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Christianity remained the dominant religion in Germany through the Nazi period, and its influence over Germans displeased the Nazi hierarchy. Evans wrote that Hitler believed that in the long run Nazism and religion would not be able to coexist, and stressed repeatedly that it was a secular ideology, founded on modern science.
Religion in Nazi Germany. Catholic churchmen perform an unenthusiastic Nazi salute alongside NSDAP leaders, including Josef Goebbels (far right) Nazi attitudes toward God and organised religion were complicated. Contrary to popular opinion, Adolf Hitler was not an atheist.
The attitudes and actions of German Catholics and Protestants during the Nazi era were shaped not only by their religious beliefs, but by other factors as well, including: Backlash against the Weimar Republic and the political, economic, and social changes in Germany that occurred during the 1920s. Anti-Communism.
Germany, like the rest of Europe, was primarily Christian when the Nazis rose to power. In 1933 the country had approximately 45 million Protestant Christians, 22 million Catholic Christians, 500,000 Jews and 25,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses. Religion was a huge part of people’s everyday life and culture.
Nazi Germany was an overwhelmingly Christian nation. A census in May 1939, six years into the Nazi era after the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia into Germany, indicates that 54% of the population considered itself Protestant, 41% considered itself Catholic, 3.5% self-identified as Gottgläubig, and 1.5% as "atheist".
Learn more about the role of the Protestant and Catholic churches in Nazi Germany, as well as the experiences of Jehovah’s Witnesses and other Christian groups.
