Faith Under Fire: Religious Leaders and Resistance in World War II

In Nazi Germany, the relationship between the churches and the state had been evolving since Hitler's rise to power in 1933, as the regime sought to either co-opt religious institutions for its own purposes or eliminate them as competing sources of moral authority. The German Christian movement, which attempted to reconcile Nazi ideology with Protestant theology, represented one extreme of religious accommodation to political power, while the Confessing Church, led by figures like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth, embodied determined resistance to the corruption of Christian faith by Nazi racial theories and authoritarianism. The Catholic Church in Germany faced similar pressures, with some bishops and priests offering resistance while others sought accommodation with the regime to protect their institutions and congregations.