an "inner logic" and been "more than a political ploy". He believes Hitler saw Jesus as an Aryan opponent of the Jews. Though anti-Christians later fought to "expunge Christian influence from Nazism" and the movement became "increasingly hostile to the churches", Steigmann-Gall wrote that even in the end, it was not "uniformly anti-Christian". Samuel Koehne, a Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Research Institute, working on the official Nazi views on religion, answers the question Was Hitler a Christian? thus: "Emphatically not, if we consider Christianity in its traditional or orthodox form: Jesus as the son of God, dying for the redemption of the sins of all humankind. It is nonsense to state that Hitler (or any of the Nazis) adhered to Christianity of this form. ... However, it is equally true that there were leading Nazis who adhered to a form of Christianity that had been 'aryanised.'" and "Was Hitler an atheist? Probably not." Nazi seizure of power Prior to the Reichstag vote for the Enabling Act of 1933, under which Hitler gained the "temporary" dictatorial powers with which he went on to permanently dismantle the Weimar Republic, Hitler promised the German Parliament that he would not interfere with the rights of the churches. However, with power secured in Germany, Hitler quickly broke this promise. Through 1933 and into 1934, the Nazi leader required a level of support from groups like the German conservatives and the Catholic Centre Party in the Reichstag, and of the conservative President von Hindenburg, in order to achieve his takeover of power with the "appearance of legality". In a proclamation on February 1, 1933, Hitler stated, "The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and co-operation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life." On 21 March 1933, the Reichstag assembled in the Potsdam Garrison Church, to show the "unity" of National Socialism with the old conservative Germany of President von Hindenburg. Two days later, the Nazis secured passage of the Enabling Act, granting Hitler dictatorial powers. Less than three months later all non-Nazi parties and organizations, including the Catholic Centre Party, had ceased to exist. Hitler sought to gain the votes of the Catholic