Well, the majority of Lutherans were decidedly aligned with the Nazi state, but that was in great part to do with their tradition as a state church. It does not mean that they aligned their teachings, and in fact Hitler intended to "deal with them" along with the other churches, very thoroughly, after the war. On the other hand, a large minority of Lutherans broke away to found the "Confessing Church" in the name of freedom of conscience. Among their leaders was the WWI war hero Martin Niemoeller (author of the famous quotation: ~"When they came for the Communists, I was silent because I was not a Communist. When they came for the Jews..." etc). Another leader was the legendary theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was murdered in early 1945 because the order was that he was by no means to survive the war. However, the "Confessing Church", like many other decent old-fashioned Germans, had underrated the willingness of the Nazis to stoop to any means and use any instruments against anyone they perceived as an enemy. They were arrested in their hundreds, banned from churches and colleges, forbidden from publishing and preaching, and by 1937 they had stopped existing as a corporate entity. From then on, any resistance was a matter of personal heroism such as that of the White Rose group or of the plotters of July 20.
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