In 1821 the Evangelical Regional Church in Baden was founded by uniting Lutheran and Reformed churches in the
Grand Duchy of Baden, thus its then name
United Evangelical Protestant Church of the Grand Duchy of Baden. The church body comprises only congregations of united Protestant confession. After the grand duchy had become the
Republic of Baden in 1918 and after the
separation of religion and state by the
Weimar Constitution in 1919 the church adopted a new constitution in December 1919 accounting for these changes, renaming as the
United Evangelical Protestant Regional Church of Baden (Vereinigte Evangelisch-protestantische Landeskirche Badens). In 1922 the church counted 821,000 parishioners. Nazi-aligned Protestant activists, emerging from the 1931-founded Nazi Federation of pastors of Baden (NS-Pfarrbund, Gau Baden), candidated for the
nominating group called the
German Christians and some won already in the ordinary election for synodals and presbyters in late 1932. They still formed a minority in the legislating assembly of the church, the Landessynode. After the Nazi takeover the synodals standing for the nominating group of the Ecclesiastical Liberal Union (Kirchlich-Liberale Vereinigung, KLV) jumped ship and joined the German Christians' faction. On 1 June 1933, together with the votes of further other sympathisers of the Nazi takeover among the synodals a new majority led by the German Christians voted in a new
episcopal church constitution, doing away with most of the say of the Landessynode for the future. Instead the new office of the
Landesbischof (i.e. regional bishop) was formed bundling the spiritual, legislative and executive church leadership (before the first was with the prelate, the second with the Landessynode, and the third with the EOK) in the hands of one single man, as typical for the concept of the
Führerprinzip, in harsh contradiction to the Protestant tradition of synodal legislation and
collegiality in the
consistorial executive. This adulteration of Evangelical Church governance started the
Kirchenkampf (1933–1945; i.e.
struggle of the churches) in Baden. On 24 June 1933 the Landessynode elected the incumbent Prelate
Julius Kühlewein the new powerful Landesbischof regnant, being ex officio the head of the EOK, downsized in members. On 23 July 1933, the day of the unconstitutional premature reelection of synodals and presbyters imposed by Hitler, the Nazi-submissive German Christians then gained a majority of 32 seats against the only remaining opposition of 25 members of the conservative Ecclesiastical Positive Association (Kirchlich-Positive Vereinigung, KPV, another nominating group not to be confused with the proponents of the so-called
Positive Christianity) in the widely self-disenfranchised Landessynode. On 5 April 1934 the various opposing church groups merged in the Badischer Bekennerbund (i.e. Baden Covenant of Confessors), the
Confessing Church branch in Baden, considering the official church body as a destroyed church (), since it had been taken over by Nazi-submissive leaders. Representatives of the Baden Covenant of Confessors participated in the first Reich's Synod of Confession (Reichsbekenntnissynode) and voted in, with others, the
Barmen Declaration. On 19 June 1934 the Baden Covenant of Confessors and more intra-church opponents formed the Regional Brethren Council (Landesbruderrat), considered the new parallel church leadership in opposition to the official church led by Kühlewein. After polling the pastors of the Church of Baden, resulting in a majority of supporters for a merger of the church into the new
Protestant Reich Church (478 yeas, against 92 nays, with 18 abstentions and 32 pastors not having answered), on 13 July Kühlewein declared the merger of his church into the new streamlined Reich church. The Baden Confessors protested that self-aggrandising act of Kühlewein. after the biggest
destroyed regional Evangelical Church in Germany, the
Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union with more than 19 million members, was reestablished as a separate legal entity by a sentence contended by an old-Prussian German Christian faction fighting the authoritative leadership of the old-Prussian Landesbischof, a German Christian too. This again split Kühlewein's previous supporters in two, those following his new course, and those who did not. In May 1936 Kühlewein in a meeting with the Nazi Gauleiter for Baden, explained that the members of his church clung by 50% to the Confessing Church, 25% were undecided and maximally 25% followed the German Christians. His task would be to protect church members, also when attacked as subversive Confessing Christians by the Nazi government. This shift of behaviour and opinion opened the way for reconciliation of many Baden Confessors with the official church leader. In 1937 Kühlewein joined with the Baden church the moderately Nazi-opposing block of the so-called intact regional Lutheran churches, to wit
Bavaria,
Hanover, and neighbouring
Württemberg. In order to suppress the Confessing Church in Baden, now obviously not fought anymore by Kühlewein, the Nazi Reich government decided to block the Baden Confessors by draining their access to any finances. To this end, on 25 May 1938 the decree with the euphemising title
Law on the Wealth Formation within the Regional Evangelical Churches, passed on 11 March 1935 and then already applied to Regional churches within Prussia, was also implemented in Baden. So any offertory, to-be-collected, all budgets, remittances and payments by any entity of the church, were subject to approval by government-appointed comptrollers. This caused an outrage of pastors, rallying for public demonstrations, and a sharp protest by Kühlewein, backing the demonstrators, but in vain.
Hanns Kerrl demanded to calm down the
struggle of the churches, since the Wehrmacht wanted no activities against pastors of the
Confessing Church during the war. ==Practices==