Ron, I think the Nazis were quite happy to work with any church people who would work with them, because they had a traditionally religious population, and they needed to use religion to motivate that population. They would, of course, have turned viciously on any church people who weren't willing to work with them...as they turned viciously on anyone who wasn't willing to work with them. Compliance was their concern, not whether or not someone was religious.

I'm not sure how disingenuous Hitler may have been in making statements in speeches about pursuing a "Christian" cause, but I am by no means convinced that he did not sincerely believe he was defending Christian civilization against atheistic Communism. Why wouldn't he think so? He was quite a traditional man in a lot of ways, and sentimental about traditional values.

The Fascist causes generally seem to have worked in concert with the Catholic Church, not against it. This was so in Spain, it was so in Italy, it was so in Croatia, why not in Germany? I don't doubt that many German Catholics feared the Nazis...but not because they were Catholics...rather because they could see that the Nazis were violent extremists who simply couldn't be trusted once they had power.

I also don't doubt that some hardcore Nazis despised the Church and wanted to replaced Christian worship with worship of Nazi symbols only. But I doubt that that was true of all Nazis or even a majority of them. It certainly wasn't true of the rank and file of the German Army, Navy, and Air Force.

You can cherry pick some Nazi song lyrics that attack "priests", just as I cherrypicked some pro-Christian excerpts from Hitler's speeches...but does either set of cherries ring true across the board and tell the whole story? Probably not. Hitler also wrote about Jesus in Mein Kampf, and praised him for being "a fighter" as he put it. A fighter, he implied, for the things Hitler himself believed in.