Following the signing of the document, the formerly outspoken nature of opposition by German Catholic leaders towards the Nazi movement weakened considerably. But violations of the Concordat by the Nazis began almost immediately and were to continue such that Falconi described the Concordat with Germany as "a complete failure". The Concordat, wrote William Shirer, "was hardly put to paper before it was being broken by the Nazi Government". The Nazis had promulgated their sterilization law, an offensive policy in the eyes of the Catholic Church, on 14 July. On 30 July, moves began to dissolve the Catholic Youth League. Clergy, nuns and lay leaders were to be targeted, leading to thousands of arrests over the ensuing years, often on trumped-up charges of currency smuggling or "immorality". Historian of the German Resistance Peter Hoffmann wrote that, following the Nazi takeover: