Catholic Church and Nazi Germany

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, most of them lived in Southern Germany; Protestants dominated the north. The Catholic Church in Germany opposed the Nazi Party, and in the 1933 elections, the proportion of Catholics who voted for the Nazi Party was lower than the national average. Nevertheless, the Catholic-aligned Centre Party voted for the Enabling Act of 1933, which gave Adolf Hitler additional domestic powers to suppress political opponents as Chancellor of Germany. President Paul Von Hindenburg continued to serve as Commander and Chief and he also continued to be responsible for the negotiation of international treaties until his death on 2 August 1934.

Hitler and several other key Nazis had been raised as Catholics but they became hostile to the Church in their adulthoods; Article 24 of the National Socialist Program called for conditional toleration of Christian denominations and the 1933 Reichskonkordat treaty with the Vatican guaranteed religious freedom for Catholics, but the Nazis sought to suppress the power of the Catholic Church in Germany. 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 among those murdered during the Night of the Long Knives.

During the rule of the regime, the Church frequently found itself in a difficult position. The Church hierarchy (in Germany) tried to work with the new government, but Pius XI's 1937 encyclical, ''Mit brennender Sorge'', accused the government of hostility to the church. Catholics fought on both sides during the Second World War, and Hitler's invasion of predominantly-Catholic Poland ignited the conflict in 1939. In the Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, as in the annexed regions of Slovenia and Austria, Nazi persecution of the church was intense; many Polish clergy were targeted for extermination. Through his links to the German Resistance, Pope Pius XII warned the Allies about the planned Nazi invasion of the Low Countries in 1940. The Nazis gathered dissident priests that year in a dedicated barracks at Dachau, where 95 percent of its 2,720 inmates were Catholic (mostly Poles, with 411 Germans); over 1,000 priests died there. The expropriation of church properties surged after 1941. Although the Vatican (surrounded by Fascist Italy) was officially neutral during the war, it used diplomacy to aid victims and lobby for peace; Vatican Radio and other Catholic media spoke out against the atrocities. Particular clerics stridently opposed Nazi crimes, as in Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen's 1941 sermons in which he expressed his opposition to the regime and its euthanasia programs. Even so, Hitler biographer Alan Bullock wrote: "Neither the Catholic Church, nor the Evangelical Church ... as institutions, felt it possible to take up an attitude of open opposition to the regime". Mary Fulbrook wrote that when politics encroached on the church, Catholics were prepared to resist; the record was patchy and uneven, though, and (with notable exceptions) "it seems that, for many Germans, adherence to the Christian faith proved compatible with at least passive acquiescence in, if not active support for, the Nazi dictatorship".Fulbrook (1991), pp. 80–81. However, even as the Church hierarchy attempted to tread delicately lest the Church itself be destroyed, actively resisting priests such as Heinrich Maier sometimes acted against the express instructions of his church superiors to found groups that, unlike others, sought actively to influence the course of the war in favor of the Allies.

According to Robert A. Krieg, "Catholic bishops, priests, and lay leaders had criticized National Socialism since its inception in the early 1920s". Catholic sermons and newspapers vigorously denounced Nazism and accused it of espousing neopaganism, and Catholic priests forbade believers from joining the NSDAP. Ludwig Maria Hugo was the first Catholic bishop to condemn membership in the Nazi party, and in 1931 Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber wrote that e bishops as guardians of the true teachings of faith and morals must issue a warning about National Socialism, so long as and insofar as it maintains cultural-political views that are not reconcilable with Catholic doctrine." Cardinal Faulhaber's outspoken criticism of National Socialism gained widespread attention and support from German Catholic churches, and Cardinal Adolf Bertram called German Catholics to oppose National Socialism in its entirety because it "stands in the most pointed contradiction to the fundamental truths of Christianity". Krieg states that the condemnations of Nazism by Bertram and von Faulhaber reflected the views of most German Catholics, but many of them were also disillusioned with the institutions of the Weimar Republic.

Nazi anti-Semitism embraced pseudoscientific racial principles, but ancient antipathies between Christianity and Judaism also contributed to European antisemitism. Anti-Semitism was present in both German Protestantism and Catholicism, but "anti-Semitic acts and attitudes became relatively more frequent in Protestant areas relative to Catholic areas". Even so, in every country under German occupation, priests played a major role in rescuing Jews. The church rescued thousands of Jews by issuing false documents to them, lobbying Axis officials, and hiding Jews in monasteries, convents, schools, the Vatican and the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo. Although Pius XII's role during this period was later contested, the Reich Security Main Office called him a "mouthpiece" for the Jews and in his first encyclical ('' Summi Pontificatus''), he called the invasion of Poland an "hour of darkness". In his 1942 Christmas address, he denounced race murders, and in his 1943 encyclical ''Mystici corporis Christi'', he denounced the murder of disabled people.

In the post-war period, false identification documents were given to many German war criminals by Catholic priests such as Alois Hudal, frequently facilitating their escape to South America. Both Protestant and Catholic clergy routinely provided Persilschein or "soap certificates" to former Nazis in order to remove the "Nazi taint"; but at no time was such aid an institutional effort. According to a Catholic historian Michael Hesemann, Vatican itself was outraged by such efforts, and Pope Pius XII demanded removal of involved clergy such as Hudal.

Overview

In the 1930s, one-third of the German population was Catholic; political Catholicism was a major force in the interwar Weimar Republic. Catholic leaders denounced Nazi doctrine before 1933, and Catholic regions generally did not vote Nazi. The Nazi Party first developed in largely-Catholic Munich, however, where many Catholics provided enthusiastic support; this early affinity decreased after 1923. Nazism took a different path after its 1920 reconstitution and, by 1925, had an anti-Catholic identity. In early 1931, the German bishops excommunicated the Nazi leadership and banned Catholics from the party. Although the ban was modified in the spring of 1933 due to a law requiring all civil servants and union members to be party members, the condemnation of core Nazi ideology continued. In early 1933, after Nazi successes in the 1932 elections, lay Catholic monarchist Franz von Papen and acting chancellor and presidential advisor Kurt von Schleicher facilitated Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg. In March, amidst the Nazi terror tactics and negotiation which followed the Reichstag Fire Decree, the Centre Party (led by Ludwig Kaas, requiring a written commitment that the president's veto power be retained), the Bavarian People's Party and the monarchist German National People's Party (DNVP) voted for the Enabling Act. The Centre Party's support was crucial (since the act could not be passed by the Nazi-DNVP coalition alone), and it marked Hitler's transition from democratic to dictatorial power. By June 1933 the only institutions not under Nazi domination were the military and the churches. The July 1933 Reichskonkordat between Germany and the Holy See pledged to respect Catholic autonomy and required clerics to keep out of politics. Hitler welcomed the treaty, routinely violating it in the Nazi struggle with the churches.* Evans, 2008, pp. 245–246 * Shirer, 1990, pp. 234–35 * Hamerow, 1997, p. 136 * Gill, 1994, p. 57 * Kershaw, 2008, p. 332 * Paul O'Shea; ''A Cross Too Heavy''; Rosenberg Publishing; pp. 234–35 * Ian Kershaw; ''The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation''; 4th Edn; Oxford University Press; New York; 2000"; pp. 210–11 * Peter Hoffmann; ''The History of the German Resistance 1933–1945''; 3rd Edn (First English Edn); McDonald & Jane's; London; 1977; p. 14 When von Hindenburg died in August 1934, the Nazis claimed jurisdiction of all levels of government; a referendum confirmed Hitler as Germany's Führer. A program of ''Gleichschaltung'' controlled all collective and social activity, interfering with Catholic schools, youth groups, workers, and cultural groups.

According to Peter Stachura, most of the Nazi electorate came from the rural and small-town Protestant middle class, whereas German Catholics overwhelmingly voted for the confessional Catholic Centre Party and Bavarian People's Party instead. Voting preferences in the Weimar Republic were mainly determined by social class and religion, and the Catholics formed a distinguishable and tight-knit subculture within Germany, being alienated from the mainstream Protestant society as a result of the Kulturkampf and the NSDAP's strongly anti-Catholic identity.

