Confessing Church

The league was the forerunner of the Confessing Church, founded in May 1934, in which Niemöller became a leading figure. Around 6,000 pastors joined, showing that opposition to Nazi interference was more than the protest of a few isolated individuals. Niemöller's importance lay both in helping organise this opposition and in continuing to preach against state interference despite police warnings.

The movement helped establish the Confessing Church in 1934, which attracted around 6,000 pastors. It defended independent Christian teaching against the attempt to reshape Protestantism around Nazi ideas. Pastors who resisted faced arrest and imprisonment.