Nazis expressed various degrees of anticlericalism. Although this was often articulated in an undifferentiated manner, it was not applied uniformly to both confessions. Whereas the Catholic Church continued to be attacked for its “internationalism” and doctrinal stand against racialist categories, the Protestant Church was generally treated much more favorably. Particularly revealing in this regard was the plan to unite the twenty-eight Protestant state churches of Germany into one national church – a Reich Church. Conventional historiography regards the Nazi interest in institutional Protestantism as duplicitous. For instance, John Conway believes that the Nazi endorsement of a Reichskirche in no sense implied pro-Protestant sentiment. In his view, the Nazis' aim in uniting the state churches was to render Protestantism innocuous, to make the Protestant church “an instrument subservient to the Nazi State…. The Church was a pillar of the old order, whose standing, though it might be exploited as a temporary measure, was fundamentally resented by the leading members of the Party.” In this chapter, we shall see that the Nazis in fact hoped for a lasting relationship with the Protestant Church, at least until 1937, when the stance of Niemöller and his allies led them to conclude that the church could not be relied on. After this break, actions against Protestant clergymen grew in number, although never becoming comparable in frequency or harshness with the measures that had already been leveled against Catholic clergy.