Various Nazi Party officials such as Heinrich Himmler, Alfred Rosenberg and Martin Bormann hoped to de-Christianize Germany, or at least realign its theology with their point of view.
*Sharkey
Word for Word/The Case Against the Nazis; How Hitler's Forces Planned To Destroy German Christianity
''The New York Times'', 13 January 2002
* Griffin, Roger ''Fascism's relation to religion'' in Blamires, Cyprian
World fascism: a historical encyclopedia, Volume 1
p. 10, ABC-CLIO, 2006: "There is no doubt that in the long run Nazi leaders such as Hitler and Himmler intended to eradicate Christianity just as ruthlessly as any other rival ideology, even if in the short term they had to be content to make compromises with it."
* Mosse, George Lachmann
Nazi culture: intellectual, cultural and social life in the Third Reich
p. 240, Univ of Wisconsin Press, 2003: "Had the Nazis won the war their ecclesiastical policies would have gone beyond those of the German Christians, to the utter destruction of both the Protestant and the Catholic Church."
* Shirer, William L.
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
p. 240, Simon and Schuster, 1990: "the Nazi regime intended eventually to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists."
* Fischel, Jack R.
Historical Dictionary of the Holocaust
, p. 123, Scarecrow Press, 2010: "The objective was to either destroy Christianity and restore the German gods of antiquity or to turn Jesus into an Aryan."
*Dill, Marshall
Germany: a modern history
, p. 365, University of Michigan Press, 1970: "It seems no exaggeration to insist that the greatest challenge the Nazis had to face was their effort to eradicate Christianity in Germany or at least to subjugate it to their general world outlook."
*Wheaton, Eliot Barcul
The Nazi revolution, 1933–1935: prelude to calamity:with a background survey of the Weimar era
pp. 290, 363, Doubleday 1968: The Nazis sought "to eradicate Christianity in Germany root and branch."Bendersky, Joseph W.
A concise history of Nazi Germany
p. 147, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007: "Consequently, it was Hitler's long range goal to eliminate the churches once he had consolidated control over his European empire." The government began to close all Catholic institutions which were not strictly religious; Catholic schools were shut by 1939, and the Catholic press by 1941.Evans, 2005, pp. 245–246Hamerow, 1997, p. 136 Clergy, religious women and men, and lay leaders were targeted; thousands were arrested, often on trumped-up charges of currency smuggling or "immorality".Shirer, 1990, pp. 234–35 Germany's senior cleric, Adolf Cardinal Bertram, ineffectually protested and left broader Catholic resistance up to the individual. The church hierarchy, which had sought ''dètente'', was disillusioned by 1937. Pius XI issued his ''Mit brennender Sorge'' encyclical, condemning racism and accusing the Nazis of violations of its treaty and "fundamental hostility" to the church; Germany renewed its crackdown on and propaganda campaign against Catholics. Despite the violence against Catholic Poland, some German priests offered prayers for the German cause at the outbreak of war. Security chief Reinhard Heydrich intensified restrictions on church activities, and expropriation of monasteries, convents and church properties increased in 1941. Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen's 1941 denunciation of Nazi euthanasia and defence of human rights sparked rare popular dissent. The German bishops denounced Nazi policy towards the church in pastoral letters, calling it "unjust oppression".Fest, 1997, p. 377''The Nazi War Against the Catholic Church''; National Catholic Welfare Conference; Washington D.C.; 1942; pp. 74–80.

Eugenio Pacelli, former nuncio to Germany, became Pope Pius XII on the eve of war. His legacy is contested. As Vatican Secretary of State, he advocated ''détente'' via the Reichskonkordat and hoped to build trust and respect in Hitler's government. Pacelli assisted in drafting ''Mit brennender Sorge'', and his first encyclical ('' Summi Pontificatus'') called the invasion of Poland an "hour of darkness". Although Pius XII affirmed Vatican neutrality, he maintained links with the German Resistance. Controversy about his reluctance to speak publicly and explicitly about Nazi crimes, however, has continued.Ventresca, 2013, p. 207 Pius XII used diplomacy to aid war victims, lobbied for peace, shared intelligence with the Allies, and employed Vatican Radio and other media to speak out against atrocities. In ''Mystici corporis Christi'' (1943), he denounced the murder of disabled people; a denunciation by German bishops of the murder of the "innocent and defenceless", including "people of a foreign race or descent", followed.Evans, 2008, pp. 529–30 Although Nazi antisemitism embraced pseudoscientific racial principles, ancient antipathies between Christianity and Judaism contributed to European antisemitism. Under Pius XII, the church rescued many thousands of Jews by issuing false documents, lobbying Axis officials, and hiding Jews in monasteries, convents, schools and elsewhere (including the Vatican and Castel Gandolfo).

In Poland, Slovenia and Austria, Nazi persecution of the church was harshest. In Austria in particular, the Catholic resistance against National Socialism was active very early on. The groups wanted on the one hand, like those around the Augustinian monk Roman Karl Scholz, to inform the population about the Nazi crimes and, on the other hand, to take active robust action against the Nazi system The group around Karl Burian planned to blow up the Gestapo headquarters in Vienna and the group around Heinrich Maier successfully redirected the production sites of V-1, V-2 rockets, Tiger tanks, Messerschmitt Bf 109, Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet and other aircraft to the Allies so that they could bomb more accurately and the war was over faster. Maier and his people were in contact with Allen Dulles, the head of the OSS in Switzerland since 1942. The group reported to him also about the mass murder in Auschwitz. These Catholic groups were radically persecuted by the Gestapo, also because they uncompromisingly wanted to remove the Austrian territories from the German Reich.

In 1940 the SS designated the Dachau concentration camp with its own block of priests as the central internment site for Christian clergymen, who were often severely tortured. In addition, there were always special riots against the priests. For example, on Christmas Eve 1938, the Austrian prelate fainted under the Yule tree set up on the roll call square. On a Maundy Thursday, SS guards scourged the Austrian chaplain Andreas Rieser on the naked torso until the blood splattered, and then wound him with a crown of thorns made of barbed wire. On Good Friday 1940, sixty priests were "crucified" by hanging on a stake for an hour. A total of 706 priests were Austrian resistance fighters in Nazi prison, 128 in concentration camps and 20 to 90 were executed or murdered in concentration camps.

In Germany, the Catholic response to Nazism varied. Cesare Orsenigo, Berlin's papal nuncio, was timid in protesting Nazi crimes and was sympathetic to Italian Fascism. German priests, including Alfred Delp, were closely watched and often denounced, imprisoned or executed. In 1940, the Nazis began gathering dissident priests in a dedicated barracks at Dachau concentration camp; ninety-five percent of its 2,720 inmates were Catholic (mostly Poles, and 411 Germans), and 1,034 died there. In Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, the Nazis attempted to eradicate the church; over 1,800 Polish clergy died in concentration camps, including Maximilian Kolbe. The German Resistance included the Kreisau Circle and 20 July ploters Claus von Stauffenberg, Jakob Kaiser and Bernhard Letterhaus. Resistance by Bishops Johannes de Jong and Jules-Géraud Saliège, papal diplomat Angelo Rotta, and the nun Margit Slachta contrasts with the apathy and collaborationism of Slovakia's Jozef Tiso and clergy Croat nationalists. From the Vatican, Hugh O'Flaherty coordinated the rescue of thousands of Allied POWs and civilians (including Jews). Austrian bishop Alois Hudal of the Collegio Teutonico in Rome was a Nazi informant; after the war, he and Krunoslav Draganovic of the Pontifical Croatian College of St. Jerome assisted the ratlines spiriting fugitive Nazis out of Europe.

Church's historical background

Although Catholicism in Germany dates back to the missionary work of Columbanus and Saint Boniface in the 6th–8th centuries, Catholics were a minority by the 20th century. The Reformation, begun by Martin Luther in 1517, divided German Christians between Protestantism and Catholicism. Southern and western Germany remained mostly Catholic, and the north and east became mainly Protestant.

Otto von Bismarck's 1871–1878 Kulturkampf tried to impose Protestant nationalism on the new German Empire, fusing anti-clericalism and suspicion of Catholics (whose loyalty presumably lay with Austria and France). The Centre Party, formed in 1870 to represent the religious interests of Catholics and Protestants, was transformed by the Kulturkampf into the "political voice of Catholics". The Kulturkampf had largely failed by the late 1870s, and many of its edicts were repealed.

The church enjoyed some privilege in Bavaria, the Rhineland, Westphalia and portions of the south-west, but Catholics experienced some discrimination in the Protestant north. The church had six archbishops, 19 bishops and 20,000 priests during the 1930s, when Catholics made up about one-third of the population. The 1918–19 revolution and the 1919 Weimar Constitution reformed the relationship between church and state; Germany's churches received government subsidies based on church-census data; dependent on state support, they were vulnerable to government influence.

