Popes Pius XI (1922–39) and Pius XII (1939-58) reigned during the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. In the 1930s, Catholics in Germany constituted about one third of the population and Political Catholicism had been a major force in the interwar Weimar Republic. Through a blend of political acuity, deceptiveness, threats and cunning, Adolf Hitler achieved power in Germany in 1933-4. He pledged not to threaten the churches and through intimidation and persuasion, convinced the Catholic Center Party to vote for the Enabling Act of 1933, giving him plenary powers. With President von Hindenberg still in office, the Hitler-Papen Coalition government [1933-34] soon concluded the Reichskonkordat Treaty with the Holy See, which prohibited clerics from engaging in politics, required of bishops an oath of fidelity to the German Reich and protected the autonomy of the Church. The Nazis regularly violated the Treaty, but the Church remained one of the few institutions in Germany to maintain some independence from the state.

Prior to 1933, Catholic leaders had energetically denounced the false doctrines of the Nazis, but political opposition weakened considerably after the Concordat. Under Nazi radicals like Goebbels, Himmler, Rosenberg and Bormann, a persecution of the Church in Germany continued. Cardinal Bertram, chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, developed an ineffectual protest system and only gradually did Catholic resistance re-emerge, through the efforts of individual clerics like Bishops Preysing and Galen, on issues like euthanasia and eugenics. The regime responded with arrests, and the closure of Catholic schools and presses - but, according to Fest, Catholic resistance remained largely a matter of individual conscience, with the churches generally attempting merely to assert their own rights, and only rarely issuing fundamental objections to Nazi ideology. The National Socialist Program outlined the Nazi platform on race and religion in Articles 4 and 24. It declared a Nazi preference for a "Positive Christianity" (which did not rely on the Apostles Creed or divinity of Christ recognized by Catholics). In March 1937 the Holy See issued the encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge condemning racism, idolatry of the state, neo-paganism, and repeated Nazi violations of the Concordat, while defending the Old Testament sourced in Jewish history.

Eugenio Pacelli, a former Nuncio to Germany (1917-1930), became Pope Pius XII in 1939. His legacy is contested. As Vatican Secretary of State through the 1930s, he assisted in drafting the Concordat and Mit Brennender Sorge and in formulating the Vatican response to events like the Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938, which saw no public protest from the Holy See, but private instruction to church officials to render aid to Jews. At the outbreak of War Pius issued Summi Pontificatus, and affirmed the policy of Vatican neutrality. He used diplomacy to aid war victims and lobby for peace. At times, risking neutrality, he shared intelligence with the Allies and used Vatican Radio and press to speak out against atrocities like race murders. While Nazi antisemitism embraced relatively modern pseudo-scientific principles, ancient antipathies between Christianity and Judaism have been cited as variously contributing to Nazi antisemitism. Under Pius XII, the Catholic Church rescued more Jews than all other churches, religious institutions and rescue organizations combined - providing false documents, lobbying Axis officials and hiding many thousands in monasteries, convents, schools and elsewhere; including, the Vatican. Pius' pontificate remains controversial - of his public utterances, Ventresca wrote that critics were dismayed that they consisted of appeals for "universal peace and brotherhood', or "dense, lengthy and somewhat obtuse language" lacking blunt speaking about specific governments and policies, or laying of moral responsibility before the Nazis.^[1]

In the Nazi Empire, responses to Nazism varied. Vigorous resistance from bishops and papal diplomats like Johannes de Jong, Jozef-Ernest van Roey, Jules-Géraud Saliège, Andrea Cassulo and Angelo Rotta and from leading nuns like Matylda Getter and Margit Slachta, can be contrasted with the apathy of others, the inept diplomacy of the the Vatican diplomat in Berlin, or the outright collaboration of a Catholic politician like Slovakia's Fr. Jozef Tiso. The Nazis established a dedicated clergy barracks at Dachau, which mostly housed Polish priests, though some 400 German Catholic priests were imprisoned there. In Poland, there was a concerted persecution and over 1800 Polish clergy died in Concentration Camps. Through the war, influential members of the German Resistance included the Jesuits in the Kreisau Circle, and laymen like Stauffenberg, Kaiser and Letterhaus, for whom religious motives inspired resistance.^[2] At the end of the war, some top lay Catholic German military officers organized the so-called "ratlines" that allowed Nazi war criminals to flee Europe via Francoist Spain. According to Steinacher: Bishop Alois Hudal and Cardinals Luigi Maglione, Eugene Tisserant and Antonio Caggiano, as well as the seminary in San Girolamo degli Illirici of Father Krunoslav Draganović were specially active in this task, leading to thousands of escapes.^[3]

Background

Origins

Roman Catholicism had ancient roots among Germanic peoples dating to the missionary work of Columbanus and St. Boniface in the 6th-8th centuries. The Reformation, initiated by Martin Luther in 1517, had divided German Christians between Protestantism and Catholicism. The south and west remained mainly Catholic, while north and east were mainly Protestant.^[4] The Bavarian region, the Rhineland and Westphalia as well as parts in south-west Germany were predominantly Catholic, and the church had enjoyed a degree of privilege there, while in the Protestant North, Catholics had suffered some discrimination. In the 1930s, the episcopate of the Catholic Church of Germany comprised 6 Archbishops and 19 bishops while German Catholics comprised around one third of the population of Germany served by 20,000 priests.^[5][6]

The Nazi movement arose in Germany during the period of the Weimar Republic in the aftermath of the disaster of World War One (1914-1918) and the subsequent grip of the Great Depression. The ill-fated Weimar democracy replaced the German Empire and faced a series of social, economic and political challenges. Amidst resentment of the Treaty of Versailles, disastrous inflation and political turmoil of 1920-1923 radicals arose on the right and left. Adolf Hitler, came to lead the small National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis) and formed alliances with other right-wing groups to attempt to overthrow the Weimar democracy. A period of economic and political stabilization followed and in the 1929 elections, the antirepublican parties of the left and right received only 13 percent of the total vote, with the Nazis taking just 2.6 percent. But, with the onset of worldwide economic Depression, the fortune of the radical parties soared. At the outset of the 1930s, the Nazis, with their militarist, anti-democractic and anti-Semitic policies, were on the cusp of power.^[7]

Political Catholicism in Germany

In the 1930s, the Catholic Church and the Catholic Centre Party, were major social and political forces in predominantly Protestant Germany. Through the period of the Weimar Republic, (1919-33/34) the Centre Party, aligned with both the Social Democrats and the leftist German Democratic Party, had maintained the centre ground against the rise of extremist parties of the extreme left and right.^[8][9]

The Centre Party was created in response to Otto von Bismark's Kulturkampf of 1871–78 which had sought to reduce the social and political influence of the Catholic Church in Germany. The Kulturkampf failed in its attempt to eliminate Catholic institutions in Germany, or their strong connections outside of Germany, particularly, various international missions and Rome. The revolution of 1918 and the Weimar constitution of 1919 had thoroughly reformed the former relationship between state and churches.^[8] By law, the German churches (Protestant and Catholic) received tax supported subsidies based on church census data, therefore, were dependent on the state support causing them to be vulnerable to Government influence and the political atmosphere of Germany.^[8] The Centre Party was challenged and weakened by the rise of socialism, communism and National Socialism. Historically the Centre Party had had the strength to defy Bismark and been a bulwark of the Weimar Republic, yet, according to Bullock, from the summer of 1932, the Party had become "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".^[10][11]

With the collapse of Germany's post-World War One economic recovery, and the stain of defeat laying heavily on the German psyche, political and economic extremism ultimately won out against the centre, through a combination of shrewd politics and terror tactics.^[8] Following the Nazi takeover, the National Socialists moved quickly to outlaw other political parties, and, following a campaign of intimidation, the Centre Party and the Bavarian People's Party (a regional Catholic party) had ceased to exist by July 1933.^[12]

Catholic opposition to Communism

The Catholic Church held grave fears as to the consequences of Communist conquest or revolution in Europe. German Christians were alarmed by the spread of militant Marxist‒Leninist atheism, which took hold in Russia following the 1917 Revolution, and involved a systematic effort to eradicate Christianity: with lootings, lynchings, executions, the banning of church rites and orchestrated mockery of priests, popes and rabbis.^[13][14] Seminaries were closed and teaching the faith to the young was criminalized. In 1922, the Bolsheviks arrested the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.^[13] The Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin energetically pursued the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church through the 1920s and 1930s. Lenin wrote:^[14]

Every religious idea, every idea of God... is unutterable vileness...of the most dangerous kind, 'contagion' of the most abominable kind. Millions of sins, filthy deeds, acts of violence and physical contagions... are less dangerous than the subtle, spiritual idea of God decked out in the smartest 'ideological' costumes.

— Vladimir Lenin.

The ambivalent views held by 19th-century German sociologist Karl Marx on religion pitted Communist movements against religious organisations like the Catholic Church. In Bavaria in 1919, Communists briefly seized power. Papal Nuncio Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) was harassed, threatened at gunpoint and his residence sprayed with machine gun fire by revolutionaries.^[15]

Hitler was able to win some support from some German Christians in the belief that he would be a bulwark against Communism.^[13] But Pope Pius XI saw the rising tide of Totalitarianism in Europe with alarm and delivered three papal encyclicals challenging the new creeds: against Italian Fascism Non abbiamo bisogno (1931; We Do Not Need to Acquaint You); against Nazism Mit brennender Sorge (1937; “With Deep Anxiety”) and against atheist Communist Divini redemptoris (1937; “Divine Redeemer”).^[16]

Catholicism during the 1920s and 1930s

During the 1920s and 1930s, Catholic leaders made a number of forthright attacks on Nazi ideology and the main Christian opposition to Nazism in Germany had come from the Catholic Church.^[8] Before Hitler came to power, German bishops warned Catholics against Nazi racism and some dioceses banned membership of the Nazi Party.^[17] The Catholic press condemned Nazism.^[17] John Cornwell wrote of the early Nazi period that:

Into the early 1930s the German Centre Party, the German Catholic bishops, and the Catholic media had been mainly solid in their rejection of National Socialism. They denied Nazis the sacraments and church burials, and Catholic journalists excoriated National Socialism daily in Germany's 400 Catholic newspapers. The hierarchy instructed priests to combat National Socialism at a local level whenever it attacked Christianity.^[18]

Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber was appalled by the totalitarianism, neopaganism, and racism of the Nazi movement and, as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, contributed to the failure of the Nazi Munich Putsch of 1923.^[20] Catholic theology clashed in various respects with key tenets of Nazism.^[21][22] Catholicism's internationalism, was at odds with Nazism's uber-nationalism. The position of reverence given by the Church to the Jewish patriarchs and Old Testament contradicted Nazism's racial ideology which classed Jews as sub-human. The Nazi glorification of war and the "survival of the fittest" (Social Darwinism) clashed sharply with the Beatitudes of Jesus ("blessed are the peacemakers"). While Catholicism preached of the primacy of conscience, Hitler denounced conscience as a contemptible "Jewish invention". Thus Hitler intended ultimately to eradicate the Christian Churches.^[23] Throughout the Nazi period Catholic institutions continued to preach the Beatitudes - in cultural opposition to Nazism.

At the beginning of 1931, the Cologne Bishops Conference condemned National Socialism, and were followed by the bishops of Paderborn and Freiburg. With ongoing hostility to the Nazis from the Catholic press and the Catholic Center Party, few German Catholics voted Nazi in the elections preceding the Nazi takeover in 1933.^[24] Nevertheless, in Catholicism, as in other German churches, there were clergy and lay people who openly supported the Nazi regime.^[9]

In a history of the German Resistance, Joachim Fest wrote that at first the Church had been quite hostile to Nazism and "its bishops energetically denounced the 'false doctrines' of the Nazis", however its opposition weakened considerably after the Concordat. Cardinal Bertram "developed an ineffectual protest system" so satisfy the demands of other bishops, without annoying the regime. Only gradually did Catholic resistance from the hierarchy re-emerge, in the form of the efforts of individual clerics, including Cardinal Preysing of Berlin, Bishop Galen of Munster, and Bishop Grober of Freiberg. According to Fest, the regime responded with "occasional arrests, the withdrawal of teaching privileges, and the seizure of church publishing houses and printing facilities" and "Resistance remained largely a matter of individual conscience. In general they [both churches] attempted merely to assert their own rights and only rarely issued pastoral letters or declarations indicating any fundamental objection to Nazi ideology." Nevertheless, wrote Fest, the churches, more than any other institutions, "provided a forum in which individuals could distance themselves from the regime".^[25]

Nazi views on Catholicism

Unlike some Fascist movements of the era, Nazi ideology was hostile to Christianity and clashed with Christian beliefs in many respects.^[28] According to William Shirer, "under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler, who were 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."^[27] The Nazi party had decidedly pagan elements.^[29] Nazism saw Christian ideals of meekness and conscience as obstacles to the violent instincts required to defeat other races.^[28] The attitude of the Nazi party membership to the Catholic Church ranged from tolerance to near total renunciation.^[30][31] Aggressive anti-Church radicals like Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann saw the conflict with the Churches as a priority concern, and anti-church and anti-clerical sentiments were strong among grassroots party activists.^[32] According to Hitler biographer Alan Bullock, once the war was over, Hitler wanted to root out and destroy the influence of the churches:.^[33]

In Hitler's eyes, Christianity was a religion fit only for slaves; he detested its ethics in particular. Its teaching, he declared, was a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle and the survival of the fittest.

— Extract from Hitler: a Study in Tyranny, by Alan Bullock

Bullock wrote that that Hitler "believed neither in God nor in conscience".^[34] Raised Catholic, he retained some regard for the organisational power of Catholicism, but had utter contempt for its central teachings, which he said, if taken to their conclusion, "would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure".^[35] However, important German conservative elements, such as the officer corps, opposed Nazi persecution of the churches and, in office, Hitler restrained his anticlerical instincts out of political considerations.^[35][36]

The 1920 Nazi Party Platform had promised to support freedom of religions with the caveat: "insofar as they do not jeopardize the state's existence or conflict with the moral sentiments of the Germanic race". It further proposed a definition of a "positive Christianity" which could combat the "Jewish-materialistic spirit".^[9] But German Catholics met the Nazi takeover with apprehension, as leading clergymen had been warning against Nazism.^[37] A threatening, though initially mainly sporadic persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany commenced.^[38] However, amidst a backlash of the failures of the Weimar Republic, widespread anti-Semitism, strong anti-Communist sentiment, surging nationalism, and ongoing resentment at the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and Germany's loss of World War One - many German Christians welcomed or accepted the arrival of the Nazis in power in 1933.

Alfred Rosenberg, described by Shirer as "an outspoken pagan", held the title of the title of "the Fuehrer's Delegate for the Entire Intellectual and Philosophical Education and Instruction for the National Socialist Party".^[27] In his "Myth of the Twentieth Century" (1930), Rosenberg wrote that the main enemies of the Germans were the "Russian Tartars" and "Semites" - with "Semites" including Christians, especially the Catholic Church.^[39] Rosenberg proposed to replace traditional Christianity with the neo-pagan "myth of the blood"^[40]

We now realize that the central supreme values of the Roman and the Protestant Churches, being a negative Christianity, do not respond to our soul, that they hinder the organic powers of the peoples determined by their Nordic race, that they must give way to them, that they will have to be remodeled to conform to a Germanic Christendom. Therein lies the meaning of the present religious search.

— The Myth of the 20th Century, Alfred Rosenberg, 1930.

Joseph Goebbels, the Minister for Propaganda, was among the most aggressive anti-Church Nazi radicals. Goebbels led the Nazi persecution of the German clergy and, as the war progressed, 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".^[32]

Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich headed the dreaded Nazi security forces and were key architects of the Final Solution. Both believed that Christian values were among the enemies of Nazism. The enemies were "eternally the same" wrote Heydrich: "the Jew, the Freemason, and the politically-oriented cleric." Modes of thinking like Christian and liberal individualism he considered to be residue of inherited racial characteristics, biologically sourced to Jewry - who must therefore be exterminated.^[41]

Following the failure of the pro-Nazi Ludwig Muller to unite German Protestants behind the National Socialist Party during the first year of Nazi rule, Hitler appointed his friend Hans Kerrl as Minister for Church Affairs in 1935. A relative moderate among Nazis, Kerrl nonetheless confirmed Nazi hostility to the Catholic and Protestant creeds in a 1937 address during an intense phase of the Nazi Kirchenkampf:^[42]

The Party stands on the basis of Positive Christianity, and positive Christianity is National Socialism... National Socialism is the doing of God's will... God's will reveals itself in German blood... Dr Zoellner and [Catholic Bishop of Munster] Count Galen have tried to make clear to me that Christianity consists in faith in Christ as the son of God. That makes me laugh... No, Christianity is not dependent upon the Apostle's Creed... True Christianity is represented by the party, and the German people are now called by the party and especially the Fuehrer to a real Christianity... the Fuehrer is the herald of a new revelation".

