The German Evangelical Church (German: Deutsche Evangelische Kirche) was a successor to the German Protestant Church Confederation from 1933 until 1945. It is also known in English as the Protestant Reich Church (German: Evangelische Reichskirche) and colloquially as the Reich Church (German: Reichskirche).
The German Christians, an antisemitic and racist pressure group and Kirchenpartei,[1] gained enough power on boards of the member churches to be able to install Ludwig Müller to the office of Reichsbischof in the 1933 church elections. The German Protestant Church Confederation was subsequently renamed the German Evangelical Church. In 1934, the German Evangelical Church suffered controversies and internal struggles which left member churches either detached or reorganised into German Christians-led dioceses of what was to become a single, unified Reich Church compatible with Nazi ideology for all of Nazi Germany.
In 1935, in wake of controversies and church struggles, the Ministry for Church Affairs removed Ludwig Müller and installed a committee headed by Wilhelm Zoellner to lead the confederation. As a result, the German Evangelical Church regained partial support as some of the member churches that left rejoined. In 1936, the Zoellner committee denounced German Christians and increasingly leaned towards the Confessing Church and its positions. In 1937, the Nazis removed the Zoellner committee and reinstalled German Christians into the leading position. In 1937–1945, the German Evangelical Church was controlled by German Christians and the Ministry. It was no longer considered a subject to the Kirchenkampf (struggle of the churches) to Adolf Hitler. It officially disbanded in 1945 after the war ended. It was succeeded by the Protestant Church in Germany in 1948.
- ^ A Kirchenpartei (church party) in German Protestantism is a group nominating candidates in a list for church elections and compares roughly to nominating groups in the Church of Sweden.