Political Catholicism

The Centre Party (Zentrum) was a social and political force in mainly-Protestant Germany, helping to frame the Weimar Constitution and participating in several Weimar Republic coalition governments.Centre Party
Encyclopædia Britannica Online; retrieved 28 September 2013 It allied with the Social Democrats and the leftist German Democratic Party, maintaining the centre against extremist parties from the left and right.Yad Vashem - ''The German Churches in the Third Reich''
by Franklin F. Littell Although the party had defied Bismarck's Kulturkampf, during the summer of 1932 it was "notoriously a Party whose first concern was to make accommodation with any government in power in order to secure the protection of its particular interests".Bullock, 1991, pp. 138, 148 It remained relatively moderate during the radicalisation of German politics at the onset of the Great Depression, but party deputies voted for the Enabling Act of 1933 which gave Hitler absolute power.

Catholic leaders attacked Nazi ideology during the 1920s and 1930s, and the main Christian opposition to Nazism in Germany came from the church. German bishops warned Catholics against Nazi racism before Hitler's rise, and some dioceses forbade Nazi Party membership.http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/education/courses/life_lessons/pdfs/lesson8_4.pdf The Catholic press condemned Nazism. John Cornwell wrote about the early Nazi period:

Cardinal Faulhaber was appalled by Nazism's totalitarianism, neopaganism and racism and, as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, contributed to the failure of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. The Cologne Bishops Conference condemned Nazism in early 1931, followed by the bishops of Paderborn and Freiburg. With ongoing hostility toward the Nazis by the Catholic press and the Centre Party, few Catholics voted Nazi before the party's takeover in 1933. As in other German churches, however, some clergy and laypeople supported the Nazi administration.

Five Centre Party politicians were Chancellor of Weimar Germany, Constantin Fehrenbach, Joseph Wirth, Wilhelm Marx, Heinrich Brüning and Franz von Papen. With Germany facing the Great Depression, Brüning was appointed chancellor by Hindenburg and was foreign minister shortly before Hitler came to power. Although he was appointed to form a more-conservative ministry on 28 March 1930, he did not have a Reichstag majority. On 16 July, unable to pass key points of his agenda, Brüning invoked the constitution's Article 48; he dissolved the Reichstag two days later. New elections were set for September; Communist and Nazi representation greatly increased, hastening Germany's drift toward a right-wing dictatorship. Brüning backed Hindenburg against Hitler in the 1932 presidential election, but lost Hindenburg's support as chancellor and resigned in May of that year. Vatican Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, Ludwig Kaas and many German Catholics were concerned about Brüning's reliance on the Social Democrats for political survival, and Brüning never forgave Pacelli for what he saw as a betrayal of Catholic political tradition.Ventresca, 2013, pp. 74–76

Anticommunism

Karl Marx's opposition to religion pitted Communist movements against the church, which denounced Communism with Pope Leo XIII's May 1891 ''Rerum novarum'' encyclical. The church feared Communist conquest (or revolution) in Europe. German Christians were alarmed by the militant Marxist–Leninist atheism which took hold in Russia after its 1917 revolution, a systematic effort to eradicate Christianity.Blainey, 2011 Seminaries were closed, and religious education was criminalized; in 1922, the Bolsheviks arrested Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow.

Communists, initially led by the moderate Kurt Eisner, briefly attained power in Bavaria in 1919. The revolt was then seized by the radical Eugen Leviné, who helped to establish the Bavarian Soviet Republic. This brief, violent experiment in Munich galvanized anti-Marxist and anti-Semitic sentiment among Munich's largely-Catholic population, and the Nazi movement emerged. Hitler and the Nazis gained support as a bulwark against Communism. As apostolic nuncio, Eugenio Pacelli (later Pius XII) was in Munich during the January 1919 Spartacist uprising. Communists burst into his residence in search of his car—an experience which contributed to Pacelli's lifelong distrust of Communism. Many Catholics felt threatened by the possibility of a radical socialism driven, they perceived, by a cabal of Jews and atheists.Derek Hastings, ''Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism'', p. 49 According to Robert Ventresca, "After witnessing the turmoil in Munich, Pacelli reserved his harshest criticism for Kurt Eisner." Pacelli saw Eisner, an atheistic, radical socialist with ties to Russian nihilists, as embodying the revolution in Bavaria: "What is more, Pacelli told his superiors, Eisner was a Galician Jew. A threat to Bavaria's religious, political, and social life". Anton Braun, in a well-publicized December 1918 sermon, called Eisner a "sleazy Jew" and his administration a "pack of unbelieving Jews". Pius XI opposed European communism in his 1937 encyclical, '' Divini Redemptoris''.Encyclopædia Britannica Online: "Pius XI"; online, April 2013

Nazi views on Catholicism

Nazism could not accept the existence of an autonomous establishment whose legitimacy did not spring from the government, and it desired the subordination of the church to the state. Although Article 24 of the NSDAP party platform called for conditional toleration of Christian denominations and the Reichskonkordat with the Vatican was signed in 1933 (purportedly guaranteeing religious freedom for Catholics), Hitler considered religion fundamentally incompatible with Nazism. His hostility to the church indicated to his subordinates that continuation of the ''Kirchenkampf'' would be encouraged.

Many Nazis suspected that Catholics were disloyal to Germany and they also suspected that Catholics also supported "sinister alien forces".Hamerow, 1997, p. 74 William L. Shirer wrote, "Under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler—backed by Hitler—the Nazi regime intended to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists."Shirer, 1990, p. 240 Anti-clericalism was strong among grassroots party activists.Kershaw, 2008, pp. 381–82

Hitler

Hitler retained some regard for the church's organisational power but he was contemptuous of its central teachings, which "would mean the systematic cultivation of human failure". Aware that Bismarck's 1870s ''kulturkampf'' was defeated by the Centre Party, he believed that Nazism could only succeed if political Catholicism and its democratic networks were eliminated. Conservative elements, such as the officer corps, opposed Nazi persecution of the churches.Alan Bullock, ''Hitler: A Study in Tyranny''. Harper Perennial edition (1991), p. 218

Although Hitler occasionally said that he wanted to delay the church struggle and he was prepared to restrain his anti-clericalism, his inflammatory remarks to the members of his inner circle encouraged them to continue their battle with the churches. He said that science would destroy the last vestiges of superstition, and Nazism and religion could not co-exist in the long run. Germany could not tolerate foreign influences such as the Vatican, and priests were "black bugs" and "abortions in black cassocks".

Goebbels

Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels was among the most aggressive anti-church radicals, and prioritized the conflict with the churches. Born to a Catholic family, he became one of the government's most relentless antisemites. On the "Church Question", he wrote "after the war it has to be generally solved. ... There is, namely, an insoluble opposition between the Christian and a heroic-German world view." Goebbels led the persecution of Catholic clergy.

Himmler and Heydrich

Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich headed the Nazi security forces, and were key architects of the Final Solution. They considered Christian values the enemies of Nazism and "eternally the same", wrote Heydrich: "the Jew, the Freemason, and the politically-oriented cleric." Heydrich considered Christianity and liberal individualism the residue of inherited racial characteristics, biologically sourced to Jews (who must be exterminated). Himmler was vehemently opposed to Christian sexual morality and the "principle of Christian mercy", which he saw as an obstacle to his battle with "subhumans."Peter Longerich; ''Heinrich Himmler''; Translated by Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharpe; Oxford University Press; 2012; p. 265 In 1937, he wrote:

Himmler saw the main task of his Schutzstaffel (SS) organisation as "acting as the vanguard in overcoming Christianity and restoring a 'Germanic' way of living" to prepare for the coming conflict between "humans and subhumans"; although the Nazi movement opposed Jews and Communists, "by linking de-Christianisation with re-Germanization, Himmler had provided the SS with a goal and purpose all of its own" and made it a "cult of the Teutons".

Bormann

Martin Bormann, who became Hitler's private secretary in 1941, was a militant anti-church radical and loathed Christianity's Semitic origins. When the bishop of Munster led the public protest against Nazi euthanasia, Bormann called for him to be hanged. In 1941, he said that "National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable."

