Left photo
Hitler leaving the Marine Church in Wilhelmshaven, 1931. It was a picture widely used in Nazi propaganda.

The “German Christians” swept into power in the church in the election of July 1933, despite the efforts of Bonhoeffer and his colleagues to stem the tide. As the euphoric illusion that swept over Germany when Hitler came to power began to wane, the German Christians’ crude parodies of Christian teaching became less and less tolerable. A speech ridiculing the Bible at a German Christian demonstration at the Sports Palace in Berlin in 1935 permanently discredited the German Christians among the serious Protestants in Germany. Many in the church who had supported the church’s coordination with Nazism realized too late that the Nazi support of morality and Christianity was a very thin façade indeed. More and more, Nazi propaganda was overtly anti-Christian and flouted traditional moral values. However, most of the churches remained under the control of those who would tolerate no stance for the church except unconditional submission to Hitler. Bonhoeffer believed that the official church had ceased to be a true Christian church; its fundamental loyalty was to Hitler, not to Christ.

Right photo
Karl Barth, the Swiss theologian then teaching at the University of Bonn, was the leading figure of the Confessing Church that formed in opposition to the official Protestant church. It s great confessing synod at Barmen in May 1934, in a theological declaration authored chiefly by Barth, had declared that Jesus Christ is the one Lord of the church and the only one Christians are to obey in all areas of their lives. The synod at Dahlem clarified the church-political consequences of Barmen, declaring the Confessing Church the only true evangelical (protestant) church in Germany. Even though Bonhoeffer was at neither of these two synods and had some serious theological differences with Barth, he passionately supported both decisions. He considered them deeply Biblical, God’s word to Christians in Germany for his time. As the Confessing church gradually backed away from these decisions, Bonhoeffer insistently urged adherence to them, even to the point o suffering and death.