Items 1 through 1 of 2. Flensburg, Germany , ca. He spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. Germany, Berlin, Germany, ca. A leader of the anti-Nazi Confessing Church, he spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. United States, October 4, Then they came for me-and there was no one left to speak for me. In he became a cadet in the Imperial German Navy.
He married Else Bruner on April 20, The couple had 6 children. In , he resigned from this position and became the junior pastor of Saint Anne's Church, located in a wealthy and much sought-after parish in the Berlin suburb of Dahlem. He felt that reparations, democracy, and foreign influence had led to damaging social fragmentation and an overemphasis on the individual in German society.
The ideology of the German Christians was expressed in the speech of one of their leaders, Dr. Reinhold Krause, at the Sports Palace Rally. Depicting Martin Luther as a militant symbol for the preservation of German race and culture, the German Christians embraced Nazi racial ideology and demanded that all Jewish elements, including the Old Testament, be excluded from Christian theology. This rally was seen as blasphemous and led to a radical drop in support for the German Christians.
The PEL opposed the introduction of racialized criteria for clergy and combated the German Christian agenda. He made the following arguments against the German Christians:. Yet the PEL had repeatedly stressed that criticism of the Nazi state was confined to internal church matters. The Confessing Church declared itself to be the one true Lutheran Church in Germany, deriving inspiration directly from God.
Despite warnings from the police, he continued to preach against the state's attempts to interfere with church governance and what he viewed as the neo-paganism encouraged by the Nazis. In February , he was convicted under the Law for the Prevention of Treacherous Attacks on State and Party and the Law for the Maintenance of Respect for Party Uniforms and sentenced to seven months detention and a fine of 2, Reichsmarks. Whether because of emotional distress or a continued commitment to German nationalist and expansionist ideals, he attempted to reenlist in the Navy, appealing by letter from Sachsenhausen to Admiral Erich Raeder, commander-in-chief of the German Navy, in and again in In September , he wrote to a former colleague in the military, asking that he be released from the concentration camp so that he could fight for Germany.
