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On the 30 January 1933 Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, came to power in Germany. His aim was to mould Germany's political and community life to fit in with his own ideas. This totalitarian approach left no room for deviant views or independent organizations and institutions; the whole of public life was to be controlled or, as the fashionable term put it, 'co-ordinated' by the Nazi party. The two major churches-Lutheran and Catholic- to which almost every German belonged, were no exception to this general control.

But National Socialism also had a particular interest in the churches, and it was inevitable that conflict would arise. Nazism saw itself not just as a political party, but as a philosophy - based on extreme racism. Only the Aryan race was acceptable, and the Aryans' worst enemy was the Jewish people - hence they must be exterminated. This racism led to the infamous death camps ofAuschwitz, Buchenwald, Ravensbruck . . .

Closely linked with Nazi racism was imperialism. Among Aryans, the Germans were the superior people and were therefore called to rule the world. The German people, German blood and the German fatherland were held up by the Nazis as the highest good. Known as der Flihrer (the leader), Adolf Hitler himself was the incarnation of the Nazi philosophy. People greeted each other with and in his name - a practice to which Christians could not conform.

Nazism was a challenge as well as a threat to the churches: it disturbed their security and forced them to ask fundamental questions: What is the church? What does it mean to be a Christian? What is so basic to the nature of the church and to being a Christian that it cannot under any circumstances be surrendered?

The process of discussion and exploration which gradually evolved during the Third Reich centred on three areas:

• The church began to establish itself as a separate entity, independent of the state, and to criticize the state and even actively oppose it;
• The German church became more open to the international church community, from which it received help and support;
• The church began to combat racism by involving the whole Christian community in a united struggle for human rights.

For the anti-Nazi cause, people in Germany not only risked their lives but lost them. Two men were of particular importance in urging the church forward on its way through the Third Reich: Martin Niemoller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Martin Niemoller played a major pan in gathering clergy and congregations of the Lutheran church into what came to be known as the 'Confessing Church'. He was born in 1892 in Westphalia, the son ofa minister whose ancestors had been farmers. In the First World War he became a U-boat commander. When the war was over, he planned to emigrate to South America, as a reaction to the Treaty of Versailles which placed the whole blame for the war on Germany's shoulders. To Niemoller, Germany seemed to be so humiliated by this that he felt he could no longer love his country or its people. However, while he was making his emigration plans, he served an apprenticeship on a farm. Here he experienced a change of heart: he resolved to stay in Germany and serve his fellow-countrymen by going into the ministry of the church.

The establishment of the Weimar Republic in 1919 was greeted by Niemoller with extreme suspicion. In this he was typical of the great majority of German Protestants. He was loyal to the Kaiser and nostalgic for the close relationship between church and state which had existed under the imperial government. When the National Socialists came to power in 1933, with the slogan 'Wipe out the shame of Versailles', Niemoller was wholly in agreement. Nazi foreign policy was greeted with great enthusiasm by the overwhelming majority of the German nation.

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