Catholicism and Nazism

[Charles Sloan]

Catholicism and Nazism

In Pope Benedict XVI: A Biography of Joseph Ratzinger, John L. Allen Jr. writes about the close relationship between the Catholic Church and the Nazi Party:

Many ordinary Catholics objected to attacks on their church, but there was simply no opposition to Nazism tout ensemble. ... In fact, there were key points at which Nazi and Catholic attitudes intersected and created a basis for mutual support. Both groups hated the Weimar Republic. The Nazis opposed Weimar because it was allegedly too Jewish and led by the “November Criminals” who sold out the country after the First World War; Catholics objected to it because it smacked of liberalism, sexual degeneracy, and an irreligious spirit.

Cardinal Faulhaber, for example, gave a speech in May 1933 in which he expressed thanks for the Volksgemeinschaft, or spirit of community, which Hitler had fostered, and rejected “liberal individualism.” Moreover, Catholics shared with Nazis an instinctive fear of the Bolsheviks.

Finally, there was a form of anti-Jewish sentiment that was openly accepted among Catholics, based in part on the theological argument that the Jews sinned by rejecting Christ and in part on the historical fact that many Jews had played leading roles in the Kulturkampf. As early as 1925, a Franciscan priest named Erhard Schuland wrote a book called “Katholizismus und Vaterland” (Catholicism and Fatherland) that called on Germans to fight “the destructive influence of the Jews in religion, morality, literature and art, and political and social life.” Schuland expressed what was very much the consensus in German Catholicism of the day...


Support for the Nazis, their social policies, and their anti-Semitism was not limited to ordinary Catholics and a few random priests:

Archbishop Konrad Gröber of Freiburg was known as the “Brown Bishop” because he was such an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazis. In 1933, he became a “sponsoring member” of the SS. After the war, however, he claimed to have been such an opponent of the Nazis that they had planned to crucify him on the door for the Freiburg Cathedral.

Bishop Wilhlem Berning of Osnabrück sat with the Deutsche Christen Reichsbishop in the Prussian State Council from 1933 to 1945, a clear signal of support for the Nazi regime.

Cardinal Bertram also had some affinity for the Nazis. In 1933, for example, he refused to intervene on behalf of Jewish merchants who were the targets of Nazi boycotts, saying that they were a group “which has no very close bond with the church.”

Bishop Buchberger of Regensburg called Nazi racism directed at Jews “justified self-defense” in the face of “overly powerful Jewish capital.”

Bishop Hilfrich of Limburg said that they true Christian religion “made its way not from the Jews but in spite of them.”

Because the Catholic leadership did not consistently oppose the Nazi policies, it was relatively easy for the Nazis to co-opt the Catholic churches in their effort to round up and exterminate the Jews. A large number of Jews converted to Christianity in order to avoid persecution and the only way the Nazis found them out was because of the help of Catholic authorities:

After April 7, 1933, civil servants in Germany were required to prove that they were not Jews. Because births had been registered by the state only since 1874, the church was called upon to provide many records. The Catholic church cooperated right up to the end of the war. Likewise, after the 1935 Nüremberg laws that forbade marriage between Aryans and non-Aryans, most Catholic priests did not perform such ceremonies, even though the number of Jewish conversions to Catholicism was accelerating because of the persecution.

Yes, right up until the end of the war, Catholic clergy were actively assisting the Nazi program of racial purification. They provided detailed records of who converted and who didn't, who married and Jew and who didn't. When two people wanted to marry, Catholic priests enforced Nazi race laws against Aryans being allowed to marry non-Aryans.

(Sources: Commentary: Austin Cline, Book Notes: Pope Benedict XVI)

The Concordat between the Vatican and the Nazis

Cardinal Secretary of State, Eugenio Pacelli (later to become Pope Pius XII) signs the Concordat between Nazi Germany and the Vatican at a formal ceremony in Rome on 20 July 1933. Nazi Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen sits at the left, Pacelli in the middle, and the Rudolf Buttmann sits at the right.

The Concordat effectively legitimized Hitler and the Nazi government to the eyes of Catholicism, Christianity, and the world.

(Source: Concordat Watch, Reichskonkordat)

Guenter Lewy, political scientist and author of The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, wrote:

"There is general agreement that the Concordat increased substantially the prestige of Hitler's regime around the world. As Cardinal Faulhaber put it in a sermon delivered in 1937: "At a time when the heads of the major nations in the world faced the new Germany with cool reserve and considerable suspicion, the Catholic Church, the greatest moral power on earth, through the Concordat expressed its confidence in the new German government. This was a deed of immeasurable significance for the reputation of the new government abroad."

(Source: Michael Berenbaum, The World Must Know, p. 40.)


Hitler wth Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the papal nuncio in Berlin, 1935

On April 20, 1939, Archbishop Orsenigo celebrated Hitler's birthday. The celebrations, initiated by Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) became a tradition. Each April 20, Cardinal Bertram of Berlin was to send "warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany" and added with "fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars."

(Source: Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, by John Cornwell)

(see also USHMM)


Hitler greets a Catholic Cardinal (Source: USHMM)


Catholic Bishops giving the Nazi salute in honor of Hitler


Spanish Bishops giving the fascist salute


Priests giving the Hitler salute

Priests giving the Hitler salute at a Catholic youth rally in the Berlin-Neukolln stadium in August 1933.

(Source: A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen)


A Cardinal marches with the Nazis
Cardinal Michael Faulhaber marches between rows of SA men at a Nazi rally in Munich.

(Source: A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen)
[Note, some dispute the photo claiming it shows nuncio Cesare Orsenigo in Berlin, and not Cardinal Faulhaber. Regardless, no one disputes the person as a high ranking Catholic representative.]


A Nazi flag flies in front of the Cologne Cathedral, 1937



Welcome Celebration for Bishop Konrad Graf von Preysing in the Sportpalast, Berlin, 8 Sept. 1935

Note the Catholic Chi-Rho Cross to the right of the Nazi flag. Chi and Rho are the first two letters of the Greek word for Christ. The Chi Rho Cross, or warrior's cross, originated from the monogram of Roman Emperor Constantine. How fitting it appears next to a swastika.

Following the death of Berlin's Bishop Bares, Pope Pius XI unexpectedly selects Konrad Graf von Preysing, a little-known Eichstatt bishop, as bishop of Berlin. Berlin, the region for which he is responsible, now also includes the center of the National Socialist power structure and so requires a high degree of political skill from its ecclesiastical leader.

(Photo source: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand)


Hitler's Brown Army attending and leaving church services. These photos were published by Nazis during Hitler's reign.

(Source: Das Braune Heer: mit einem geleitwort von Adolf Hitler (Translation: The Brown Army: with a foreword by Adolf Hitler), Photos by Heinrich Hoffmann)


Nazi Coin with Potsdam Garrison Catholic Church on it

[broach972]

Intellectually dishonest and incomplete to say the least.  Not to mention a total lack of understanding of how history should be understood or even analyzed.  Not sure where to begin.  Better yet, not sure what point is trying to be made here.  Is this even worth my time?

[Charles Sloan]

Just to point out all the quote mentioned here are directly from Joseph Ratzinger in his personal biography. So I guess if anyone has a total lack of understanding of how history should be understood or analyzed that would be the present Roman Pontiff.

[broach972]

Just to point out all the quote mentioned here are directly from Joseph Ratzinger in his personal biography. So I guess if anyone has a total lack of understanding of how history should be understood or analyzed that would be the present Roman Pontiff.

I was referring to you.  You have a lack of understanding of how history should be understood or analyzed.  As a professor once told me, never judge history through your own eyes using current values or norms.  Besides, I am still trying to figure out what point you are trying to make.  In other words, instead of presenting a collection of quotes and references to photos, etc....state a conclusion or position.

[Charles Sloan]

I was referring to you.  You have a lack of understanding of how history should be understood or analyzed.  As a professor once told me, never judge history through your own eyes using current values or norms.

I have made no comments on this information, the comments are from a secular journalist.

Besides, I am still trying to figure out what point you are trying to make.  In other words, instead of presenting a collection of quotes and references to photos, etc....state a conclusion or position.

I will allow the readers to draw their own conclusions.

[broach972]

I have certainly drawn my own conclusions--intellectually dishonest and definitely incomplete.  Your post serves no purpose whatsoever.  However, I did find the following website interesting...I am surprised that you did not bring any of this up...

http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/hist/jpetropoulos/church/keithpage/protesta.htm

Now we are arriving at a better understanding of the times...

