“The Fuehrer considers his efforts to bring the Evangelical Church to reason, unsuccessful and the Evangelical Church with respect to its condition rightfully a useless pile of sects. As you emphasize the Party has previously carried on not only a fight against the political element of the Christianity of the Church, but also a fight against membership of Party Members in a Christian confession. * * *
“The Catholic Church will and must, according to the law under which it is set up, remain a thorn in the flesh of a Racial State * * *.” (129-PS)
Gauleiter Florian, in a letter dated 23 September 1940 to the defendant Hess, stated:
“The churches with their Christianity are the danger against which to fight is absolutely necessary.” (064-PS)
Regierungsrat Roth, in a lecture 22 September 1941, to a group of Security Police, in the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) concluded his address on Security Police (Sipo) measures for combatting church politics and sects with the following remarks:
“The immediate aim: the church must not regain one inch of the ground it has lost. The ultimate aim: Destruction of the Confessional Churches to be brought about by the collection of all material obtained through the intelligence service (Nachrichtendienst) activities which will at a given time be produced as evidence for the charge of treasonable activities during the German fight for existence.” (1815-PS)
The Party Organization Book states:
“Bravery is valued by the SS man as the highest virtue of men in a struggle for his ideology.
“He openly and unrelentingly fights the most dangerous enemies of the State; Jews, Free Masons, Jesuits, and political clergymen.
“However, he recruits and convinces the weak and inconstant by his example, who have not been able to bring themselves to the National Socialistic ideology.” (1855-PS)