1933–1934

The "German Christians," the Barmen Declaration, and the Confessing Church

After the Nazis came to power, the "German Christians" movement sought to fuse Nazi ideology with Protestantism. It won the 1933 church elections and introduced an "Aryan paragraph." The paragraph barred pastors of "non-Aryan" descent from ministry.

In response, Pastor Martin Niemöller founded the "Pastors' Emergency League." It grew into the Confessing Church.

In May 1934 the first synod of the Confessing Church at Barmen adopted a declaration, drafted chiefly by Karl Barth. It proclaimed Jesus Christ as the sole source of revelation. It condemned the church's submission to state ideology, the "Führer principle," and the church's transformation into an organ of the Nazi regime.

The Confessing Church's resistance proved politically ineffective. Niemöller spent eight years in a concentration camp, and Barth was forced back to Switzerland. But the Barmen Declaration retained lasting theological significance.