Ludwig Müller
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
who headed the German Christians
German Christians
The Deutsche Christen were a pressure group and movement within German Protestantism aligned towards the antisemitic and Führerprinzip ideological principles of Nazism with the goal to align German Protestantism as a whole towards those principles...
and was imposed by the Nazi government as Landesbischof
Landesbischof
A Landesbischof is the head of some Protestant Landeskirche in Germany. Based on the principle of the summepiscopat, the Lutheran princes assumed the position of Head of Church in their territory after the Reformation...
(bishop) of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union (6 July 1933) and Reich's Bishop (28 June 1933) of the German Evangelical Church
Protestant Reich Church
The Protestant Reich Church, officially German Evangelical Church and colloquially Reichskirche, was formed in 1936 to merge the 28 regional churches into a unified state church that espoused a single doctrine compatible with National Socialism...
. He had been associated with Nazism since the 1920s. He supported a revisionist
Historical revisionism
In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event...
view of "Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
the Aryan
Aryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
" (or a "heroic Jesus") as well as a plan of purifying Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
of what he deemed "Jewish corruption," including purging large parts of the Old Testament
Marcionism
Marcionism was an Early Christian dualist belief system that originated in the teachings of Marcion of Sinope at Rome around the year 144; see also Christianity in the 2nd century....
.
Müller had little real political experience and, as his actions would demonstrate to Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, little if any political aptitude. In the 1920s and early 1930s, before Hitler's assumption
Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung is a German word meaning "seizure of power". It is normally used specifically to refer to the Nazi takeover of power in the democratic Weimar Republic on 30 January 1933, the day Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, turning it into the Nazi German dictatorship.-Term:The...
of the German Chancellorship in January 1933, he was a little known pastor
Pastor
The word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....
who had been a military chaplain
Military chaplain
A military chaplain is a chaplain who ministers to soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and other members of the military. In many countries, chaplains also minister to the family members of military personnel, to civilian noncombatants working for military organizations and to civilians within the...
and a regional leader of the German Christians in East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
. However, he was an "old fighter
Alter Kämpfer
Alter Kämpfer is a term referring to the earliest members of the Nazi Party, i.e. those who joined it before the Reichstag elections of September 1930, with many belonging to the Party as early as its first foundation in 1919–1923...
" with Hitler since 1931, and had a burning desire to assume more power. In 1932, Müller introduced Hitler to General von Blomberg when Müller was chaplain of the East Prussian Military District and Blomberg was the district's commander.
As part of the Nazi Gleichschaltung
Gleichschaltung
Gleichschaltung , meaning "coordination", "making the same", "bringing into line", is a Nazi term for the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control and tight coordination over all aspects of society. The historian Richard J...
, the Nazi regime's plan was to "coordinate" all 28 separate Protestant regional church bodies
Landeskirche
In Germany and Switzerland, a Landeskirche is the church of a region. They originated as the national churches of the independent states, States of Germany or Cantons of Switzerland , that later unified to form modern Germany or modern Switzerland , respectively.-Origins in the Holy Roman...
into a single and unitary Reich Church . Müller wanted to serve as the Reich's bishop of this newly formed entity.
His first attempt to achieve his post ended in a miserable and embarrassing failure. Eventually, however, he was elected to bishop by a national synod through political machinations. This angered many Protestant pastors and congregations, who deemed his selection to be politically motivated and intrinsically anti-Christian.
He was supported by the Nationalist faction (German Christians) within the Church, who wanted to get rid of the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
and create a German National Religion divorced from Jewish influenced ideas. They supported the introduction of the Aryan Paragraph
Aryan paragraph
An Aryan paragraph is a clause in the statutes of an organization, corporation, or real estate deed that reserves membership and/or right of residence solely for members of the Aryan race and excludes from such rights any non-Aryans, particularly Jews or those of Jewish descent, as well as to those...
into the Church. This controversy led to schism
Schism (religion)
A schism , from Greek σχίσμα, skhísma , is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization or movement religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a break of communion between two sections of Christianity that were previously a single body, or to a division within...
and the foundation of the competing Confessing Church
Confessing Church
The Confessing Church was a Protestant schismatic church in Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to nazify the German Protestant church.-Demographics:...
, a situation that frustrated Hitler and led to the end of Müller's power.
Many of the German Protestant clergy supported the Confessing Church movement, which resisted the imposition of the state into Church affairs. Hitler's interest in the group had waned by 1937, when the party took up a more aggressive attitude toward the resistant Christian clergy, so Müller tried to revive his support by allowing the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
to monitor churches and the Christian youth groups to consolidate with the Hitler Youth
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...
.
He remained committed to Nazism to the end. He committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
in 1945, soon after the Nazi defeat.