German Christian guidelines

Guidelines of 1932

The Guidelines of the German Christians by Joachim Hossenfelder in 1932:

“1. These principles are intended to show all faithful Germans the path and the goals that will lead them to a new church order. These principles are not intended to be or to replace a confession of faith, nor are they meant to undermine the confessional foundations of the Protestant [evangelische] Church. They are a confession of life.

2. We are fighting to achieve an integration of the twenty-nine constituent churches of the “German Evangelical Church Association” into one National Protestant Church [evangelische Reichskirche], and we march under the slogan and goal: Externally, one and strong in spirit, gathered around Christ and his Word, internally, rich and diverse, each Christian according to individual calling and style.

3. The name “German Christians” does not connote an ecclesiastical political party as known heretofore. It addresses itself to all Protestant Christians who are Germans. The era of parliamentarianism is over, in the church as well. The parties associated with various churches do not have the religious credentials to represent the people of the church; in fact, they stand in the way of the noble goal of our becoming a churchly people. We want a vigorous people’s church [Volkskirche], one that expresses the power of our faith.

4. We stand on the ground of positive Christianity. We confess an affirmative faith in Christ, one suited to a truly German Lutheran spirit and heroic piety.

5. We want to bring to our church the reawakened German sense of life and to revitalize our church. In the fateful struggle for German freedom and our future, the leadership of the church has proven to be too weak. Up to this point the church has not risen to the challenge of a determined struggle against godless Marxism and the Center Party, so alien to our spirit [geistfremd]; instead, it has made a compact with the political parties of these powers. We want our church to be front and center in the battle that will decide the life or death of our people. The church may not stand on the sidelines or dissociate itself from those who are fighting for freedom.

6. We demand a revision of the political clauses of this church compact, as well as a battle against irreligious and anti-Volk Marxism and its Christian-Socialist minions of every stripe. We do not see in this present church compact a daring confidence in God and in the church’s mission. The path to the Kingdom of God leads through struggle, cross, and sacrifice, not through a false peace.

7. We recognize in race, ethnicity [Volkstum], and nation orders of life given and entrusted to us by God, who has commanded us to preserve them. For this reason race-mixing must be opposed. Based on its experience, the German foreign mission has long admonished the German people: “Keep your race pure!” and tells us that faith in Christ does not destroy race, but rather deepens and sanctifies it.

8. We see in Home Mission, rightly conceived, a living, active Christianity that, in our view, is rooted not in mere compassion but rather in obedience to God’s will and gratitude for Christ’s death on the cross. Mere compassion is charity, which leads to arrogance coupled with a guilty conscience that makes a people soft. We are conscious of Christian duty toward and love for the helpless, but we also demand that the people be protected from those who are inept and inferior. The Home Mission must in no way contribute to the degeneration of our people. Furthermore, it should avoid economic adventures and must not become a shopkeeper.

9. In the mission to the Jews we see great danger to our people. It is the point at which foreign blood enters the body of our people. There is no justification for its existing alongside the foreign mission. We reject the mission to the Jews as long as Jews have citizenship, which brings with it the danger of race-blurring and race-bastardizing. Holy Scripture speaks both of holy wrath and of self-denying love. It is especially important to prohibit marriages between Germans and Jews.

10. We want a Protestant church with its roots in the people, and we reject the spirit of a Christian cosmopolitanism. Through our faith in the ethno-national [völkisch] mission God has commanded us to carry out, we want to overcome all the destructive phenomena that emerge from this spirit, such as pacifism, internationalism, Freemasonry, and so forth. No Protestant clergy may belong to a Masonic lodge.

These ten points of the “German Christian” movement are a call for us to come together; they form in broad outline a direction for a future Protestant National Church [Reichskirche] that, while safeguarding peace among denominations, will develop the strengths of our Reformation faith for the good of the German people.”

Guidelines of 1933

Joachim Hossenfelder's German Christian Guidelines in 1933:

“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!”