Nazi ideology could not accept an autonomous establishment whose legitimacy did not spring from the government. It desired the subordination of the church to the state. To many Nazis, Catholics were suspected of insufficient patriotism, or even of disloyalty to the Fatherland, and of serving the interests of "sinister alien forces". Nazi radicals also disdained the Semitic origins of Jesus and the Christian religion. Although the broader membership of the Nazi Party after 1933 came to include many Catholics, aggressive anti-church radicals like Alfred Rosenberg, Martin Bormann, and Heinrich Himmler saw the campaign against the churches as a priority concern, and anti-church and anti-clerical sentiments were strong among grassroots party activists.Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; W.W. Norton & Co; London; pp. 381–82

The Hitler regime permitted various persecutions of the Church in the Greater Germanic Reich, though the political relationship between Church and state among Nazi allies was varied. While the Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler's public relationship to religion in Nazi Germany may be defined as one of opportunism, his personal position on Catholicism and Christianity was one of hostility. Hitler's chosen "deputy", Martin Bormann, an atheist, recorded in Hitler's Table Talk that Nazism was secular, scientific, and anti-religious in outlook.

Biographer Alan Bullock wrote that, although Hitler was raised as a Catholic and retained some regard for the organisational power of Catholicism, he had utter contempt for its central teachings, which, if taken to their conclusion, he said, "would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure".Alan Bullock; Hitler: a Study in Tyranny; HarperPerennial Edition 1991; p218" Bullock wrote that Hitler frequently employed the language of "Providence" in defence of his own myth, but ultimately held a "materialist outlook, based on the nineteenth century rationalists' certainty that the progress of science would destroy all myths and had already proved Christian doctrine to be an absurdity".Alan Bullock; Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives; Fontana Press; 1993; pp.412 Though he was willing at times to restrain his anticlericalism out of political considerations, and approved the Reich concordat signed between Germany and the Holy See, his long term hope was for a de-Christianised Germany.Sharkey, Word for Word/The Case Against the Nazis; How Hitler's Forces Planned To Destroy German Christianity, New York Times, 13 January 2002 The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution of the Christian Churches , Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, Winter 2001, publishing evidence compiled by the O.S.S. for the Nuremberg war-crimes trials of 1945 and 1946 Griffin, Roger Fascism's relation to religion in Blamires, Cyprian, World fascism: a historical encyclopedia, Volume 1, p. 10, ABC-CLIO, 2006: "There is no doubt that in the long run Nazi leaders such as Hitler and Himmler intended to eradicate Christianity just as ruthlessly as any other rival ideology, even if in the short term they had to be content to make compromises with it." Mosse, George Lachmann, Nazi culture: intellectual, cultural and social life in the Third Reich, p. 240, Univ of Wisconsin Press, 2003: "Had the Nazis won the war their ecclesiastical policies would have gone beyond those of the German Christians, to the utter destruction of both the Protestant and the Catholic Church." Shirer, William L., Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, p. 240, Simon and Schuster, 1990: "And even fewer paused to reflect that under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler, who were backed by Hitler, the Nazi regime intended eventually to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists." Fischel, Jack R., Historical Dictionary of the Holocaust, p. 123, Scarecrow Press, 2010: "The objective was to either destroy Christianity and restore the German gods of antiquity or to turn Jesus into an Aryan." Dill, Marshall, Germany: a modern history, p. 365, University of Michigan Press, 1970: "It seems no exaggeration to insist that the greatest challenge the Nazis had to face was their effort to eradicate Christianity in Germany or at least to subjugate it to their general world outlook." Wheaton, Eliot Barculo The Nazi revolution, 1933–1935: prelude to calamity:with a background survey of the Weimar era, p. 290, 363, Doubleday 1968: The Nazis sought "to eradicate Christianity in Germany root and branch."Bendersky, Joseph W., A concise history of Nazi Germany, p. 147, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007: "Consequently, it was Hitler's long range goal to eliminate the churches once he had consolidated control over his European empire."

The 1920 Nazi Party Platform had promised to support freedom of religions with the caveat: "insofar as they do not jeopardize the state's existence or conflict with the moral sentiments of the Germanic race", and expressed support for so-called "Positive Christianity", a movement which sought to detach Christianity from its Jewish roots, and Apostles' Creed. William Shirer wrote that "under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler—backed by Hitler—the Nazi regime intended to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists."

Background

Roman Catholicism was widespread among European and Germanic people, but The Reformation divided German Christians between Protestantism and Catholicism.Encyclopædia Britannica Online - Germany : Religion; web 23 May 2013 The Nazi movement arose during the period of the Weimar Republic in the aftermath of the disaster of World War I (1914–1918) and the subsequent political instability and grip of the Great Depression.Encyclopædia Britannica Online - Germany : History - Germany from 1918–1945; web 23 May 2013. In the 1930s, the Catholic Church and the Catholic Centre Party () were major social and political forces in predominantly Protestant Germany. Through the period of the Weimar Republic (1919–33/34) the Centre Party, aligned with both the Social Democrats and the leftist German Democratic Party, had maintained the centre ground against the rise of extremist parties of the left and right.Yad Vashem - The German Churches in the Third Reich by Franklin F. Littell Historically the Centre Party had had the strength to defy Bismark and been a bulwark of the Weimar Republic, yet, according to Bullock, from the summer of 1932, the Party had become "notoriously a Party whose first concern was to make accommodation with any government in power in order to secure the protection of its particular interests".Alan Bullock; Hitler: a Study in Tyranny; Harper Perennial Edition 1991; pp. 138, 148 It remained relatively moderate during the radicalisation of German politics which occurred with the onset of the Great Depression in Germany, but the party's deputies ultimately voted for the Enabling Act of March 1933, with which Hitler obtained plenary powers.Centre Party; Encyclopædia Britannica Online; retrieved 28 September 2013

Early Nazi movement Catholic Bavaria resented rule from Protestant Berlin, and Hitler at first saw revolution in Bavaria as a means to power - but an early attempt proved fruitless, and he was imprisoned after the 1923 Munich Beerhall Putsch. He used the time to produce , in which he argued that the effeminate Jewish-Christian ethic was enfeebling Europe, and that Germany needed a man of iron to restore itself and build an empire.Editors of Time-Life Books; Shadow of the Dictators; Time-Life Books; 1989; ; p.27 He decided on the tactic of pursuing power through "legal" means.Editors of Time-Life Books; Shadow of the Dictators; Time-Life Books; 1989; ; p.28

Hitler combined elements of autobiography with an exposition of his racist political ideology in (), published between 1925 and 1927.Encyclopædia Britannica Online - Mein Kampf; web 24 May 2013 Laurence Rees wrote that emphasis on Christianity is missing from Mein Kampf, and described the thrust of the work as "bleak nihilism" revealing a cold universe with no moral structure other than the fight between different people for supremacy.Laurence Rees; The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler; Ebury Press 2012; p. 135 Paul Berben wrote that insofar as the Christian denominations were concerned, Hitler declared himself to be neutral in Mein Kampf - but argued for clear separation between church and state, and for the church not to concern itself with the earthly life of the people, which must be the domain of the state.Berben, Paul (1975). Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945. Norfolk Press. ; p.138 According to William Shirer, Hitler "inveighed against political Catholicism in and attacked both of the Christian Churches for their failure to recognise the racial problem...", while also warning that no political party could succeed in "producing a religious reformation". The 1920 Nazi Party Platform had promised to support freedom of religions with the caveat: "insofar as they do not jeopardize the state's existence or conflict with the moral sentiments of the Germanic race". It further proposed a definition of a "positive Christianity" which could combat the "Jewish-materialistic spirit". The attitude of the Nazi party membership to the Catholic Church ranged from tolerance to near total renunciation.

Nazis take power

A threatening, though initially mainly sporadic persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany followed the Nazi takeover.Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; W.W. Norton & Co; London; p. 332 The Nazis claimed jurisdiction over all collective and social activity, interfering with Catholic schooling, youth groups, workers' clubs and cultural societies. "By the latter part of the decade of the Thirties", wrote Phayer, "church officials were well aware that the ultimate aim of Hitler and other Nazis was the total elimination of Catholicism and of the Christian religion. Since the overwhelming majority of Germans were either Catholic or Protestant this goal had to be a long-term rather than a short-term Nazi objective".The Response of the German Catholic Church to National Socialism , by Michael Phayer published by Yad Vashem

Hitler moved quickly to eliminate Political Catholicism. The dissolution of the Centre Party, a former bulwark of the Weimar Republic left modern Germany without a Catholic Party for the first time. Vice Chancellor Papen meanwhile negotiated a Reich concordat with the Vatican, which prohibited clergy from participating in politics.Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; W.W. Norton & Co; London; p. 290 Kershaw wrote that the Vatican was anxious to reach agreement with the new government, despite "continuing molestation of Catholic clergy, and other outrages committed by Nazi radicals against the Church and its organisations".Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; W.W. Norton & Co; London; p. 295 Hitler, nevertheless, had a "blatant disregard" for the Concordat, wrote Paul O'Shea, and its signing was to him merely a first step in the "gradual suppression of the Catholic Church in Germany".Paul O'Shea; A Cross Too Heavy; Rosenberg Publishing; p. 234–5 Anton Gill wrote that "with his usual irresistible, bullying technique, Hitler then proceeded to take a mile where he had been given an inch" and closed all Catholic institutions whose functions weren't strictly religious:Gill, Anton (1994). An Honourable Defeat; A History of the German Resistance to Hitler. Heinemann Mandarin. 1995 paperback , p.57