Rosenberg

In January 1934, Hitler appointed Alfred Rosenberg the Reich's cultural and educational leader. A neo-pagan, the notoriously anti-Catholic Rosenberg''The Nazi War Against the Catholic Church''; National Catholic Welfare Conference; Washington D.C.; 1942 was editor of the '' Völkischer Beobachter''. In 1924, Hitler chose him to oversee the Nazi movement while he was in prison (possibly because he was unsuitable for the task, and unlikely to become a rival). In '' The Myth of the Twentieth Century'' (1930), Rosenberg described the Catholic Church as a primary enemy of Nazism.Encyclopædia Britannica Online - ''Alfred Rosenberg''
web 25 April 2013. He proposed replacing traditional Christianity with the neo-pagan "myth of the blood":

Church officials were disturbed by Rosenberg's appointment, Hitler's endorsement of Rosenberg's anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, neo-pagan philosophy. The Vatican directed its Holy Office to place ''The Myth of the Twentieth Century'' on its Index Librorum Prohibitorum on 7 February 1934. Rosenberg reportedly had little or no influence on government decisions, and was marginalized; Hitler called his book "derivative, pastiche, illogical rubbish".

Kerrl

After Ludwig Müller's failure to unite Protestants behind the Nazi Party in 1933, Hitler appointed his friend Hanns Kerrl as minister for church affairs in 1935. The relatively-moderate Kerrl confirmed Nazi hostility to Christianity in an address during an intense phase of the Kirchenkampf:

History

The Nazis take power

Hitler became involved with the fledgling Nazi Party after World War I. He set the movement's violent tone early, forming the paramilitary Sturmabteilung (SA). Catholic Bavaria resented rule by Protestant Berlin; although Hitler initially saw its revolution as a means to power, an early attempt was fruitless. Imprisoned after the 1923 Munich Beer Hall Putsch, he used the time to produce ''Mein Kampf''; he claimed that an effeminate Jewish-Christian ethic was enfeebling Europe, and Germany needed a man of iron to restore itself and build an empire. Hitler decided to pursue power through "legal" means.Editors of Time-Life Books, ''Shadow of the Dictators''. Time-Life Books (1989) , p. 28

Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the Nazis and the Communists made substantial gains in the 1930 federal election. The Nazis' largest gains were in the northern Protestant, rural towns; Catholic areas remained loyal to the Centre Party.Fulbrook, 1991, p. 55 The Nazis and Communists pledged to eliminate democracy, and they shared over 50 percent of the Reichstag seats.Bullock, 1991, p. 118 Germany's political system made it difficult for chancellors to govern with a stable parliamentary majority, and the chancellors relied on emergency presidential powers. From 1931 to 1933, the Nazis combined terror tactics with conventional campaigning; Hitler crisscrossed the nation by air while SA troops paraded in the streets, beat up their opponents and broke up their meetings. There was no middle-class liberal party strong enough to block the Nazis. The Social Democrats were a conservative trade-union party with ineffective leadership; the Centre Party maintained its voting bloc but was preoccupied by defending its own interests, and the Communists engaged in violent street clashes with the Nazis. Moscow had directed the Communist Party to prioritise the destruction of the Social Democrats, seeing them as more dangerous than the German Right who made Hitler their partner in a coalition government.

The coalition developed slowly; the Centre Party's Heinrich Brüning, Chancellor from 1930 to 1932, was unable to reach terms with Hitler and governed with the support of the president and the army rather than parliament. With the backing of Kurt von Schleicher and Hitler's approval, the 84-year-old Paul von Hindenburg (a conservative monarchist) appointed Catholic monarchist Franz von Papen to replace Brüning as chancellor in June 1932. Papen was active in the resurgence of the right-wing Harzburg Front, and had fallen out with the Centre Party.Bullock, 1991, p. 112 He hoped, ultimately, to outmaneuver Hitler.

After the July 1932 federal elections, the Nazis were the largest party in the Reichstag. Hitler withdrew his support for Papen, and demanded the chancellorship; Hindenburg refused. The Nazis approached the Centre Party to form a coalition, but no agreement was reached. Papen dissolved Parliament, and the Nazi vote declined in the November 1932 federal election. Hindenburg appointed Schleicher as chancellor, and the aggrieved Papen came to an agreement with Hitler. Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor on 30 January 1933, in a coalition between the Nazis and the DNVP. Papen was to serve as vice-chancellor in a majority-conservative cabinet, falsely believing that he could "tame" Hitler. Papen spoke out against Nazi excesses and narrowly escaped death in the Night of the Long Knives, when he ceased to openly criticize Hitler's government. German Catholics greeted the Nazi takeover with apprehension, since leading clergy had been warning about Nazism for years.Kershaw, 2008, p. 261 A threatening, albeit sporadic at first, persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany began.Kershaw, 2008, p. 332

The Enabling Law

The Nazis began to suspend civil liberties and eliminate political opposition after the Reichstag fire, excluding the Communists from the Reichstag. In the March 1933 federal elections, no one party received a majority; Hitler required the Reichstag votes of the Centre Party and the Conservatives. He told the Reichstag on 23 March that Positive Christianity was the "unshakeable foundation of the moral and ethical life of our people", promising not to threaten the churches or state institutions if he was granted plenary powers. With typical negotiation and intimidation, the Nazis called on Ludwig Kaas' Centre Party and the other parties in the Reichstag to vote for the Enabling Act on 24 March 1933.Bullock, 1991, pp. 147–48 The law would give Hitler the freedom to act without parliamentary consent or constitutional limitations.Peter Hoffmann; The History of the German Resistance 1933–1945; 3rd Edn (First English Edn); McDonald & Jane's; London; 1977; p. 7

Hitler dangled the possibility of friendly co-operation, promising not to threaten the Reichstag, the president, the states, or the churches if granted emergency powers. With the Nazi paramilitary encircling the building, he said: "It is for you, gentlemen of the Reichstag, to decide between war and peace". Hitler offered Kaas an oral guarantee to maintain the Centre Party and autonomy for the church and its educational and cultural institutions. The Centre Party, promised non-interference in religion, joined with the conservatives in supporting the act; only the Social Democrats opposed it. The party, the Bavarian People's Party and other groups "voted for their own emasculation in the paradoxical hope of saving their existence thereby". Hitler immediately began abolishing the powers of the states and dismantled non-Nazi political parties and organisations.Shirer, 1990, pp. 200–201. The act allowed Hitler and his cabinet to rule by emergency decree for four years, although Hindenburg remained president. It did not infringe on presidential power, and Hitler would not achieve full dictatorial power until Hindenburg's August 1934 death. Until then, Hindenburg remained commander and chief of the military and retained the power to negotiate foreign treaties. On 28 March, the German Bishops' Conference conditionally revised the ban on Nazi Party membership.

During the winter and spring of 1933, Hitler ordered the wholesale dismissal of Catholic civil servants; the leader of the Catholic trade unions was beaten by brownshirts, and a Catholic politician sought protection after SA troopers wounded a number of his followers at a rally. Hitler then called for a reorganization of church-state relations; by June, thousands of Centre Party members were incarcerated in concentration camps. Two thousand Bavarian People's Party functionaries were rounded up by police in late June 1933, and it ceased to exist by early July.Kershaw, 2008, p. 290 Lacking public ecclesiastical support, the Centre Party also dissolved on 5 July. Non-Nazi parties were formally outlawed on 14 July, when the Reichstag abdicated its democratic responsibilities.

The Reichskonkordat

The church concluded eighteen concordats, beginning in the 1920s, under Pius XI to safeguard its institutional rights. Peter Hebblethwaite noted that the treaties were unsuccessful: "Europe was entering a period in which such agreements were regarded as mere scraps of paper".Hebblethwaite, 1993, p. 118 The Reichskonkordat was signed on 20 July 1933, and ratified in September of that year; it remains in force. The agreement was an extension of existing concordats with Prussia and Bavaria by nuncio Eugenio Pacelli, including a 1924 state-level concordat with Bavaria.Coppa, Frank. J., ''Controversial Concordats'' (1999), Catholic University Press, pp. 120–80 It was "more like a surrender than anything else: it involved the suicide of the Centre Party ...". Signed by Hindenburg and Papen, it realized a church desire since the early Weimar Republic to secure a nationwide concordat. German breaches of the treaty began almost immediately; although the church repeatedly protested, it preserved diplomatic ties with the Nazi government.

