* * Herr Hitler and the Churches What Herr Hitler's
personal views on the Church conflict in Germany arc remains undisclosed. But both the Roman Catholic Bishops and the Protestant Confessional Synod have been convinced by the acts of Herr Hitler's Ministers that a new phase of accen- tuated struggle is before them. Reichsbishop Muller and his German Christians have become .negligible. The field is divided between Dr. Rosenberg's neo-pagans on the one hand, and the Catholics, relying on a concordat which the State is consistently violating, and the Con- fessional Synod. Against the latter the weapon of finance is now invoked, the pastors being threatened with the stoppage of their salaries unless they conform to all the demands of the State as represented by the new Minister for Church Affairs, Herr Kerrl, who claims the right to administer various funds which a committee of the Synod has hitherto kept in its own hands. As a foretaste of what may be in store generally the Silesian Synod, moderate though it was almost to the point of compromise, has been dissolved by Herr Kerrl's orders. On the face of it the State might seem seriously threatened by the joint hostility of the enemies it has made, Pro- testants, Roman Catholics, Jews, and the victims of tow' wages and high prices. Actually, while there is a common fear, there is no co-operation, and nowhere the smallest inclination to open political opposition.
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