Popes Pius XI (1922–1939) and Pius XII (1939–1958) led the Catholic Church during the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. Around a third of Germans were Catholic in the 1930s, generally in southern Germany; Protestants dominated the north. Although the German Catholic church had opposed the Nazi Party, the Catholic-aligned Centre Party capitulated in 1933. In the 1933 elections, the percentage of Catholics voting for the Nazi Party was lower than the national average.[1] Adolf Hitler and several other key Nazis had been raised Catholic, but became hostile to the church in adulthood; Article 24 of the NSDAP party platform called for conditional toleration of Christian denominations and the 1933 Reichskonkordat treaty with the Vatican purportedly guaranteed religious freedom for Catholics, but the Nazis were essentially hostile to Catholicism. Catholic press, schools, and youth organizations were closed, property was confiscated, and about one-third of its clergy faced reprisals from authorities; Catholic lay leaders were targeted during the Night of the Long Knives. The Church hierarchy tried to cooperate with the new government, but Pius XI's 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge accused the government of hostility to the church.