The " Kultur Kampf " The conflict between National Socialism
and the Roman Catholic Church in Germany is specially acute at the moment, and has led to the resignation from the Cabinet of Baron Eltz-Rilbenbach, Minister of Posts and Transport, a Catholic, who on Tuesday returned to Herr Hitler the Golden Badge of the National Socialist Party to which he had been admitted last week. The immediate cause of conflict is the education question. Last week over 95 per cent. of the parents in Bavaria registered their children with the undenominational schools favoured by the National Socialist Party. The number has surprised even the National Socialists ; the Catholic bishops have replied by protesting against breaches of the Concordat and against the methods of coercion used to influence the parents. The conflict is sufficiently important to lead possibly to a denunciation of the Concordat by the Church ; and Herr Hitler has not yet answered the note from the Vatican, understood to be a protest against breaches of the agreement, sent by Cardinal Pacelli after the recent visit of Catholic bishops to Rome. The education of German youth is a crucial question both to the Catholic Church and to the Party. Many Catholics have felt that, compared with the eternal church, National Socialism is an ephemeral movement which the Church will survive, not by resist- ance, but by patience under persecution. But survival becomes more doubtful if the whole of German youth is absorbed by the Party.
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