"... In the name of God, and for the sake of the German nation, we urgently request that the responsible leaders of the Reich stop the persecution and the annihilation of so many men and women, which under German domination is being carried out without any judicial sentence. Now that non-Aryans under German domination have to a great extent been removed, it is much to be feared that individuals, the so-called privileged non-Aryans, who until now were spared, are now in danger of being treated likewise. In particular we emphatically protest against those measures which threaten to dissolve legal marriages and thus penalize the children born out of these marriages. These aims are, like other actions of annihilation taken against non-Aryans, in flat contradiction to God's commandment, and they violate the foundation of all Western existence and human values in general..." [258] <111> On December 20, 1943, another letter was sent by Bishop Wurm, to the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, Lammers: "... Not because of any philosemitic sympathies but solely from religious and ethical considerations, I must declare, in accordance with the opinion of all positive Christian circles in Germany, that we as Christians consider the policy of annihilation of the Jews as a terrible injustice, fatal to the German people. Killing without military necessity and without trial is contrary to God's commandments, even though it is ordered by the Goverment. Just as every conscious transgression of God's commandments, it will recoil sooner or later on its perpetrators. Our people in many respects is experiencing sufferings which it has to bear from the air-attacks of the enemy, as if in retribution for what was inflicted upon the Jews..." [259] A Public Protest, issued not by one Church leader but by the CONFESSING Synod of the Evangelical Church of the Old-Prussian Union, was the "Interpretation of the Fifth Commandment":