Hans Christian Asmussen (born 21 August 1898 in Flensburg — died 30 December 1968 in Speyer) was a German Evangelical and Lutheran theologian.

He was co-author of the protest "Word and Affirmation of Altona Pastors amid the Misery and Confusion of Public Life" (11 January 1933), which rejected a pact with National Socialism and thus became a preliminary step toward the theological declaration of the Barmen Confessional Synod.

From 1945 to 1948, Asmussen presided over the Evangelical Church Chancellery, and from 1949 to 1955, he was dean (German: Propst) in Kiel; he was a promoter of ecumenical dialogue.

[2] After the Altona Bloody Sunday incident on July 17, 1932 where eighteen people were killed in street fighting between the Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS), the Prussian police, and Communist Party (KPD) Asmussen attempted to calm tempers by holding the funerals and stressing that vengeance was not the solution.

However Hitler declared that the Nazi dead were "Christian martyrs", released a pamphlet titled Wöhrden's Bloody Night and Its Consequence and used the incident to spark more demonstrations.

[3][4][5] Hitler soon rose to power and intended to consolidate the German clergy into a single Church that supported the Nazi party.

He belonged to the Reich Fraternal Council, and along with Karl Barth and Thomas Broad, drafted the Barmen Declaration and presented it at the first Barmer Confessional Synod of 1934 as the introduction speech.

[6] In 1939, a wide-ranging speech and sermon ban was imposed on Asmussen and other non-state clergy, who were on the lists of BK for the persecuted Christians.

In May 1941, Asmussen was arrested at Albertz, along with Günther Dehn and vicar Elisabeth Gray and sentenced on 22 December 1941 by the Berlin Special Court I to imprisonment.

That which we often testified to in our communities, we express now in the name of the whole church: We did fight for long years in the name of Jesus Christ against the mentality that found its awful expression in the National Socialist regime of violence; but we accuse ourselves for not standing to our beliefs more courageously, for not praying more faithfully, for not believing more joyously, and for not loving more ardently.In the following years Asmussen fell increasingly out of favor with the EKD Council, because he called for a more autonomous role of Lutheranism within the EKD Council.

Asmussen was highly critical of the Soviet Union believing its aspirations of spreading its influence or conquering the west would entail the deprivation of rights and freedoms of Germans and Christians.