[Charles Sloan]

I have certainly drawn my own conclusions--intellectually dishonest and definitely incomplete.  Your post serves no purpose whatsoever.  However, I did find the following website interesting...I am surprised that you did not bring any of this up...

http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/hist/jpetropoulos/church/keithpage/protesta.htm

Now we are arriving at a better understanding of the times...

Protestants act independently and didn't sign a concordat between the Vatican and the Nazi Germany. So while I agree there were many Protestant groups swept away by the evil genius of Adolf Hitler, none of them made formal agreements with the Nazis to protect themselves or to aid the Nazis in extinguishing the Jews. Not to mention the Pope also signed the Lateran Treaty four years earlier with Mussolini which established Catholicism as the official religion of the state.

As a history professor I thought you would have known this.

[Lee Freeman]

I notice one of the sources quoted was Cornwell's Hitler's Pope; yet Cornwell'sw book was denounced by nearly everyone, certainly by serious historians and scholars, as nothing but anti-Pius/anti-Catholic propaganda. As I understand it, even Cornwell has admitted it's biased. I have this book in my home library and can attest to the fact that its a hatchet-job on Pius XII.

Regarding this subject, there's a lot of biased propaganda like Cornwell's book. There are some much more balanced books, among them Dr. Ronald Rychlack's Hitler, the War and the Pope, Sister Margherita Marchione, PhD's Consensus and Controversy: Defending Pope Pius XII, and Yours Is a Precious Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy, and Rabbi David Dalin's The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis. Though their work is excellent, Rychlack and Marchione are Catholic scholars but Dalin isn't-he's a conservative Jewish rabbi, hence can't be accused of pro-Pius bias. Even Susan Zuchotti's book, Under His Very Windows, while critical of Pius, is much more balanced than Cornwell's book.

When the Vatican signed its 1933 concordat with Nazi Germany, this was nothing out of the ordinary; such concrdats were nothing new-the Vatican routinely signed such concordats with the nations of Europe-as I recall, the Vatican had signed such a concordat with Napoleon's France even though there was no love lost between Napoleon and the Vatican. And besides, if Hitler violated the concordat, which he did, repeatedly, then the Vatican would have a legal leg to stand on in its protests, which it did, repeatedly. The Vatican knew this, which was one reason it signed the Concordat.

According to Hitler, Pius XII and the Catholic Church were his biggest enemies. So big that Der Fuhrer actually contemplated kidnapping the Pontiff. Hitler executed hundreds, if not thousands, of Catholic priests, along with Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, Slavs, Poles, Gypsies, etc.

The German Lutheran Church bears far more blame than the Catholic Church, as it for the most part asssimilated and became transformed into the Nazi State Church. Only those Lutheran churches that were part of Lutheran pastor Dietrich Boenhoffer's Confessing Churches  resisted the Nazis and went underground, and Boenhoffer himself was martyred for his role in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.

Pope Pius XII did everything he could to oppose Hitler and the Nazis. This is evidenced in part by the public expressions of thanks offered the Pontiff by dozens of Jewish rabbis after the war. The Pontiff made some very direct staments. However Pius couldn't afford to be more direct than he was because he genuinely feared Nazi reprisals, not only against Catholics in Germany and Nazi occupied areas, but against Jews. However on dozens of occasions he made public denouncements of the Nazi treatment of Jews, that, even though couched in veiled language, were understood by the Nazis as exactly what they were.


Pax.

[zoonance]

Some day somebody will find pictures of me shaking hands with somebody who might later prove to be a major scumbag. 

[broach972]

I notice one of the sources quoted was Cornwell's Hitler's Pope; yet Cornwell'sw book was denounced by nearly everyone, certainly by serious historians and scholars, as nothing but anti-Pius/anti-Catholic propaganda. As I understand it, even Cornwell has admitted it's biased. I have this book in my home library and can attest to the fact that its a hatchet-job on Pius XII.

Regarding this subject, there's a lot of biased propaganda like Cornwell's book. There are some much more balanced books, among them Dr. Ronald Rychlack's Hitler, he War and the Pope, Sister Margherita Marchione, PhD's Consensus and Controversy: Defending Pope Pius XII, and Yours Is a Precious Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy, and Rabbi David Dalin's The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis. Though their work is excellent, Rychlack and Marchione are Catholic scholars but Dalin isn't-he's a conservative Jewish rabbi, hence can't be accused of pro-Pius bias. Even Susan Zuchotti's book, Under His Very Windows, while critical of Pius, is much more balanced than Cornwell's book.

When the Vatican signed its 1933 concordat with Nazi Germany, this was nothing out of the ordinary; such concrdats were nothing new-the Vatican routinely signed such concordats with the nations of Europe-as I recall, the Vatican had signed such a concordat with Napoleon's France even though there was no love lost between these Napoleon and the Vatican. And besides, if Hitler violated the concordat, which he did, repeatedly, then the Vatican would have a legal leg to stand on in its protests, which it did, repeatedly. The Vatican knew this, which was one reason it signed the Concordat.

According to Hitler, Pius XII and the Catholic Church were his biggest enemies. So big that Der Fuhrer actually contemplated kidnapping the Pontiff. Hitler executed hundreds, if not thousands, of Catholic priests, along with Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, Slavs, Poles, Gypsies, etc.

The German Lutheran Church bears far more blame than the Catholic Church, as it for the most part asssimilated and became transformed into the Nazi Sate Church. Only those Lutheran churches that were part of Lutheran pastor Dietrich Boenhoffer's Confessing Churches  resisted the Nazis and went underground, and Boenhoffer himself was martyred for his role in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.

Pope Pius XII did everything he could to oppose Hitler and the Nazis. This is evidenced in part by the public expressions of thanks offered the Pontiff by dozens of Jewish rabbis after the war. The Pontiff made some very direct staments. However Pius couldn't afford to be more direct than he was because he genuinely feared Nazi reprisals, not only against Catholics in Germany and Nazi occupied areas, but against Jews. However on dozens of occasions he made public denouncements of the Nazi treatment of Jews, that, even though couched in veiled language, were understood by the Nazis as exactly what they were.


Pax.

Now this is a complete analysis of what actually happened.  Charles Sloan is so blinded by his anti-Catholic bias that he doesn't really see the whole picture.  Like I stated earlier, his OP was intellectually dishonest and incomplete.

Thanks Lee for not just throwing out a bunch of quotes and references to pictures.  As a response to Charles' earlier post...as a history teacher, I am very much aware of the information presented by Lee.  If Charles was truly a student of history, he would also be aware of this information as well.

[CDHealy]

I wonder where the German Lutheran Church figures in the opening post here.

I also wonder what Maximillian Kolbe has to do with this?

[Lee Freeman]

I notice one of the sources quoted was Cornwell's Hitler's Pope; yet Cornwell'sw book was denounced by nearly everyone, certainly by serious historians and scholars, as nothing but anti-Pius/anti-Catholic propaganda. As I understand it, even Cornwell has admitted it's biased. I have this book in my home library and can attest to the fact that its a hatchet-job on Pius XII.

Regarding this subject, there's a lot of biased propaganda like Cornwell's book. There are some much more balanced books, among them Dr. Ronald Rychlack's Hitler, he War and the Pope, Sister Margherita Marchione, PhD's Consensus and Controversy: Defending Pope Pius XII, and Yours Is a Precious Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy, and Rabbi David Dalin's The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis. Though their work is excellent, Rychlack and Marchione are Catholic scholars but Dalin isn't-he's a conservative Jewish rabbi, hence can't be accused of pro-Pius bias. Even Susan Zuchotti's book, Under His Very Windows, while critical of Pius, is much more balanced than Cornwell's book.

When the Vatican signed its 1933 concordat with Nazi Germany, this was nothing out of the ordinary; such concrdats were nothing new-the Vatican routinely signed such concordats with the nations of Europe-as I recall, the Vatican had signed such a concordat with Napoleon's France even though there was no love lost between these Napoleon and the Vatican. And besides, if Hitler violated the concordat, which he did, repeatedly, then the Vatican would have a legal leg to stand on in its protests, which it did, repeatedly. The Vatican knew this, which was one reason it signed the Concordat.

According to Hitler, Pius XII and the Catholic Church were his biggest enemies. So big that Der Fuhrer actually contemplated kidnapping the Pontiff. Hitler executed hundreds, if not thousands, of Catholic priests, along with Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, Slavs, Poles, Gypsies, etc.

The German Lutheran Church bears far more blame than the Catholic Church, as it for the most part asssimilated and became transformed into the Nazi Sate Church. Only those Lutheran churches that were part of Lutheran pastor Dietrich Boenhoffer's Confessing Churches  resisted the Nazis and went underground, and Boenhoffer himself was martyred for his role in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.

Pope Pius XII did everything he could to oppose Hitler and the Nazis. This is evidenced in part by the public expressions of thanks offered the Pontiff by dozens of Jewish rabbis after the war. The Pontiff made some very direct staments. However Pius couldn't afford to be more direct than he was because he genuinely feared Nazi reprisals, not only against Catholics in Germany and Nazi occupied areas, but against Jews. However on dozens of occasions he made public denouncements of the Nazi treatment of Jews, that, even though couched in veiled language, were understood by the Nazis as exactly what they were.


Pax.

Now this is a complete analysis of what actually happened.  Charles Sloan is so blinded by his anti-Catholic bias that he doesn't really see the whole picture.  Like I stated earlier, his OP was intellectually dishonest and incomplete.

Thanks Lee for not just throwing out a bunch of quotes and references to pictures.  As a response to Charles' earlier post...as a history teacher, I am very much aware of the information presented by Lee.  If Charles was truly a student of history, he would also be aware of this information as well.

Thanks broach. I'm not an apologist for Roman Catholicism however it bothers me when people, well-meaning or otherwise, distort history like that. I suppose it's easier to repeat untrue stereotypes and urban legends than it is to study for oneself. Also, many people don't know how to read critically to determine what an author's biases are.

I'd encourage Charles or anyone else whose interested to read both sides of the argument-pro and con-and then make up their minds. Read, say, Rychlack or Dalin, then Zuchotti. But don't use biased secondary sources that obviously have an axe to grind, such as popular biographies of Benedict XVI or works like Cornwell's.

This whole attack on Pius XII goes back to German playwright Rolf Hochuth's controversial 1963 play The Deputy, which was a hatchet-job on Pius XII and his actions regarding the Jews of Europe.

Pax.

[kensington]

Some day somebody will find pictures of me shaking hands with somebody who might later prove to be a major scumbag. 

Well, I would pray it wasn't Hitler... or that you were seen giving the "hail" sign...  that cannot be denied.  I don't care who doesn't like the history of this article... seeing Catholic Priest doing the "hail Hitler" makes me want to throw up. 

But, I guess you would have to have an understanding for the Jews to feel that way. 

Seeing them do this sign, is just more evidence to that whole "idol" thing they go in for.  Worship of man.  It's a no brainer.

[Lee Freeman]

Kensington, doing the "Heil Hitler" in Nazi Germany is akin to standing and placing your hand over your heart when the National Anthem is played in America. Not to have done so would've indicated to anyone looking on that the person refusing to do so was an unpatriotic German. Which under Hitler's regime could get you sent to a concentration camp. Or worse. Everryone in Germany was required to demonstrate their patriotism. If you resisted, you could get into serious trouble.

What would you think about someone in America who refused to stand when the Star Spangled Banner was played? And when people do stand, does that automatically mean they agree with everything the current president or congress says/has done? Or that they agree with everything America has done? Of course not.

Pius XII and his cardinals and bishops had to tolerate Der Fuhrer because he was the duly elected Reich Chancellor. To openly oppose him, esp. to his face, would've been suicide. Pius and his Germam bishops-the vast majority of which agreed that Hitler was a monster that had to be stopped-were walking an extremely fine line. To protest openly might get them arrested or killed. It might also trigger persecution against ordinary German Catholics. They were also worried that it would trigger more intense persecution of Jews if they said the wrong thing at the wrong time. I don't think any of us can appreciate the weight on Pius' and his bishops' shoulders.

That article was pure anti-Catholic propaganda and nothing else.

And no Catholic I've ever met or read worships man or a man. They accord Pope Benedict XVI the respect they feel he desrves as Christ's Vicar on earth, but they do not worship him. Or the Virgin Mary. Or any other saint. They make a disctinction between veneration of the saints and worship of God.

Protestants and Catholics will never be able to understand one another and work together in areas of comon cause-such as ecumenism and the pro-life movement-as long as we each keep rehashing the same old untrue stereotypes about each other.

Pax.

[Charles Sloan]

Are you considering becoming a Catholic, Lee Freeman?