"We Christian ministers are greatly distressed at the situation of our Jewish brethren in Germany. In order to leave no room for doubt as to our feelings on this subject, we consider it an imperative duty to raise our voices in indignant and sorrowful protest against the pitiless persecution to which the Jews are subjected under Hitler's rule. We realize full well that there are religious and racial prejudices in America, against which we have repeatedly protested and for this very reason we all the more deeply deplore the retrogression which has supervened in Germany where so much had been achieved while we in America were still fighting for human rights. For many weeks we have waited, refusing to believe all the reports concerning a State policy against the Jews. But now that we possess the irrefutable testimony of facts, we can no longer remain silent. Hitler had long vowed implacable hatred against the Jews. One of the fundamental Nazi doctrines is that Jews are poisonous germs in German blood and must therefore be treated as a scourge. Hitler's followers now apply this doctrine. They systematically pursue a 'Cold Pogrom' of inconceivable cruelty against our Jewish brethren, dismissing them from important positions they had occupied, depriving them of civil and economic rights, and deliberately condemning those who survive to a life without legal protection, - as outcasts, threatening them with massacre should they make the slightest protest. We are convinced that the efforts made by Nazis to humiliate an entire section of the human family, are liable to cast the civilized world back into the clutches of mediaeval barbarism. We deplore the consequences which may ensue for the Jews and also for Christianity which tolerates this barbarous persecution, and, more particularly, for Germany herself. We are convinced that in thus protesting against Hitler's cruel anti-Semitism we are acting as sincere friends of the German nation." [207] <83> Speaking of their "Jewish brethren in Germany", those 1200 Protestant ministers apparently had in mind the Jews of Germany in general, not just the Christians of Jewish origin. * * * The next statement to be recorded in this chapter was issued by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. This organization represented the great majority of American Protestants. The total membership of Churches affiliated with it was, in 1941-1942: 25,551.560. The Executive Committee of the Federal Council published the following statement in November 1935: