In 1933, Jakob Wilhelm Hauer started the movement as a way to gain financial footing for an institution within the religious shuffle. Hauer was initially not an obvious supporter of Adolf Hitler and started the Köngener Bund, a German Protestantyouth movement, which attracted many young Germans due to its opposition of National Socialism as well as antisemitism. His allegiance changed however, joining the Combat League for German Culture in May 1933. Hauer then joined the Hitler Youth later that year, in December. The once liberal, anti-nationalist, was then inducted into the SS and SD in August 1934. Hauer became the of the German Faith Movement when it was constituted in May 1934. His reign was short-lived, stepping down on April 1, 1936.
History
In 1933, Germany's population of almost 60 million belonged to either the Catholic Church or the Protestant Church. Many Christians were initially drawn to supporting Nazism due to the emphasis on "positive Christianity," noted in Article 24 of the 1920 National Socialist Program. However, two distinct Protestant factions emerged as German Christians were divided along political lines. "German Christians" emerged from the German Evangelical Church, adhering closely to the nationalistic and racial teachings of the Nazis and ultimately deferring to the Fuhrer's authority. The second faction was "Confessing Church" which opposed the "German Christians" and swore allegiance to "God and scripture, not a worldly Führer." The Confessing Church moved to counteract the NS's grouping of all German people into a singular Protestant church in order to 'de-Judaize' Christianity. Jakob Wilhelm Hauer founded the German Faith Movement in response to the Nazi Governments intended indoctrination of children with Christianity and attempting to outlaw all critiques of the faith. Hauer was a critic of traditional Christianity but was compelled to create the German Faith Movement as a way to preserve freedom of conscience. Groups like the German Faith Movement arose due to the lack of consensus within the German Protestant church. It was thought and feared by the Confessing Church that the theology taught by Karl Barth was too polarizing leading young Germans to stray away from traditional Protestantism and join more radical groups like the German Faith Movement.
Movement's composition
The movement initially invited various different groups, including: religious free-thinkers, racialists, and even socialists, to join a seemingly antagonistic group to the Nazi Church. However, racialists, including Hauer, did not believe Jews should be included in the movement, thus leaving only racialists and those who had abandoned German Christianity to compose the German Faith Movement.
Peak era and rituals
The movement's ceremonies involved sermons, German classical music and political hymns. In his 1936 essay "Wotan" Swiss psychologist Carl Jung speaks of Ergriffenheit, explained in the English version as "a state of being seized or possessed", and characterizes Germany as "infected... rolling towards perdition". However, Jung sees the German Faith Movement as "decent and well-meaning people who honestly admit their Ergriffenheit and try to come to terms with this new and undeniable fact." He commends Hauer's book Deutsche Gottschau as an attempt "to build a bridge between the dark forces of life and the shining world of historical ideas". The movement had around 200,000 followers at its height. Following the Nazi accession to power, it obtained rights of civil tolerance from Rudolf Hess, but never the preferential treatment from the Nazi state for which Hauer campaigned. However, in the years that followed Hauer's abdication of his title, the Movement largely served as a NSDAP appendage. The development of the German Faith Movement revolved around:
the propagation of the 'blood and soil' ideology
the syncretism of Christian ceremonies with pagan equivalents; the most favored pagan deity being the sun, as can be seen from the flag of the faith movement
