WHEN GOD IS SEPARATED

FROM GOVERNMENT, JUDGMENT FOLLOWS

HITLER DID NOT discourage people from attending church. He was a baptized Catholic who had long since abandoned his faith, but he did not mind if others continued to attend church as long as it did not affect the way they lived or the values they held. In fact, he explicitly said that he would not interfere with the specific doctrines of the church, just as long as the churches were teaching those things that were in harmony with the good of the German people. He called this "Positive Christianity."

Of course he knew he would encounter some opposition from those who were not on board with his vision of a toothless Christianity. But he believed that he could crush any opposition he might encounter — and in effect he did just that — by intimidation and controlling their salaries. (Because Germany had a state church, the pastors were dependent on the good graces of the government for their income.) Hitler ridiculed the Protestant pastors, saying they were cowering dogs who would do his bidding for the sake of "their miserable salaries."

So, right from the beginning Hitler sought to marginalize the church to guarantee that no Christian influence would be allowed to inform government policy. Worship would have to be a private matter between a man and his God; at all costs the official state policy would have to be based on humanistic principles to give Hitler the freedom to do what was "best" for Germany. He said that the churches must be "forbidden from interfering with temporal matters." The state would have to he scrubbed clean of all Christian convictions and values.

Since Germans had for centuries celebrated Christmas and Easter, Hitler had to reinterpret their meaning. Christmas was turned into a totally pagan festival; in fact, at least for the SS troops, its date was changed to December 21, the date of the winter solstice. School prayers were banned, and carols and Nativity plays were forbidden in the schools; and in 1938 even the name Christmas was changed to Yuletide. Crucifixes were eliminated from classrooms. Easter was turned into a holiday that heralded the arrival of spring. If religion was tolerated, it had to be secularized so that it would be compatible with the state's commitment to the greater good of a revived Germany. Most of the churches bowed to the cultural currents and endorsed the "Positive Christianity" that was in line with government policies.

Of course, Hitler's real intentions were not immediately revealed. Soon after he was sworn in as chancellor, he paid tribute to Christianity as an "essential element for safeguarding the soul of the German people" and promised to respect the rights of the churches. He declared his ambition to have "a peaceful accord between Church and State." He expressed his intention