Editing Gestapo (section)

===Religious dissent===
Many parts of Germany (where religious dissent existed upon the Nazi seizure of power) saw a rapid transformation; a change as noted by the Gestapo in conservative towns such as Würzburg, where people acquiesced to the regime either through accommodation, collaboration, or simple compliance.{{sfn|Gellately|1992|pp=94–100}} Increasing religious objections to Nazi policies led the Gestapo to carefully monitor church organisations. For the most part, members of the church did not offer political resistance but simply wanted to ensure that organizational doctrine remained intact.{{sfn|McDonough|2005|pp=30–40}}

However, the Nazi regime sought to suppress any source of ideology other than its own, and set out to muzzle or crush the churches in the so-called {{lang|de|[[Kirchenkampf]]}}. When Church leaders ([[clergy]]) voiced their misgiving about the [[Action T4|euthanasia]] program and Nazi racial policies, Hitler intimated that he considered them "traitors to the people" and went so far as to call them "the destroyers of Germany".{{sfn|Schmid|1947|pp=61–63}} The extreme [[Antisemitism|anti-semitism]] and [[Modern paganism|neo-pagan]] heresies of the Nazis caused some Christians to outright resist,{{sfn|Benz|2007|pp=42–47}} and [[Pope Pius XI]] to issue the encyclical [[Mit brennender Sorge]] denouncing Nazism and warning Catholics against joining or supporting the Party. Some pastors, like the Protestant clergyman [[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]], paid for their opposition with their lives.{{sfn|McDonough|2005|pp=32–33}}{{Efn|Bonhoeffer was an active opponent of Nazism in the German resistance movement. Arrested by the Gestapo in 1943, he was sent to [[Buchenwald]] and later to Flossenbürg concentration camp where he was executed.{{sfn|Burleigh|2000|p=727}} }}

In an effort to counter the strength and influence of spiritual resistance, Nazi records reveal that the Gestapo's {{lang|de|Referat B1}} monitored the activities of bishops very closely—instructing that agents be set up in every diocese, that the bishops' reports to the [[Vatican City|Vatican]] should be obtained and that the bishops' areas of activity must be found out. Deans were to be targeted as the "eyes and ears of the bishops" and a "vast network" established to monitor the activities of ordinary clergy: "The importance of this enemy is such that inspectors of security police and of the security service will make this group of people and the questions discussed by them their special concern".{{sfn|Berben|1975|pp=141–142}}

In ''Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945'', Paul Berben wrote that clergy were watched closely, and frequently denounced, arrested and sent to [[Nazi concentration camps]]: "One priest was imprisoned in Dachau for having stated that there were good folk in England too; another suffered the same fate for warning a girl who wanted to marry an S.S. man after abjuring the Catholic faith; yet another because he conducted a service for a deceased communist". Others were arrested simply on the basis of being "suspected of activities hostile to the State" or that there was reason to "suppose that his dealings might harm society".{{sfn|Berben|1975|p=142}} Over 2,700 [[Catholic Church|Catholic]], [[Protestantism|Protestant]], and [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox]] clergy were imprisoned at Dachau alone. After Heydrich (who was staunchly anti-Catholic and anti-Christian) was assassinated in Prague, his successor, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, relaxed some of the policies and then disbanded Department IVB (religious opponents) of the Gestapo.{{sfn|Steigmann-Gall|2003|pp=251–252}}