From the Lansing State Journal newspaper (Lansing, Michigan) of February 23, 1933.

HITLER AIMS BLOW AT ‘GODLESS’ MOVE

Chancellor’s Forces Seek the Catholic Support for Latest Campaign

BERLIN, Feb. 23 (AP)–A campaign against the “godless movement” and an appeal for Catholic support were launched Wednesday by Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s forces. They struck at two of his formidable opponents in the March 5 elections, the first at communists and the latter at the allied Catholic parties.

Meanwhile five more persons were killed and scores were injured Tuesday night in the incipient civil war which has been waging since Hitler’s rise to power. This brought the number of deaths in political clashes since the first of the year, when Hitler began negotiations for the chancellorship, to about 70.

A campaign against the “godless movement” was announced by Bernard Rust, nazi commissioner for education and culture in Prussia, in an address Tuesday night before students at the technical university here. He said the details would be revealed in the next few days. In his speech opening the campaign for the reichstag and Prussian diet elections, Hitler attacked communists for the spread of atheism.

An appeal to Catholic nazis was printed Wednesday in Hitler’s Voelkischer Beobachter, assailing the Catholic centrist and populist parties. It recalled the papal encyclical of January 9, 1928, which admonished priests to serve the religious interests of the nation and not to affiliate with political parties. Hitler, himself, is a Catholic.

Nazis invaded a centrist campaign meeting at Trier but were repulsed after a stiff fight. Several persons were injured at Kiel and Opladen in nazi-reichsbanner clashes.