastical committee for the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union legitimised all ordinations and examinations of the Confessing Church retroactively for the time from 1 January 1934 to 30 November 1935. Nevertheless, the Confessing Church refused to accept the new examination office of the state ecclesiastical committee. But Künneth (Inner Mission) and a number of renowned professors of the
Frederick William University of Berlin, who worked for the Confessing Church before, declared their readiness to collaborate with the committee, to wit Prof.
Alfred Bertholet,
Gustav Adolf Deissmann (Volkskirchlich-Evangelische Vereinigung; VEV. At the fourth ''Reich's Synod of Confession
in Bad Oeynhausen (17–22 February 1936) the Dahlemites
fell out with most of the Lutheran Confessing Christians
. The first Preliminary Church Executive
resigned, since its members, representing intact churches
, wanted to co-operate with the committees, while its members from destroyed churches
, especially the Dahlemites'' did not. On 18 March the three Lutheran
intact churches announced the foundation of the
Council of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Germany (, colloquially
Lutherrat, Luther council) as their own umbrella organisation. The brethren councils of the Lutheran
destroyed churches of
Brunswick, Lübeck,
Mecklenburg,
the Free State of Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, and
Thuringia as well as some Lutheran confessing congregations within the territories of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union recognised this umbrella. The authors concluded that the Nazi regime will definitely lead the German people into disaster. Since Weißler was a Protestant of Jewish descent he was not taken to court, where the evidentially false blaming would have been easily unveiled, but deported to
Sachsenhausen concentration camp and tortured to death from 13 to 19 February 1937 becoming the first lethal victim of the
Kirchenkampf on the Protestant side. Celebration
in the St Servatius Church in Quedlinburg, 1938 From 2 July 1936 until 1945 Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer SS, captured the Quedlinburg-based Church of St Servatius of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union'' and profaned it as a pagan place of worship in the scope of the garbled ideas of the
SS about a neo-Germanic religion. On 15 December 1936 the old-Prussian brethren council issued a declaration, authored by Fritz Müller, criticising the compromising and shortcomings in the policy of the ecclesiastical committees. On the next day until the 18th the fourth
old-Prussian Synod of Confession (also
Breslau Synod) convened in Breslau, discussing the work of the ecclesiastical committees and how to continue the education and ordinations in the scope of the Confessing Church. The open gap in governance of the official
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union was filled by the still existing
Evangelical Supreme Church Council under Werner and by the consistories on the provincial level. For Hitler's birthday (20 April 1938) Werner developed a special gift. All pastors of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union should swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler. In May the seventh Synod of Confession of the Rhenish ecclesiastical province refused to comply, since it was not the state, which demanded the oath. The sixth
old-Prussian Synod of Confession convened twice in Berlin, once in the Nikolassee Church (11–13 June 1938) and a second time in the parish hall of the Steglitz Congregation (31 July). In Nikolassee the oath was much under discussion, however, no decision was taken, but delayed – until further information would be available. At the second meeting in Steglitz a majority of synodals complied to Werner's demand. In August
Martin Bormann, the Reich's leader of the Nazi party, declared that Hitler was not interested in an oath. However, the consistories demanded the oath, but in the Rhenish ecclesiastical province only 184 out 800 pastors refused to swear. In summer 1938 Kerrl reappeared on the scene with a new attempt to unite the church parties from their midst, using a federation named
Wittenberger Bund, initiated Friedrich Buschtöns (German Christians), Theodor Ellwein, and Prof. Helmuth Kittel, all members of the
Evangelical Supreme Church Council. Kerrl failed again.
Protestants of Jewish descent The ever-growing discrimination of Jewish Germans (including the special category of
Geltungsjuden) and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent drove them ever deeper into impoverishment. The official church body completely refused to help its persecuted parishioners of Jewish descent, let alone the Germans of Jewish faith. But also the activists of the Confessing Church, bothered about this problem – like Supt. Albertz, Bonhoeffer,
Charlotte Friedenthal, Pastor
Heinrich Grüber (
Jesus Church, Berlin-Kaulsdorf),
Hermann Maas, Meusel, Pastor could not prevail with their concern to help under the umbrella of the Confessing Church, since also among the opponents many, Lutherans more than Calvinists, had anti-Jewish affects or were completely occupied with maintaining the true Protestant faith under state suppression. Even though the opponents managed to fight the
Aryan paragraph within the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union (Ludwig Müller abrogated it on 16 November 1934), it took the Confessing Church until summer 1938 to build up a network for the persecuted. In early 1933
Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze proposed the foundation of an
International Relief Committee for German (Evangelical, Catholic and Mosaic) Emigrants (). The project was in a tailspin since the
oecumenical partners in the US demanded to exclude persons of Jewish faith, before it definitely failed because the Nazi government expelled Siegmund-Schultze from Germany. In July 1933 Christian Germans of Jewish descent had founded a self-help organisation, first named
Reich's Federation of non-Aryan Christians (), then renamed into ''Paul's Covenant'' () after the famous Jewish convert to Christianity
(Sha'ul) Paul of Tarsos, presided by the known literary historian . In early 1937 the Nazi government forbade that organisation, allowing a new successor organisation
Association 1937 (), which was prohibited to accept members – like Spiero – with three or four grandparents, who had been enrolled with a Jewish congregation. Thus that new association had lost its most prominent leaders and faded, having become an organisation of so-called
Mischlinge of Nazi terminology. Spiero opened his private relief office in Brandenburgische Straße No. 41 (Berlin). On 31 January 1936 the
International Church Relief Commission for German Refugees constituted in London – with Supt. Albertz representing the Confessing Church – but its German counterpart never materialised. So
Bishop George Bell gained his sister-in-law Laura Livingstone to run an office for the international relief commission in Berlin. She joined the office of Spiero. The failure of the Confessing Church was evident, even though 70–80% of the Christian Germans of Jewish descent were Protestants. In August 1938 the Nazi government forced Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent to adopt the middle names
Israel or
Sara and to use them on any occasion, such as signatures, visit cards, letters, addresses and firm and name signs. It was Grüber and some enthusiasts, who had started a new effort in 1936. They forced the ''Confessing Church's
hand, which in 1938 supported the new organisation, named by the Gestapo , but after its official recognition Relief Centre for Evangelical Non-Aryans''. Until May 1939 25 regional offices could be opened, led by those executive directors of the provincial
Inner Mission premises, who clung to the Confessing Church or the latter's other mandatees. Supt. Albertz, Pastor Adolf Kurtz (Twelve Apostles Church, Berlin), and Livingstone collaborated. The Bureau was mainly busy with supporting the re-education in other vocations, not (yet) prohibited for Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent, and with finding nations of exile, who would grant immigration visa. As long as the Nazis' decision, to murder all persons they considered as Jews, had not yet been taken, the Bureau gained some government recognition as an agency, promoting the emigration of the concerned persons. In the night of 9 November 1938 the Nazi government organised the
November Pogrom, often euphemised as
Kristallnacht. The well-organised Nazi squads killed several hundreds, set nine out of 12 major synagogues in Berlin on fire (1,900 synagogues all over Germany), 1,200 Jewish Berliners were deported to
Sachsenhausen concentration camp. All over Germany altogether 30,000 male Jews were arrested, among them almost all the 115 Protestant pastors with three or four grandparents, who had been enrolled as members of a Jewish congregation. Many men went into hiding from arrestment and also appeared at Grüber's home in the rectory of the
Jesus Church, Berlin-Kaulsdorf. Grüber organised their hiding in the cottages in the
allotment clubs in his parish. The Nazis only released the arrested inmates, if they would immediately emigrate. Thus getting visa became the main target and problem. While
Bishop George Bell tried and managed to rescue many of the imprisoned pastors, successfully persuading the
Church of England to provide them through the British government with British visa, the official
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union did not even try to intervene in favour of its imprisoned clergy. Thus none of the Protestant pastors of Jewish descent remained in or returned to office. Also the many other inmates had no advocate of such influence like the
Church of England. On 7 December 1938 the British organisation
Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel relinquished its location in
Oranienburger Straße 20/21 to Grüber, who thus moved his Bureau thereto. Kurtz relocated his consultations, until then held in his private home in the rectory of the Twelve Apostles Church (Berlin), into the new office location. The staff of the Bureau Grüber grew to five persons on 19 December, then 30 in February 1939 and finally 35 by July the same year. Pastor Werner Sylten, who had been fired – on the grounds of his partially Jewish descent – by his employer, the
German Christian-dominated
Thuringian Evangelical Church, joined the work. with the house
An der Stechbahn #3–4 right in the midst of the top edge of the photo, the four-storied building, with wide arched windows on the third floor, housed the
Bureau Grüber Sylten found additional office rooms in the street An der Stechbahn #3–4 opposite to the southern façade of the
Berlin City Castle, and on 25 January 1939 the Bureau's emigration department, led by Ministerial Counsel rtrd. Paul Heinitz, moved into the new location. Grüber's wife, Marianne, née Vits, sold her
IG Farben shares to finance the rent of the new location. Livingstone led the department for the British Commonwealth, Werner Hirschwald the Latin American section and Sylvia Wolff the Scandinavian. Sylten became his deputy. In February 1939 the Reich's ministry of the interior combined the work of all offices busy with expelling Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent in the Reich's central office for Jewish Emigration (), led by
Reinhard Heydrich.
Adolf Eichmann came to doubtable fame for expelling 50,000 Jewish Austrians and Gentile Austrians of Jewish descent within only three months after the
Anschluß. Thus he was commissioned to expel Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent within the old Reich's borders. From September 1939 the Bureau Grüber had to subordinate to the supervision by Eichmann, who worked as
Special Referee for the Affairs of the Jews () in an office in Kurfürstenstraße #115–116, Berlin. Eichmann asked Grüber in a meeting about Jewish emigration why Grüber, not having any Jewish family and with no prospect for any thank, does help the Jews. Grüber answered because the
Good Samaritan did so, and my Lord told me to do so. From 1 March 1939 the Nazi Reich's government commissioned the
Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden to levy a new tax from Jewish emigrants (), charging wealthier emigrants in order to finance the emigration of the poorer. The due was also used to finance the different recognised associations organising emigration. From 1 July on the Reichsvertretung remitted a monthly subsidy of
Reichsmark (ℛℳ) 5,000 to the
Bureau Grüber. Also the
intact Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria right of the river Rhine co-financed the work of Grüber's organisation with annually ℛℳ 10,000. By July the office of Spiero and Livingstone had merged into the Bureau Grüber. All in all the Bureau Grüber enabled the emigration of 1,139 persons from October 1938 – August 1939 and 580 between July 1939 and October 1940, according to different sources. Minister Rust had banned all pupils of Jewish descent from attending public schools from 15 November 1938 on. So Pastor Kurtz and Vicar Klara Hunsche opened an Evangelical school in January 1939 in the
rectory of the Twelve Apostles Congregation (An der Apostelkirche No. 3, Berlin). By the end of January the school moved into
Oranienburger Straße # 20/21, after Grüber's Emigration department had moved out. The
Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland, since July replacing the
Reichsvertretung as the new and only central organisation competent for all persons and institutions persecuted as Jewish according to the Nuremberg Laws, supervised the school. Now the school became an Evangelical-Catholic oecumenical school, called
Familienschule, the pupils named it
Grüber School. By autumn 1939 a new degree of persecution loomed. The Nazi authorities started to deport Jewish Austrians and Gentile Austrians of Jewish descent to
occupied Poland. On 13 February 1940 the same fate hit 1,200 Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent and their Gentile spouses from the
Stettin Region, who were deported to
Lublin. Grüber learned about it by the Wehrmacht commander of Lublin and then protested to every higher ranking superior up to the then Prussian Minister-President
Hermann Göring, who forbade further deportations from Prussia for the moment. The Gestapo warned Grüber never to take the side of the deported again. The deported were not allowed to return. On 22–23 October, 6,500 Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent from
Baden and the
Palatinate were deported to
Gurs,
occupied France. Now Grüber got himself a passport, with the help of Bonhoeffer's brother-in-law
Hans von Dohnanyi from the
Abwehr, to visit the deported in the
Gurs (concentration camp). But before he left the Gestapo arrested Grüber on 19 December and deported him two days later to
Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and in 1941 to
Dachau concentration camp. Since January 1943 Pastor Braune could hide Luise Wolff in the diaconal , so she survived. In 1945 right after the war Grüber reopened his Bureau to help the survivors, first in provisional rooms in the deaconesses' in Berlin-
Kreuzberg. Then the bureau, named today
Evangelical Relief Centre for the formerly Racially Persecuted (), moved to its present site in
Berlin-Zehlendorf, Teltower Damm #124. In 1950 three-quarters of the fostered survivors were unemployed and poor. Many needed psychological help, others wanted support to apply for government compensation for the damages and suffering by the Nazi persecution. In 1958 Grüber established a foundation, running today senior homes and a nursing home, housing about a hundred survivors.
After the November Pogrom In the night between 9 and 10 November the Nazis organised the
November Pogrom. German Christians, like Bishop of the
Thuringian Evangelical Church, welcomed the pogrom. For the
Buß- und Bettag (16 November 1938), the
Day of Repentance and Prayer, then celebrated in the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union on the penultimate Wednesday before the new begin of the Evangelical
Liturgical year (First Sunday of
Advent), the
Dahlemite fraction of the Confessing Church decided to hold rogations for the persecuted Jews and Christians of Jewish descent. The pastors were recommended the following text: "Administer to the needs of all the Jews in our midst, who are losing for the sake of their blood their honour as humans and the opportunity to live. Help that nobody will act vengefully against them. ... Especially do not let disrupt the bond of love to those, who are standing with us in the same true belief and who are through Him like us Thy children." Elisabeth Schmitz, a congregant in the preach on the
Day of Repentance and Prayer of
Helmut Gollwitzer, then replacing the imprisoned Niemöller in , appealed to the Confessing Church to reject any labelling of Jews, warning that after the labelling of all the Jewish owned shops in August 1938, their destruction followed suit, so the same would also happen – "in the same conscienceless, evil and sadistic manner" – to the persons, once they would be labelled. Holding
Synods of Confession had been forbidden since 1935, but now after the Olympic close hunting season had ended the authorities effectively fought the preparations and holding of the synods. Thus synods had to be prepared in secret, therefore they were not referred to by the name of their venue any more, keeping the venue as long as possible in secret. The seventh
old-Prussian Synod of Confession (so-called
Epiphany Synod) convened on 29–31 January 1939 in Berlin-Nikolassee. On 18 and 20 March 1939 Werner, the president of
Evangelical Supreme Church Council, severed the dismissal of opposing pastors by new ordinances, which empowered him to redeploy pastors against their will. On 6 May Kerrl supported the opening of the
Institute for the Study and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life () in
Eisenach, led by Prof.
Walter Grundmann. This institute provided propaganda to all official congregations, how to cleanse Protestantism from the Jewish patrimony within Christianity. On 20–22 May 1939 the synodals convened for the eighth
old-Prussian Synod of Confession in Steglitz (so-called
Exaudi Synod). With the beginning of the war (1 September 1939) Kerrl decreed the separation of the ecclesiastical and the administrative governance within the official
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union. Werner remained administrative chief executive (president of the
Evangelical Supreme Church Council), an ecclesiastical executive was still to be found. Hitler did not feel safe about the opinions of his generals, so he threatened them with execution, not allowing any criticical word about the planned
genocide of the Poles. After the government waged war on
Poland and thus started the Second World War, male members of the Confessing Church, such as Fritz Müller (member of the second
preliminary church executive), were preferently drafted for the army. With the conquest of all the eastern former Prussian territories, which Germany had ceded to Poland after World War I, and their annexation by Nazi Germany the functionaries of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union expected the reintegration of the
United Evangelical Church in Poland. But this conflicted with the Nazi intention to convert the annexed territory, especially the
Warthegau under
Arthur Greiser, into an exemplary Nazi dictatorship. No prior civilian German administration existed in the Warthegau, so a solely Nazi party-aligned administration was set up. Concerns respected within Germany, played no role in occupied and annexed parts of Poland. German law, as violated as it was, would not automatically apply to the Warthegau, but only selected rules. Almost all the Catholic, Jewish and Protestant clergy in the Warthegau was murdered or expelled, with the exception of some German-speaking Protestant pastors and few such Catholic priests. The mostly German-speaking
United Evangelical Church in Poland under Gen.-Supt. , having lacked official recognition by the Polish government, expected a change by the German annexation, which happened but to the opposite of the expected. In March 1940 Greiser decreed an ordinance for the Warthegau, which declared the church bodies not to be statutory bodies, as in Germany, but mere private associations. Minors under 18 years were banned to attend meetings and services, in order to alienate them from Christianity. All church property, except of a prayer hall, was to be expropriated. All pastors of the
United Evangelical Church in Poland there were subjected to strict state control and expelled at the slightest suspect of criticism of the murders and expulsions carried out daily in the Warthegau. Pastors, who would dare to speak up for the Jewish heritage within Christianity, such as the ten commandments, risked at minimum expulsion and maltreatment, if not deportation into a concentration camp. The Warthegau remained blocked, while the functionaries of the official
Evangelical Supreme Church Council managed to reintegrate the congregations of the
United Evangelical Church in Poland, located in Polish
Greater Pomerania (Pomerellia), into the newly formed
Ecclesiastical Region of Danzig-West Prussia (Kirchengebiet Danzig-Westpreußen), since 1940 also comprising the congregations of Danzig's regional synodal federation, and thus competent for all congregations of united Protestant church bodies in the
homonymous Reichsgau. When in October 1940 Kerrl – for the Nazi Ministry of religious Affairs – tried to take control over the churches in the Warthegau, Greiser prohibited him to do so. The Catholic Bishop
Clemens von Galen of the
Diocese of Münster (Westphalia) was the first to protest publicly against the murders in summer 1941. In December Wurm and
Adolf Bertram, Catholic
Archbishop of Breslau, followed suit. The Nazi Reich's government then stopped the murders only to resume them soon later in a more secret way. The representatives of the official
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, like its then leader Werner silenced about the murders. Werner continued to streamline the ecclesiastical institutions. In early 1941 he appointed Oskar Söhngen, simultaneously member of the
Evangelical Supreme Church Council, as ecclesiastical leader of the
March of Brandenburg consistory. With the help of the Gestapo the parallel institutions of education and examination of the Confessing Church were successfully destroyed in the course of 1941. Systematic
deportations of Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent started on 18 October 1941. These were all directed to
Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe or to
concentration camps. In October 1941 proponents of the Confessing Church reported about
Auschwitz (concentration camp), newly opened on 23 September, that Jews were gassed there. The members of the second
preliminary church executive could not believe it and did not speak up. On 8–9 November, the tenth
old-Prussian Synod of Confession convened in the premises of the St. Trinity Church (
Hamburg-Hamm;
Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburgian State), outside of Prussia. Many
German Christian-dominated congregations followed suit. The second
preliminary church executive of the Confessing
German Evangelical Church together with the conference of the
state brethren councils (representing the
destroyed churches including the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union) issued a declaration of protest. Confessing congregations in the
Ecclesiastical Province of Pomerania and the
Congregation of Neubabelsberg handed in lists of signatures in protest against the exclusion of the stigmatised Protestants of Jewish descent. Also the
Evangelical Supreme Church Council of the 'intact'
Evangelical State Church in Württemberg and its Bishop Wurm sent letters of protest on 27 January and 6 February 1942, respectively. On 17–18 October 1942 the eleventh
old-Prussian Synod of Confession convened again in
Hamm, Hamburg. The majority of the synodal members voted against the motion to allow
women to be ordained as pastors. However, the outspoken advocates of women's ordination continued to pursue their goal. On 12 January 1943
Kurt Scharf, praeses of the
Brandenburg provincial Synod of Confession (Bekenntnissynode) and pastor in
Sachsenhausen, ordained
Ilse Härter and in his church, the two women wearing the full ministerial robes, as the first women in Germany as pastors equal to their male colleagues. Until 1943 almost all the remaining Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent have been deported to the concentration camps. Thus on 10 June, the
Reichssicherheitshauptamt dissolved the
Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland and deported the tiny rest of its collaborators 6 days later to
Theresienstadt. There about 800 Protestants of Jewish descent from all German church bodies founded a Protestant congregation. Pastor Hans Encke (
Cologne) had ordained parishioners from his congregation, who were to be deported and wanted to work as chaplains at the place, where they would come to. The only German Jews and German Gentiles of Jewish descent, who were in fact not deported, were those living in so-called
privileged mixed marriage, which in 1933 amounted to about 40,000 couples nationwide. Shortly before the next old-Prussian Synod of Confession, in early October 1943 the old-Prussian Brethren Council of the Confessing Church decided to generally allow the ordination of women, followed by the ordination of Annemarie Grosch, Sieghild Jungklaus, Margarethe Saar, Lore Schlunk, and Gisela von Witzleben altogether on 16 October 1943 in
Lichterfelde (a locality of Berlin). It backed its decisions with the commandment
Thou shalt not kill, later issuing leaflets and brochures with guidelines for the parishioner. The
March of Brandenburg consistory was badly damaged in early 1944 and burnt completely out on 3 February 1945. The offices were relocated to Baršć/Forst in Lusatia and into the rectory of the
Trinity Congregation (Berlin-Friedrichstadt) as well as into rooms in Potsdam. Consistorial President Heinrich Fichtner, replacing Söhngen since 1943, Bender, August Krieg, von Arnim, Paul Fahland, Paul Görs and Hans Nordmann stayed in Berlin. On 1 April 1950 the deanery joined that church body and thus terminated its subordination to the supervision by the
Evangelical Church in the Rhineland. On 15 July Heinrich Grüber was appointed Provost of St. Mary's and
St. Nicholas' Church in Berlin and Dibelius invested him on 8 August in a ceremony in
St. Mary's Church, only partially cleared from the debris. Wurm invited representatives of all Protestant church bodies to
Treysa for 31 August 1945. The representatives of the six still existing ecclesiastical provinces (March of Brandenburg, Pomerania, Rhineland, Saxony, Silesia, and Westphalia) and the central
Evangelical Supreme Church Council of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union used the occasion to take fundamental decisions about the future of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union. The representatives decided to assume the independent existence of each ecclesiastical province and to reform the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union into a mere umbrella organisation ("Neuordnung der Evangelischen Kirche der altpreußischen Union"). Dibelius and some Middle German representatives (the so-called Dibelians) could not assert themselves against Koch and his partisans, to maintain the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union as an integrated church body. , now the administrative centre of an oil and gas drilling company The three ecclesiastical provinces of Danzig, East Prussia, and Posen-West Prussia, all completely located in today's Poland, today's Russian
Kaliningrad Oblast and
Lithuania Minor, were in the process of complete vanishing after the flight of many parishioners and pastors by the end of the war and the post-war
Expulsion of Germans carried out by the Polish and Soviet governments in the years of 1945–1948. In December the lawyer and Supreme Church Councillor Erich Dalhoff issued his assessment that the newly formed provisional executive bodies on the overall and provincial levels of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union are to be regarded legitimate under the given emergency circumstances. As to cooperation of all the Protestant church bodies in Germany strong resentments prevailed, especially among the Lutheran church bodies of
Bavaria right of the river Rhine,
the Hamburgian State,
Hanover,
Mecklenburg,
the Free State of Saxony, and
Thuringia, against any unification after the experiences during the Nazi reign with the
German Evangelical Church. But it was decided to replace the former
German Federation of Protestant Churches by the new umbrella
Evangelical Church in Germany, provisionally led by the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, a naming borrowed from the brethren council organisation. Until 1951 all the six still existing ecclesiastical provinces of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union assumed new church constitutions declaring their independence. It transformed the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union () into a mere umbrella organisation and did away with the
Evangelical Supreme Church Council, replacing it by the
Church Chancery (), as its administrative body. The governing body,
Church Senate led by the Praeses of the General Synod (disbanded by 1933), became the
Council of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union. The heads of the Church body now bore the title
President of the Council () and led for terms of two years. The Council consisted of the presidents of the member churches, the Praeses of the General Synod, members of each member church appointed by their respective synods, the Chief of the Church Chancery, two representatives of the Reformed parishioners and two general synodals, who were not theologians. Until the appointment of the first head in 1952 President Dibelius, the former president of the
Evangelical Supreme Church Council, and its other members officiated per pro as chief and members of the Church Chancery. In 1951 the Bavarian Bishop Hans Meiser, then president of the
United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany, criticised the continuation of the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union as an umbrella, since it lacked a denominational identity, despite the membership of the
Prussian Union. The
Evangelical Supreme Church Council replied that the term
old-Prussian Union refers to a denomination, not to a state, so the name was not changed. On 5 May 1952 the
Council of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, met for the first time and elected from its midst as
President of the Council. On 2 July Held met
Otto Grotewohl, Minister President of the GDR, for his first official visit. The government of the GDR continued to protest the name, so in a general synod on 12 December 1953 the synodals decided to drop the term
old-Prussian from the name, though confirming that this did not mean the abandonment of the denomination of the
Prussian Union. The GDR government was not after terminating this cooperation. The subsidies from the West continued and were still allowed for the aforementioned reasons. With the end of the GDR dictatorship in 1989, in 1990 the
Evangelical Church in Greifswald readopted its original name of
Pomeranian Evangelical Church. In 1991 the two
Evangelical Churches of the Union reunited. With effect of 1 January 1992 the two regions were administratively reunited. The EKU then comprised 6,119 congregations in spread over seven member churches. In 1992 the
Evangelical Church of the Görlitz Ecclesiastical Region chose the new name of
Evangelical Church of Silesian Upper Lusatia. Due to the increasing
irreligionism, lower birth rates since the 1970s, and few Protestant immigrants, the Protestant churches in Germany are undergoing a severe decline in parishioners and thus of parishioners' contributions, forcing member Churches to reorganise in order to spend less. For this reason, the Synod of the
Evangelical Church of the Union decided in June 2002 to merge their organisation with the
Union of Evangelical Churches, which took effect 1 July 2003. This is an umbrella organisation combining all independent Protestant regional
united and uniting churches in Germany. == Doctrinal sources ==