— Hans Kerrl, Nazi Minister for Church Affairs, 1937

Hitler's chosen deputy and private secretary from 1941, Martin Bormann, was a rigid guardian of National Socialist orthodoxy.^[28][43] He said publicly in 1941 that "National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable".^[27] Bormann and Rosenberg actively collaborated in the Nazi program to eliminate Church influence - a program which included the abolition of religious services in schools; the confiscation of religious property; ciculating anti-religious material to soldiers; and the closing of theological faculties.^[40]

When, on January 24, 1934 Hitler appointed Alfred Rosenberg as the state's official philosopher, Church officials were perturbed - the indication was that Hitler was officially espousing the anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, and neopagan ideas presented in Rosenberg's Myth of the Twentieth Century. Pius XI and Cardinal Pacelli directed the Holy Office to place Rosenberg's Myth of the Twentieth Century on the Index of Forbidden books on February 7, 1934. Cologne's Cardinal Schulte met with Hitler, and protested at Rosenberg's role in the government. Ignored by Hitler, Schulte decided that the church needed to respond and appointed the Reverend Josef Teusch to direct a defence against the Nazi anti-Christian propaganda. Teusch eventually produced 20 booklets against Nazism - Catechism Truths alone sold seven milion copies.^[44] Later in 1934 Studien zum Mythus des XX, a pamphlet of essays attacking Rosenberg's Myth of the Twentieth Century, was released, in Bishop Clemens von Galen's name. "Studien was a defence of the church. A concern for the preservation of Catholicism had apparently eclipsed a commitment to the protection of human rights in general."^[45]

According to Hitler's architect Albert Speer, Hitler made "harsh pronouncements against the church", but conceived of it as a potentially "useful instrument". Amid heightened church-state tensions in 1937, he therefore ordered chief associates to remain members, and did so himself - though having "no attachment to it".^[46] But, noted Speer, when drafting his plans for the New Berlin, he was informed that "churches were not to receive building sites.^[47] Colonel-General Werner von Fritsch was Commander-in-Chief of the Army until his removal in early 1938, soon after he expressed doubts as to Germany's readiness for war. In December of that year, he wrote a friend, expressing faith in the Fuehrer and his cause in the following terms:

"It is very strange that so many people should regard the future with growing apprehension, in spite of the Führer's indisputable successes in the past...Soon after the War, I came to the conclusion that we have to be victorious in three battles, if Germany were again to be powerful:.

(1) The battle against the working class. Hitler has won this;
(2) Against the Catholic Church, perhaps better expressed as Ultramontanism and
(3) Against the Jews.

We are in the midst of these battles, and the one against the Jews is the most difficult. I hope everyone realizes the intricacies of this campaign."^[48]

— Colonel-General Werner von Fritsch, letter to Baroness Margot von Schutzbar, 11 December 1938.

During the War, Rosenberg outlined the future envisioned by the Hitler government for religion in Germany, with a thirty point program for the future of the German churches. Among its articles: (1) the National Reich Church of Germany was to claim exclusive control over all churches in the Reich; (5) foreign Christian faiths imported to Germany in 800 AD were to be exterminated; (7) priests/pastors were to be replaced with National Reich Orators; (13) publication of the Bible was to cease; (14) Mein Kampf was to be considered the foremost source of ethics; (18) crucifixes, Bibles and saints to be removed from altars; (19) Mein Kampf was to be placed on altars "to the German nation and therefore to God the most sacred book"; (30) the Christian Cross to be removed from all churches and replaced with the swastika.^[27]

John Cornwell wrote that Hitler was continually preoccupied by "the fact that German Catholics, politically united by the Centre Party, had defeated Bismarck's Kulturkampf -- the "culture struggle" against the Catholic Church in the 1870s". Hitler was convinced that his movement could succeed only if political Catholicism and its democratic networks were eliminated.^[18] Hitler and Mussolini were anticlerical, but both were wary of beginning their Kulturkampfs prematurely - preferring to postpone such a clash, while dealing with other enemies.^[49] One position^[vague] is that the Church and fascism could never have a lasting connection because both are a "holistic Weltanschauung" claiming the whole of the person.^[30]

Catholicism in the Third Reich

Nazis take power in Germany

With Germany deep in financial crisis, the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis) and the Communist Party of Germany made great gains at the 1930 German Election. Both sides were pledged to eliminate German democracy, but between them secured over 50% of Reichstag seats, requiring the Social Democrats and Catholic Centre Party to consider negotiations with non-democrats.^[51] At the July 1932 German Elections, the Nazis became the largest party in the Reichstag, though their vote declined at the November 1932 Election. The conservative President Paul von Hindenburg appointed the Catholic monarchist Franz von Papen Chancellor in June 1932, and sacked him in December. Only to appoint him Vice- Chancellor less than two months later in an effort to form a collation government with Hitler.^[52]

German Catholics met the Nazi takeover with apprehension, as leading clergymen had been warning against Nazism for years.^[37] After long resisting the move, President von Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, to serve in a coalition government of the Nazi Party and the German National People's Party (nationalist-conservatives). Papen was to serve as Vice Chancellor in a majority conservative Cabinet - falsely believing that this would enable him to "tame" Hitler's excesses.^[52] Initially, Papen did speak out against some Nazi excesses, and only narrowly escaped death in the night of the long knives, whereafter he ceased to criticize the regime. First threatening, then sporadically implementing persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany commenced following Hitler's appointment.^[38]

Hitler seized on the Reichstag fire of 27 February, blaming the Communists (though the true culprits may have been Nazis) and convincing Hindenburg to support the Reichstag Fire Decree, under which civil liberties were greatly restricted and the Communist Party excluded from the Reichstag on the eve of elections. Following the Reichstag fire the Nazis began to suspend civil liberties and eliminate political opposition. The Catholic Centre Party, having obtained promises of non-interference in religion, was therefore ready to join conservatives in the Reichstag voting for the Enabling Act of 1933, by which Hitler secured the powers with which he would proceed to dismantle the Weimar Republic and establish his dictatorship.^[11]

Following the March 1933 elections no single party secured a majority. Hitler required the vote of the Centre Party and conservatives in the Reichstag to obtain the powers he desired. He told the Reichstag on March 23 that Positive Christianity was the "unshakeable foundation of the moral and ethical life of our people" and promised not to threaten institutions like the churches, if granted the powers.^[53] Through a mixture of negotiation, and intimidation via hisSturmabteilung paramilitary and the threat of civil war, the Nazis convinced the Catholic Centre Party, led by Ludwig Kaas, and all other parties in the Reichstag, save the Social Democrats, to vote for the Enabling Act on 24 March 1933. Within a few months, a one-party system had been installed in Germany and Political Catholicism was effectively eliminated. Thereby, setting the stage to become the Führer of Germany upon the death of President Hindenburg in August 1934 by way of a national referendum.

Hitler offered Kaas oral guarantees of the Centre Party's continued existence and the autonomy of the Church and her educational institutions. Kaas advocated supporting the bill in parliament in return for government guarantees. These mainly included respecting the Church's liberty, its involvement in the fields of culture, schools and education, the concordats previously signed by German states, and the continued existence of the Centre Party. Kaas was aware of the doubtful nature of such guarantees, but when the Centre Party assembled on 23 March to decide on their vote, Kaas advised his fellow party members to support the bill, given the "precarious state of the party". He described his reasons as follows: "On the one hand we must preserve our soul, but on the other hand a rejection of the Enabling Act would result in unpleasant consequences for faction and party. What is left is only to guard us against the worst. Were a two-thirds majority not obtained, the government's plans would be carried through by other means. The President has acquiesced in the Enabling Act. From the DNVP no attempt of relieving the situation is to be expected."^{[citation needed]}

A number of Centre Party parliamentarians opposed the chairman's course, among these former Chancellors Heinrich Brüning, Joseph Wirth and former minister Adam Stegerwald. Brüning called the Act the "most monstrous resolution ever demanded of a parliament", and was sceptical about Kaas' efforts: "The party has difficult years ahead, no matter how it would decide. Sureties for the government fulfilling its promises have not been given. Without a doubt, the future of the Centre Party is in danger and once it is destroyed it cannot be revived again." The Catholic Centre Party party was disbanded and thousands of its members rounded up.^[54] Several of the leaders of the Party were murdered in the 1934 Night of the Long Knives.^[9]

On March 24, 1933, with Nazi paramilitary encircling the building, and a threat of civil war if his demands weren't met, Hitler was granted (quasi) dictatorial powers "temporarily" by the passage of the Enabling Act.^[53] Hitler immediately set about abolishing the powers of the German states and the existence of non-Nazi political parties and movements within Germany.^[55]

In this threatening atmosphere, Hitler publicly called for a reorganization of Church and State relations of both Catholic and Protestant Churches. By June, thousands of Centre Party members had been incarcerated in concentration camps. Two thousand functionaries of the Bavarian People's Party were rounded up by police in late June 1933, and it, along with the national Catholic Centre Party, ceased to exist by early July.^[56] Alternative parties were outlawed on 14 July, and the Reichstag abdicated its democratic responsibilities.^[55] The Enabling Act had not, however, infringed upon the powers of the President, who retained control of the military and foreign affairs, and Hitler would not fully achieve dictatorial power until the death of Hindenburg, on 2 August 1934.

Reichskonkordat

The Reichskonkordat was signed on July 20, 1933 and ratified in September of that year, and remains in force to the present day. It was a realization of a long standing program of the Catholic Church in Germany to secure a nationwide Concordat dating back to the first year of the Weimar Republic in 1919, and first realized through the diplomacy of Eugenio Pacelli with the state level concordat of Bavaria in 1924.^[57] In 1929, Eugenio Pacelli's brother, Francesco, had successfully negotiated a concordat with Mussolini as part of the Lateran Treaty. A precondition of the these Italian negotiations involved the dissolution of the parliamentary Catholic Italian People's Party. The Holy See represented in Germany by Nuncio Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, made unsuccessful attempts to obtain an agreement with the federal government of Germany for such a treaty. Between 1930 and 1933 he attempted to initiate negotiations with representatives of successive German governments with limited success. He secured several state level concordats but a federal treaty proved elusive .^[58] Catholic politicians from the Centre Party repeatedly pushed for a concordat with the new German Republic.^[59] In February 1930 Pacelli became the Vatican's Secretary of State, and thus responsible for the Church's foreign policy, and in this position continued to work towards this 'great goal' of securing a treaty with the federal government.^[58][60]

Historian Ian Kershaw has written that the Vatican was anxious to reach agreement with the new government, despite "continuing molestation of Catholic clergy, and other outrages committed by Nazi radicals against the Church and its organisations";^[61] a recent biographer of Pius XII, Robert Ventresca, that rather because of increasing harassment of Catholics and Catholic clergy Pacelli sought a quick ratification of a treaty with the Hitler government seeking in this way to protect the German Catholic Church. When Vice-Chancellor Papen and Ambassador Diego von Bergen met Pacelli in late June 1933 they found him "visibly influenced" by reports of actions being taken against German Catholic interests.^[62] Hitler wanted an end to all Catholic political life, the Church wanted protection of its schools and organisations, recognition of canon law regarding marriage, and the right of the Pope to choose bishops.^[63] The non-Nazi Vice Chancellor, Franz von Papen was chosen by the new government to negotiate for a Reich Concordat with the Vatican.^[56] Hitler welcomed the agreement, but it was the first of many international treaties he would violate.

The bishops announced on April 6 that negotiations toward a concordat between the Holy See and Germany would soon begin in Rome.^[64] On April 10, Francis Stratmann O.P., who was a chaplain to students in Berlin wrote to Cardinal Faulhaber, "The souls of the well-intentioned are deflated by the National Socialist seizure of power - the bishops' authority is weakened among countless Catholics and non-Catholics because of their quasi-approbation of the National Socialist movement." Some Catholic critics of the Nazis soon chose to emigrate - among them Waldemar Gurian, Dietrich von Hildebrand, and Hans A. Reinhold.^[65] Hitler began enacting laws restricting movement of funds (making it impossible for German Catholics to send money to missionaries, for instance), restricting religious institutions and education, and mandating attendance at Hitler Youth functions (held on Sunday mornings to interfere with Church attendance).^{[citation needed]}

On April 8 Vice Chancellor Papen, went to Rome. Von Papen, a Catholic nobleman, had formerly been a member of the right-wing of the Catholic Centre Party.^[52] On behalf of Cardinal Pacelli, Ludwig Kaas, the out-going chairman of the Centre Party, negotiated the draft of the terms with Papen. The Centre Party's chairman Kaas had arrived in Rome shortly before Papen; because of his expertise in Church-State relations, he was authorized by Cardinal Pacelli to negotiate terms with Papen, but pressure by the German government forced him to withdraw from visibly participating in the negotiations.^{[citation needed]}

The issue of the concordat prolonged Kaas' stay in Rome, leaving the party without a chairman, and on 5 May Kaas finally resigned from his post. The party now elected Heinrich Brüning as chairman. At that time, the Centre party was subject to increasing pressure in the wake of the process of Gleichschaltung and after all the other parties had dissolved, or were banned by the NSDAP, and the Centre Party dissolved itself on 6 July.

The bishops saw a draft of the Reich Concordat on May 30, 1933 when they assembled for a joint meeting of the Fulda bishops conference, (led by Breslau's Cardinal Bertram), and the Bavarian bishops' conference, (whose president was Munich's Michael von Faulhaber). Bishop Wilhelm Berning of Osnabruck, and Archbishop Conrad Grober of Freiburg presented the document to the bishops.^[66] Weeks of escalating anti-Catholic violence had preceded the conference and many Bishops feared for the safety of the Church if Hitler's demands weren't met.^[67] The strongest critics of the concordat were Cologne's Cardinal Karl Schulte and Eichstatt's Bishop Konrad von Preysing who pointed out that since the Enabling Act had established a quasi dictatorship, the church lacked legal recourse if Hitler decided to disregard the concordat.^[66] Notwithsatnding, the bishops approved the draft and delegated Grober, a friend of Cardinal Pacelli and Monsignor Kaas, to present the episcopacy's concerns to Pacelli and Kaas. On June 3, the bishops issued a statement, drafted by Grober, that announced their support for the concordat.

Though the Vatican tried to hold back the exclusion of Catholic clergy and organizations from politics during the negotiations,^{[citation needed]} which had been one of Hitler's foremost reasons for seeking the Concordat,^[68] Cardinal Pacelli had acquiesced in the party's dissolution but was nonetheless dismayed that it occurred before the negotiations had been concluded. The day after, the government issued a law banning the founding of new political parties, thus turning the NSDAP into the party of the German state. On 14 July 1933 the Weimar government accepted the Concordat, which was signed a week later by President Hindenburg and the Vice Chancellor Papen. Shortly before signing the Reichskonkordat on 20 July, Germany signed similar agreements with the major Protestant churches in Germany.

The concordat was finally signed, by Pacelli for the Vatican and von Papen for Germany, on 20 July. The Reichskonkordat was ratified on September 10, 1933. Article 16 required bishops to make an oath of loyalty to the state. Article 31 acknowledged that while the church would continue to sponsor charitable organisations, it would not support political organisations or political causes. Article 31 was supposed to be supplemented by a list of protected catholic agencies but this list was never agreed upon. Article 32 excluded clergy and the members of religious orders from political activities. Members of the clergy could join or remain in the NSDAP however without transgressing church discipline, - the ordinance of the Holy See forbidding priests to be members of a political party was never issued - and the Nazis declared that "the movement sustaining the state cannot be equated with the political parties of the parliamentary multi-party state in the sense of Article 32." ^[69]

Effects of the concordat

Most historians state it offered international acceptance of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.^[70] 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.

The Catholic Church was not alone in signing treaties with the Nazi regime at this point. The concordat was preceded by the Four-Power Pact Hitler had signed in June 1933. After the signing of the treaty on 14 July, the Cabinet minutes record Hitler as saying that the concordat had created an atmosphere of confidence that would be "especially significant in the struggle against international Jewry." Controversial author John Cornwell offered this assessment of the dissolution of the Catholic Centre Party:^[18]

The fact that the party voluntarily disbanded itself, rather than go down fighting, had a profound psychological effect, depriving Germany of the last democratic focus of potential noncompliance and resistance: In the political vacuum created by its surrender, Catholics in the millions joined the Nazi Party, believing that it had the support of the Pope. The German bishops capitulated to Pacelli's policy of centralization, and German Catholic democrats found themselves politically leaderless.

— John Cornwell

Historian, Michael Phayer, balances Cornwell states:^[71]

John Cornwell in Hitler's Pope argues that the Concordat was the result of a deal that delivered the parliamentary votes of the Catholic Center Party to Hitler, thereby giving him dictatorial power (the Enabling Act of March 1933). This is historically inaccurate.

— Michael Phayer

In the Reichskonkordat, the German government achieved a complete proscription of all clerical interference in the political field (articles 16 and 32). It also ensured the bishops' loyalty to the state by an oath of fidelity. Restrictions were also placed on the Catholic organizations. In a two-page article in the L'Osservatore Romano on 26 July and 27 July, Cardinal Pacelli said that the purpose of the Reichskonkordat was:"not only the official recognition (by the Reich) of the legislation of the Church (its Code of Canon Law), but the adoption of many provisions of this legislation and the protection of all Church legislation."^{[citation needed]} Pacelli told an English representative that the Holy See had only made the agreement to preserve the Catholic Church in Germany; he also expressed his aversion to anti-Semitism.^[72]

According to John Jay Hughes, church leaders were realistic about the Concordat’s supposed protections.^[73] Cardinal Faulhaber is reported to have said: "With the concordat we are hanged, without the concordat we are hanged, drawn and quartered."^{[citation needed]} In Rome the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pacelli (later Pius XII), told the British minister to the Holy See that he had signed the treaty with a pistol at his head. Hitler was sure to violate the agreement, Pacelli said — adding with gallows humor that he would probably not violate all its provisions at once.^[73]

Violations of Concordat

The Concordat between Germany and the Vatican, wrote William Shirer, "was hardly put to paper before it was being broken by the Nazi Government". On the same day it was initialed in July, the Nazi government promulgated the Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Offspring, an offensive document to the Catholic Church.^[74][75] Days later, moves began to dissolve the Catholic Youth League. Clergy, nuns and lay leaders began to be targeted, leading to thousands of arrests over the ensuing years, often on trumped up charges of currency smuggling or "immorality".^[75] According to Paul O'Shea, Hitler had a "blatant disregard" for the Concordat, and its signing was to him merely a first step in the "gradual suppression of the Catholic Church in Germany".^[76] Anton Gill wrote that "with his usual irresistable, bullying technique, Hitler then proceeded to take a mile where he had been given an inch" and closed all Catholic institutions whose functions weren't strictly religious:^[77]

It quickly became clear that [Hitler] intended to imprison the Catholics, as it were, in their own churches. They could celebrate mass and retain their rituals as much as they liked, but they could have nothing at all to do with German society otherwise. Catholic schools and newspapers were closed, and a propaganda campaign against the Catholics was launched.

— Extract from An Honrouable Defeat by Anton Gill

In 1942, Hitler said he said he viewed the Concordat as obsolete, and intended to abolish it after the war, and only hesitated to withdraw Germany's representative from the Vatican out of "military reasons connected with the war":^[78]

Once the war is over, we will put a swift end to the Concordat. It will give me the greatest personal pleasure to point out to the Church all those occasions on which it has broken the terms of it. One need only recall the close co-operation between the Church and the murderers of Heydrich. Catholic priests not only allowed them to hide in a church on the outskirts of Prague, but even allowed them to entrench themselves in the sanctuary of the altar.

— Adolf Hitler, from a transcript in Hitler's Table Talk, dated 4 July 1942

Vatican protests

When the Nazi government violated the concordat (in particular article 31), German bishops and the Holy See protested against these violations. Between September 1933 and March 1937 Pacelli issued over seventy notes and memoranda protesting such violations. When Nazi violations of the Reichskonkordat escalated to include physical violence, Pope Pius XI issued the 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge.^[79][80] quotation "Violence had been used against a Catholic leader as early as June 1934, in the 'Night of the Long Knives' ... by the end of 1936 physical violence was being used openly and blatantly against the Catholic Church.

Persecution of German Catholics

German Catholics met the Nazi takeover with apprehension, as leading clergymen had been warning against Nazism for years.^[37] A threatening, though initially mainly sporadic persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany commenced.^[38] "By the latter part of the decade of the Thirties", wrote Phayer, "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 overwhelming majority of Germans were either Catholic or Protestant this goal had to be a long-term rather than a short-term Nazi objective".^[83]

Hitler moved quickly to eliminate Political Catholicism. The Nazis arrested thousands of members of the German Catholic Centre Party.^[54] The Catholic Bavarian People's Party government had been overthrown in Bavaria by a Nazi coup on 9 March 1933.^[10] Two thousand functionaries of the Party were rounded up by police in late June, and it, along with the national Catholic Centre Party, dissolved themselves in early July. Vice Chancellor Papen meanwhile negotiated a Reich Concordat with the Vatican, which prohibited clergy from participating in politics.^[56] Kershaw wrote that the Vatican was anxious to reach agreement with the new government, despite "continuing molestation of Catholic clergy, and other outrages committed by Nazi radicals against the Church and its organisations".^[61] The dissolution of the Centre Party, a former bulwark of the Republic left modern Germany without a Catholic Party for the first time.^[10]

Almost immediately after signing the Concordat, the Nazis promulgated their sterilization law, an offensive policy in the eyes of the Catholic Church. Days later, moves began to dissolve the Catholic Youth League. Clergy, nuns and lay leaders began to be targeted, leading to thousands of arrests over the ensuing years, often on trumped up charges of currency smuggling or "immorality".^[75][84] Catholic publications were shut down. The Gestapo began to violate the sanctity of the confessional.^[75] Erich Klausener became the first high profile martyr. Klausener was the president of Berlin's Catholic Action group, and had run the police affairs department of the Prussian Interior Ministry. He organised Catholic conventions in Berlin in 1933, and 1934. At the 1934 rally, Klausener spoke against political oppression to a crowd of 60,000 following mass. He was murdered in Hitler's Night of the Long Knives six days later.^[85]

Once Hitler had obtained full power, he sometimes allowed pressure to be placed on German parents to remove children from religious classes to be given ideological instruction in its place, while in elite Nazi schools, Christian prayers were replaced with Teutonic rituals and sun-worship.^[86] Church kindergartens were closed, crucifixes were removed from schools and Catholic welfare programs were restricted on the basis they assisted the "racially unfit". Parents were coerced into removing their children from Catholic schools. In Bavaria, teaching positions formerly allotted to nuns were awarded to secular teachers and denominational schools transformed into "Community schools".^[87] Under Reinhard Heydrich the Security Police and the SD were responsible for suppressing internal and external enemies of the Nazi state. Among those enemies were "political churches" - such as Lutheran and Catholic clergy who opposed the Hitler regime. Such dissidents were arrested and sent to concentration camps.^[41]

1935-6 was the height of the "immorality" trials against priests, monks, lay-brothers and nuns. In the United States, protests were organised in response to the sham trials, including a June 1936, petition signed by 48 clergymen, including rabbis and Protestant pastors: "We lodge a solemn protest against the almost unique brutality of the attacks launched by the German government charging Catholic clergy with gross immorality... in the hope that the ultimate suppression of all Jewish and Christian beliefs by the totalitarian state can be effected."^[87] Anti-Nazi sentiment grew in Catholic circles as the Nazi government increased its repressive measures against their activities.^[9] By early 1937, Pope Pius XI issued the Mit brennender Sorge anti-Nazi encyclical - accusing the Nazi Government of violations of the 1933 Concordat, and of "fundamental hostility to Christ and His Church".^[75] The Nazis responded with, an intensification of the Church Struggle, beginning around April.^[32] Goebbels noted heightened verbal attacks on the clergy from Hitler in his diary and wrote that Hitler had approved the start of trumped up "immorality trials" against clergy and anti-Church propaganda campaign. Goebbels' orchestrated attack included a staged "morality trial" of 37 Franciscans.^[32]

Intimidation of clergy was widespread. Cardinal Faulhaber was shot at. Cardinal Innitzer had his Vienna residence ransacked in October 1938 and Bishop Sproll of Rottenburg was jostled and his home vandalised. In 1937, the New York Times reported that Christmas would see "several thousand Catholic clergymen in prison." Propaganda satirized the clergy, including Anderl Kern's play The Last Peasant.^[88] Many German clergy were sent to the concentration camps for voicing opposition to the Nazi regime, or in some regions simply because of their faith; these included the pastor of Berlin's Catholic Cathedral Bernhard Lichtenberg and the seminarian Karl Leisner. Many Catholic laypeople also paid for their opposition with their life, including the mostly Catholic members of the Munich resistance group White Rose around Hans and Sophie Scholl.

William Shirer wrote that the German people were not greatly aroused by the persecution of the churches by the Nazi Government. The great majority were not moved to face death or imprisonment for the sake of freedom of worship, being too impressed by Hitler's early foreign policy successes and the restoration of the German economy. Few, he said, paused to reflect that 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."^[27]

In 1941 the Nazi authorities decreed the dissolution of all monasteries and abbeys in the German Reich, many of them effectively being occupied and secularized by the Allgemeine SS under Himmler. However, on July 30, 1941 the Aktion Klostersturm (Operation Monastery) was put to an end by a decree of Hitler, who feared the increasing protests by the Catholic part of German population might result in passive rebellions and thereby harm the Nazi war effort at the eastern front.^[89] Over 300 monasteries and other institutions were expropriated by the SS.^[90]

On 22 March 1942, the German Bishops issued a pastoral letter on "The Struggle against Christianity and the Church".^[91] The letter launched a defence of human rights and the rule of law and accused the Reich Government of "unjust oppression and hated struggle against Christianity and the Church", despite the loyalty of German Catholics to the Fatherland, and brave service of Catholics soldiers. It accused the regime of seeking to rid Germany of Christianity:^[92]

For years a war has raged in our Fatherland against Christianity and the Church, and has never been conducted with such bitterness. Repeatedly the German bishops have asked the Reich Government to discontinue this fatal struggle; but unfortunately our appeals and our endeavours were without success.

— 22 March 1942 Pastoral Letter of the German Bishops

The letter outlined serial breaches of the 1933 Concordat, reitereated complaints of the suffocation of Catholic schooling, presses and hospitals and said that the "Catholic faith has been restricted to such a degree that it has disappeared almost entirely from public life" and even worship within churches in Germany "is frequently restricted or oppressed", while in the conquered territories (and even in the Old Reich), churches had been "closed by force and even used for profane purposes". The freedom of speech of clergymen had been suppressed and priests were being "watched constantly" and punished for fulfilling "priestly duties" and incarcerated in Concentration camps without legal process. Religious orders had been expelled from schools, and their properties seized, while seminaries had been confiscated "to deprive the Catholic priesthood of successors".^[92]

The bishops denounced the Nazi euthanasia program and declared their support for human rights and personal freedom under God and "just laws" of all people:^[92]

We demand juridical proof of all sentences and release of all fellow citizens who have been deprived of their liberty without proof... We the German bishops shall not cease to protest against the killing of innocent persons. Nobody's life is safe unless the Commandment, "Thous shalt not kill" is observed... We the bishops, in the name of the Catholic people... demand the return of all unlawfully confiscated and in some cases sequestered property... for what happens today to church property may tomorrow happen to any lawful property.

— 22 March 1942 Pastoral Letter of the German Bishops

During the War, Alfred Rosenberg, the party's official ideologist outlined the future envisioned by the Hitler government for religion in Germany, with a thirty point program for the future of the German churches. Among its articles: (1) the National Reich Church of Germany was to claim exclusive control over all churches; publication of the Bible was to cease; crucifixes, Bibles and saints were to be removed from altars; and Mein Kampf was to be placed on altars as "to the German nation and therefore to God the most sacred book"; and the Christian Cross was to be removed from all churches and replaced with the swastika.^[27] Germany's defeat prevented the program from being fully implemented.

Impact of the Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil War (1936–39) saw Nationalists (aided by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany) and Republicans (aided by the Soviet Union, Mexico - as well as International Brigades of volunteers, most of whom were under the command of the Comintern). The Republican president, Manuel Azaña, was anticlerical, while the Nationlist Generalissimo Francisco Franco, established a longstanding Fascist dictatorship which restored some privileges to the Church.^[93] According to Hitler's Table Talk, Hitler believed that 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".^[94]

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." ^[95] Joseph Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda served as the main source of German domestic coverage of the war. Goebbels, like Hitler, frequently mentioned the so-called link between jewishness and communism. Goebbels instructed the press to call the Republican side simply Bolsheviks - and not to mention German military involvement. Bolshevism was pathological criminal nonsense, demonstrably thought up by Jews. In Salamanca, Willi Kohn, German propaganda attaché, played up the war as a crusade to sweep away Judeo-Bolshevism.

Against this backdrop, in August 1936, the German bishops met for their annual conference at Fulda. The bishops produced a joint pastoral letter regarding 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."^[96]

Faulhaber meets Hitler

Goebbels noted the mood of Hitler in his diary on 25 October: "Trials against the Catholic Church temporarily stopped. Possibly wants peace, at least temporarily. Now a battle with Bolshevism. Wants to speak with Faulhaber".^[97]

Nuncio Cesare Orsenigo arranged for Cardinal Faulhaber to have a private meeting with Hitler.^[96] On November 4, 1936, Hitler met Faulhaber. Hitler spoke for the first hour, then Faulhaber told him that the Nazi government had been waging war on the church for three years - 600 religious teachers had lost their jobs in Bavaria alone - and the number was set to rise to 1700 and the government had instituted laws the Church could not accept - like the sterilization of criminals and the handicapped. While the Catholic Church respected the notion of authority, nevertheless, "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".^[98]

Hitler told Faulhaber that religion was critical for the state, that 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." ^[99] Hitler argued that the radical Nazis could not be contained until there was peace with the Church and that either the Nazis and the Church would fight Bolshevism together, or there would be war against the Church.^[98]

Kershaw cites the meeting as an example of Hitler's ability to "pull the wool over the eyes even of hardened critics" for "Faulhaber - a man of sharp acumen, who had often courageously criticized the Nazi attacks on the Catholic Church - went away convinced that Hitler was deeply religious".^[100]

On November 18, Faulhaber met with leading members of the German hierarchy of cardinals to ask them to remind parishioners of the errors of communism outlined in Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum. On November 19, Pius XI announced that communism had moved to the head of the list of "errors" and that a clear statement was needed.^[101] On November 25 Faulhaber told the Bavarian bishops that he had promised Hitler the bishops would issue a new pastoral letter in which they condemned "Bolshevism which represents the greatest danger for the peace of Europe and the Christian civilization of our country".^[99] In addition, he stated, the pastoral letter "will once again affirm our loyalty and positive attitude, demanded by the Fourth Commandment, toward todays form of government and the Fuhrer. "^[102]

On December 24, 1936 the German joint hierarchy ordered its priests to read the pastoral letter, entitled On the Defense against Bolshevism, from all their pulpits on January 7, 1937. The letter included the statement : "the fateful hour has come for our nation and for the Christian culture of the western world - the Fuhrer and Chancellor Adolf Hitler saw the march of Bolshevism from afar and turned his mind and energies towards averting this enormous danger from the German people and the whole western world. The German bishops consider it their duty to do their utmost to support the leader of the Reich with every available means in this defense." Hitler's promise to Faulhaber, to clear up small problems between the Catholic Church and the Nazi state, never did materialize. Faulhaber, Galen, and Pius XI, continued to oppose Communism throughout their tenure as anxieties reached a highpoint in the 1930s with what the Vatican termed the 'red triangle', formed by the USSR, Republican Spain and revolutionary Mexico. They followed a series of encyclicals - Bona sana (1920), Miserentissimus redemtor (1928), Caritate Christi compusli (1932) and most importantly Divini redemptoris (1937) - all of which condemned communism.^[103]

Catholic opposition to Nazism inside Germany: 1933-1945

The position of open Catholic opposition to the Nazis decreased following the Concordat and Hitler's emergence as dictator of Germany, yet the Catholic Church was among the few German institutions to retain some independence from the State, and could thus continue to co-ordinate a level of opposition to Government.

While offering, in the words of Kershaw, "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 of... especially of the Catholic Church - against Nazi oppression". While the Church ultimately failed to protect its youth organisations and schools, it did have some successes in mobilizing public opinion to alter government policies - as in the case of the attempt to remove crucifixes from German classrooms.^[107] In 1941, the Gauleiter of Upper Bavaria, Adolf Wagner, a militant atheist, ordered the removal of crucifxes from classrooms. The move roused Catholic protest, with demonstrations across Bavaria and petitions organised by the bishops, which included many names of soldiers from the Eastern Front. Hitler revoked the order.^[108]

Bullock noted also that the Churches (together with the army) were the only institutions to retain some independence in Nazi Germany. "Among the most courageous demonstrations of opposition during the war", he wrote, "were the sermons preached by the Catholic Bishop of Munster and the Protestant Pastor, Dr Niemoller..." but "Neither the Catholic Church nor the Protestant Church, however, as institutions, felt it possible to take up an attitude of open opposition to the regime".^[23]

The Nazi regime never felt strong enough to arrest or execute senior office holders of the Catholic Church in Germany. Thus men like Joseph Frings, Konrad von Preysing, August von Galen and Michael von Faulhaber were able to criticise aspects of Nazi totalitarianism, where less senior figures faced imprisonment or execution. An estimated one third of German priests faced some form of reprisal from the Nazi Government and 400 German priests were sent the dedicated Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration Camp alone. Among the best known German priest martyrs were the Jesuit Alfred Delp and Fr Bernhard Lichtenberg.^[107]

Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber had been a longstanding critic of Nazism. Following the Nazi takeover, he delivered three Advent sermons in 1933 that condemned the anti-Semitic propaganda of the Nazis. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "Throughout his sermons until the collapse (1945) of the Third Reich, Faulhaber vigorously criticized Nazism, despite governmental opposition. Attempts on his life were made in 1934 and in 1938. He worked with American occupation forces after the war, and he received the West German Republic’s highest award, the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit.^[109] Faulhaber also helped draft the 1937 anti-Nazi papal encyclical Mit brennender Sorge.

Erich Klausener, the President of Catholic Action in Germany, delivered a speech to the Catholic Congress in June 1934, criticizing the regime. He was shot dead in his office on the Kristalnacht of June 30. His entire staff was sent to concentration camps.^[24] Klausener had assisted former Catholic Centre Party member Franz von Papen (by now Hitler's non-Nazi Vice Chancellor) draft his 17 June Marburg speech which had denounced Nazi terror and the suppression of the free press and the church.^[110] Papen's staff were murdered in the purge, but he himself escaped execution:^[24]

Bishop August von Galen of Munster emerged as an outspoken critic of Nazi racism and totalitarianism. From Easter 1934, he began publicly criticizing the Nazi government. He complained directly to Hitler of breaches of the Concordat and his protest against the removal of crucifixes from classrooms was followed by public demonstrations. In 1941, he denounced the lawlessness of the Gestapo, the confiscations of church properties and euthanasia in Nazi Germany.^[111] His defiant sermons included this 1941 denunciation of the Gestapo:^[24]

Many times, and again quite recently, we have seen the Gestapo arresting blameless and highly respected German men and women without the judgment of any court or any opportunity for defense, depriving them of their freedom, taking them away from their homes interning them somewhere. In recent weeks even two members of my closest council, the chapter of our cathedral, have been suddenly seized from their homes by the Gestapo, removed from Munster and banished to distant places. -- Bishop August von Galen, homily, 1941

— Bishop August von Galen, homily, 1941

Von Galen was among the German conservatives who had criticised Weimar Germany, and initially hoped the Nazi government might restore German prestige, but quickly became disenchanted with the anti-Catholicism and racism of the Hitler regime^[111] According to Griech-Polelle, he believed the Dolchstosslegende explained the German army's defeat in 1918.^[112]

"Euthanasia"

Hitler was in favour of killing those whom he judged to be "unworthy of life". From 1939, the Hitler regime began its program of euthanasia in Nazi Germany, in which those deemed "racially unfit" were to be "euthanased". Among the victims were children. The mentally handicapped were taken from hospitals and homes and taken to gas chambers to be killed. The program involved the systematic murder of more than 70,000 people - the sick, elderly, mentally and physically handicapped.^[111]

August von Galen, the Bishop of Munster accused the government of breaking the law and publicly condemned the policy - saying that it was the duty of all Christians to oppose the taking of human life even it meant losing their own.^[113] Kershaw characterised Von Galen's 1941 "open attack" on the government's euthanasia program as a "vigorous denunciation of Nazi inhumanity and barbarism".^[107] The RAF used the Galen's homilies in propaganda drops over Germany.^[111] Fr Bernhard Lichtenberg protested the policy to the Nazis chief medical officer.^[114] The regime took the program underground.^[17] Documents suggest the Nazis intended to hang von Galen at the end of the war.^[111] His speeches angered Hitler, who, according to Hitler's Table Talk, told confidantes 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".^[115]

The German Resistance

The German Resistance to Hitler comprised various small opposition groups and individuals who at different stages plotted or attempted the overthrow of the Hitler regime. They were motivated by such factors as the mistreatment of Jews, harassment of the churches, and the harsh actions of Himmler and the Gestapo.^[116]

Christian morality and the anti-Church policies of the Nazis were a motivating factor driving many German resistors - providing impetus for the "moral revolt" of individuals, though neither the Catholic nor Protestent churches as institutions were prepared to shift themselves to a position of open opposition to the state under the Nazi regime.^[117] Yet Wolf cites events such as the July Plot of 1944 as having been "inconceivable without the spiritual support of church resistance".^[118] For many of the committed Catholics in the German Resistance - including the Jesuit Provincial of Bavaria, Augustin Rösch, the Catholic trade unionists Jakob Kaiser and Bernhard Letterhaus and the July Plot leader Klaus von Stauffenberg, "religious motives and the determination to resist would seem to have developed hand in hand".^[119]

In 1939, with Poland overun but France and the Low Countries yet to be attacked, at the instigation of Colonel Oster of the Abwehr, Munich lawyer and devout Catholic, Joseph Muller, made a clandestine trip to Rome in October, met with Pius XII and found him willing to act as intermediary between the German military resistance and the Allies. The Vatican agreed to send a letter outlining the bases for peace with England and the participation of the Pope was used to try to persuade senior German Generals Halder and Brauchitsch to act against Hitler.^[120] Shirer cites German sources as stating that Muller succeeded in gaining agreement from the Pope to act as an intermediary between a new anti-Nazi German government and the British.^[121] Hitler's swift victories over France and the Low Countries deflated the will of the German military to resist Hitler. Muller was arrested during the Nazis first raid on Military Intelligence in 1943. He spent the rest of the war in concentration camps, ending up at Dachau.^[122]

An old guard of national-conservatives aligned to Carl Friedrich Goerdeler broke with Hitler in the mid-1930s. According to Kershaw, they "despised the barbarism of the Nazi regime. But were keen to re-establish Germany's status as a major power... ". Essentially authoritarian, they favoured monarchy and limited electoral rights "resting on Christian family values". A younger group, dubbed the "Kreisau Circle" by the Gestapo, did not look to German imperialism for inspiration.^[124] Though multi-denominational, it had a strongly Christian orientation, and looked for a general Christian revival, and reawakening of awareness of the transcendental. It's outlook was rooted both in German romantic and idealist tradition and in the Catholic doctrine of natural law.^[125] It had around twenty core members.^[126] The Circle drew on a diverse social and denominational base, but included the Jesuits and Augustin Rösch (Superior of Southern Germany) and Alfred Delp.^[127] Wider church contacts also included Bishop von Preysing.^[126]

According to Gill, "Delp's role was to sound out for Moltke the possibilities in the Catholic Community of support for a new, post-war Germany".^[128] Rösch and Delp also explored the possibilities for common ground between Christian and socialist trade unions.^[128] The Kreisau group combined conservative notions of reform with socialist strains of thought - a symbiosis expressed by Delp's notion of "personal socialism".^[129] The group rejected Western models, but wanted to "associate conservative and socialist values, aristocracy and workers, in a new democratic synthesis which would include the churches.^[129] In Die dritte Idee (The Third Idea), Delp expounded on the notion of a third way, which, as opposed to Communism and Capitalism, might restore the unity of the person and society.^[130] The Circle pressed for a coup against Hitler, but being unarmed, was dependent on persuading military figures to take action.^[124]

The Catholic Count Claus Von Stauffenberg, had initially looked favourably on the arrival of the Nazis in power, but came to oppose the regime because of its persecution of the Jews and oppression of the church.^[131] In 1944, he led the 20 July plot (Operation Valkyrie) to assassinate Hitler. In 1943 he joined the resistance and commenced planning the unsuccessful Valkyrie assassination and coup, in which he personally placed a time bomb under Hitler's conference table.^[132] Killing Hitler would absolve the German military of the moral conundrum of breaking their oath to the Fuehrer. Faced with the moral and theological question of tyrannicide, Stauffenberg conferred with Bishop Konrad von Preysing and found affirmation in early Catholicism, and through Luther.^[131][133]

The planned Cabinet which was to replace the Nazi regime included Catholic politicians Eugen Bolz, Bernhard Letterhaus, Andreas Hermes and Josef Wirmer. Wirmer was a member of the left of the Catholic Centre Party, had worked to forge ties between the civilian resistance and the trade unions and was a confidant of Jakob Kaiser - a leader of the Christian trade union movement, which Hitler had banned after taking office.^[134] Lettehaus was also trade union leader. As a captain in the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Supreme Command), he had gathered information and become a leading member of the resistance.^[135] The "Declaration of Government" that was to be broadcast following the coup on 20 July 1944 appealed unambiguously to Christian sensibilities:^[136]

The shattered freedom of spirit, conscience, faith and opinion will be restored. The churches will once again be given the right to work for their confessions. In future they will exist quite separately from the state... The working of the state is to be inspired, both in word and deed by the Christian outlook..."

— Intended "Broadcast of Government" of the 1944 July Plot conspirators.

Following the failure of the plot, Stauffenberg was shot, the Kreisau circle dissolved and Moltke, Yorck and Delp, among others, were executed.

The White Rose student resistance movement was also heavily influenced by Christian morality and partly inspired by August von Galen's anti-euthanasia homilies.^[137] From 1942, White Rose published leaflets to influence people against Nazism and militarism. They criticised the "anti-Christian" and "anti-social" nature of the war.^[138] The leaders of the group were caught and executed in 1943.^[139]

Priests of Dachau

Dachau was established in March 1933 as the first Nazi Concentration Camp. Dachau was chiefly a political camp and it was here that many clergy were imprisoned and the Nazis established a dedicated Clergy Barracks for opponents of the Nazi regime.^[140][141] In 1940, the commandants of all concentration camps were ordered to send their priest prisoners to Dachau.^[142] The Clergy Barracks of Dachau was occupied mainly by Polish priests.^[143] According to Craughwell, in Dachau concentration camp was the "Calvary of at least 2,600 Catholic priests from 24 nations".^[142] Some 400 German Catholic priests were sent to the Priest Barracks of Dachau.^[107] Among the Catholic clerics sent to Dachau were: Father Jean Bernard of Luxembourg; the Dutch Carmelite Titus Brandsma (d.1942), Frs Stefan Wincenty Frelichowski (d.1945), Hilary Paweł Januszewski (d.1945), Lawrence Wnuk, Ignacy Jeż and Adam Kozłowiecki of Poland; Frs Karl Leisner (d.1945), Josef Lenzel, Bernhard Lichtenberg (died en route, 1943) and August Froehlich of Germany. Following the war, the Mortal Agony of Christ Chapel and a Carmelite Convent were built at Dachau in commemoration.^[144]

Mit brennender Sorge

By early 1937, the church hierarchy in Germany, which had initially attempted to co-operate with the new government, had become highly disillusioned. In March, Pope Pius XI issued the Mit brennender Sorge encyclical - accusing the Nazi Government of violations of the 1933 Concordat, and further that it was sowing the " tares of suspicion, discord, hatred, calumny, of secret and open fundamental hostility to Christ and His Church". The Pope noted on the horizon the "threatening storm clouds" of religious wars of extermination over Germany.^[75]

The encyclical condemned the Nazi theory of racism in Germany. Smuggled into Germany to avoid prior censorship and read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches, it condemned Nazi ideology ^[146] as "insane and arrogant". It denounced the Nazi myth of "blood and soil", decried neopaganism of Nazism, its war of annihilation against the Church, and even described the Führer himself as a 'mad prophet possessed of repulsive arrogance.' Although there is some difference of opinion as to the impact of the document, it is generally recognized as the "first ... official public document to criticize Nazism". ^[149]

The encyclical accused the Nazi government of "systematic hostility leveled at the Church", and criticised a range of Nazi actions and beliefs - notably racism.^[150] Despite the efforts of the Gestapo to block its distribution, the church distributed thousands to the parishes of Germany. Hundreds were arrested for handing out copies, and Goebells increased anti-Catholic propaganda including a show trial of 170 Franciscans at Koblenz.^[24]

Impact and consequences

According to Eamon Duffy "The impact of the encyclical was immense, and it dispelled at once all suspicion of a Fascist Pope."^[151] quotation "In a triumphant security operation, the encyclical was smuggled into Germany, locally printed, and read from Catholic pulpits on Palm Sunday 1937. Mit Brennender Sorge ('With Burning Anxiety') denounced both specific government actions against the Church in breach of the concordat and Nazi racial theory more generally. There was a striking and deliberate emphasis on the permanent validity of the Jewish scriptures, and the Pope denounced the 'idolatrous cult' which replaced belief in the true God with a 'national religion' and the 'myth of race and blood'. He contrasted this perverted ideology with the teaching of the Church in which there was a home 'for all peoples and all nations'. The impact of the encyclical was immense, and it dispelled at once all suspicion of a Fascist Pope. While the world was still reacting, however, Pius issued five days later another encyclical, Divini Redemptoris denouncing Communism, declaring its principles 'intrinsically hostile to religion in any form whatever', detailing the attacks on the Church which had followed the establishment of Communist regimes in Russia, Mexico and Spain, and calling for the implementation of Catholic social teaching to offset both Communism and 'amoral liberalism'. The language of Divini Redemptoris was stronger than that of Mit Brennender Sorge, its condemnation of Communism even more absolute than the attack on Nazism. The difference in tone undoubtedly reflected the Pope's own loathing of Communism as the ultimate enemy. The last year of his life, however, left no one any doubt of his total repudiation of the right-wing tyrannies in Germany and, despite his instinctive sympathy with some aspects of Fascism, increasingly in Italy also. His speeches and conversations were blunt, filled with phrases like 'stupid racialism', 'barbaric Hitlerism'."

The "infuriated" Nazis increased their persecution of Catholics and the Church^[152] by initiating a "long series" of persecution of clergy and other measures.^[153][154] Gerald Fogarty asserts that "in the end, the encyclical had little positive effect, and if anything only exacerbated the crisis."^[155] The American ambassador reported that it “had helped the Catholic Church in Germany very little but on the contrary has provoked the Nazi state...to continue its oblique assault upon Catholic institutions.”

Nazi retaliation

Frank J. Coppa asserts that the encyclical was viewed by the Nazis as "a call to battle against the Reich" and that Hitler was furious and "vowed revenge against the Church".^[156] Thomas Bokenkotter writes that, "the Nazis were infuriated, and in retaliation closed and sealed all the presses that had printed it and took numerous vindictive measures against the Church, including staging a long series of immorality trials of the Catholic clergy."^[148]

The German police confiscated as many copies as they could and called it “high treason.” The Gestapo confiscated 12 printing presses that had printed the encyclical for distribution and the editors were arrested.^[88] According to Owen Chadwick, the "infuriated" Nazis increased their persecution of Catholics and the Church.^[157] According to John Vidmar, Nazi reprisals against the Church in Germany followed thereafter, including "staged prosecutions of monks for homosexuality, with the maximum of publicity".^[158] Shirer reports that, "[d]uring the next years, thousands of Catholic priests, nuns and lay leaders were arrested, many of them on trumped-up charges of 'immorality' or 'smuggling foreign currency'."^[159] While numerous German Catholics, who participated in the secret printing and distribution of Mit brennender Sorge, went to jail and concentration camps, the Western democracies remained silent, which Pope Pius XI labeled bitterly as "a conspiracy of silence".^[160]

Catholic accommodation and sympathy for Nazis

Kershaw wrote that, while the "detestation of Nazism was overwhelming within the Catholic Church", it did not preclude church leaders approving of areas of the regime's policies, particularly where Nazism "blended into 'mainstream' national aspirations" - like support for "patriotic" foreign policy or war aims, obedience to state authority (where this did not contravene divine law); and destruction of atheistic Marxism and Soviet Bolshevism. Traditional Christian anti-Judaism was "no bulwark" against Nazi biological antisemitism. On these issues "the churches as institutions felt on uncertain grounds", and opposition was generally left to fragmented and largely individual efforts.^[161] Shirer wrote that, the Catholic hierarchy in Germany at first tried to co-operate with the Nazi Government, but by 1937 had become highly disillusioned by persecutions and the ongoing violations of the Reichsconcordat which had supposedly secured for the church the "right to regulate its own affairs". The Vatican therefore issued Mit brennender Sorge, outlining Nazi transgressions.^[162] But the great majority of Germans were not moved to face death or imprisonment for the sake of freedom of worship, being too impressed by Hitler's early foreign policy successes and the restoration of the German economy. Few ordinary Germans, wrote Shirer, paused to reflect the Nazi regime intended to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could.^[27]

According to Dr Harry Schnitker, Kevin Spicer's 2007 book Hitler's Priests found that around 0.5% of German priests (138 of 42,000) might be considered "brown priests" (Nazis). One such priest was Karl Eschweiler, an opponent of the Weimar Republic, who was suspended from priestly duties by Cardinal Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) for writing Nazi pamphlets in support of eugenics.^[163] 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. In 1943, Grober expressed the opinion that bishops should remain loyal to the "beloved folk and Fatherland", despite abuses of the Reichskonkordat.^[164] 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.^{[citation needed]} Bishop Wilhlem Berning of Osnabrück sat with the Protestant Deutsche Christen Reichsbishop in the Prussian State Council from 1933 to 1945, a clear signal of support for the Nazi regime.^{[citation needed]} Cardinal Bertram, ex officio head of the German episcopate, sent Hitler birthday greetings in 1939 in the name of all German Catholic bishops, an act that angered bishop Konrad von Preysing.^[164] Bertram was the leading advocate of accommodation as well as the leader of the German church, a combination that reigned in other would-be opponents of Nazism.^[164]

Second World War

The Holocaust

By 1941, most of the Christian inhabitants of Europe were living under Nazi rule. Generally, the life of their churches could continue, provided they did not attempt to participate in politics. But around this time, the Nazi regime decided to use their military occupation to undertake the industrialized mass-extermination of the Jewish population of the continent. Strict censorship indicated a fear of public opinion regarding the plan, but the Nazis employed a great many willing participants. In the aftermath of the war, and full knowledge of the extent of Nazi crimes, scholars have undertaken critical examinations of the origins of Nazi anti-Semitism. Geoffrey Blainey wrote: "Christianity could not escape some indirect blame for the terrible Holocaust. The Jews and Christians had been rivals and sometimes enemies for a long period of history. Furthermore it was traditional for Christians to blame Jewish leaders for the crucifixion of Christ... [-] At the same time, Christians showed devotion and respect. They were conscious of their debt to the Jews. Jesus and all the disciples an all the authors of his Gospels were of the Jewish race. Christians viewed the Old Testament, the holy book of the synagogues as equally a holy book for them... [-] Nonetheless the accusation will linger that Catholics and Protestants in many nations, and even Jews living in the United States, might have indirectly and directly given more help or publicity to the Jews during their plight in Hitler's Europe".^[165]

Historian, John Michael Phayer, asserts,"Beliefs and feelings of European Catholics toward Jews varied considerably." Anti-semitism was prevalent throughout Europe varying in its dimensions without distinction of national history or creed and contributed to the racism of Nazism. This is not contested; however, Phayer states, "Traditional Christian anti-semitism was not the cause the Holocaust." Coinciding with more modern varieties, it conditioned some European Catholics to become part of Hitler's apparatus. He adds, "Had the Holy See possessed the influence to dictate Catholic feelings toward the Jews (which it did not) little change would have occurred." Under Pius XI, perhaps in anxiety of the anti-semitism among the fascists, the Vatican issued a statement which denounced anti-semitism in 1928. It did not mitigate its position, theologically, of the "blindness" of the Jewish people for "rejecting" their messiah; however, it did condemn, with out reserve, all anti-semitic hatred and stated the Vatican desired to protect Jews from unjust treatment. While rejecting the journalist John Cornwell's, Hitler's Pope, to have "missed the mark" the historian writes, "If the Pope (Pius XII) had spoken out in language that directly challenged Hitler historians unanimously agree that Hitler would not have curtailed the Holocaust. If Pius (Pius XII) was tainted with anti-semitism, it did not keep him from aiding the Jews before or after the Holocaust. To hold the Pope (Pius XII) always acted negatively toward the Jews is to close one's eyes to history." ^[166]

German Catholics and the Holocaust

According to Kershaw, while the German church leadership expended considerable energies in opposing government interference in the churches and "attempts to ride roughshod over over Christian doctrine and values", this vigour was not matched against all areas of Nazi barbarism - thus for example, such protests as they did make regarding anti-Jewish policies, tended to be by way of private letters to government ministers.^[107] In relations with the Nazi regime, figures like Cardinal Bertram, favoured a policy of concessions, while figures like Bishop Preysing of Berlin called for more concerted opposition.^[167] According to Kershaw, the "detestation of Nazism was overwhelming within the Catholic Church", yet traditional Christian anti-Judaism offered "no bulwark" against Nazi biological antisemitism.^[161]

In 1933, Cardinal Adolf Bertram 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.”^{[citation needed]} Bishop Buchberger of Regensburg called Nazi racism directed at Jews “justified self-defense” in the face of “overly powerful Jewish capital.”^{[citation needed]} Bishop Hilfrich of Limburg said that the true Christian religion “made its way not from the Jews but in spite of them.”^{[citation needed]}

Bishops von Preysing and Frings were the most public in the statements against genocide.^[168] In 1935, Pope Pius XI appointed Konrad von Preysing as Bishop of Berlin, the German capital. Von Preysing was a noted critic of Nazism. Like all other German bishops, including the nationalist Cardinal Bertram, Preysing openly denounced Nazi eugenics. Von Preysing's cathedral administrator, Bernard Lichtenberg is recognised as Righteous among the Nations. He was provost of the Cathedral of St Hedwig during Kristallnacht. After this notorious pogrom, Lichtenberg began to close each evening mass with a prayer for "the Jews and the other poor prisoners in the concentration camps" and protesting other Nazi policies. Sentenced to Dacau concentration Camp, he died en route.^[114] The two men established the Hilfswerke beim Bischöflichen Ordinariat Berlin as an aid organization and through this assisted Jews. Preysing also assisted in drafting the anti-Nazi encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge and, together with Cologne’s Archbishop, Josef Frings, sought to have the German Bishops conference speak out against the Nazi death camps. Preysing even infrequently attended meetings of the Kreisau Circle German resistance movement.^[108]

Cardinal Faulhaber became a prominent opponent of Nazism.^[104] He delivered three Advent sermons in 1933. Entitled Judaism, Christianity, and Germany, the sermons affirmed the Jewish origins of the Christian religion, the continuity of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, and the importance of the Christian tradition to Germany.^[104] Bishop von Galen, a conservative German nationalist, became disenchanted with the Nazi government for its racism and anti-Catholicism and denounced the lawlessness of the Gestapo.^[111]

In East Prussia, the Bishop of Ermland, Maximilian Kaller denounced Nazi eugenics and racism, pursued a policy of ethnic equality for his German, Polish and Lithuanian flock, and protected his Polish clergy and laypeople. Threatened by the Nazis, he applied for a transfer to be chaplain to a concentration camp. His request was denied by Cesare Orsenigo, a Papal Nuncio with some Fascist sympathies.^[163]

During the war, the Fulda Conference of Bishops met annually in Fulda.^[164] The issue of whether the bishops should speak out against the persecution of the Jews was debated at a 1942 meeting in Fulda.^[169] The consensus was to "give up heroic action in favor of small successes".^[169] A draft letter proposed by Margarete Sommer was rejected, because it was viewed as a violation of the Reichskonkordat to speak out on issues not directly related to the church.^[169]

Phayer asserts that the German episcopate, as opposed to other bishops, could have done more to save Jews.^[170] According to Phayer, "had the German bishops confronted the Holocaust publicly and nationally, the possibilities of undermining Hitler's death apparatus might have existed. Admittedly, it is speculative to assert this, but it is certain that many more German Catholics would have sought to save Jews by hiding them if their church leaders had spoken out".^[170] In this regard, Phayer places the responsibility with the Vatican, asserting that "a strong papal assertion would have enabled the bishops to overcome their disinclinations" and that "Bishop Preysing's only hope to spur his colleagues into action lay in Pope Pius XII".^[171] Yet Some German bishops have been praised for their wartime actions and according to Phayer, "several bishops did speak out".^[170] Professor Robert Krieg has argued the Church's model of itself "as a hierarchical institution intent on preserving itself so that God's grace would be immediately available to its members" prevailed over other models, such as the model of mystical communion, or moral advocate.^[172]

Among the German laity, Gertrud Luckner, was among the first to sense the genocidal inclinations of the Hitler regime and the few to take national action. She worked for Jews both locally and nationally, and cooperated with the priests Bernhard Lichtenberg and Alfred Delp. She took a position with Caritas, the international Catholic aid agency in 1938 and following the outbreak of the war, continued her work for the Jews through its war relief office, attempting to establish a national underground network through Caritas cells, and personally investigated the fate of the Jews being transported to the East. Caritas secured safe emigration for hundreds of converted Jews, but Luckner was unable to organise an effective national underground network. She was arrested in 1943 and only narrowly escaped death in the concentration camps.^[173]

Knowledge of the Holocaust

According to historians David Bankier and Hans Mommsen a thorough knowledge of the Holocaust was well within the reach of the German bishops, if they wanted to find out.^[170] According to historian Michael Phayer, "a number of bishops did want to know, and they succeeded very early on in discovering what their government was doing to the Jews in occupied Poland".^[171] Wilhelm Berning, for example, knew about the systematic nature of the Holocaust as early as February 1942, only one month after the Wannsee Conference.^[171] Most German Church historians believe that the church leaders knew of the Holocaust by the end of 1942, knowing more than any other church leaders outside the Vatican.^[174]

US Envoy Myron C. Taylor passed a US Government memorandum to Pius XII on 26 September 1942, outlining intelligence received from the Jewish Agency for Palestine which said that Jews from across the Nazi Empire were being systematically "butchered". Taylor asked if the Vatican might have any information which might tend to "confirm the reports", and if so, what the Pope might be able to do to influence public opinion against the "barbarities".^[175] Cardinal Maglione handed Harold Tittman a response to a letter from Taylor regarding the mistreatment of Jews on 10 October. The note thanked Washington for passing on the intelligence, and confirmed that reports of severe measures against the Jews had reached the Vatican from other sources, though it had not been possible to "verify their accuracy". Nevertheless, "every opportunity is being taken by the Holy See, however, to mitigate the suffering of these unfortunate people".^[176] The Pope raised race murders in his 1942 Christmas Radio Address. However, after the war, some bishops, including Adolf Bertram and Conrad Grober claimed that they had not been aware of the extent and details of the Holocaust, and were unsure of the veracity of the information that was brought to their attention.^[174]

Catholic Church in the Nazi Empire

Austria

The Anschluss saw the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in early 1938. The Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg had traveled to Germany to meet Hitler, who, according to Shuschnigg's later testimony, launched into a threatening rage against the role of Austria in German history, saying: "Every national idea was sabotaged by Austria throughout history; and indeed all this sabotage was the chief activity of the Hapsburgs and the Catholic Church". Hitler gave an ultimatum, which was to end Austrian independence and hand the nation to the Nazis.^[177]

Austria was overwhelmingly Catholic.^[178] On April 9 in Vienna, Hitler, speaking before a vote to endorse the Nazi annexation, told the Austrian public that it was "God's will" that he lead his homeland into the Reich and that the Lord had "smitten" his opponents.^[178] At the direction of Cardinal Innitzer, the churches of Vienna pealed their bells and flew swastikas for Hitler's arrival in the city on 14 March.^[179] In a Table Talk of July 1942 discussing his problems with the Catholic Church, Hitler singles out Innitzer's early gestures of cordiality as evidence of the extreme caution with which Church diplomats must be treated: "there appeared a man who addressed me with such self-assurance and beaming countenance, just as if, throughout the whole of the Austrian Republic he had never even touched a hair of the head of any National Socialist!"^[180] With power secured in Austria, the Nazis repeated their persecution of the Church and in October, a Nazi mob ransacked Innitzer's residence, after he had denounced Nazi persecution of the Church.^[178]

Czechoslovakia

Czech lands

Czechoslovakia was created after the First World War after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.^[182] Shortly before World War II, Czechoslovakia ceased to exist, swallowed by Nazi expansion. Its territory was divided into the mainly Czech Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and the newly declared Slovak Republic (1939-1945) (see below), while the considerable part of Czechoslovakia was directly joined to the Third Reich (Hungary and Poland also annexed areas).

Catholicism had had a strong institutional presence in the region under the Hapsburg Dynasty, but Bohemian Czechs in particular had had a troubled relationship with the Church of their Hapsburg rulers.^[183] Despite this, According to Schnitker, "the Church managed to gain a deep-seated appreciation for the role it played in resisting the common Nazi enemy. The Germans tried to obstruct the Church, but were reluctant, for whatever reason, to use the same force as they had in Germany or Poland. They managed to obstruct the Czech Antonine Eltschkner from taking his post as Bishop of Budejovice, but that was the extent of their success."^[184] In Dachau Concentration camp alone, there were 109 Czech/Slovak priests.^[184] Konstantin von Neurath served as Reich Protector (Governor) from March 1939 until he was replaced by Reich Security Central Office chief Reinhard Heydrich. Heydrich was a fanatical Nazi anti-Semite and an anti-Catholic. One of the main architects of the Nazi Holocaust, he also believed that Catholicism was a threat to the state.^[181] He was assassinated in Prague in 1942.^[185] Hitler believed there was close co-operation between the church and the assassins who killed Heydrich.^[78]

Slovakia

Slovakia was a new rump state formed by Hitler when Germany annexed the western half of Czechoslovakia. Hitler was able to exploit the nation's ethnic diversity - in particular the presence of the German speaking Sudetenlanders, and the independent minded Slovaks.^[186] The Slovak People’s Party (SPP) had been founded in 1913 by a Catholic priest, Andrej Hlinka, and became a significant player in the Slovak struggle for autonomy.^[187] In March 1939, Prague arrested Hlinka's successor, Jozef Tiso - another priest and the Prime Minister of the Slovakian region - for advocating independence. Hitler invited Tiso to Berlin, and offered assistance in obtaining Slovak nationhood. Tiso declared independence, and with German warships pointing their guns at the Slovakian Government offices, the Assembly agreed to ask Germany for "protection".^[188] The Fascist Slovak Republic became a nominally independent Nazi puppet with Tiso as president. According to Phayer, "Hitler demanded a price for Slovak indepdendence, its 90,000 Jews. Pius XII wanted to save them, or at least the 20,000 who had converted to Christianity".^[189]

Antisemitism existed well before the Nazi time and antisemitism characterised the Catholicism of the Slovak people.^{[citation needed]} The People's Party, founded and dominated by clergymen, used antisemitism as part of its political presentation.^{[citation needed]} An American diplomat, George F.Kennan witnessed the antisemitic terror practised by the party's vigilante wing, the Hlinka Guard.^{[citation needed]} With the People's Party ruling Slovakia, Monsignor Jozef Tiso, the president, promulgated the first antisemitic legislation in 1939 and 1940. Pius XII extended an apostolic blessing to President Tiso.^{[citation needed]}

The Vatican, pleased to see a new Catholic state in eastern Europe was less pleased with the Codex Judaicum, passed in September 1941, based on the Nuremberg Laws by which the legal rights of Jews were ended. The Church reacted with a letter of protest.^[187] According to Phayer, the Vatican's concern was for the rights of Jewish converts. The Slovakian bishops told Tiso that, through persecution of people on the basis of their race, he acted against the principles of religion and the Vatican demoted Tiso.^[191]

Slovakia, under Tiso and prime minister Bela Tuka, (who described himself as a daily communicant), had power over 90000 Jews. According to Raul Hilberg, Catholic Slovakia, wanting to serve its two masters, Berlin and Rome, gave up its Mosaic Jews- a journey by train to Auschwitz required one hour - to please Hitler, while holding back its 20000 Christian Jews to please the Holy See.^[189] The Vatican did not act on reports from Slovak army chaplains in October 1941 of mass shootings of Jews on the Eastern Front, but when, in early 1942, papal diplomats in Bratislava, Hungary and Switzerland predicted impending deportations and exterminations, the Vatican protested. Burzio, advised Rome of deportations to Poland "equivalent to condemning a great part of them to death" and the Vatican protested to the Slovakian legate. The protests, not made in public, were ineffectual and 'resettlements' continued in the summer and autumn of 1942 - 57,000 by the end of 1942.^[192]

In February 1942, Tiso agreed to begin deportations of Jews. Thus Slovakia became the first Nazi ally to agree to deport its Jews under the framework of the Final Solution.^[193] Msgr. Burzio protested to Prime Minister Bela Tuka.^[187] Burzio reported to Rome that some of the Slovakian bishops were indifferent to the plight of the Jews. Others, such as Bishop Pavol Jantausch were active in protecting Jews.^[194] The Vicar of Bratislava Augustin Pozdech and Jozef Carsky, Bishop of Presov, emphatically denounced the deportations.^[187] Burzio and others reported to Tiso that the Germans were murdering the deported Jews. Tiso hesitated and then refused to deport Slovakia's 24,000 remaining Jews.^[193]

When in 1943 rumours of further deportations emerged, the Papal Nuncio in Istanbul, Msgr. Angelo Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII) and Burzio helped galvanize the Holy See into intervening in vigorous terms. On April 7, 1943, Burzio challenged Tuka, over the extermination of Slovak Jews. The Vatican condemned the renewal of the deportations on 5 May and the Slovakian episcopate issued a pastoral letter condemning totalitarianism and antisemitism on 8 May 1943.^[187]

In August 1944, the Slovak National Uprising rose against the People's Party regime. German troops were sent to quell the rebellion and with them came security police charged with rounding up Slovakia's remaining Jews.^[193] Burzio begged Tiso directly to at least spare Catholic Jews from transportation and delivered an admonition from the Pope: "the injustice wrought by his government is harmful to the prestige of his country and enemies will exploit it to discredit clergy and the Church the world over.”^[187]

Poland

The invasion of predominantly Catholic Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939 ignited the Second World War. Hitler's objective of creating Lebensraum, living space for the German master race implied the end of Catholic Poland. 'Primitive Poles', in the Nazi ideological terms, would be a workforce living on starvation wages and the elite would be liquidated or imprisoned. Kerhsaw wrote that, in Hitler's scheme for the Germanization of Eastern Europe, "There would, he made clear, be no place in this utopia for the Christian Churches".^[195] Poland was divided into two parts by the Nazis-one part annexed outright by the Reich and the second part, called the General Government set aside for dispossessed Poles and as a ghetto area for Jews. In the regions of Poland annexed to Greater Germany, the Nazis set about systematically dismantling the Church - arresting its leaders, exiling its clergymen, closing its churches, monasteries and convents. Many clergymen were murdered.^[196]

Nazi ideology viewed ethnic "Poles" - the mainly Catholic ethnic majority of Poland - as "sub-humans". Following their 1939 invasion of West Poland, the Nazis instigated a policy of genocide against Poland's Jewish minority and of murdering or suppressing the ethnic Polish elites: including religious leaders. In 1940, Hitler proclaimed: "Poles may have only one master – a German. Two masters cannot exist side by side, and this is why all members of the Polish intelligentsia must be killed."^[198] In September 1939 Security Police Chief Heydrich and General Eduard Wagner agreed upon a "cleanup once and for all of Jews, intelligentsia, clergy, nobility".^[199] Clergy were targeted both for their resistance activity and their cultural importance.^[200] Between 1939 and 1945, an estimated 3,000 members (18%) of the Polish clergy, were murdered; of these, 1,992 died in concentration camps^[142] (the Encyclopedia Britannica cites 1811 Polish priests died in Nazi concentration camps).^[201]

During the 1939 invasion, special death squads of SS and police arrested or executed those considered capable of resisting the occupation: including professionals, clergymen and government officials. The following summer, the A-B Aktion (Extraordinary Pacification Operation) further round up of several thousand Polish intelligentsia by the SS saw many priests shot in the General Government sector.^[202]

In response to the Nazi/Soviet invasion, Pope Pius XII's first encyclical Summi Pontificatus wrote of an "hour of darkness" and the deaths of "countless human beings, even noncombatants". "Dear Poland", he said, deserved "the generous and brotherly sympathy of the whole world, while it awaits... the hour of a resurrection in harmony with the principles of justice and true peace".^[203] In April 1940, the Holy See advised the United States government that all its efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to the "stricken people of Poland" had been blocked by the Germans and that it was therefore seeking to channel assistance through indirect routes like the American "Commission for Polish Relief".^[204]

Historically, the church had been a leading force in Polish nationalism against foreign domination, thus the Nazis targeted clergy, monks and nuns in their terror campaigns. In the annexed regions the majority of priests were either murdered, imprisoned or deported. Seminaries and convents were closed.^[202] Eighty per cent of the Catholic clergy and five bishops of Warthegau were sent to concentration camps in 1939; 108 of them are regarded as blessed martyrs.^[142] Adam Sapieha, Archbishop of Lvov, became the defacto head of the Polish church following the invasion and openly criticised Nazi terror.^[196] A principle figures of the Polish Resistance, Sapieha opened a clandestine seminary in an act of cultural resistance. Among the seminarians was Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II.^[205]

According to Norman Davies, the Nazi terror was "much fiercer and more protracted in Poland than anywhere in Europe."^[202] Phayer wrote of two phases of Nazi policy in Poland - before Stalingrad, when Poles were suppressed, and after the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, when Germany sought to use the church to bring the Polish people into the war effort against Russia. When Cardinal Hlond was captured in 1943 the Germans promised to free him if he would seek to inspire the Polish people against the common enemy, Bolshevist Russia.^[206] Around 1.5 million Poles were transported to work as forced labor in Germany. Treated as racially inferior, they had to wear purple P's sewn in to their clothing - sexual relations with Poles was punishable by death. Beyond the genocide of the Polish Jews, it is estimated that 1.8 to 1.9 million Polish civilians were killed during the German Occupation and the war.^[202]

Poland had its own tradition of anti-Semitism, but Polish literature asserts that hundreds of clergymen and nuns were involved in aiding Poland's Jews during the war, though precise numbers are difficult to confirm.^[196] Karol Niemira, the Bishop of Pinsk, co-operated with the underground maintaining ties with the Jewish ghetto and sheltered Jews in the Archbishop's residence.^[196] In late 1942 the Zegota (codename for the Council to Aid Jews - Rada Pomocy Żydom) was established in co-operation with church groups. Instigated by the writer Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Catholic democrat activists, it saved thousands, often placing Jewish children in church orphanages and convents.^[207][208] Oscar Schindler, a German Catholic businessman came to Poland, initially to profit from the German invasion. He went on to save many Jews, as dramatised in the film Schindler's List.^[114] Among the most revered Polish martyrs was the Franciscan, Saint Maximillian Kolbe, who died at Auschwitz-Birkenau, having offered his own life to save a fellow prisoner who had been condemned to death.^[209] During the War he provided shelter to refugees, including 2,000 Jews whom he hid in his friary in Niepokalanów.^[210] Under the Papacy of the Polish born Pope John Paul II, the Polish Church asked for forgiveness for failings during the war, saying that, while noble efforts had been made to save Jews during World War II, there had also been indifference or enmity among Polish Catholics.^[211]

From 1939-1941 there was a determined appeal for papal intercession in Poland, but the Holy See argued that intervention would only worsen the situation. It was not a popular position. According to Phayer, Pius did not condemn the German invasion and when the French urged him to condemn Germany's aggression he declined "out of consideration for repercussions on Roman Catholics of the Reich."^[212] August Hlond and the General of the Jesuits Wladimir Ledochowski met with Pius on September 30, 1940 and were left disappointed when he did not condemn Russia and Germany for destroying Poland. The Vatican did use its press and radio to tell the world in January 1940 of terrorization of the Polish people, a reference to the Warthegau area Poles and the Poles of the Polish corridor who had been dispossessed and driven into the General Government region. A further broadcast in November lacked the detail of January communications. "Thereafter", wrote Phayer, "Vatican radio fell silent regarding Poland and the decimation of its populace."^[213] In November 1941 Bishop Sapieha requested explicitly that Pius XII speak out against Nazi atrocities. According to Lucas, the pope's "silence" led some Polish Catholics to conclude that the Vatican was unconcerned and there was even talk of cutting off allegiance to Rome.^[214] Pius alluded vaguely to atrocities at Easter 1941 and Cardinal Secretry of State Luigi Maglione explained to the Polish ambassador to the Holy See that Pius spoke in veiled words, but had Poland in mind. The policy was intended to spare Poles from greater atrocities. Word came later from Poland objecting to this, but it would be used again, during the Holocaust itself.^[213]

Low Countries

The Nazi Occupation of the Netherlands was particularly protracted and saw a particularly efficient cruelty towards the Jews, and harsh punishment for their protectors. While Dutch civil service collaborated extensively with the occupying administration, the Dutch Church, and leaders like the Archbishop of Utrecht Johannes de Jong, firmly opposed National Socialist movement and Dutch Catholics were forbidden from joining it. When Jewish deportations began, many were hidden in Catholic areas. Parish priests created networks for hiding Jews and close knit country parishes were able to hide Jews without being informed upon by neighbours, as occurred in the cities.^[215]

On July 11, 1942, the Dutch bishops, joined all Christian denominations in sending a letter to the Nazi General Friedrich Christiansen in protest against the treatment of Jews. The letter was read in all Catholic churches against German opposition. It brought attention to mistreatment of Jews and asked all Christians to pray for them:^[216]

Ours is a time of great tribulations of which two are foremost: the sad destiny of the Jews and the plight of those deported for forced labor. … All of us must be aware of the terrible sufferings which both of them have to undergo, due to no guilt of their own. We have learned with deep pain of the new dispositions which impose upon innocent Jewish men, women and children the deportation into foreign lands. … The incredible suffering which these measures cause to more than 10,000 people is in absolute opposition to the divine precepts of justice and charity. … Let us pray to God and for the intercession of Mary … that he may lend his strength to the people of Israel, so severely tried in anguish and persecution

— Protest of the Dutch Bishops, 1942

The Nazis retaliated with a series of repressive measures.^[217] Deportations of Jews only increased - including Catholic converts.^[217] Among the Catholics of Holland abducted in this way was Saint Edith Stein who died at Auchwitz. Another Dutch Catholic dissident was the Carmelite priest and philosopher, the Blessed Titus Brandsma.^[218] Brandsma was a journalist and a founder of Holland's Catholic University, who publicly campaigned against Nazism from the mid-1930s. Chosen by the Dutch Bishops as spokesmen in the defence of freedom of the press, he was arrested by the Nazi authorities in January 1942. He was later transferred to Dachau Concentration camp, where he was the subject of Nazi medical experiments and was issued with a lethal injection on 26 July 1942.^[219]

Church leaders had opposed the rise of the Nazi aligned Rexism movement in Belgium. Jozef-Ernest Cardinal van Roey, intervened in a 1937 Brussels by-election to rebuke Rexist voters and calling Rexism "a danger to the country and to the Church". The Nazi press told Germans that the "The election result was falsified in advance by the statement of the Archbishop".^[220] Following the Nazi occupation of Belgium, the Church played an important role in the defence of Jews in Belgium.^[221] The Comité de Défense des Juifs (CDJ) was formed to work for the defence of Jews in the summer of 1942, and of its eight founding members, Emile Hambresin was Catholic. Some of their rescue operations were overseen by the priests Joseph André and Dom Bruno. Among other institutions, the CDJ enlisted the help of monasteries and religious schools and hospitals. Yvonne Nèvejean of the Oeuvre Nationale de l’Enfance greatly assisted with the hiding of Jewish children.^[222] The Queen Mother Elizabeth and Léon Platteau of the Interior Ministry also made a stance to protect Jews.^[223] The Belgian Superior General of the Jesuits, Jean-Baptiste Janssens was also honoured as a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem.^[224]

France

In France, Marshal Philippe Pétain, the leader of Nazi aligned Vichy France had no religious convictions, but courted Catholic support. His great rival, and leader of the Free French, General Charles de Gaulle was a devout Catholic.^[225] De Gaulle's Free French chose the Catholic symbolism of Saint Joan of Arc's standard, the Cross of Lorraine as the symbol of Free France.^[226][227] The French bishops were initially cautious in speaking out against mistreatment of Jews. In 1997, the French church issued a Declaration of Repentance for this approach.^[228] Following the 1944 Liberation of France, General de Gaulle demanded the replacement of Papal Nuncio Mgr Valerio Valeri for having been too close to Petain.^[229]

Soon after Pacelli became pope, Vichy France put forward antisemitic decrees. Vichy's ambassador to the Vatican, Léon Bérard, reported to his government that having spoken to competent authorities the Holy See had no insurmountable difficulties with this and did not intend to become involved.^[230]

During the War, Cardinal Tisserant, called on the Vatican to forcefully condemn Nazism by name.^[217] Following the Velodrom d’Hiver roundup of Jews of July 15, 1942, the Northern assembly of cardinals and archbishops sent a protest letter to Petain, and following round ups of Jews in Vichy France in 1942, several Bishops - Archboshop Saliège of Toulouse, Bishop Théas of Montauban, Bishop Delay of Marseille, Cardinal Gerlier (Archbishop of Lyon), Monseigneur Vanstenberghe of Bayonne and Monseigneur Moussaron of Albi - denounced the roundups from the pulpit and through parish distributions, in defiance of the Vichy regime. The move sparked greater Catholic resistance and thousands of priests, nuns and lay people acted to assist French Jews. Catholics protected large numbers in convents, boarding schools, presbyteries and families.^[231] According to the New York Times, "The defiant attitude of those churchmen after 1942 contributed to the fact that that three-quarters of France's Jewish population survived, many of them protected by French Catholics".^[228] Catholic religious among the Righteous among the Nations include: the Capuchin friar Père Marie-Benoît, Cardinal Gerlier, the Archbishop of Toulouse Jules-Géraud Saliège and Bishop of Montauban Pierre Marie Théas.

Croatia

Nazi Germany dismembered Yugoslavia in the spring of 1941. Most of the former country fell to the new state of Croatia - a victory for Ante Pavelic's Ustase. Unlike Hitler, Pavelic was pro-Catholic, but their ideologies overlapped sufficiently for easy co-operation. Pavelic wanted Vatican recognition for his fascist state and Croatian church leaders favoured an alliance with the Ustase because it seemed to hold out the promise of an anti-Communist, Catholic state. The Archbishop of Zagreb, Aloysius Stepinac, wanted the replacement of a religiously and ethnically diverse Yugoslav state the jail of the Croatian nation. In May 1941 Stepinac arranged an audience with Pius XII for Pavelic. According to Phayer, Pius and Stepinac both saw communism as the greatest menace facing Christianity.^[232] The Vatican stopped short of formal recognition but Pius sent a Benedictine abbot, Giuseppe Ramiro Marcone, as his apostolic visitor. This suited Pavelic well enough and Stepinac felt the Vatican had de facto recognised the new state.^[232]

In April and May 1941 thousands of Serbs were murdered and Nazi copycat laws eliminated Jewish citizenship and compelled the wearing of the Star of David. The German army pulled out of Croatia in June 1941. Archbishop Stepinac, had been initially a supporter of the Ustasha, but as the terror continued he began, from May 41, a distancing process. In July he wrote to Pavelic objecting to the condition of deportation of Jews and Serbs and then, realizing that conversion could save Serbs he instructed clergy to baptise people upon demand without the usual waiting and instruction. Summer and autumn of 1941 Ustasha murders increased - but Stepinac was not yet prepared to break with the Ustase regime totally. Some bishops and priests collaborated openly with Pavelic and even served in Pavelic's body guard, Ivan Guberina, the leader of Catholic Action,among them. Notorious examples of collaboration included Bishop Ivan Šarić and the Franciscan Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic, 'the devil of the Jasenovac'.^[235] For three months,^[236] Filipovic-Majstorovic headed the notorious Jasenovac Concentration Camp.^[237] He was suspended as an army chaplain in 1942, expelled from the Franciscan Order in 1943, and executed as a war criminal after the war.^[238][239] He was not, evidently, excommunicated.^[240]

Archbishop Stepinac, known as jeudenfreundlich (Jew friendly) to the Nazis and Croat regime, suspended a number of priest collaboratos in his diocese.^[241] He declared publicly in the Spring of 1942 that it was "forbidden to exterminate Gypsies and Jews because they are said to belong to an inferior race". When Himmler visited Zagreb a year later, indicating the impending roundup of remaining Jews, Stepinac wrote Pavelic that if this occurred, he would protest for "the Catholic Church is not afraid of any secular power, whatever it may be, when it has to protect basic human values". When deportatation began, Stepinac and Marcone protested to Andrija Artukovic.^[233] According to Phayer, the Vatican ordered Stepinac to save as many Jews as possible during the upcoming roundup.^[241] Though Stepinac personally saved many potential victims, his protests had little effect on Pavlevic.^[233] The Apostolic delegate to Turkey, Angelo Roncalli, saved a number of Croatian Jews - as well as Bulgarian and Hungarian Jews - by assisting their migration to Palestine. Roncalli succeeded Pius XII as Pope, and always said that he had been acting on the orders of Pius XII in his actions to rescue Jews.^[241]

Giovanni Battista Montini, later Paul VI, kept Pius informed of matters in Croatia - and Domenico Tardini interviewed Pavelic's representative to Pius; he let the Croat know the Vatican would be indulgent - "Croatia is a young state - Youngsters often err because of their age. It is therefore not surprising that Croatia has also erred." ^[242] In 1943 after the German military became active once again in Croatia 6-7000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz, and others murdered in gas vans in Croatia. Rather than jeopardize the Ustase government of Croatia by diplomatic wrangling the Vatican chose to help Jews privately - but the chaos of the country meant this was little. Historian John Morley has called the Vatican record particularly shameful in Croatia because it was a state that proudly proclaimed its Catholic tradition and whose leaders depicted themselves as loyal to the Church and to the Pope.^[243] Diplomatic pressure was preferred to public challenges on the immorality of genocide and Pavelic's diplomatic emissaries to the Holy See were merely scolded by Tardini and Montini. At the war's end leaders of the Ustasha including its clericals supporters such as Saric fled, taking gold looted from massacred Jews and Serbs with them.^[244]

Hungary

Hungary joined the Axis Powers in 1940. It's leader, Admiral Horthy later wavered in support for the Nazi alliance. The Nazis occupied Hungary in March 1944, soon after Horthy, under significant pressure from the church and diplomatic community, had halted the deportations of Hungarian Jews.^[247] In October, they installed a pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Dictatorship.

After Germany's 1935 Nuremberg Laws were promulgated, copycat legislation had followed in much of Europe. Catholic priests and bishops in western Europe were not active in parliaments that established antisemitic legislation, but in eastern Europe they were.^[245] The Arrow Cross, Hungary's far-right antisemitic political organisation, was supported by individual priests, and bishops, such as Jozsef Grosz, who was promoted in 1943 by Pius XII to the bishopric of Kalocsa. Cardinal Justinian Seredi and Bishop Gyula Glattfelder who served in Hungary's Upper Chamber of Parliament, voted in favour of antisemitic legislation first passed in 1938.^[248] Seredi later spoke out against the Nazi persecution of Hungary's Jews.^[246] The anti-semitic laws placed economic and social restrictions on Jews; during World War II they evolved into initiatives to expel Jews from Hungary. Margit Slachta, a nun and Hungary's first woman Member of Parliament, spoke against the anti-semitic laws.^[249] Following the October 1944 Arrow Cross takeover, Bishop Vilmos Apor (who had been an active protester against the mistreatment of the Jews), together with other senior clergy including József Mindszenty, drafted a memorandum of protest against the Arrow Cross government.^[249]

Margit Slachta sheltered the persecuted, protested forced labour and antisemitism and went to Rome in 1943 to encourage papal action against the Jewish persecutions.^[249] Angelo Rotta, Papal Nuncio from 1930, actively protested Hungary's mistreatment of the Jews, and helped persuade Pope Pius XII to lobby the Hungarian leader Admiral Horthy to stop their deportation.^[250] Rotta became a leader of diplomatic actions to protect Hungarian Jews.^[250] With the help of the Hungarian Holy Cross Association, he issued protective passports for Jews and 15,000 safe conduct passes - the nunciature sheltered some 3000 Jews in safe houses.^[250] An “International Ghetto” was established, including more than 40 safe houses marked by the Vatican and other national emblems. 25,000 Jews found refuge in these safe houses. Elsewhere in the city, Catholic institutions hid several thousand more Jewish people.^[251] Other leading church figures involved in the 1944 rescue of Hungarian Jews included Bishops Vilmos Apor, Endre Hamvas and Áron Márton. Primate József Mindszenty issued public and private protests and was arrested on 27 October 1944.^[249]

Romania

Angelo Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII) advised Pope Pius XII of the plight of Jews being kept in concentration camps in Romanian-occupied Transnistria. The Pope interceded with the Romanian government, and authorized for money to be sent to the camps.^[252] Andrea Cassulo, the papal nuncio to Bucharest has been honoured as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem. In 1944, the Chief Rabbi of Bucharest praised the work of Cassulo on behalf of Romania's Jews: "the generous assistance of the Holy See… was decisive and salutary. It is not easy for us to find the right words to express the warmth and consolation we experienced because of the concern of the supreme Pontiff, who offered a large sum to relieve the sufferings of deported Jews — sufferings which had been pointed out to him by you after your visit to Transnistria. The Jews of Romania will never forget these facts of historic importance."^[253]

Papacy and Nazi Germany

Papacy of Pius XI

The pontificate of Pius XI coincided with the early aftermath of the First World War. The old European monarchies had been largely swept away and a new and precarious order formed across the continent. In the East, the Soviet Union arose. In Italy, the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini took power, while in Germany, the fragile Weimar Republic collapsed with the Nazi seizure of power.^[254]

In 1929, Pius signed the Lateran Treaty and a concordat with Italy, confirming the existence of an independent Vatican City state, in return for recognition of the Kingdom of Italy and an undertaking for the papacy to be neutral in world conflicts. In 1933, Pius signed the Reichsconcordat with the Germany - hoping to protect the rights of Catholics under the Nazi government. The terms of the Treaty were not kept by Hitler. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica: "From 1933 to 1936 [Pius XI] wrote several protests against the Third Reich, and his attitude toward fascist Italy changed dramatically after Nazi racial policies were introduced into Italy in 1938."^[254] Pius XI watched the rising tide of Totalitarianism with alarm and delivered three papal encyclicals challenging the new creeds: against Italian Fascism Non abbiamo bisogno (1931; We Do Not Need to Acquaint You); against Nazism Mit brennender Sorge (1937; “With Deep Anxiety”) and against atheist Communist Divini redemptoris (1937; “Divine Redeemer”). He also challenged the extremist nationalism of the Action Francaise movement and anti-semitism in the United States.^[254]

Non abbiamo bisogno condemned Italian fascism’s “pagan worship of the State” and “revolution which snatches the young from the Church and from Jesus Christ, and which inculcates in its own young people hatred, violence and irreverence.”^[255]

From the earliest days of the Nazi takeover in Germany, the Vatican was taking diplomatic action to attempt to defend the Jews of Germany. In the spring of 1933, Pope Pius XI urged Mussolini to ask Hitler to restrain the antisemitic actions taking place in Germany.^[256] Pius XI asserted to a group of pilgrims that antisemitism is incompatible with Christianity:^[257]

"Mark well that in the Catholic Mass, Abraham is our Patriarch and forefather. Anti-Semitism is incompatible with the lofty thought which that fact expresses. It is a movement with which we Christians can have nothing to do. No, no, I say to you it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism. It is inadmissible. Through Christ and in Christ we are the spiritual progeny of Abraham. Spiritually, we are all Semites.

Pius XI's Secretary of State, Cardinal Pacelli (future Pius XII), made some 55 protests against Nazi policies, including its "ideology of race".^[252] As the newly installed Nazi Government began to instigate its program of anti-semitism, Pope Pius XI, through his Secretary of State Cardinal Pacelli, ordered the Papal Nuncio in Berlin, Cesare Orsenigo, to "look into whether and how it may be possible to become involved" in their aid. Orsenigo proved a poor instrument in this regard, concerned more with the anti-church policies of the Nazis and how these might effect German Catholics, than with taking action to help German Jews. Cardinal Innitzer called him timid and ineffectual with respect to the worsening situation for German Jewry.^[258]

Appearing before 250,000 pilgrims at Lourdes in April 1935, Cardinal Pacelli said:^[259]

[The Nazis] are in reality only miserable plagiarists who dress up old errors with new tinsel. It does not make any difference whether they flock to the banners of the social revolution, whether they are guided by a false conception of the world and of life, or whether they are possessed by the superstition of a race and blood cult.

— Cardinal Pacelli, Lourdes, April 1935

In 1936, Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, Papal Nuncio to Germany, asked Cardinal Pacelli, then Vatican Secretary of State, for instructions regarding an invitation from Hitler to attend a Nazi Party meeting in Nuremberg, along with the entire diplomatic corps. Pacelli replied, ”The Holy Father thinks it is preferable that your Excellency abstain, taking a few days’ vacation.” In 1937, Orsenigo was invited along with the diplomatic corps to a reception for Hitler’s birthday. Orsenigo again asked the Vatican if he should attend. Pacelli’s reply was, “The Holy Father thinks not. Also because of the position of this Embassy, the Holy Father believes it is preferable in the present situation if your Excellency abstains from taking part in manifestations of homage toward the Lord Chancellor." During Hitler’s visit to Rome in 1938, Pius XI and Pacelli avoided meeting with him by leaving Rome a month early for the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo. The Vatican was closed, and the priests and religious brothers and sisters left in Rome were told not to participate in the festivities and celebrations surrounding Hitler’s Visit. On the Feast of the Holy Cross, Pius XI said from Castel Gandolfo, “It saddens me to think that today in Rome the cross that is worshipped is not the Cross of our Saviour.”^{[citation needed]}

A threatening, if mainly sporadic persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany had followed the Nazi takeover.^[38] The Vatican was anxious to reach agreement with the new government, despite the ongoing attacks.^[61] Nazi breaches of the agreement began almost as soon as it had been signed.^[75] By early 1937, the church hierarchy in Germany, which had initially attempted to co-operate with the new government, had become highly disillusioned and in March, Pius XI issued the Mit brennender Sorge encyclical - accusing the Nazi Government of violations of the 1933 Concordat, and further that it was sowing the " tares of suspicion, discord, hatred, calumny, of secret and open fundamental hostility to Christ and His Church". The Pope noted on the horizon the "threatening storm clouds" of religious wars of extermination over Germany.^[75]

Pius XI commissioned the American Jesuit John La Farge to draft an encyclical demonstrating the incompatibility of Catholicism and racism: Humani generis unitas (“The Unity of the Human Race”). Following the death of Pius XI however, Pius XII did not issue the encyclical. He feared it would antagonize Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany at a time where he hoped to act as an impartial peace broker.^[22]

Papacy of Pius XII

Pius XII assumed the papacy in 1939. In the build up to war he sought to act as a peace broker. As the Holy See had done during the pontificate of Benedict XV (1914 - 1922) during World War One, the Vatican under, Pius XII (Feb. 1939 - Sept. 1958), pursued a policy of diplomatic neutrality through World War Two - Pius XII, like Benedict XV, described the position as "impartiality", rather than "neutrality.^[260]

A cautious diplomat, he did not name the Nazis in his wartime condemnations of racism and genocide, but intervened to save the lives of thousands of Jews through sheltering them in church institutions and ordering his church to offer discreet aid. Upon his death in 1958, he was praised by world leaders and Jewish groups for his actions during World War Two, but his refusal to specifically condemn the Nazi Holocaust during the course of the war has become a matter of controversy.^[261]

Pius XII's relations with the Axis and Allied forces may have been impartial, and his policies tinged with uncompromising anti-communism, but early in the war he shared intelligence with the Allies about the German Resistance and planned invasion of the Low Countries and lobbied Mussolini to stay neutral.^[262] With Poland overrun, but France and the Low Countries yet to be attacked, Pius continued to hope for a negotiated peace to prevent the spread of the conflict. The similarly minded US President Franklin D. Roosevelt re-established American diplomatic relations with the Vatican after a seventy-year hiatus by dispatching Myron C. Taylor as his personal representative.^[263] Pius warmly welcomed Roosevelt's envoy.^[264] Taylor urged Pius XII to explicitly condemn Nazi atrocities. Instead, Pius XII spoke against the "evils of modern warfare", but did not go further.^[86] This may have been so for fear of Nazi retaliation experienced previously with the issuance of the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge in 1937.^[265] Pius XII allowed national hierarchies to assess and respond to their local situations and utilized Vatican Radio to promote aid to thousands of war refugees, and saved further thousands of lives by instructing the church to provide discreet aid to Jews.^[86] To confidantes, Hitler scorned Pius XII as a blackmailer on his back,^[266] whom he believed constricted his ally Mussolini and leaked confidential German correspondence to the world.^[267] For opposition from the Church he vowed "retribution to the last farthing" after the conclusion of the war.^[115]

Early pontificate

Dr. Joseph Lichten wrote: "Pacelli had obviously established his position clearly, for the Fascist governments of both Italy and Germany spoke out vigorously against the possibility of his election to succeed Pius XI in March 1939, though the cardinal secretary of state had served as papal nuncio in Germany from 1917 to 1929."^[268]

The day after Pacelli's election, the Berlin Morgenpost said: ‘The election of cardinal Pacelli is not accepted with favor in Germany because he was always opposed to Nazism and practically determined the policies of the Vatican under his predecessor.’ Der Angriff, the Nazi party organ, warned that Pius' policies would lead to a “crusade against the totalitarian states”. According to Karol Jozef Gajewski, Heinrich Himmler's Das Schwarze Korps ('The Black Corps'), house newspaper of the SS, had formerly labelled Pacelli a "co-conspirator with Jews and Communists against Nazism" and decried his election as "the "Chief Rabbi of the Christians, boss of the firm of Judah-Rome."^[88]

Hidden encyclical

Some historians have argued that Pacelli, as Cardinal Secretary of State, dissuaded Pope Pius XI — who was nearing death at the time^[269] — from condemning Kristallnacht in November 1938,^[270] when he was informed of it by the papal nuncio in Berlin.^[271] Likewise the prepared encyclical Humani Generis Unitas ("On the Unity of Human Society"), which was ready in September 1938 but, according to the two publishers of the encyclical^[272] and other sources, not forwarded to the Vatican by the Jesuit General Wlodimir Ledochowski.^[273] On January 28, 1939, eleven days before the death of Pope Pius XI, a disappointed Gundlach informed author La Farge,."It cannot continue like this" The text has not been forwarded to the Vatican. He had talked to the American assistant to Father General, who promised to look into the matter in December 1938, but did not report back.^[274] It contained an open and clear condemnation of colonialism, racism and antisemitism.^{[273][275][276]} Some historians have argued that Pacelli learned about its existence only after the death of Pius XI and did not promulgate it as Pope.^[277] He did however use parts of it in his inaugural encyclical Summi Pontificatus, which he titled "On the Unity of Human Society."^[278]

Efforts to avoid war

Pius lobbied world leaders to prevent the outbreak of World War Two, up to the very last day of peace. On 24 August 1939, he made a public broadcast appealing for peace, beseeching: "by the blood of Christ... the strong [to] hear us that they may not become weak through injustice.. [and] if they desire that their power may not be a destruction." On 31 August, the last day before the war, the Pope wrote to the German, Polish, Italian, British and French governments saying that he was unwilling to abandon hope that pending negotiations might lead to "a just pacific solution" and beseeching the Germans and Polish "in the name of God" to avoid "any incident" and for the British, French and Italians to support his appeal. The "pending negotiations" turned out to be a mere Nazi propaganda trick. The following day, Hitler invaded Poland.^[279]

Outbreak of war: Summi Pontificatus

Summi Pontificatus ("On the Limitations of the Authority of the State"), issued 20 October 1939, was the first papal encyclical issued by Pope Pius XII, and established some of the themes of his papacy.^[280] During the drafting of the letter, the Second World War commenced with the Nazi/Soviet invasion of Catholic Poland. Couched in diplomatic language, Pius endorses Catholic resistance, and states his disapproval of the war, racism, anti-semitism, the Nazi/Soviet invasion of Poland and the persecutions of the Church.^[281]

With Italy not yet an ally of Hitler in the war, Italians were called upon to remain faithful to the Church. Pius avoided naming the belligerent allies Hitler and Stalin as the evildoers, establishing the "impartial" public tone which critics have used against him in later assessments of his pontificate: "A full statement of the doctrinal stand to be taken in face of the errors of today, if necessary, can be put off to another time unless there is disturbance by calamitous external events; for the moment We limit Ourselves to some fundamental observations."^[282]

Resistance

The Pope wrote of "anti-Christian movements" bringing forth a crop "poignant disasters" and called for love, mercy and compassion against the "deluge of discord". Following themes addressed in Non abbiamo bisogno (1931); Mit brennender Sorge (1937) and Divini redemptoris (1937), Pius wrote of a need to bring back to the Church those who were following "a false standard... misled by error, passion, temptation and prejudice, [who] have strayed away from faith in the true God".^[283] He wrote of "Christians unfortunately more in name than in fact" having showed "cowardice" in the face of persecution by these creeds, and endorsed resistance:^[283]

Who among "the Soldiers of Christ" - ecclesiastic or layman - does not feel himself incited and spurred on to a greater vigilance, to a more determined resistance, by the sight of the ever-increasing host of Christ's enemies; as he perceives the spokesmen of these tendencies deny or in practice neglect the vivifying truths and the values inherent in belief in God and in Christ; as he perceives them wantonly break the Tables of God's Commandments to substitute other tables and other standards stripped of the ethical content of the Revelation on Sinai, standards in which the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and of the Cross has no place?

— Summi Pontificatus 7 - Pope Pius XII, Oct. 1939

Racism

In a further rejection of Nazi ideology, Pius reiterated Catholic opposition to racism and anti-Semitism:

In accordance with these principles of equality, the Church devotes her care to forming cultured native clergy and gradually increasing the number of native Bishops. And in order to give external expression to these, Our intentions, We have chosen the forthcoming Feast of Christ the King to raise to the Episcopal dignity at the Tomb of the Apostles twelve representatives of widely different peoples and races. In the midst of the disruptive contrasts which divide the human family, may this solemn act proclaim to all Our sons, scattered over the world, that the spirit, the teaching and the work of the Church can never be other than that which the Apostle of the Gentiles preached: "putting on the new, (man) him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of him that created him. Where there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free. But Christ is all and in all" (Colossians iii. 10, 11).

— Summi Pontificatus 48 - Pope Pius XII, Oct. 1939.

Invasion of Poland

Pius wrote of a persecuted Church^[284] and a time requiring "charity" for victims who had a "right" to compassion. Against the invasion of Poland and killing of civilians he wrote:^[281]

The blood of countless human beings, even noncombatants, raises a piteous dirge over a nation such as Our dear Poland, which, for its fidelity to the Church, for its services in the defense of Christian civilization, written in indelible characters in the annals of history, has a right to the generous and brotherly sympathy of the whole world, while it awaits, relying on the powerful intercession of Mary, Help of Christians, the hour of a resurrection in harmony with the principles of justice and true peace.

— Summi Pontificatus 106 - Pope Pius XII, Oct. 1939

In Poland, the Nazis murdered over 2,500 monks and priests and even more were imprisoned.^[157]

Efforts for peace and assistance to allies

Pius advised the British in 1940 of the readiness of certain German generals to overthrow Hitler if they could be assured of an honourable peace, offered assistance to the German resistance in the event of a coup and warned the Allies of the planned German invasion of the Low Countries in 1940.^{[120][121][285]}

In 1939, with the Low Countries yet to be attacked, Munich lawyer and devout Catholic, Joseph Muller of the anti-Hitler German Resistance, met with Pius XII and obtained his agreement to act as an intermediary between a new anti-Nazi German government and the British, if the military could be persuaded to mount a coup d'état.^[121] The Vatican provided him with a letter outlining the bases for peace with England and the participation of the Pope was used to try to persuade senior German Generals Halder and Brauchitsch to overthrow Hitler.^[120] On 4 May 1940, the Vatican advised the Netherlands envoy to the Vatican that the Germans planned to invade France through the Netherlands and Belgium on May 10.^[286] On May 7, Alfred Jodl noted in his diary that the Germans knew the Belgian envoy to the Vatican had been tipped off, and the Fuehrer was greatly agitated by the danger of treachery.^[287] Following the Fall of France, peace overtures continued to emanate from the Vatican as well as Sweden and the United States, to which Churchill responded resolutely that Germany would first have to free its conquered territories.^[288] In Rome in 1942, US envoy Myron C. Taylor, thanked the Holy See for the "forthright and heroic expressions of indignation made by Pope Pius XII when Germany invaded the Low countries".^[289]

Attempts to keep Italy neutral and ongoing diplomatic efforts

Unsuccessfully, Pius attempted to dissuade the Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini from joining Nazi Germany in the war.^[285] Following the Fall of France, Pius XII wrote confidentially to Hitler, Churchill and Mussolini proposing to offer to mediate a "just and honourable peace", but asking to receive confidential advice in advance of how such an offer would be received.^[290] When, by 1943 the war had turned against the Axis Powers, and Mussolini's Foreign Minister Count Ciano was relieved of his post and sent to the Vatican as ambassador, Hitler suspected that he had been sent to arrange a separate peace with the Allies.^[291] On July 25, the Italian King dismissed Mussolini. Hitler's told Jodl to organise for a German force to go to Rome and arrest the Government and restore Mussolini. Asked about the Vatican, Hitler said: "I'll go right into the Vatican. Do you think the Vatican embarrasses me? We'll take that over right away... later we can make apologies". His generals urged caution.^[292]

Protest of Dutch bishops

The Archbishop of Utrecht was warned by the Nazis not to protest the deportation of Dutch Jews. In defiance, he published a letter on April 19, 1942, which was read in every Catholic church in the country. The bishops of Holland jointly denounced "the unmerciful and unjust treatment meted out to Jews by those in power in our country." The Nazis responded by revoking the exception that had been given to Jews who had been baptized and a round up was ordered. The Gestapo made a special effort to round up every monk, nun and priest who had even a drop of Jewish blood. Some 300 victims were deported to Auschwitz and immediately sent to the gas chambers. Among them was Saint Edith Stein. According to John Vidmar, "The brutality of the retaliation made an enormous impression on Pius XII."^[293] Henceforth, he avoided open, confrontational denunciations of the Nazis.^[294]

Dr. Peter Gumpel writes:

The action of the Dutch bishops had important repercussions. Pius XII had already prepared the text of a public protest against the persecution of the Jews. Shortly before this text was sent to L’Osservatore Romano, news reached him of the disastrous consequences of the Dutch bishops’ initiative. He concluded that public protests, far from alleviating the fate of the Jews, aggravated their persecution and he decided that he could not take the responsibility of his own intervention having similar and probably even much more serious consequences. Therefore he burnt the text he had prepared. The International Red Cross, the nascent World Council of Churches and other Christian Churches were fully aware of such consequences of vehement public protests and, like Pius XII, they wisely avoided them.^[295]

When Myron C. Taylor, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's personal representative to the Vatican, urged him to condemn Nazi atrocities - Pius "obliquely referred to the evils of modern warfare", fearing that to go further would provoke Hitler into brutal action, as occurred following the 1942 protest by Dutch Bishops against the deportation of Jews.^[86][296]

Aid to Jews during Holocaust

Following Kristalnacht (1938), the Vatican took steps to find refuge for Jews and at the outbreak of the war, local bishops were instructed to assist those in need. Catholic institutions across Europe were opened as shelter for Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, and the institutions of the Vatican itself were employed in this purpose.^[217] Pius XII allowed the national hierarchies of the Church to assess and respond to their local situation under Nazi rule, but himself established the Vatican Information Service to provide aid to, and information about, war refugees and saved thousands of Jewish lives by directing the church to discreetly provide aid to Jews.^[297] According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Pius chose to "use diplomacy to aid the persecuted" and upon his death was "praised effusively by world leaders and especially by Jewish groups for his actions during World War II on behalf of the persecuted".^[261]

In response to Mussolini's anti-Jewish legislation, Pius appointed several Jewish scholars who had been sacked under Italy's discriminatory laws to position at the Vatican.^[252] In his first encyclical, Pius XII rejected Nazi racism by affirming scripture, that in the eyes of the Church “there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision.”^[252]

When in 1940, the Nazi Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop led the only senior Nazi delegation permitted an audience with Pius XII and asked why the Pope had sided with the Allies, Pius replied with a list of recent Nazi atrocities and religious persecutions committed against Christians and Jews, in Germany, and in Poland, leading the New York Times to headline its report "Jews Rights Defended" and write of "burning words he spoke to Herr Ribbentrop about religious persecution".^[252]

The Israeli historian Pinchas Lapide interviewed war survivors and concluded that Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands". Most historians dispute this estimate^[298] while Rabbi David Dalin called Pinchas Lapide's work "the definitive work by a Jewish scholar" on the holocaust.^[299]

Cardinal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione received a request from Chief Rabbi of Palestine Isaac Herzog in the Spring of 1940 to intercede on behalf of Lithuanian Jews about to be deported to Germany. Pius called Ribbentrop on March 11, repeatedly protesting against the treatment of Jews. In his 1940 encyclical Summi Pontificatus, Pius rejected anti-semitism, stating that in the Catholic Church there is "neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision."^[300]

On January 2, 1940, the United Jewish Appeal for Refugees and Overseas Needs in Chicago sent the Pope a contribution of $125,000 toward the Vatican's efforts to save "all those persecuted because of religion or race." The Pope kept in place an emigration program established by his predecessor, Pius XI, which helped Jews gain admittance to Brazil. Between 1939 and 1941, 3,000 Jews reached safety in South America.^{[citation needed]}

Giovanni Ferrofino is credited with saving 10,000 Jews. Acting on secret orders from Pope Pius XII, Ferrofino obtained visas from the Portuguese Government and the Dominican Republic to secure their escape from Europe and sanctuary in the Americas.^[114]

Between 1939 and 1944, Pius XII supplied passports, money, tickets and letters of recommendation to foreign governments so Jewish refugees could receive visas. Through these actions, another 4,000-6,000 Jews reached safety.^{[citation needed]}

1942 Christmas address

In 1942, Pius XII delivered a Christmas message over Vatican Radio Address which expressed sympathy for the victims of the Nazis' genocidal policies.^[301] From May 1942, the Nazis had commenced their industrialized slaughter of the Jews of Europe - the Final Solution.^[301] Gypsies and others were also marked for extermination. The Pope addressed the racial persecutions in the following terms:"Humanity owes this vow to those hundreds of thousands who, without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, have been consigned to death or to a slow decline"^[302] [also translated: "marked down for death or gradual extinction"]^[303] The New York Times called Pius "a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent."

The speech was made in the context of the near total domination of Europe by the armies of Nazi Germany at a time were the war had not yet turned in favour of the Allies. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Pius refused to say more "fearing that public papal denunciations might provoke the Hitler regime to brutalize further those subject to Nazi terror — as it had when Dutch bishops publicly protested earlier in the year—while jeopardizing the future of the church".^[297] Holocaust historian, Sir Martin Gilbert, assesses the response of the Reich Security Main Office calling Pius a "mouthpiece" of the Jews in response to his Christmas address, as clear evidence that all sides knew that Pius was one who was raising his voice for the victims of Nazi terror.^[304]

Direct papal interventions

Pius protested the deportations of Slovakian Jews to the Bratislava government from 1942. In 1943 he protested that "The Holy See would fail in its Divine Mandate if it did not deplore these measures, which gravely damage man in his natural right, mainly for the reason that these people belong to a certain race."^[252]

Following the Nazi occupation of Italy, when news of the 15 October 1943 round-up of Roman Jews reached the Pope, he instructed Cardinal Maglione to protest to the German Ambassador to "save these innocent people".^[252][297] The Pope then ordered Rome's Catholic institutions to open themselves to the Jews, sheltering 4715 of the 5715 listed for deportation by the Nazis were sheltered in 150 institutions - 477 in the Vatican itself. As German round-ups continued in Northern Italy, the Pope opened his summer residence, Castel Gandolfo, to take in thousands of Jews and authorised institutions across the north to do the same.^[252]

From 1943, Pius instructed his Bulgarian representative to take "all necessary steps" to support Bulgarian Jews facing deportation and his Turkish nuncio, Angelo Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII) arranged for the transfer of thousands of children out of Bulgaria to Palestine.^[252] Roncalli also advised the Pope of Jewish concentration camps in Romanian occupied Transnistria. The Pope protested to the Romanian government and authorised for funds to be sent to the camps.^[252] In 1944 Pius appealed directly to the Hungarian government to halt the deportation of the Jews of Hungary and his nuncio, Angelo Rotta, led a city wide rescue scheme in Budapest.^[217][252]

Assessing Pius' role as a protector of Jews during the war, David Klinghoffer wrote for the Jewish Journal in 2005 that "I'm not sure it's true, as Dalin argues, that Pius saved more Jews than any other Righteous Gentile in World War II. But it seems fairly certain that he was, overall, a strenuous defender of Jews who saved tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. While 80 percent of European Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, 85 percent of Italian Jews survived, thanks in large part to the Vatican's efforts." In August 1944, Pius met British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was visiting Rome. During the meeting, and with the war ongoing, the Pope acknowledged the justice of punishing war criminals, but expressed a hope that the people of Italy would not be punished, preferring that they be made "full allies".^[305]

Cautious public statements about Holocaust

Under Pius XII, the church saved more Jews than all other churches and rescue organizations combined - hiding thousands in its monasteries, convents and even the Vatican itself - yet in public, the Pope generally spoke only cautiously on the topic of the killing of Jews. In June 1943, Pope Pius XII, told the Sacred College of Cardinals in a secret address that: “Every word We address to the competent authority on this subject, and all Our public utterances have to be carefully weighed and measured by Us in the interests of the victims themselves, lest, contrary to Our intentions, We make their situation worse and harder to bear”.^[306]

Catholic clergy, religious orders and laity, especially converted Jews, all suffered persecution under the Nazis. Many were deported to concentration camps to face death or privation. Such Nazi brutality made an enormous impression on Pius XII.^[307] In an 30 April 1943 letter to Bishop von Preysing of Berlin, Pius referred to the Nazi retribution in Holland as one reason for muted criticism in his public statements:

"We give to the pastors who are working on the local level the duty of determining if and to what degree the danger of reprisals and of various forms of oppression occasioned by episcopal declarations... ad maiora mala vitanda (to avoid worse)... seem to advise caution. Here lies one of the reasons, why We impose self-restraint on Ourselves in our speeches; the experience, that we made in 1942 with papal addresses, which We authorized to be forwarded to the Believers, justifies our opinion, as far as We see.... The Holy See has done whatever was in its power, with charitable, financial and moral assistance. To say nothing of the substantial sums which we spent in American money for the fares of immigrants."

— Pius XII, letter to Bishop von Presying of Berlin, 1943.^[308]

In a conversation with Archbishop Giovanni Battista Montini (later Pope Paul VI), Pius said, "We would like to utter words of fire against such actions; and the only thing restraining Us from speaking is the fear of making the plight of the victims worse" ^[309]

Another reason proffered for Pius' caution was a perceived need for firm proof that would be sustainable in any diplomatic exchanges or in the court of world opinion; unproven (and demonstrably false accusations) had been made regarding atrocities allegedly committed by German troops during World War I. Furthermore, without being even-handed and condemning Stalin’s atrocities against Soviet and Polish citizens, the Pope would be vulnerable to accusations of bias; which could have seriously undermined the influence the Vatican might have in Germany. The Allies were exceedingly anxious to prevent a Papal condemnation of Stalin, which would have hurt the Allied effort.^{[Note 1]} According to Piotrowski, Pius XII also never publicly condemned the Nazi massacre of 1.8 - 1.9 million mainly Catholic Poles (including 2,935 members of the Catholic Clergy),^[311][312] nor did he ever publicly condemn the Soviet Union for the deaths of 1,000,000 mainly Catholic Polish citizens including an untold number of clergy.^[313]

In December 1942, when Tittman asked Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione if Pius would issue a proclamation similar to the Allied declaration "German Policy of Extermination of the Jewish Race", Maglione replied that the Vatican was "unable to denounce publicly particular atrocities."^[314] However, in his 1942 Christmas address, the Pope proceeded to voice concerns for the “hundreds of thousands who, through no fault of their own, and solely because of their nation or race, have been condemned to death or progressive extinction.”

A month later Ribbentrop wrote to the Germany's Vatican ambassador: “there are signs that the Vatican is likely to renounce its traditional neutral attitude and take up a political position against Germany. You are to inform him (the Pope) that in that event Germany does not lack physical means of retaliation.” The Ambassador reported that Pius indicated that “he did not care what happened to himself, but that a struggle between Church and State could have only one outcome – the defeat of the State. I replied that I was of the contrary opinion... an open battle could bring some very unpleasant surprises for the Church.... Pacelli (Pius XII) is no more sensible to threats than we are. In event of an open breach with us, he now calculates that some German Catholics will leave the Church but he is convinced that the majority will remain true to their Faith. And that the German Catholic clergy will screw up its courage, prepared for the greatest sacrifices.”^{[citation needed]}

Criticism of Pius XII

Assessments of Pius's role during World War Two were initially mostly positive. However, following his death, some authors have subsequently been more critical. The Soviets were keen to discredit Pius in the eyes of the Catholics of the Eastern Bloc they controlled following the Nazi surrender. Some historians have argued the Pope did not "do enough" to prevent the Holocaust. Some commentators have said he was "silent" in the face of the Holocaust. Some commentators have accused the Church and Pius of antisemitism. These accusations are strongly contested. According to ecclesiastical historian William Doino (author of The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII), Pius XII was "emphatically not 'silent', and did in fact condemn the Nazis' horrific crimes–through Vatican Radio, his first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, his major addresses (especially his Christmas allocutions), and the L’Osservatore Romano" and he "intervened, time and time again, for persecuted Jews, particularly during the German occupation of Rome, and was cited and hailed by the Catholic rescuers themselves as their leader and director.^[315]

David Kertzer accuses Church of "encouraging centuries of antisemitism", and Pope Pius XII of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities. Many scholars dispute Kertzer. Jose Sanchez, of St. Louis University criticized Kertzer's work as polemical and exaggerating the papacy's role in anti-Semitism.^[316] Scholar of Jewish-Christian relations Rabbi David G. Dalin criticized Kertzer for using evidence selectively to support his thesis.^[317] Ronald J. Rychlak, lawyer and author of Hitler, the War, and the Pope, also decried Kertzer's work for omitting strong evidence that the Church was not anti-Semitic.^[318][319] Many others including prominent members of the Jewish community have refuted criticisms and written highly of Pius' efforts to protect Jews.^[320]

Among the prominent Jews to praise Pius after the war was Rabbi Isaac Herzog.^[321] Other prominent members of the Jewish community have also defended Pius.^[320] Lichten, Lapide, and other Jewish historians report that the Catholic Church provided funds totalling in the millions of dollars to assist Jews during World War II.^{[citation needed]}

In 1999, British writer John Cornwell published the highly controversial Hitler's Pope, which charged that Pius had assisted the legitimization of the Nazi regime by agreeing the 1933 Reichskonkordat. The book was critical of Pius' conduct during the war, arguing that he did not "do enough", or "speak out enough", against the Holocaust. Cornwell wrote that Pius' entire career as the nuncio to Germany, cardinal secretary of state, and pope was characterized by a desire to increase and centralize the power of the Papacy, and that he subordinated opposition to the Nazis to that goal. He further argued that Pius was anti-Semitic and that this stance prevented him from caring about the European Jews.^[322] The Encyclopedia Britannica assesses Cornwell's depiction of Pius as anti-Semitic and indifferent to the Holocaust as lacking "credible substantiation".^[297] Various commentators have subsequently characterized his book as having been "debunked".,^{[323][324][325][326][327]} Cornwell, himself, has since retracted his accusations in substantial part,^{[324][328][329]} saying that it is "impossible to judge the motives" of the Pope.^[326][327] but that "Nevertheless, due to his ineffectual and diplomatic language in respect of the Nazis and the Jews, I still believe that it was incumbent on him to explain his failure to speak out after the war. This he never did." ^[330] Historian John Toland noted: “The Church, under the Pope’s guidance... saved the lives of more Jews than all other churches, religious institutions and rescue organizations combined... hiding thousands of Jews in its monasteries, convents and the Vatican itself. The record of the Allies was far more shameful”.^[331]

In the summer of 1942, Pius explained to his college of Cardinals the reasons for the great gulf that existed between Jews and Christians at the theological level: "Jerusalem has responded to His call and to His grace with the same rigid blindness and stubborn ingratitude that has led it along the path of guilt to the murder of God." Historian Guido Knopp describes these comments of Pius as being "incomprehensible" at a time when "Jerusalem was being murdered by the million".^[332]

In 1963, The Deputy, a fictional play by German playwright Rolf Hochhuth contained an unhistorical depiction of the Pope as indifferent to the Nazi genocide. In 1999 the highly controversial Hitler's Pope by John Cornwell, depicted the Pope as an anti-Semite. In the assessment of the Encyclopedia Britannica: "Both depictions, however, lack credible substantiation" and "though Pius's wartime public condemnations of racism and genocide were cloaked in generalities, he did not turn a blind eye to the suffering but chose to use diplomacy to aid the persecuted. It is impossible to know if a more forthright condemnation of the Holocaust would have proved more effective in saving lives, though it probably would have better assured his reputation."^[261]

Conversions of Jews to Catholicism

The conversion of Jews to Catholicism during the Holocaust is one of the most controversial aspects of the record of Pope Pius XII during that period. According to Roth and Ritner, "this is a key point because, in debates about Pius XII, his defenders regularly point to denunciations of racism and defense of Jewish converts as evidence of opposition to antisemitism of all sorts.^[333] The Holocaust is one of the most acute examples of the "recurrent and acutely painful issue in the Catholic-Jewish dialogue", namely "Christian efforts to convert Jews".^[334]

The Ratlines: Helping Nazis to flee

At the end of the war, top Catholic officers organized the so-called ratlines that allowed Nazi war criminals to flee towards South America and other destinations via Francoist Spain. Bishop Alois Hudal and Cardinals Luigi Maglione, Eugene Tisserant and Antonio Caggiano, as well as the seminary in San Girolamo degli Illirici of Father Krunoslav Draganović were specially active in this task. Thousands of presumed European Catholic immigrants, actually Nazis in disguise, were able to escape from Europe using these networks.^{[335][citation needed]}

Post war attitudes to Nazi Germany

Since the end of the Second World War, the Catholic Church has moved to honour Catholic resistors and victims of Nazism through canonisation of saints, beatification of the virtuous and recognition of martyrs. The Church has also issued statements of repentance for its failings and the failings of its membership during the Nazi period. Of the post-war popes, the Italians John XXIII and Pope Paul VI had been actively involved in the protection of Jews during the war.

Pope Benedict XVI had had first hand experience of life in Nazi Germany. As a boy he had been forced to join the Hitler youth, drafted into the anti-aircraft corps and trained as a child soldier - later to desert, he was briefly held as a POW at the end of the war.^[336] In 2008, Benedict offered support to the cause for the Canonization of Pope Pius XII. The Cause, like the legacy of the wartime pontiff, has met with controversy.^[337]

Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II had suffered through the Nazi occupation of Poland, was involved in the Polish cultural resistance and joined a clandestine seminary during the war.^[338] In 1979, soon after his election, John Paul II visited Auchwitz concentration camp, in homage to those who had died there.^[339] In 1998, the Vatican published We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah.^[339] The Pope said he hoped it would "help heal the wounds of past misunderstandings and injustices" and described the wartime sufferings of the Jews as a "crime" and "indelible stain" on history.^[340][341] We Remember spoke of a "duty of remembrance" that the "inhumanity with which the Jews were persecuted and massacred during this century is beyond the capacity of words to convey". The document repudiated persecution and condemned genocide. It acknowledged a negative history of "long-standing sentiments of mistrust and hostility that we call anti-Judaism" from many Christians towards Jews, but distinguished these from the racial antisemitism of the Nazis:^[342]

[T]heories began to appear which denied the unity of the human race, affirming an original diversity of races. In the 20th century, National Socialism in Germany used these ideas as a pseudo-scientific basis for a distinction between so called Nordic-Aryan races and supposedly inferior races. Furthermore, an extremist form of nationalism was heightened in Germany by the defeat of 1918 and the demanding conditions imposed by the victors, with the consequence that many saw in National Socialism a solution to their country's problems and cooperated politically with this movement. The Church in Germany replied by condemning racism.

— From We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah (1998)

On the roots of the Nazi Holocaust, We Remember said:^[342]

The Shoah was the work of a thoroughly modern neo-pagan regime. Its anti-Semitism had its roots outside of Christianity and, in pursuing its aims, it did not hesitate to oppose the Church and persecute her members also.

— From We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah (1998)

But on the question of the response of the church and individual Catholics to the Nazi Holcaust, We Remember acknowledged both success and failure, concluding with a call for penitence:

Those who did help to save Jewish lives as much as was in their power, even to the point of placing their own lives in danger, must not be forgotten. During and after the war, Jewish communities and Jewish leaders expressed their thanks for all that had been done for them, including what Pope Pius XII did personally or through his representatives to save hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives. Many Catholic bishops, priests, religious and laity have been honoured for this reason by the State of Israel. Nevertheless... the spiritual resistance and concrete action of other Christians was not that which might have been expected from Christ's followers. We cannot know how many Christians in countries occupied or ruled by the Nazi powers or their allies were horrified at the disappearance of their Jewish neighbours and yet were not strong enough to raise their voices in protest. For Christians, this heavy burden of conscience of their brothers and sisters during the Second World War must be a call to penitence

— From We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah (1998)

In 2000 Pope John Paul II on behalf of all people, apologized to Jews by inserting a prayer at the Western Wall that read "We're deeply saddened by the behavior of those in the course of history who have caused the children of God to suffer, and asking your forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant."^[343] This papal apology, one of many issued by Pope John Paul II for past human and Church failings throughout history, was especially significant because John Paul II emphasized Church guilt for, and the Second Vatican Council's condemnation of, anti-Semitism.^[340]

In 2000 the Church acknowledged its use of some forced labour mainly in hospitals, homes and monastery gardens in the Nazi era and Cardinal Karl Lehmann stated, "It should not be concealed that the Catholic Church was blind for too long to the fate and suffering of men, women and children from the whole of Europe who were carted off to Germany as forced laborers".^[344]