[12] Die neue Zeit, 1903, vol. i, p. 506.
_Genosse_ Dr. Erdmann, writing after the war had begun, said:
"We have no occasion to conceal the fact that Social-Democracy is hostile to the church--whether Catholic or Evangelical--and that we present our demands with special decision because we know that we shall thus break the power of the church."[13]
[13] Sozialistische Monatshefte, 1915, vol. i, p. 516.
_Vorwärts_ headlined an Article in January, 1918: "All religious systems are enemies of women." (The Socialists nevertheless had the effrontery during the campaign preceding the election of delegates to the National Assembly at Weimar in January to put out a placard saying: "Women, protect your religion! Vote for the Social-Democratic party of Germany!").
The initial activities of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils in Hamburg and Brunswick following the revolution were correctly described in a speech made in the National Assembly on March 11, 1919, by Deputy Mumm. He said:
"The revolutionary government in Hamburg has retained the bordells and abolished religious instruction. In Brunswick the school children of the capital, 1,500 in number, were assembled in the Cathedral by the people's commissioners for an anti-Christian Christmas celebration."
At the same session, Deputy Hellmann, a member of the Majority (parent) Socialist party, said in a speech in answer to Mumm:
"The church, like all social institutions, is subject to constant change, and will eventually disappear."
Quotations like the preceding could be multiplied indefinitely, as could also acts consistent with these anti-religious views. The first Minister of Cults (_Kultusminister_) appointed by the revolutionary government in Prussia was Adolf Hoffmann, a professed atheist, although this ministry has charge of the affairs of the church.
The Socialist literature and press in all countries abound in anti-religious utterances. To quote one is to give a sample of all. The _Social-Demokraten_ of Stockholm, official organ of the Swedish Socialists and reckoned among the sanest, ablest and most conservative of all Social-Democratic press organs, forgets, too, that religion is a private matter. It reports a sermon by Archbishop Söderblom, wherein the speaker declared that the church must have enough expansive force to conquer the masses who are now coming to power in various lands, and adds this characteristic comment: