On 27 May 1933 representatives of the 28 church bodies gathered in Berlin and against a minority, voting for Ludwig Müller, Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, Jr., a member of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, was elected Reich's Bishop, a newly created title. The "German Christians" strictly opposed that election, because Bodelschwingh was not their partisan. Thus the Nazis, who were permanently breaking the law, stepped in, using the competent streamlined Prussian government led by Hermann Göring, and declared the functionaries had exceeded their authority.