as a religion exclusively for Gentiles, but also some Confessing Christians refused the baptism of Jews. Kerrl managed to gain the very respected Wilhelm Zoellner (a Lutheran, until 1931 general superintendent of Westphalia) to form the Reich's Ecclesiastical Committee (, RKA) on 3 October 1935, combining neutral, moderate Confessing Christians and moderate German Christians to reconcile the disputing church parties. So also the official German Evangelical Church became subordinate to the new bureaucracy, Ludwig Müller lost his say, but still retained the now meaningless titles of German Reich's Bishop and old-Prussian State Bishop. In the course of November state ecclesiastical committees and provincial ecclesiastical committees were to be formed. Kerrl appointed a state ecclesiastical committee (, LKA) for the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, led by Karl Eger, and further staffed with Supreme Consistorial Councillor Walter Kaminski (Königsberg), Pastor Theodor Kuessner (praeses of the East Prussian provincial Synod of Confession), Pastor Ernst Martin (Magdeburg), Supt. Wilhelm Ewald Schmidt (Oberhausen) und Supt. Richard Zimmermann (, and praeses of the city synod of Berlin). In November Kerrl decreed the parallel institutions of the Confessing Church to be dissolved, which was protested and ignored by the brethren councils. On 19 December Kerrl issued a decree which forbade all kinds of Confessing Church activities, namely appointments of pastors, education, examinations, ordinations, ecclesiastical visitations, announcements and declarations from the pulpit, separate financial structures and convening Synods of Confession; further the decree established provincial ecclesiastical committees. Thus the brethren councils had to go into hiding. The Confessing Church in the Rhenish and Westphalian ecclesiastical provinces blocked in fact the formation of provincial ecclesiastical committees until 14 February 1936. The March of Brandenburg provincial ecclesiastical committee (est. on 19 December 1935, comprising Greater Berlin and the Province of Brandenburg) consisted of Ministerial Director retd. Peter Conze (Berlin-Halensee), Senate President Engert (Berlin-Lichterfelde West), Pastor Gustav Heidenreich (Church of the Well of Salvation, Berlin-Schöneberg), General Forest-Master Walter von Keudell (Hohenlübbichow, Brandenburg), Supt. Friedrich Klein (leader of the Nazi Federation of Pastors, Bad Freienwalde), Supt. Otto Riehl (leader of the Pfarrvereine der Altpreußischen Union, a kind of trade union of pastors, Crossen upon Oder), and Supt. Zimmermann. This committee was also competent for the Ecclesiastical Province of Posen-West Prussia, with Heidenreich holding the stake. On 6 January, the members elected Zimmermann their president. On 10 January the Reich's ecclesiastical committee empowered by ordinance the provincial ecclesiastical committees to form