DIE NATIONALSOZIALISTISCHE GLEICHSCHALTUNG DER EVANGELISCHEN LANDESKIRCHE A.B. IN RUMÄNIEN (1938–1942)

The article discusses how the National Socialists within the German minority in Romania took control of the Evangelical Church of Augustan Confession over the period March 1938–June 1942. Due to a miscalculation of Bishop Viktor Glondys or Landeskirchenkurator Hans Otto Roth, in July 1938, the National Socialists obtained the majority in the Landeskonsistorium, the Superior Consistory of the Church. Having been granted control over the German minority by the Romanian State in November 1940, the National Socialist political organisation of the German minority, the German Ethnic Group in Romania, forced Bishop Glondys to abdicate. Using their political power and taking advantage of the democratic structure of the Church, they had their candidate, Wilhelm Staedel, elected as the new bishop in February 1941. Thereafter, they used their majority in the Landeskonsistorium to take possession of large chunks of the Church estate, starting with school buildings. By manipulating the democratic mechanisms of the Church and concluding a so-called general agreement with the latter, the German Ethnic Group succeeded in gaining ideological and financial control of the Church. The article highlights that National Socialist members of the Church, first and foremost Bishop Staedel, made possible the National Socialist seizure of control over the Church, but that this would have been hardly feasible without the pressure coming from the German Ethnic Group.