While the Lutheran ’missionaries’ are promoting Aryan racial hygiene in southern Brazil, the mission institution Neuendettelsau is seeking close contact with the NSDAP in 1931.
As the first Protestant institution in Germany, the mission institution invites a delegation of the NSDAP to a “strictly confidential discussion”1. The conspiratorial meeting is approved by Oberkirchenrat [member of the High Consistory] Hans Meiser and takes place under the leadership of mission director Dr. Friedrich Eppelein2 in Nuremberg on March 25, 1931. He is the mentor of Brazil-pastor Georg Weger, to whom he supplies current information on a regular basis from Neuendettelsau and Nazi-Germany. Hans Schemm, Eppeleins longtime friend and Reichstag deputy from Bayreuth, is also present as head of the NSDAP delegation.
Regional Bishop Hans Meiser 
Friedrich Eppelein 
Hans Schemm
Eppelein begins his opening speech with the words:
Also the people’s mission in Neuendettelsau wants nothing else but to serve the German people in its own way. Since we are convinced that the NSDAP also wants nothing else but to serve the German people, we asked to get in touch. We expect a lot from the NSDAP. We have not yet contacted or spoken to any party in a similar way.
Mission director Friedrich Eppelein 1931. In: Mensing, Björn: Pfarrer und Nationalsozialismus, Geschichte einer Verstrickung am Beispiel der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche in Bayern. volume 26, 1998, p. 131
1 Mensing, Björn: Pfarrer und Nationalsozialismus, Geschichte einer Verstrickung am Beispiel der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche in Bayern. volume 26, 1998, p. 131
2 Note.: Pastor Friedrich Eppelein acted as pastor in Bayreuth until 1926. In 1924 he joined the “Society for Inner and Outer Mission in the Spirit of the Lutheran Church” in Neuendettelsau; from 1926 to 1928 he served as “Inspector for Homeland Missions” in Neuendettelsau and from 1928 to 1945 as director of the mission institution in Neuendettelsau.
Picture credits:
Cover picture: Nikolaikirche Neuendettelsau
Hans Meiser (1881-1956) – Regional Bishop of the Protestant-Lutheran Church in Bavaria from 1933-1955. Regional Church archive of the of the Protestant Lutheran Church in Bavaria, photo collection of persons [Meiser, Hans] P 5
Friedrich Eppelein – Rössler, Hans: Nationalsozialismus in der fränkischen Provinz: Neuendettelsau unterm Hakenkreuz, 2018
Hans Schemm – Büro des Reichstags (ed.): Reichstags-Handbuch 1933, IX. Wahlperiode, publisher of the Reichsdruckerei, Berlin 1934
