Joachim Hossenfelder

German Lutheran pastor and bishop of Berlin and Brandenburg, Joachim Hossenfelder, was one of the founders and first national leader of the pro-Nazi German Christian Faith Movement. He proclaimed that the German Christians are the “SA of Jesus Christ.” Hossenfelder studied theology in Kiel and Wrocław. He became a pastor in Alt-Reichenau, Silesia, in 1923. In 1929, he joined the Nazi Party, and in 1931, he became a pastor in Berlin.

Quotes

 * “To become warriors for God and fatherland was the task the war had set for us.”, Joachim Hossenfelder.


 * “God had brought [the German] Volk into being and he had done so through Hitler, Volk was race and God wants race.”, Joachim Hossenfelder.


 * “Christian faith is a heroic, manly thing. God speaks in blood and Volk a more powerful language than he does in the idea of humanity.”, Joachim Hossenfelder.


 * “1. We German Christians believe in our Savior Jesus Christ, in the power of his Cross and his Resurrection. His life and death teach us that struggle along the road is at the same time the path to love and to life.


 * Through God’s Creation we have been placed into the blood-and-fate community of the German people and because we share that destiny we are responsible for its future. Germany is our purpose, Christ is our strength!


 * 2. Source and Confirmation of our faith are God’s revelations in the Bible and the confirmations of faith by our forebearers.


 * The New Testament is the holy document of our Savior, our Lord, and of the Kingdom of his Father. The Old Testament is for us an example of God's way to educate. It is of value for our faith only to make us understand the life of Christ, the Cross, and his resurrection.


 * 3. Just like for all peoples, the eternal God has for our people also created a characteristic tenet/law. It became reality in the person of Adolf Hitler and the Nationalist State molded by him.


 * This tenet/law expresses itself through the history of our people’s blood and soil. To uphold this tenet/law we must be ready to fight for honor and liberty.


 * 4. The way to the fulfillment of this German tenet/law is through the pious/devout German Christian Congregation. Christ rules in it, the Lord, by His grace and mercy. The holy fire of the willingness to make sacrifices burns in it. Christ only speaks through it to the German people – to provide the strength of faith. Out of this Congregation of German Christians the all-encompassing “German Christian National Church” must emerge in the Nationalist State of Adolf Hitler.


 * One People! – One God! – One Reich! – One Church!”, Joachim Hossenfelder, German Christian Guidelines, 1933.