RELIGION : HITLER'S SILENCE

Vatican Protests Against Bavarian
it Education "
Front Our German Correspondent Hitler carefully avoided reference to the Church and school struggle in Germany when he addressed the Reichstag last
Saturday. The Nazi method of .persecution is as silent as it is thorough.
In Bavaria. particularly in Munich, matters have reached a climax. The Nazis want uetinitely to exterminate all Catholic and Protestant schools or at least to make a new decisive advance for their common school." Parents decide what school their children arc to go to, but pressure is brought to hear upon them, so that their " liberty " is not much different from the " liberty of vote " at Reichstag " elections."
In the last few years Nazi schools have been making progress in Munich in spite of the fact that the most outstanding member of the Catholic hierarchy, Cardinal Faulhaber, has concentrated all his efforts upon the defence of the Catholic schools. In 1933 some 89 per cent. of the children in Munich attended denominational schools. In 1935 the percentage fell down to 65, and in 1936 to 35.
This year the figures are just over 4 per cent.! Soon very few Catholic and Protestant schools will be left.
Government's Propaganda Week
A so-called " Week For German Schools " has just been held in Munich.
It was opened by the Minister of Education, Herr Adolf Wagner, who said: " The party and the State want the generalisation of the community school.
" Let the people put it into practice!
" Let me address a special appeal to the Church and warn her not to oppose the inevitable development. The community school guarantees the teaching of religion as much as the denomina tional school dues. Here is a point where the Churches can prove that they take a positive attitude towards the new era."
Rosenberg for Nazi School Monopoly
Alfred Rosenberg, speaking recently in Detmold, said: "A cardinal point from which the National Socialist movement will never depart is the demand that the education of the coming generation is to be carried through alone and exclusively by the National Socialist movement and the National Socialist State. All other groups have lost any claim in this regard by their political and other attitude during the years of fight for the National Revolution.
" If certain parents believe that they cannot go with National Socialism we know that in thousands of cases boys and girls have educated their parents. If the movernent were willing to give up the right of education, another 9th of November might come, and against such a possibility the National Socialist movement is determined to protect Germany."
A few days later, Hitler sent a birthday telegram to Rosenberg: " My dear cornrade Rosenberg. I send you, my old fellow fighter, my most sincere congratulations for your birthday. May the coming years bring the fullest success to your work."
How Religion is to be Taught Under the heading " The Religious Situation in Germany—An Eloquent Document," the Vatican paper Osservatore Romano publishes extracts from the orders which were given by the Nazi Gov
crnment of Anhalt for the teaching of religion in schools. According to the Vatican paper the Anhalt document states that the teaching of religion must he falsified and used as Nazi propaganda. " It is the aim of religious instruction to demonstrate to the youth the agreement of National Socialism with religion," the document states. "As God has bound together the nation in a unity for life and death, each division, including that which is constituted by the differences of creed, offends the will of God.
"Religious instruction 'mist contribute to overcoming in our people the discord between denotninations and must therefore put into the centre the sources of the German understanding of God. Religious instruction must therefore be undogmatic. The Old Testament reveals the typical Jewish spirit and the decadence of a nation which is inaccessible to divine things . . ."
The Osservatore states: "Here we have no longer to do with simple speeches and writings of the leaders, but with legal norms and ministerial ordinances . .