('Deutsche Freidenkerbund') was an
organisation founded in 1881 by the
philosopher, physiologist and physician
Ludwig Büchner. Its aim was to provide
a public meeting-ground and forum for
materialist and atheist thinkers in Germany.
The first of such organisations to be
founded in that country, the German
Freethinkers League had by 1930 a
membership numbering around 500,000.
The League was closed down, however,
in the Spring of 1933 when Hitler
outlawed all atheistic and freethinking
groups in Germany. 'Freethinkers Hall',
the national headquarters of the League,
was then converted to a bureau advising
to the public in church matters.
Among its Chairmen was Max Sievers,
who was beheaded at the guillotine by the Nazis in 1944.
"We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."
- Adolf Hitler, 1933 speech in Berlin
"... I do not merely talk of Christianity, no, I also profess that I will never ally myself with the parties which destroy Christianity."
Adolf Hitler, February 15, 1933, speech in Stuttgart
"National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary, it stands on the ground of a real Christianity."
Adolf Hitler, August 26, 1934, speech in Koblenz
"This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief."
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf