CONFESSIONAL CHURCH.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 195, 19 July 1937, Page 8

CONFESSIONAL CHURCH.

MORE ARRESTS BY NAZIS. 4 TENSION INCREASING. Received July 19. 11.45 a.in. BERLIN, July 18. Tension is increasing in connection with the Church crisis. The secret police have arrested Dr. Niemoller’s successor, Dr. Hiklebrandt, superintendent at Alberz, and two members of the Confessional Church Council. Dr. Hildebrandt read to a crowded congregation at Dalilen 45 names of arrested pastors urging the boycotting of “uncliristians” who were replacing them. He announced that there would be collections in the sacristy for the relatives of those imprisoned, such collections being illegal Groups of plain clothes police entered the sacristy and removed Dr. Hildebrandt, to the indignation of the congregation, who were powerless to resist. Fifty students have been expelled from the theological seminary at Berlin University for sympathising with students previously expelled for attending evangelical classes. Dr Alartin Nieinoller. leader of the Confessional movement against the Nazification of the Evangelical Church, was arrested on July 1 on a charge of announcing from the pulpit the names of members of the congregation who bad seceded from tho church, such announcement being forbidden by the A fillister of the Interior. An official report confirming the arrest of Dr Xiemollei' stated: “He has for a long time used Divine service and other Church activities to deliver provocative speeches and calumniate leading persons of the State and the Nazi Party. He has spread untrue reports 'about Church conditions in Germany and incitcu disobedience of laws and decrees.”