Karl Kautsky, for years one of the intellectual leaders of the Socialist movement in Germany and one of its ablest and most representative publicists, said: [12]
"The one-sided battle against the congregations, as it is being carried on today in France, is merely a pruning of the boughs of the tree, which then merely flourishes all the more strongly. The ax must be laid to the roots."
[ [12] Die neue Zeit, 1903, vol. i, p. 506.
Genosse Dr. Erdmann, writing after the war had begun, said:
"We have no occasion to conceal the fact that Social-Democracy is hostile to the church—whether Catholic or Evangelical—and that we present our demands with special decision because we know that we shall thus break the power of the church." [13]
[ [13] Sozialistische Monatshefte, 1915, vol. i, p. 516.
Vorwärts headlined an article in January, 1918: "All religious systems are enemies of women." (The Socialists nevertheless had the effrontery during the campaign preceding the election of delegates to the National Assembly at Weimar in January to put out a placard saying: "Women, protect your religion! Vote for the Social-Democratic party of Germany!").
The initial activities of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils in Hamburg and Brunswick following the revolution were correctly described in a speech made in the National Assembly on March 11, 1919, by Deputy Mumm. He said:
"The revolutionary government in Hamburg has retained the bordells and abolished religious instruction. In Brunswick the school children of the capital, 1,500 in number, were assembled in the Cathedral by the people's commissioners for an anti-Christian Christmas celebration."
At the same session, Deputy Hellmann, a member of the Majority (parent) Socialist party, said in a speech in answer to Mumm: