The word sect is of uncertain definition and while it is usually used pejoratively in Germany, no such sense is intended here; in fact, most of the churches or associations discussed in chapter nineteen were at times and often still are described as sects. However, most had achieved the status of a church by being granted the rights of public corporations in some German state. They all had the good fortune to survive the Hitler years. There were other small religions or philosophical groups which—did not have those rights, and these, at least in Germany, were always classed as sects. These organizations in particular aroused the ire of the Nazis; many were liquidated, and their property usually, if not always, confiscated.

The National Socialists came to power pledged to uphold positive Christianity and to establish and strengthen the unity of the German folk. In the years of party conflict they had found many things to attack, but there were five chief enemies: parliamentarian ism, with its system of political parties; pacifism or internationalism, of which acceptance of the Treaty of Versailles seemed to be a part; communism; Free Masonry; and the Jews. These had to be dealt with if the Nazis were to achieve their goals, and anyone associated with these concepts or groups was suspect in their eyes. No doubt it was often the other way around, and organizations that the Nazis wished to liquidate were charged with harboring Marxists, communists, pacifists, Free Masons, or Jews whether or not they actually did so. Since the legal basis for the dissolution of the sects was always the ordinance of February 28, 1933, for "warding off communist acts of violence against the state," the police at times were careful to include charges of communist activity in order to help legitimate their actions. The police were in many ways tidy souls; they wanted to have everything well catalogued to facilitate keeping order. Many small groups, often with no responsible leaders or exact membership rolls, were an annoyance to them; they claimed such groups brought confusion among the people and were harmful to the unity of the nation.

Some of the actions of the sects were considered to be disparaging to the established churches and therefore a disturbing influence.

. . .

Some of the dissolved "sects," as they were usually referred to by the police, were no doubt esoteric in nature and hardly to be considered religious organizations. Here it is not necessary to decide whether this was religious persecution or simply the denial of freedom to form organizations and groups freely. Certainly there was no protest against the dissolutions from either Protestants or Catholics; neither church had a high opinion of the Sektenwesen which existed in Germany. The police actions against these groups no doubt involved inquisitions, imprisonments, and hardships. Yet apparently, except for the Jehovah's Witnesses, they did not resist vigorously. Groups often were dissolved one day only to crop up the next with a new name, or simply to get together in a new meeting place. One thing is clear-although the Nazis harassed and curtailed, they never ended sectarianism, for it mushroomed again immediately after the war.