The Confessing Church, or Bekennende Kirche, was a German Protestant movement in the 1930s that opposed the "German Christians," a creation of the Nazi regime that sought to make the church an instrument of the state's "national socialist" policy. Key figures like Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were part of the movement, which issued the Barmen Declaration in 1934 to assert the church's spiritual autonomy from the state. While initially focused on preserving church freedom, members eventually recognized the Nazis' inherently anti-Christian nature. There were weaknesses also. The Barmen Confession never mentioned the Jews and the Confessing Church only took up the oppression of the Jews very late. There were, if fact, Confessing Church leaders who held antisemitic views even as they were opposing the Nazi regime.