The Myth of the Twentieth Century
Kershaw wrote that, while the "detestation of Nazism was overwhelming within the Catholic Church", it did not preclude church leaders approving of areas of the regime's policies, particularly where Nazism "blended into 'mainstream' national aspirations" - like support for "patriotic" foreign policy or war aims, obedience to state authority (where this did not contravene divine law); and destruction of atheistic Marxism and Soviet Bolshevism. Traditional Christian anti-Judaism was "no bulwark" against Nazi biological antisemitism, wrote Kershaw, and on these issues "the churches as institutions felt on uncertain grounds". Opposition was generally left to fragmented and largely individual efforts. Yet from the early stages of Nazism, Nazi ideology and Catholic doctrine clashed - from Alfred Rosenberg's anti-Catholic stance in "The Myth of the Twentieth Century", to the Nazi sterilization and euthanasia programs. The Nazis also moved early against the church's organisational interests - attacking Political Catholicism, Catholic schools and the Catholic press. Against these things, church leaders mounted vigorous defences.