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The Confessing Church

The Confessing Church was a German protestant church that came about in an attempt to halt the

Nazi ideals of intervening in the running of the German church.

The protestants of Germany were largely in support of the Nazi regime at first, as the Nazis

presented ideals similar to those of the days of the empire with a strong leader, like the Kaiser,

which the church was in favour of. However, as the Nazis grew stronger, so did the resistance. Key

figures like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoller opposed the Nazi takeover of the church, they

favoured the separation of the throne and the alter, and as the German Christians (the Nazi church)

gained control of much of the religion in Germany resistance needed to be formed. The resistance

formed the Confessing Church, a church that opposed both the intervention of the Nazis and the

ideological views of the Nazis.

The Confessing Church issued a memorandum to the Nazi party, stating that the Confessing Church:

protested the regime's anti-Christian tendencies denounced the regime's anti-Semitism demanded that the regime terminate its interference with the internal affairs of the Protestant

church

The Nazis responded by:

arresting several hundred dissenting pastors murdering Dr. Friedrich Weiler, office manager and legal advisor of the second preliminary

church executive of the Confessing Church, in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp

confiscating the funds of the Confessing Church forbidding the Confessing Church from taking up collections of offertories Niemoller and Bonhoeffer were both executed

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July 20 bomb plot

Several key high ranking army officials in Germany are involved in the plot, but the most famous

conspirator is Claus von Stauffenberg. Since 1938 there had been several meetings of resistance and

failed assassination attempts, but Stauffenberg joined in the hope of leading the rebellion and

enacting the assassination himself.

The army officials believed that Hitler was leading the country to disaster. A lot of them, being in

their elite positions, agreed with the Nationalistic policies that the Nazis presented, but a lot of the

ideological views such as anti-Semitism repulsed them. Stauffenberg in particular was Catholic, and

so he was massively opposed to the Nazis.

On the 1st

ofJuly 1944 Stauffenberg was appointed Chief of Staff of the Reserve Army, allowing him

into Hitlers military conferences. On the 20th

ofJuly at one of these conferences, Stauffenberg

brought a bomb inside a briefcase which he set on a timer then left for a planned phone call. The

bomb exploded, killing 3 Generals and splintering Hitlers legs, but not fatally wounding him.

Much confusion reigned in Germanys armed forces, as Operation Valkyrie was in full swing because

some officials believed Hitler to be dead. Fighting broke out in many areas, and it was once Hitler

had confirmed himself that he was alive to Goebbels that order began to be restored. The key

conspirators including Stauffenberg were arrested and executed.