Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

636 DER FUEHRERwas entirely different: not to tear or lure believers away from theirChurch, but to lead unbelievers back. In June, 1932, some NationalSocialist clergymen had founded an organization calling itself the 'FaithMovement of German Christians'; at its head stood a minister namedHossenfelder. It was a minority group in the Protestant clergy; and the"German Christians' could not even claim to represent the 'living church'— i.e., the mass of believing men and women — against 'alien' priests.For those leaders of the Protestant Church who resisted NationalSocialism were supported by the majority of the churchgoers. TheNational Socialist ministers replied that they alone could bring back thenon-churchgoers, and that these lost sheep were what mattered.These were the masses of 'involuntary' church members; thosenumerous laymen who, according to the State Church laws prevailing inGermany, were counted as belonging to the official Church and had topay church taxes, although they had not seen the inside of a church foryears. Only this 'State Church' system makes all the German churchstruggles comprehensible. Up to the fall of the German Empire in 1918,practically everyone had to belong to a religious community, either theCatholic Church or the Protestant State Church. In Prussia, the Kingwas supreme head of the Protestant Church. After the founding of theGerman Republic, this state of affairs had ceased in principle, but onlyin principle. In practice the state continued to collect church taxes, andanyone who did not expressly leave the Church had to go on payingthem; but as a rule, even those who had lost their faith did not expresslyresign. It was principally these faithless church members who had nowsuddenly flocked to the 'German Christians.'With the authority of National Socialism, the German Christianministers were able to enlist considerable masses of the unbelieving orhalf-believing church membership. Among their leaders was LudwigMuller, the army chaplain who had brought Hitler and General vonBlomberg together; Hitler believed that he was performing a masterlystroke when he summarily dismissed Hossenfelder and made the friendof his Reichswehr Minister head of the German Christians. Muller didnot fulfill expectations; in the middle of May, the leaders of theProtestant Church drew from