The Holocaust Historiography Project

Translation of document 3436-PS

          1935 REICHSGESETZBLATT, PART I, PAGE 1178

      Law for the Safeguarding of the German Protestant
                           Church
                    of 24 September 1935

According to the will of the Protestant
congregation the unification of the State Churches
in a German Protestant Church has been
accomplished and documented in a constitution.

Nevertheless, the Reich Cabinet has been obliged
to observe with deep anxiety how a condition has
later arisen through a conflict of church groups
among and against each other, which destroys the
unity of the congregation, prejudices the freedom
of faith and conscience of the individual, harms
the racial community [Volksgemeinschaft] and
exposes to extreme dangers the stability of the
Protestant Church itself.

The Reich Cabinet permeated by the desire to be
able to turn over the regulation church which is
internally settled, in accordance with its duty as
a trustee, and in the knowledge that this tasks
cannot be left to any of the conflicting groups.

To safeguard the stability of the German
Protestant Church and to introduce an order which
will enable the church to regulate its own
questions of faith and creed in complete freedom
and calm, has resolved upon the following law,
which is hereby published.

The Reich Minister for Church Affairs, in order to
reestablish a settled state of affairs in the
German Protestant Church and in the legally
binding power.  The decrees will be published in
the Reichsgesetzblatt.

Munich, 24, September, 1935.
                  The Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor
                                      Adolf Hitler

             The Reich Minister for Church Affairs
                                             Kerrl