210. Kershaw, Popular Opinion, ch.5; John Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933–1945, London, 1968, 206—13; Edward N. Peterson, The Limits of Hitler’s Power, Princeton, 1969, especially ch.5 and 8; Elke Fröhlich, ‘Der Pfarrer von Mömbris’, in Martin Broszat and Elke Fröhlich (eds.), Bayern in der NS-Zeit, vol.6, Die Herausforderung des Einzelnen. Geschichten über Widerstand und Verfolgung, Munich/Vienna, 1983, 52—75.
211. For the trials and the orchestrated campaign of defamation against the Catholic clergy, see Hans Günter Hockerts, Die Sittlichkeitsprozesse gegen katholische Ordensangehörige und Priester 1936/1937, Mainz, 1971. The trials and publicity were often counter-productive in strongly Catholic regions. See Kershaw, Popular Opinion, 196.
212. TBJG, I/3, 5 (5 January 1937), 10 (14 January 1937), 37—8 (9 February 1937).
213. See Conway, 206—7, where the reasons for Hitler’s decision are regarded as unclear. Goebbels’s diary entries indicate that he, not Hitler, took the initiative, and that Hitler eagerly seized upon the suggestion for elections as a way out of the problem, to end the damaging discord. It proved a miscalculation. See Conway, 206–13.
214. TBJG, I/3, 55 (23 February 1937). Hitler indicated again to Goebbels in June that he was considering the separation of Church and State. Goebbels added that the clergy would do well not to provoke the Führer any further (TBJG, I/3, 181 (22 June 1937)). However, Hitler was concerned that in the event of a separation of church and state Protestantism would then be destroyed and provide no counter-weight against the Vatican (TBJG, I/3, 359 (7 December 1937). See Hans Günter Hockerts, ‘Die nationalsozialistische Kirchenpolitik im neuen Licht der Goebbels-Tagebücher’, APZ, 30 July 1983, B30, 23–8, here 29.
215. TBJG, I/3, 77 (13 March 1937).
216. TBJG, I/3, 97, 105 (2 April 1937, 10 April 1937).
217. TBJG, I/3, 129, 143, 156–7, 162 (1 May 1937, 12 May 1937, 29 May 1937, 2 June 1937).
218. TBJG, I/3, 119 (21 April 1937).
219. Conway, 209. ‘We’ve got the swine and won’t let him go again,’ noted Goebbels (TBJG, I/3, 195 (4 July 1937); see also 194, 196, 198 (3 July 1937, 6 July 1937, 10 July 1937)). Hitler’s order for the detention of Niemöller (Conway, 209) was almost certainly sanction for actions requested by the Gestapo. Niemöller’s fundamental opposition to Nazism had undergone a pronounced course of development since his initial enthusiasm in 1933. For most Protestant clergy, opposition on church matters was compatible with conformity — often enthusiastic approval — in other areas of Nazi policy. See the contributions by Günther van Norden, ‘Widerstand in den Kirchen’, and Helmut Gollwitzer, ‘Aus der Bekennenden Kirche’, in Löwenthal and Mühlen, Widerstand und Verweigerung 111–28, 129–39; the critical assessment by Shelley Baranowski, The Confessing Church, Conservative Elites, and the Nazi State, Lewiston/Queenston, 1986; and, for the penetration of the thinking even of prominent Protestant theologians by Nazi ideas, Robert P. Ericksen, Theologians under Hitler, New Haven/London, 1985.
220. TBJG, I/3, 258 (8 September 1937).
221. In the event, the exclusion was carried out by police decrees since a law would have drawn too much public attention. TBJG, I/3, 354 (3 December 1937).
222. TBJG, I/3, 351 (30 November 1937).
223. Hildegard von Kotze and Helmut Krausnick (eds.), ‘Es spricht der Führer’. 7 exemplarische Hitler-Reden, Gütersloh, 1966, 147–8.
224. David Bankier, ‘Hitler and the Policy-Making Process on the Jewish Question’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 3 (1988), 1–20, here 15.
225. Domarus, 727–30; Uwe Dietrich Adam, Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich, Düsseldorf, 1972, 173; Saul Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews. The Years of Persecution, 1933–39, London, 1997, 184–5.
