Only gradually did Catholic resistance from the hierarchy re-emerge, in the form of the efforts of individual clerics, including Cardinal Preysing of Berlin, Bishop Galen of Münster, and Bishop Grober of Freiberg. The regime responded with arrests, the withdrawal of teaching privileges, and the seizure of church publishing houses. Pastoral letters of 1942 and 1943 denounced government breaches of the Concordat and declared support for human rights and rule of law.
