One source of resistance to National Socialist plans was the Christian faith in its various forms. In Germany at that time, the people who followed Jesus were distributed among Lutheran, Roman Catholic, and Reformed churches.
While these competing churches disagreed with each other in some beliefs, the believers in them were clearly united in their opposition to Hitler. Likewise, the National Socialists were united in their determination to eliminate Christianity in Germany.
The effort to eradicate the Christian faith was sometimes direct and blatant, but more often devious. Rather than simply shut church buildings or destroy them, the buildings were left standing, and used for events which seemed like Christian worship services, but were not.
In these fake churches, the Cross was often replaced by the swastika. The Bible (as the word ‘Bible’ is historically understood) was replaced by quotations from Hitler and Nazi propaganda.
The people could still gather there on Sunday mornings, and there was music and candles were lit, but the substance was gone, and National Socialism prevailed. Bit by bit, churches were eliminated throughout Germany and replaced by weekly pro-Nazi events.
Indeed, if people weren't watching and listening carefully, they were fooled, and did not realize that the church had been replaced by a Nazi propaganda event which look similar. Some church leaders were corrupted by the Nazis into aided them in creating this counterfeit church.
But what would replace Christianity? If the National Socialists had their way, and succeeded in extinguishing Christianity, what belief system would inform the spiritual worldview of the new empire which they hoped to establish?
They needed to eliminate the central historical role of Jesus in religious life, because Jesus was a Jew and because Jesus introduced and advocated views including a moderate form of pacifism and a recognition of the fundamental sanctity and value of every human life.
Hitler’s National Socialists also needed to remove Jesus from the public consciousness because Jesus had voluntarily endured a humiliating death in order to serve and liberate others. The Nazi image of heroism did not include such humility.
They had a threefold effort to replace the historic faith in Jesus.
First, some of the Nazis embraced and promoted a hard-nosed and intolerant atheism. Second, some of them wanted to revive the pre-Christian Norse mythology, a merciless form of religion which had ruled northern Europe prior to the introduction of Christianity, which had featured human sacrifice, and which had treated women as property. Third, another group of Nazis continued the fake version of Christianity and operated groups which seemed to be churches in the buildings which formerly had been churches.
One historian, Eric Kurlander, quoting Wolfgang Kaufmann, reports that “virtually ‘all leading ideologues’ in the Nazi movement ‘rejected Christianity.’” They “shared the firm conviction that” Christianity had “to be replaced.”
It is clear that “the Nazis rejected Christianity.” The only difference among various groups within National Socialism was “the various spiritual and ideological elements than many Nazis sought in (re) constructing a religious alternative to Christianity.”
In order to survive, the remaining followers of Jesus had to go underground, meeting in secret. They formed a network, and included a number of people who became famous for their sincere faith: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Max Kolbe, Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and others.
These daring individuals worked simultaneously to help Jews escape from Nazi territories and to actively resist Nazi efforts. Resistance ranged from slowing the transportation of war materials to several attempts directly to assassinate Hitler himself.
Because the National Socialists were not successful in completely erasing Christianity in Germany, a resistance effort was able to save the lives of Jews and slow the Nazi war effort.
