HITLER AND THE CHURCH.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 204, 29 July 1939, Page 8

HITLER AND THE CHURCH.

Under tlie iron heel of Fascism the Church in Creimany must serve the State. Herr Hitler decided this function for the Church some years ag-o, hut he has not been able to destroy the will and lofty ideals of sturdy ministers who disagree with his purpose, and have found themselves in consequence interned in one or other of the -infamous German prison camps. The death recorded from Berlin of Pastor Schneider after spending two and a-lialf years in the Buchenwald concentration camp, ostensibly from heart failure —though that may mean anything in Germany—is another reminder of the despotic rule of Nazism and of the unhappy fate of thousands who cannot reconcile themselves to its pernicious doctrines. Not the least of these are many pastors of the German Evangelical Church and the most famous of them, Dr. Martin Niemoller, of Berlin, still languishes in a prison camp. The leading personality in the Confessional (Opposition) movement in his Church, he was arrested two years ago for persisting- in making- in “sermons and addresses inflammatory statements attacking leading* personages of the State, and the National Socialist movement, and spreading untrue assertions about measures taken by the State. He has clone this with a view to creating alarm among the population. Furthermore, lie lias incited to disobedience of State laws and decrees. His utterances have furnished material for the anti-German foreign Press.” Such was the momentous charge against the pastor of a leading Berlin church, and Iris arrest caused a sensation. Ilis release was ordered almost immediately afterwards, but he was quickly again placed under detention to face his trial in February of last year, and H ’-e later sentenced to seven moil *V' confinement in a fortress and lined on each of two of the charges, with additional imprisonment if the money were not paid. From the fortress l)r. Niemoller went to a concentration camp, and though after the Sudetenland affair he was said to have been g-iven his freedom this was authoritatively denied. Actually, lie was offered his release if he ceased preaching. Naturally, as leader of the Confessional Church lie could not accept such humiliating conditions, and he has exhorted his congregation to lie- firm, believing that the present strength of the Opposition movement in the Evangelical Church is something to inspire gratitude. Defiance of mail’s deepest and most sacred instincts has not been profitable to the Nazis. • -