From 1930 to 1933, the church had limited success negotiating with successive German governments; a federal treaty, however, was elusive.Ludwig Volk ''Das Reichskonkordat vom 20. Juli 1933''. Centre Party politicians had pushed for a concordat with the Weimar Republic. Pacelli became the Vatican Secretary of State responsible for the church's global foreign policy in February 1930, and continued working toward the "great goal" of a treaty with Germany. The Vatican was anxious to reach an agreement with the new government despite "continuing molestation of Catholic clergy, and other outrages committed by Nazis against the Church and its organisations".Kershaw, 2008, p. 295 When Papen and Ambassador Diego von Bergen met Pacelli in late June 1933, they found him "visibly influenced" by reports of actions against German Catholic interests. Hitler wanted to end all Catholic political life; the church wanted protection of its schools and organisations, recognition of canon law regarding marriage, and the papal right to select bishops. Papen was chosen by the new government to negotiate with the Vatican, and the bishops announced on 6 April that negotiations on a concordat would begin in Rome. Some Catholic critics of the Nazis emigrated, including Waldemar Gurian, Dietrich von Hildebrand, and Hans Ansgar Reinhold. Hitler began enacting laws restricting the movement of funds (making it impossible for German Catholics to send money to missionaries), restricting religious institutions and education, and mandating attendance at Sunday-morning Hitler Youth functions.

Papen went to Rome on 8 April. Outgoing Centre Party chair Ludwig Kaas, who arrived in Rome shortly before him, negotiated a draft with him on behalf of Pacelli. The concordat prolonged Kaas' stay in Rome, leaving his party without a chairman; he resigned his post on 5 May, and the party elected Heinrich Brüning under increasing pressure from the Nazi campaign of Gleichschaltung. The bishops saw a 30 May 1933 draft as they assembled for a joint meeting of the Fulda (led by Breslau's Cardinal Bertram) and Bavarian conferences (led by Munich's Michael von Faulhaber). of Osnabrück and Archbishop Conrad Grober of Freiburg presented the document to the bishops.Krieg p. 6 Weeks of escalating anti-Catholic violence had preceded the conference, and many bishops feared for the safety of the church if Hitler's demands were not met. The strongest critics of the concordat were Cologne's Cardinal Karl Schulte and Eichstätt's Bishop Konrad von Preysing. They noted that the Enabling Act established a quasi-dictatorship, and the church lacked legal recourse if Hitler decided to disregard the concordat. The bishops approved the draft, and delegated Grober to present their concerns to Pacelli and Kaas.

On 14 July 1933, the Weimar government accepted the Reichskonkordat. It was signed six days later by Pacelli for the Vatican and von Papen for Germany; Hindenburg then signed, and it was ratified in September. Article 16 required bishops to take an oath of loyalty to the state; Article 31 acknowledged that although the church would continue to sponsor charitable organisations, it would not support political organisations or causes. Article 32 gave Hitler what he wanted: the exclusion of clergy and members of religious orders from politics. According to Guenter Lewy, however, members of the clergy could theoretically join (or remain) in the Nazi Party without violating church discipline: "An ordinance of the Holy See forbidding priests to be members of a political party was never an issue; ... the movement sustaining the state cannot be equated with the political parties of the parliamentary multi-party state in the sense of Article 32." The government banned new political parties, turning Germany into a one-party state.

The Reichskonkordat signified international acceptance of Hitler's government. Robert Ventresca wrote that it left German Catholics with no "meaningful electoral opposition to the Nazis", and the "benefits and vaunted diplomatic entente f the Reichskonkordatwith the German state were neither clear nor certain". According to Paul O'Shea, Hitler had a "blatant disregard" for the agreement; its signing was, to him, the first step in the "gradual suppression of the Catholic Church in Germany". Hitler said in 1942 that he saw the Reichskonkordat as obsolete, intended to abolish it after the war, and hesitated to withdraw Germany's representative from the Vatican only for "military reasons connected with the war""A Hungarian Request" in Cameron and Stevens, ''Hitler's Table Talk: 1941–1944''. Enigma Books, pp. 551–56 Pope Pius XI issued ''Mit brennender Sorge'', his 1937 encyclical, when Nazi treaty violations escalated to physical violence., although he was probably mindful of the fact that just a few years before the war, in 1933, at least 40% of all Germans were Catholics, making it politically unpalatable to start a public and open conflict with the Vatican and which had led to the Reichskonkordat in the first place.

Persecution

A threatening, but initially sporadic, persecution of the church followed the Nazi takeover. The Nazis claimed jurisdiction over all collective and social activity, interfering with Catholic education, youth groups, workers' clubs and cultural societies. "By the latter part of the decade of the Thirties, church officials were well aware that the ultimate aim of Hitler and other Nazis was the total elimination of Catholicism and of the Christian religion. Since the vast majority of Germans were either Catholic or Protestant this goal was a long-term rather than short-term Nazi objective".''The Response of the German Catholic Church to National Socialism''
by Michael Phayer; published by Yad Vashem. Hitler moved quickly to eliminate political Catholicism, and the Nazis arrested thousands of Centre Party members. The Bavarian People's Party government was overthrown by a Nazi coup on 9 March 1933,Shirer, 1990, p. 201 and the dissolution of the Centre Party in early July left Germany without a Catholic party for the first time; the Reichskonkordat prohibited clergy from participating in politics. Anton Gill wrote that "with his usual irresistible, bullying technique", Hitler proceeded to "take a mile where he had been given an inch" and closed all Catholic institutions whose functions were not strictly religious:Gill, 1994, p. 57

The Nazis promulgated the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, a sterilization law which was offensive to the church, shortly before the Reichskonkordat was signed. Days later, the dissolution of the Catholic Youth League began. Political Catholics were targets of the 1934 Night of the Long Knives purge: Catholic Action head Erich Klausener, Papen speechwriter and adviser Edgar Jung (also a Catholic Action worker), and Catholic Youth Sports Association national director Adalbert Probst; former Centre Party chancellor Heinrich Brüning narrowly escaped death.Peter Hoffmann; The History of the German Resistance 1933–1945; 3rd Edn (First English Edn); McDonald & Jane's; London; 1977; p. 25Lewis, Brenda Ralph (2000); ''Hitler Youth: the Hitlerjugend in War and Peace 1933–1945''; MBI Publishing; ; p. 45 William Shirer wrote that the German people were not aroused by Nazi church persecution. Most were not moved to face death or imprisonment for the freedom of worship. Impressed by Hitler's early foreign-policy successes and the restoration of the German economy, few "paused to reflect that the Nazis intended to destroy Christianity in Germany, and substitute old paganism of tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists." Anti-Nazi sentiment grew in Catholic circles as the government increased its repression.

Clergy

Clergy, members of male and female religious orders and lay leaders began to be targeted. Thousands were arrested, often on trumped-up charges of currency smuggling or "immorality". Priests were watched closely and denounced, arrested and sent to concentration camps.Berben, 1975, p. 142 In 1940, a clergy barracks was established at Dachau. Clergy intimidation was widespread; Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber was shot at, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer had his Vienna residence ransacked in October 1938, and Bishop Joannes Baptista Sproll of Rottenburg was assaulted and his home vandalised. Propaganda satirizing the clergy included Anderl Kern's play, ''The Last Peasant''. Under Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler, the Sicherheitspolizei and Sicherheitsdienst suppressed internal and external enemies of the state; among them were the "political churches" (such as Lutheranism and Catholicism) who opposed Hitler. Dissidents were arrested and sent to concentration camps. In the 1936 campaign against monasteries and convents, the authorities charged 276 members of religious orders with "homosexuality"; trials of priests, monks, lay brothers and nuns for "immorality" peaked in 1935–36. Protests of the show trials were organised in the United States, including a June 1936 petition signed by 48 clergymen (including rabbis and Protestant pastors). Winston Churchill wrote disapprovingly in the British press of Germany's treatment of "the Jews, Protestants and Catholics of Germany".

Since senior clerics could rely on popular support, the government had to consider the possibility of nationwide protests.Hamerow, 1997, p. 133 Although hundreds of priests and members of monastic orders were sent to concentration camps during the Nazi era, only one bishop was briefly interned; another was expelled from his diocese.Hamerow, 1997, pp. 196–7 In 1940, the Gestapo launched an intense persecution of the monasteries. Dominican Province of Teutonia provincial and German resistance spiritual leader Laurentius Siemer was influential in the Committee for Matters Relating to the Orders, which formed in response to Nazi attacks on Catholic monasteries to encourage the bishops to oppose the regime more effectively.Laurentius Siemer
German Resistance Memorial Centre, Index of Persons; retrieved at 4 September 2013Memory of Spiritual Leader in German Resistance Lives On
Deutsche Welle online; 21 October 2006 Clemens August Graf von Galen and Konrad von Preysing attempted to protect priests from arrest.Encyclopædia Britannica Online: ''Blessed Clemens August, Graf von Galen''; web Apr 2013.

The press

Germany's Catholic press faced censorship and closure. In March 1941, Joseph Goebbels banned the church press due to a "paper shortage". In 1933, the Nazis established a Reich Chamber of Authorship and a Reich Press Chamber under the Reich Cultural Chamber of the Ministry for Propaganda. Dissident writers were terrorized, and the 1934 Night of the Long Knives was the culmination of this early campaign. Fritz Gerlich, editor of Munich's Catholic weekly ''Der Gerade Weg'', was killed for his criticism of the Nazis;Conway, 1997, p. 92 writer and theologian Dietrich von Hildebrand was forced to flee Germany. Poet Ernst Wiechert protested government attitudes toward the arts, calling them "spiritual murder"; he was arrested and interned at Dachau. Hundreds of arrests and the closure of Catholic presses followed ''Mit brennender Sorge'', Pius XI's anti-Nazi encyclical.Gill, 1994, p. 58 Nikolaus Gross, a Christian trade unionist and journalist, was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2001. Declared an enemy of the state in 1938, his newspaper was shut down. Gross was arrested as part of the 20 July plot roundup, and was executed on 23 January 1945.

Education

In 1933, the Nazi school superintendent of Munster issued a decree that religious instruction be combined with discussion of the "demoralising power" of the "people of Israel". Bishop Clemens von Galen of Münster refused, saying that interference in the curriculum violated the Reichskonkordat and children would be confused about their "obligation to act with charity to all men" and the historical mission of the people of Israel.Hamerow, 1997, p. 139 The Nazis removed crucifixes from schools in 1936, and a protest by Galen led to a public demonstration. Hitler pressured parents to remove children from religious classes for ideological instruction; in elite Nazi schools, Christian prayers were replaced with Teutonic rituals and sun worship.Encyclopedia Online - ''Fascism - Identification with Christianity''
web 20 April 2013 Church kindergartens were closed, and Catholic welfare programs were restricted because they assisted the "racially unfit". Parents were coerced into removing their children from Catholic schools. Bavarian teaching positions formerly allotted to nuns were given to secular teachers, and denominational schools became "community schools". In 1937, authorities in Upper Bavaria tried to replace Catholic schools with "common schools"; Cardinal Faulhaber resisted.Hamerow, 1997, pp. 200–202 By 1939, all Catholic schools had been closed or converted to public facilities.

Anti-clericalism

In late 1935, Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen of Münster urged a joint pastoral letter protesting an "underground war" against the church. The church hierarchy was disillusioned by early 1937; Pius XI issued his ''Mit brennender Sorge'' encyclical in March, accusing the government of violating the Reichskonkordat and sowing the "tares of suspicion, discord, hatred, calumny, of secret and open fundamental hostility to Christ and His Church". The Nazis intensified their persecution the following month. Goebbels noted heightened verbal attacks on the clergy by Hitler in his diary, writing that Hitler had approved trumped-up "immorality trials" of the clergy and an anti-church propaganda campaign. Goebbels' attack included a "morality trial" of 37 Franciscans. His Ministry of Propaganda pressured the churches to voice support for World War II, and the Gestapo banned church meetings for several weeks. During the war's first few months, the churches complied;Conway, 1997, p. 234 no denunciations of the invasion of Poland or the Blitzkrieg were issued. The bishops said, "We appeal to the faithful to join in ardent prayer that God's providence may lead this war to blessed success for Fatherland and people." Reinhard Heydrich determined that support from church leaders could not be expected because of the nature of their doctrines and internationalism, however, and wanted to cripple clerical political activities. He devised measures to restrict church operations under cover of war-time exigencies such as reducing resources available to church presses on the basis of rationing and prohibiting pilgrimages and large church gatherings due to transportation difficulties. Churches were closed for being "too far from bomb shelters"; bells were melted down, and presses were closed.

Germany's attack on the churches expanded with the 1941 war on the Eastern Front. Monasteries and convents were targeted, and expropriation of church properties increased. Nazi authorities falsely claimed that the properties were needed for wartime necessities such as hospitals or accommodations for refugees and children. "Hostility to the state" was commonly cited for the confiscations, and the action of a single member of a monastery could result in seizure; the Jesuits, in particular, were targeted. Although papal nuncio Cesare Orsenigo and Cardinal Bertram repeatedly complained, they were told to expect more requisitions due to war-time needs. Over 300 monasteries and other institutions were expropriated by the SS. On 22 March 1942, the German bishops issued a pastoral letter entitled "The Struggle against Christianity and the Church". The letter defended human rights and the rule of law, accusing the Nazis of "unjust oppression and hated struggle against Christianity and the Church" despite Catholic loyalty and military service.

Plans

In January 1934, Hitler appointed the neo-pagan anti-Catholic Alfred Rosenberg as the Reich's cultural and educational leader. That year, Rome's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome recommended that Rosenberg's book be placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum for scorning and rejecting "all dogmas of the Catholic Church, indeed the very fundamentals of the Christian religion". Rosenberg outlined the future of religion envisioned by the Hitler government with a thirty-point program. According to the program, the German Evangelical Church would control all churches; publication of the Bible would cease, and crucifixes, Bibles and statues of saints on altars would be replaced by with ''Mein Kampf'' ("to the German nation and therefore to God the most sacred book"). The swastika would replace the cross on churches.

The Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil War (1936–39) was fought by the Nationalists (aided by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany) and the Republicans (aided by the Soviet Union, Mexico and volunteer International Brigades under the command of the Comintern). Spain's Republican president, Manuel Azaña, was anticlerical; the Nationalist Generalissimo Francisco Franco established a longstanding Fascist dictatorship which restored some privileges to the church. On 7 June 1942, Hitler said that he believed Franco's accommodation of the church was an error: "One makes a great mistake if one thinks that one can make a collaborator of the Church by accepting a compromise. The whole international outlook and political interest of the Catholic Church in Spain render inevitable conflict between the Church and Franco regime". The Nazis portrayed the war as a contest between civilization and Bolshevism. According to historian Beth Griech-Polelle, many church leaders "implicitly embraced the idea that behind the Republican forces stood a vast Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy intent on destroying Christian civilization." Joseph Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda was the main source of German domestic coverage of the war. Goebbels (like Hitler) frequently alleged a link between Jewishness and communism, instructing the press to call the Republican side "Bolsheviks" and not mention German military involvement. In August 1936, the German bishops met for their annual conference in Fulda. They produced a joint pastoral letter about the Spanish Civil War: "Therefore, German unity should not be sacrificed to religious antagonism, quarrels, contempt, and struggles. Rather our national power of resistance must be increased and strengthened so that not only may Europe be freed from Bolshevism by us, but also that the whole civilized world may be indebted to us."''Antisemitism, Christian Ambivalence and the Holocaust'', p. 128

Faulhaber meets Hitler

Goebbels noted Hitler's mood in his 25 October 1936 diary entry: "Trials against the Catholic Church temporarily stopped. Possibly wants peace, at least temporarily. Now a battle with Bolshevism. Wants to speak with Faulhaber".Richard Bonney Confronting the Nazi War on Christianity: the Kulturkampf Newsletters, 1936–1939; International Academic Publishers; Bern; 2009 ; p. 122 As nuncio, Cesare Orsenigo arranged for Cardinal Faulhaber to meet privately with Hitler on 4 November. After Hitler spoke for an hour, Faulhaber told him that the Nazi government had been waging war on the church for three years; seventeen hundred religious teachers had lost their jobs, 600 in Bavaria alone. The church could not accept the law mandating the sterilization of criminals and disabled people: "When your officials or your laws offend Church dogma or the laws of morality, and in so doing offend our conscience, then we must be able to articulate this as responsible defenders of moral laws". Hitler told Faulhaber that religion was critical to the state, and his goal was to protect the German people from "congenitally afflicted criminals such as now wreak havoc in Spain". Faulhaber replied that the church would "not refuse the state the right to keep these pests away from the national community within the framework of moral law."Antisemitism, Christian Ambivalence and the Holocaust, p. 129 Hitler argued that the radical Nazis could not be contained until there was peace with the church; either the Nazis and the church would fight Bolshevism together, or there would be war on the church. Kershaw cites the meeting as an example of Hitler's ability to "pull the wool over the eyes even of hardened critics"; "Faulhaber—a man of sharp acumen, who often courageously criticized the Nazi attacks on the Catholic Church, went away convinced Hitler was deeply religious".Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler: A Biography''. 2008 Edn; W.W. Norton & Co; London; p. 373 Faulhaber asked church leaders on 18 November to remind parishioners of the errors of communism outlined in Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical, ''Rerum novarum''. Pius XI announced the following day that communism had moved to the head of the list of "errors", and a clear statement was needed. On 25 November, Faulhaber told the Bavarian bishops that he promised Hitler that the bishops would issue a pastoral letter condemning "Bolshevism, which represents the greatest danger for the peace of Europe and the Christian civilization of our country". He said that the letter "will once again affirm our loyalty and positive attitude, demanded by the Fourth Commandment, toward today's form of government and the Führer". Hitler's promise to Faulhaber to clear up "small" problems between church and state was not kept. Faulhaber, Galen, and Pius XI continued to oppose Communism as anxiety reached a high point with what the Vatican called a "red triangle" formed by the USSR, Republican Spain and revolutionary Mexico.

Euthanasia

In 1939, Germany began a programme of euthanasia in which those deemed "racially unfit" would be "euthanised". The senile, people who were mentally disabled or mentally ill, those with epilepsy, disabled people, children with Down syndrome and people with similar conditions qualified. The programme systematically murdered over 70,000 people. As awareness of the euthanasia programme spread, church leaders who opposed it (primarily Catholic Bishop of Münster Clemens August Graf von Galen and Protestant Bishop of Wurttemberg Theophil Wurm) roused widespread public opposition.Peter Hoffmann; The History of the German Resistance 1933–1945; 3rd Edn (First English Edn); McDonald & Jane's; London; 1977; p. 24 Protests were issued by Pope Pius XII, and Bishop von Galen's 1941 intervention led to "the strongest, most explicit and most widespread protest movement against any policy since the beginning of the Third Reich."Evans, 2008, p. 98

The pope and the German bishops had previously protested against the eugenics-inspired Nazi sterilization of the "racially unfit". Catholic protests against the escalation of this policy into "euthanasia" began in the summer of 1940. Despite Nazi efforts to transfer hospitals to state control, large numbers of disabled people were still under church care. After Protestant welfare activists took a stand at the Bethel Hospital in von Galen's diocese, Galen wrote to Bertram in July 1940 urging the church to take a moral position. Bertram urged caution. Archbishop Conrad Gröber of Freiburg wrote to the head of the Reich Chancellery and offered to pay all costs incurred by the state for the "care of people intended for death". The Fulda Bishops Conference sent a protest letter to the Reich Chancellery on 11 August, and sent Bishop Heinrich Wienken of Caritas Internationalis to discuss the matter. Wienken cited the Fifth Commandment, warning officials to halt the program or face public church protest. Although Wienken then wavered, fearing that he might jeopardise his efforts to have Catholic priests released from Dachau, he was urged to stand firm by Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber. The government refused to halt the program in writing, and the Vatican declared on 2 December that the policy was contrary to natural and divine law: "The direct killing of an innocent person because of mental or physical defects is not allowed".

Arrests of priests and seizure of Jesuit properties by the Gestapo in his home city of Munster convinced Galen that the caution advised by his superior was pointless. He spoke on 6, 13 and 20 July 1941 against the seizure of properties and expulsions of nuns, monks and religious, and criticized the euthanasia programme. The police raided his sister's convent, and detained her in the cellar; she escaped, and Galen made his boldest challenge to the government in a 3 August sermon. He formally accused those responsible for the murders in a letter to the public prosecutor. The policy opened the way to the murder of all "unproductive people", including invalid war veterans; "Who can trust his doctor anymore?". Galen said that it was a Christian duty to oppose the taking of human life, even if it risked one's own. He addressed a moral danger to Germany from the government's violations of human rights. "The sensation created by the sermons was enormous", and they were a "vigorous denunciation of Nazi inhumanity and barbarism". Gill wrote: "Galen used his condemnation of this appalling policy to draw wider conclusions about the nature of the Nazi state". The sermons were distributed illegally,Anton Gill; An Honourable Defeat; A History of the German Resistance to Hitler; Heinemann; London; 1994; p. 60 and Galen had them read in churches. The British broadcast excerpts on the BBC German service, dropped leaflets over Germany, and distributed the sermons in occupied countries.

Bishop Antonius Hilfrich of Limburg wrote to the justice minister denouncing the murders, and Bishop Albert Stohr of Mainz condemned the taking of life from the pulpit. Some of the priests who distributed the sermons were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Bishop von Preysing's cathedral administrator, Bernhard Lichtenberg, protested by letter to Leonardo Conti, Reich Health Leader. Lichtenberg was arrested, and died en route to Dachau. Galen's public protest came after he had been given proof of the killings; advising passive resistance only, he was not interrogated or arrested. The sermons angered Hitler, who said in 1942: "The fact that I remain silent in public over Church affairs is not in the least misunderstood by the sly foxes of the Catholic Church, and I am quite sure that a man like Bishop von Galen knows full well that after the war I shall extract retribution to the last farthing". Although he wanted to remove Galen, Goebbels told him that it would cost him Westphalian loyalty. Martin Bormann wanted Galen hanged, but Hitler and Goebbels urged a delay in retribution until the war ended. With the programme public knowledge, nurses and staff (particularly in Catholic institutions) tried to obstruct its implementation. Hitler halted the main euthanasia program on 24 August 1941, although less-systematic murder of disabled people continued. Techniques learnt in the euthanasia programme were later used in the Holocaust. Pius XII issued his ''Mystici corporis Christi'' encyclical in 1943, condemning the murder of disabled people. The encyclical was followed on 26 September by an open condemnation by the German bishops of the killing of "innocent and defenseless mentally handicapped, incurably infirm and fatally wounded, innocent hostages, and disarmed prisoners of war and criminal offenders, people of a foreign race or descent".

Opposition

Although the 1933 Reichskoncordat prohibited the clergy from political participation (weakening opposition by Catholic leaders), the clergy were among the first major components of the German Resistance. "From the very beginning, some churchmen expressed, quite directly at times, their reservations about the new order. In fact, those reservations gradually came to form a coherent, systematic critique of many of the teachings of National Socialism." The most incisive public criticism of the Nazis later came from some German religious leaders. The government was reluctant to move against them, since they could claim to be tending to the spiritual welfare of their flocks.

Neither Catholicism nor Protestantism was willing to openly oppose the Nazi state. Offering "something less than fundamental resistance to Nazism", the churches "engaged in a bitter war of attrition with the regime, receiving the demonstrative backing of millions of churchgoers. Applause for Church leaders whenever they appeared in public, swollen attendances at events such as Corpus Christi Day processions, and packed church services were outward signs of the struggle ... especially of the Catholic Church—against Nazi oppression".Ian Kershaw; The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation; 4th Edn; Oxford University Press; New York; 2000"; pp. 210–11 The churches were the earliest, most-enduring centres of systematic opposition to Nazi policies. Christian morality and Nazi anti-clericalism motivated many German resistors for the "moral revolt" to overthrow Hitler.''The German Resistance to Hitler'' pp. 198–199

Early political resistance

Political Catholicism was a target of Hitler's government, and opposition politicians began planning to overthrow him; however, non-Nazi parties were banned. Former Centre Party leader and Reich Chancellor Heinrich Brüning and military chiefs Kurt von Schleicher and Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord tried to oust Hitler. Erich Klausener, president of Berlin's Catholic Action group, organised conventions in Berlin in 1933 and 1934. At the 1934 rally, he spoke against political oppression to a crowd of 60,000 after Mass six nights before Hitler implemented a bloody purge. Conservative Catholic nobleman Franz von Papen, who had helped Hitler to power and was Deputy Reich Chancellor, delivered an indictment of the Nazi government in his Marburg speech of 17 June 1934. Papen speechwriter and advisor Edgar Jung, a Catholic Action worker, reasserted the state's Christian foundation.Conway, 1997, pp. 90–91 Jung pleaded for religious freedom in a speech he hoped would spur an uprising centred on Hindenburg, Papen and the army.

Hitler decided to kill his chief political opponents in what became known as the Night of the Long Knives. It lasted for two days, from 30 June to 1 July 1934. Over 100 opposition figures were killed in addition to Hitler's rivals, including Klausener, Jung and Catholic Youth Sports Association national director Adalbert Probst. The Catholic press was also targeted, and anti-Nazi journalist Fritz Gerlich was murdered. On 2 August 1934, President von Hindenburg died. The offices of President and Chancellor were combined; Hitler ordered the army to swear an oath to him, and declared his "revolution" complete.

Clerical resistance

German resistance historian Joachim Fest wrote that although the church had been hostile to Nazism and "its bishops energetically denounced the 'false doctrines' of the Nazis", its opposition weakened considerably after the Reichskoncordat; Cardinal Bertram "developed an ineffectual protest system", addressing other bishops' demands without annoying the authorities.Fest, 1997, p. 31 Firmer resistance by Catholic leaders gradually reasserted itself in the actions of Joseph Frings, Konrad von Preysing, Clemens August Graf von Galen, Conrad Gröber and Michael von Faulhaber.Fest, 1997, p. 32 According to Fest, the government responded with "occasional arrests, the withdrawal of teaching privileges, and the seizure of church publishing houses and printing facilities. ... Resistance remained largely a matter of individual conscience. In general they oth churchesattempted merely to assert their own rights and only rarely issued pastoral letters or declarations indicating any fundamental objection to Nazi ideology." Nevertheless, the churches more than any other institution "provided a forum in which individuals could distance themselves from the regime".

The Nazis never felt strong enough to arrest (or execute) senior German Catholic officials, and the bishops could criticise aspects of Nazi totalitarianism. Less-senior officials were more expendable. An estimated one-third of German priests faced government reprisal, and 400 were interned in the priest barracks at Dachau; among the best-known were Alfred Delp and Bernhard Lichtenberg. German Catholics' Peace Association founder Max Josef Metzger was arrested for the last time in June 1943 after he was denounced by a postman for attempting to send a memorandum on the reorganisation of the German state and its integration into a future system of world peace; he was executed on 17 April 1944. Dominican Province of Teutonia provincial Laurentius Siemer and Jesuit Bavarian provincial Augustin Rösch were high-ranking members of orders who became active in the resistance; both narrowly survived the war after their knowledge of the 20 July plot was discovered. Rupert Mayer was beatified in 1987. Hundreds of priests and members of monastic orders were sent to concentration camps, but only one German Catholic bishop was briefly interned and another expelled from his diocese. This reflected the church hierarchy's caution. Albert Speer wrote that when Hitler was read passages from a defiant sermon or pastoral letter he became furious, and the fact that he "could not immediately retaliate raised him to a white heat".

Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber was an early critic of Nazism;Encyclopædia Britannica Online: ''Michael von Faulhaber''; web April 2013. his three 1933 Advent sermons affirmed the Jewish origins of Jesus and the Bible. Cautiously framed as a discussion of historical Judaism, they denounced Nazi extremists who were calling for the Bible to be purged of the "Jewish" Old Testament.Hamerow, 1997, p. 140 Although Faulhaber avoided conflict with the state about secular issues, he "refused to compromise or retreat" in his defense of Catholics. Hitler and Faulhaber met on 4 November 1936. Faulhaber told Hitler that the Nazi government had waged war on the church for three years. The church respected authority, but "when your officials or your laws offend Church dogma or the laws of morality, and in so doing offend our conscience, then we must be able to articulate this as responsible defenders of moral laws". Attempts on his life were made in 1934 and 1938. Konrad von Preysing, appointed bishop of Berlin in 1935, was loathed by Hitler. Preysing opposed Bertram's appeasement of the Nazis, and worked with resistance leaders Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and Helmuth James von Moltke. A member of the commission which prepared ''Mit brennender Sorge'', he tried to block the closure of Catholic schools and arrest of church officials.Gill, 1994, pp. 58–59Konrad Graf von Preysing
German Resistance Memorial Centre, Index of Persons; retrieved at 4 September 2013 In 1938, Preysing co-founded the Hilfswerk beim Bischöflichen Ordinariat Berlin (Berlin Diocese Welfare Office). He cared for Jews, and protested the Nazi euthanasia programme. Preysing's 1942–43 Advent pastoral letters on the nature of human rights reflected the Confessing Church's Barmen Declaration, and one was read by the BBC's German service. He blessed Claus von Stauffenberg before the 20 July plot, discussing whether the need for radical change justified tyrannicide.

Münster bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen was Preysing's cousin. A conservative nationalist, he began criticising Nazi racial policy in a January 1934 sermon. Galen equated unquestioning loyalty to the Reich with "slavery", and opposed Hitler's theory of German purity.Gill, 1994, p. 59 With Presying, he helped draft the 1937 papal encyclical. Galen denounced Gestapo lawlessness, the confiscation of church properties and Nazi euthanasia in 1941. He protested against the mistreatment of Catholics in Germany, addressing the moral danger of the government's violations of human rights: "The right to life, to inviolability, and to freedom is an indispensable part of any moral social order". A government which punishes without court proceedings "undermines its own authority and respect for its sovereignty within the conscience of its citizens".Hamerow, 1997, pp. 289-90 Evidence suggests the Nazis intended to hang Galen at the end of the war. A critic of Weimar Germany, he initially hoped that the Nazi government might restore German prestige but quickly became disillusioned; he subscribed to the stab-in-the-back myth about Germany's 1918 defeat.Griech-Polelle, ''von Galen, a Biography'' Although some clergy refused to feign support for Hitler's government, the Catholic hierarchy adopted a strategy of "seeming acceptance of the Third Reich" by couching their criticisms as motivated by a desire to "point out mistakes that some of its overzealous followers committed".Hamerow, 1997, p. 198 Josef Frings became archbishop of Cologne in 1942, and his consecration was used as a demonstration of Catholic self-assertion. In his sermons, he repeatedly supported persecuted peoples and opposed state repression; Frings attacked arbitrary arrests, racial persecution and forced divorces in March 1944. That autumn, he protested to the Gestapo against the deportation of Jews from the Cologne area.Josef Frings
German Resistance Memorial Centre, Index of Persons; retrieved 4 September 2013 In 1943, the German bishops debated directly confronting Hitler collectively over what they knew of the murder of Jews. Frings wrote a pastoral letter instructing his diocese not to violate the inherent rights of others "not of our blood", even during war, and preached that "no one may take the property or life of an innocent person just because he is a member of a foreign race".

''Mit brennender Sorge''

By early 1937, the church hierarchy was disillusioned. In March, Pius XI issued the encyclical ''Mit brennender Sorge'' ("With burning concern"). Smuggled into Germany to avoid censorship, it was read from the pulpits of all Catholic churches on Palm Sunday. The encyclical condemned Nazi ideology, accusing the government of violating the Reichskoncordat and promoting "suspicion, discord, hatred, calumny, of secret and open fundamental hostility to Christ and His Church". It has been recognised as the "first ... official public document to criticize Nazism" and "one of the greatest such condemnations ever issued by the Vatican."Bokenkotter, 2004, pp. 389–92 Despite Gestapo efforts to block its distribution, the church distributed thousands of copies to German parishes. Hundreds of people were arrested for giving out copies and Goebbels increased anti-Catholic propaganda, including a show trial of 170 Franciscans in Koblenz. The "infuriated" Nazis increased their persecution of Catholics and the church; according to Gerald Fogarty, "In the end, the encyclical had little positive effect, and if anything only exacerbated the crisis."

The Nazis saw ''Mit brennender Sorge'' as "a call to battle against the Reich"; Hitler, furious, "vowed revenge against the Church"."''The papacy, the Jews, and the Holocaust''", Frank J. Coppa, pp. 162–63, CUA Press, 2006, Thomas Bokenkotter writes, "The Nazis were infuriated. In retaliation they closed and sealed all the presses that printed it. They took numerous vindictive measures against the Church, including staging a long series of immorality trials of the Catholic clergy." The German police confiscated as many copies as they could, and the Gestapo seized twelve printing presses. According to Owen Chadwick

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