Ludwig Müller was born in 1883 in Gütersloh, Germany. He was ordained as a Protestant pastor in 1908 and served the parish of a small town for several years. When World War I started in 1914, Müller served as a naval chaplain. He began supporting the Nazi Party in the 1920s during the years of the Weimar Republic. When the Nazis rose to power in 1933, Müller was serving as a military chaplain in Königsberg, Germany.
Müller was part of a group within the main Protestant church1 that wanted to align the church more closely with the Nazi Party and its goals. During the 1920s, this group formed a movement known as the “German Christians” (German: Deutsche Christen). Under pressure from the Nazis' efforts to assert control over German institutions (a campaign known as Gleichschaltung), the main Protestant church agreed in 1933 to create a new national “Reich Church" that would coordinate more closely with the state.
In May 1933, church leaders elected Friedrich von Bodelschwingh2—an opponent of the German Christian movement—to the newly-created role of “Reich Bishop,” but the Nazi government pressured him to resign and forced the appointment of long-time Nazi Party supporter Ludwig Müller to the role. Müller’s installation as “Reich Bishop” was unpopular with many church leaders—he was neither a high-ranking church figure nor a well-known religious scholar.
The featured film was created in September 1934 as a newsreel for German audiences. It shows portions of the ceremony that officially made Ludwig Müller the head of the new “Reich Church.” Young women dressed in traditional German clothing can be seen flanking Müller, along with members of the SS and German police, German Christian clergy, and Nazi Party officials. The film captures part of Müller’s speech from the steps of the Berlin Cathedral, in which he addresses representatives of Germany’s different regional Protestant congregations and invites them to join “a close-knit inner community.”
Müller and the German Christian movement inserted Nazi racial ideology into the teachings and policies of the national Reich Church. Müller claimed that Jesus had not been Jewish and that "Christianity did not arise from Judaism.” He argued instead that “Christ died in the most rigorous struggle against Judaism.” In 1936, Müller even delivered his own revised Sermon on the Mount—purged of all elements that he considered to be corrupt Jewish moral lessons.3 The Reich Church also adopted the so-called “Aryan Paragraph,” which banned those whom the Nazis designated as Jewish from participating in church life.
Despite the support of Nazi leaders, Müller struggled to maintain his influence in his role as Reich Bishop. Other church leaders did not like the growing Nazi presence in church matters. Müller was not liked by the more extreme members of the German Christian movement, either—many of them wanted to see even more radical changes than Müller would support.
Müller’s influence as Reich Bishop faded over the years. He remained in his post but became a powerless figurehead. Nazi authorities took more direct control over church affairs in 1935 by appointing Nazi politician and SA leader Hanns Kerrl as Minister for Church Affairs. Müller died in summer 1945, less than three months after Nazi Germany was defeated by the Allied Powers.