Catholic church of Germany vis-a-vis the Nazism

the Catholic church of Germany vis-a-vis the Nazism treats period which precedes the arrival by the Parti national-Socialist the German workers in 1933 at the end the war, in 1945. Until 1933, the episcopal hierarchy is expressed little on the movement Nazi expanding. Starting from electoral successes of the Nazis, in 1930, the Nazi party appears with the eyes of the catholics like a rival and the bishops are brought to give an opinion against the Nazism, but the come to power of Hitler in 1933, will allow to free the Concordat of July 20th, 1933 that old the Apostolic nuncio in Berlin and future Pie XII had not been able to obtain on behalf of the Weimar Republic, involving a certain reconciliation of the catholics and Nazis. Thereafter, the attitude of the Catholic church will be a mixture of compromise, attempts at integration inside the system Nazi, on the one hand, and of resistances to the encroachments of the capacity which violated the legal settlement, on the other hand. The incompatibility of the doctrines Nazi with that of the Church is in the middle of the encyclical MIT brennender Sorge written by Pie XI in 1937. Vis-a-vis persecutions then with the deportation and the extermination of the Jews, the Church of Germany intervenes in favor of the Jews converted with Christianity or married to catholics, but remains practically quiet concerning the noncatholic Jews. During the Second world war, the German catholics will show good patriots. Finally, it is only about the Eugénisme that the Catholic church of Germany manages to make move back the capacity Nazi. 447 German priests were interned in Dachau and 94 left their lives there.

Catholics in Germany of 1930

In the current of the Years 1870, a conflict, the Kulturkampf, had opposed the catholics to the chancellor Otto von Bismarck who introduced the catholics like a foreign body to the German nation. Starting from 1880, the conflict had calmed down, but the German, minority catholics in a country with Protestant majority, kept of it a kind of complex of inferiority which pushes them to prove unceasingly that they are goods and honest patriotic German.

In Germany of the Post-war period, overcome and humiliated, the catholics, and in particular the youth movements take part in the rise of the Nationalisme and enjoy to dream of a German Empire (Reich) in which the principle Christians would occupy an important place.

The catholics are 20 million, concentrated in Bavaria and the Rhineland, minority with respect to the 40 million Protestants. It is a minority which one can describe as active and vigorous if one takes into account the 20 000 priests, 100 000 monks, who compare themselves with the 16 000 Protestant pastors and its organizations of mass like the " Popular league of the catholics allemands" ( Volksverein für das Katholische Deutschland ) which gathers 500 000 members and 4500 affiliated associations or the youth movements ( Jugend Deutschland ) which count 1 500 000 members in 1933.

For that, it is necessary to add a press, denominational schools, and a party, the Zentrum which collected more than 80% of the catholic votes at the time of the kulturkampf , but which, under the Weimar Republic collects nothing any more but 60% of them.

German catholics vis-a-vis the rise of the Nazism

At the beginning of the Years 1920, the German bishops are mainly preserving and monarchists. In 1922, at the time of the opening of a National congress of Catholics, the cardinal von Faulhaber qualifies the revolution of November 1918 which had reversed the monarchy of " act of high trahison". Throughout the Years 1920, a minority of catholics forms a unit with the left national-Socialist (NSDAP) incipient. They are attracted by the anticommunism, the antiliberalism, the antiparliamentarianism and the antipacifism of the new party. With the priests engaged in the adventure hitlérienne, the hierarchy advises to be careful. The episcopal hierarchy is expressed little on the movement Nazi expanding. Article 24 of the program of the NSDAP requires " freedom for all the religions made up insofar as they do not represent a danger to the State… the Party supports positive Christianity… " . In 1930, in the Myth of the twentieth siècle" , the theorist Nazi Alfred Rosenberg clarifies what it is necessary to understand by positive Christianisme : It is a question of creating a German Church, anchored in the forces resulting from blood, the race and the ground, based on a New Testament expurgé of superstitions, and released from the Old Testament . The writings and the speeches of Adolf Hitler itself are moderate with respect to Catholicism, thus maintaining with the eyes of the catholics a vision of the " good führer" surrounded by bad advisers.

With the elections of 1930, the NSDAP obtains, with 18,5% of the voices, its first important electoral success. The success of the Nazi S is weaker in the areas with catholic majority. It does not prevent, the Nazi party appears now with the eyes of the catholics like a rival and the bishops are brought to give an opinion against the Nazism.

March 5th 1931, a signed declaration of the six bishops of the province of Cologne compares the errors of national-socialisme to those of the French Action (see also Antijudaïsme during the contemporary time). The German bishops were accustomed to meeting regularly in the small town of Fulda. The conference of Fulda of August 1931 adopts the following text which gives an opinion against the Nazism:

the fight against the extremism, i.e. as well against the nationalist extremism as against socialism and Communism, must be carried out with the data of the faith… "

Parallel to the standpoint of the bishops, the representatives of all the large catholic organizations meet under the auspices of the VKD to discuss the means of damming up the brown tide. The results of the deliberations, published in 1931 reflect a kind of higher bid to the Nationalisme: The wish is emitted to create a vast popular movement which would support the campaign conducted to release the country of the chains of the Traité of Versailles, which would place the educational and national values in the center of the educational activities, which would give more attention to the German minorities of Central Europe. It is also noted that the German people must release themselves from his satisfaction " with the Plutocracy and financial capitalism ". Guenter Lewy notes: " It seems that these catholic leaders did not think only one moment that they tried to exorcize the demon with the assistance of Belzébuth

The German catholic world is not uniform, and there existed in its center of criticisms total of the Nazism, but the majority of the catholic polemists direct their blows against the Communisme. The majority of catholic criticisms see in the Nazism a healthy bottom, that of the Nationalisme and antibolchevism, perverted by elements antichrétiens. They consider it regrettable that it took the character of a philosophy of the life, of a Weltanschauung instead of remaining a patriotic movement. The threat against the democracy does not worry really the catholic prelates who often remained hostile with the Weimar Republic. The opposition of the Nazi party to the denominational schools worries the Church more the dictatorial threat.

In-outside more or less philosophical standpoint, the participation of SA in uniform is a reason for conflict between the Catholic church and the Nazis. The Bavarian bishops, brought together with Freising in February 1931 prohibit the priests from taking share with the movement Nazi, prohibit the presence of socialist national formations in uniform in the offices and warn the faithful ones against national-socialisme " as a long time as it will adhere… to a religious and cultural program incompatible with the catholic doctrines ".

The seizure of power by Hitler

Between 1928 and 1931, the Parti the catholic center which is the hinge of the parliamentary majorities of the Weimar Republic rocks on the side of its right wing. Ludwig Kaas, an authoritative ecclesiastic, is elected with the head of the party. With its assistance, Heinrich Brüning becomes chief of the parliamentary group and its nomination as chancellor in 1930 means the dislocation of the great coalition which by joining together with the Parti the social democrat Center the and the left the People which had formed ossture of the Weimar Republic . Brüning which more declares being responsible in front of the Nation than before the Parliament often controls by decree and in accordance with the catholic strategy, follows a nationalist foreign politics not to leave this ground to the only Nazis. With the elections of July 1932, the latter obtain 37,4% of the voices. The Party of the Center and its Bavarian ally obtain 15% from them, that is to say 13 million voice, which is not a bad score, but it is estimated that 2 million catholics nevertheless voted for the Nazis. The conference of the bishops of Fulda confirms nevertheless that it is " inexcusable that many catholics join the party national-Socialist "

May 30th, 1932, the president Hindenburg returns Brüning and replaces it by the ultra-conservative Franz von Papen, catholic, member of the party of the Center and immediately excluded from the party, but of the negotiations continue between Hitler in Brüning in order to form a government of national union. These contacts lead initially to the election of the Nazi Hermann Göring with the presidency of the Reichstag.

These negotiations sow consternation among many catholics, in particular the members of the clergy who see Nazis more and more to openly assist, in uniform, with the catholic offices.

January 30th, 1933, called by Hindenburg and supported by Von Papen, Hitler becomes the last chancellor of the Weimar Republic. In a few months all the elements of the German democratic life are dismounted. The process by which the Nazism sticks to éradiquer all the forms of expression independent of the company calls the Gleichschaltung. The various catholic institutions will be naturally concerned. With the elections of March 1933, the NSDAP, with 44% of the voices does not have the absolute majority yet. To be opposed to Hitler, an alliance between all the other parties, including, inter alia, the Center and the Communists of KPD are, at that time, completely inenvisageable. March 23rd, the deputies of the Center vote the full powerss with Hitler.

Hitler is resolutely atheistic " Or one is German, or one is Christian, one cannot be both " declare it in the presence of Hermann Rauschning or " We need free men who feel and recognize God in themselves " . However, in good policy, it intends to take to face the catholics, nor moreover no established religion considered as a traditional institution of the German people. In that, it is distinguished from Rosenberg which nourishes projects to found a " Christianity allemand". " I always said to Rosenberg that one attacks neither the cassocks, nor with the underskirts " declare it with the financier Schacht.

The legal settlement of July 20th, 1933

The search for a legal settlement with Germany is registered following that signed with the Italy of Mussolini and known under the name of the Accords of Lateran: It is a question for the pope Pie XI of preserving the rights of the Church and the Christian family, in two fields in particular: education and the marriage.

The Apostolic nuncio in Germany, M {{gr.}} Pacelli, had engaged of the negotiations with the Weimar Republic dice the beginning of the year 1920, but the various projects never could be the subject of a consensus among the noncatholic parties of the Reichstag. This is why it is on the level of the Länder that are signed a certain number of legal settlements between 1924 and 1932.

The arrival of the Nazi party to the capacity in January 1933 changes gives it. At the sides of Hitler, Franz von Papen is named vice-chancellor. Black and white XI revival negotiations to March, this time on the level of the very whole Germany. It rests on Mgr Pacelli, become Secretary of State of the Vatican, Mgr Gröber, archbishop of Freiburg, and M {{gr.}} Kaas, president of the Zentrum . The negotiations proceed very quickly. The July 20th, convention is signed. Von Papen sees there a great victory against the Bolchévisme; Black and white XI an “unexpected and unhoped-for” agreement avoiding new a Kulturkampf .

If the Zentrum disappears, the Catholic church is recognized for the first time in the whole of Reich; associations, the uvres of youth, the denominational school are seen granting guarantees; the confiscated goods are restored.

Around the legal settlement is articulated what Guenter Lewy called great reconciliation the catholics and Nazis. After one period which had seen the Church positioning against the NSDAP, for example, by prohibiting adhesion with its faithful, the years 1933-1934 is that of the lifting of the interdicts. In June 1933, right before the official signature of the legal settlement, a new Episcopal conference is taken place in Fulda and leads to a signed pastoral letter of three cardinals Bertram, Faulhaber, Schulte of an archbishop Gröber and two bishops, Ehrenfried and Preysing.

This letter locates the gravity of the context, of old institutions which disappear and a new State which takes form, points out the love that the German catholics always carried to their fatherland, make a rather positive analysis of the new mode:

" Our Holy Catholic church attaches a value and a significance particular to the principle of authority… us other catholics, we do not test any difficulty of paying homage to the new and vigorous way in which one insists on the principle of authority in the German State ".

The letter issues well a small reserve in the form of wish that the State, fascinating example on the Church " would limit human freedom only insofar as the community property " would require it; , but finally, the bishops are delighted by the efforts of the new authorities to release the German people:

" After years of constraint… the German nation must again have, in the family of the nations the freedom and the place of honor which are owed to him, because of its numerical importance, these capacities and its cultural achievements… " .

Thus, the catholic bishops, taken in constitutional body, did not see any evil with the introduction of a mode with sole party, they speak about a moral revival at the time when breaks out brown terror. At that time admittedly the Protestant churches, the majority of the intellectuals, and many people abroad do not show more political sense of smell.

First years of the capacity Nazi (1933-38)

In the years 1933-1938, the establishment of the totalitarian state Nazi necessarily will go against the independence of the Churches and the provisions envisaged by the legal settlement. Vis-a-vis this situation, the attitude of the Catholic church will be a mixture of compromise, attempts at integration inside the system Nazi, on the one hand, and of resistances to the encroachments of the capacity which violated the legal settlement, on the other hand

The reasons for conflicts appear dice the year 1933 when terror to which all the enemies potential ds Nazis and opponents are subjected do not save the priests, many with being stopped. In Munich, to stop the arrest of priests, special delegate S.A. requires at the same time the rehabilitation of a priest suspended to have published an article pro-Nazi and the dismissal of Dr. Emil Mulher, anti-nazi who is with the head of the catholic action. The cardinal Faulhaber yields on the two points. Mulher will be finally stopped on November 29th, 1933 to have spread ds accounts on the atrocities made in the new concentration camps of Dachau.

June 28th, 1933, a wave of arrests breaks on Bavaria, one thousand and nine hundred people are stopped among whom many catholic notabilities. It is only after the Parti the People Bavarian catholic party, proclaims its dissolution, on July 4th that the prisoners are slackened.

The signature of the legal settlement and its ratification on September 10th marks a relaxation in the relations between the Church and the new capacity, but the dismantling of most of the catholic organizations will create a situation of permanent dispute. The Jeunesses hitlériennes (J.H.) created into 1933 have vocation to acueillir all the young Germans. Their chief Baldur von Schirach had prohibited dual membership of the J.H. and the Catholic Jeunesses . Negotiations proceed until the month of June 1934 to manage an agreement on the application of article 31 of the Legal settlement: All the sports associations and working revolving around the Church are incorporated in the Catholic Action which is judicious to limit its actions to the purely religious field, cultural or charitable. the leaders having a political past must be replaced. During all the time of the negotiations, the J.H. had undertaken a vast campaign of recruitment by inviting the young catholics to give up their leaders.

The shortly after this agreement the events of June 30th occur known under the name of Nuit of the Long Knives and which are not only one settling of score against the chief of S.A. Ernst Röhm, chief of SA: Catholic personalities like Erich Klausener, chief of the Catholic Action of Berlin and Adalbert Probst, chief of the cathjolic sporting organization are also victims of the massacre.

April 27th, 1934, the chief of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF: German face of Work, left official trade union) prohibited the double pertaining to the DAF and the working catholic organizations. As it is essential to belong to the DAF to find an employment, this decision implies the death of all the catholic workers' associations.

In July 1935, the Minister of Interior Department Wilhelm Frick lance a new campaign against the catholic organizations. The bishops send a letter to Hitler, threaten to recommend to faithful not to more send their children to the J.H., which proves to be impossible, because the pressures exerted on the parents are well too strong. The dissolution of catholic associations of students will have to wait until 1938.

Throughout the ceaseless negotiations between the German Church and the capacity, the position of the Church can be formulated as follows: " the leaders of catholic associations serve the German people and the part with courage, abnegation and fidelities, they refuse very led subversive, abstain from any political activity, are shown determined to push back the advances which the Communists could try. The catholics do not foment revolts and do not offer resistance forces "

MIT Brennender Sorge

In front of and in the war

Relatively firm on the doctrinal level, and constant in that by the pope, the German catholics take the risk of a confrontation with the capacity, but on another side, they assert a patriotism without fault, and as Germans, show themselves with respect to the same capacity like most honest of the subjects. The bishops approve practically all the actions of Hitler as regards foreign politics: Not only the bishops applaud the remilitarization of the Rhineland, but in a collective pastoral letter on August 19th, 1936, they approve the intervention of Germany in the Guerre of Spain " Can our Führer, with the assistance of God, to conclude this terribly difficult company… ". They accept, and some, joyeusement, to make sound the bells on April 10th, 1938 to celebrate the Anschluss which gathers inside Reich the catholic Austrians in majority. The Austrian bishop Theodor Innitzer went so much far in his support for Anschluss, which he is convened in Rome there to be reprimand and sign a development.

October 1st, 1938, in accordance with the Agreements of Munich, the German troops penetrate in Czechoslovakia and occupy the territory of the Sudètes. This same day, on proposal of the Cardinal Faulhaber, in the name of all the German cardinals, the Cardinal Bertram sends a telegram of congratulations to Hitler: " The high-fact of having safeguarded international peace encourages the German episcopate… respectfully to offer its congratulations and its thanks, and to order a chime of festival for this Sunday. ".

The patriotism of the German catholics does not weaken throughout the war of 1939-1945. Just after the beginning of the hostilities, in September 1939, a pastoral letter invites the German catholics to make owe them of soldier:

" we exhort the catholics to be made owe them soldiers and with all to sacrifice themselves, in obedience in Führer. We call upon faithful so that they request Divine Providence ardently so that it leads the fatherland and the people to a happy success and peace. "

September 30th, the bishops obey the injunction of the Minister for the Ecclesiastical Businesses to make sound the bells during seven days to celebrate the victory over Poland. At the same time Radio Vatican and the Osservatore Romano diffuse in the whole world of information on the atrocities made by the Germans in Poland. A few months later, in June 1940, the bells again ring during a week furnace to celebrate the victory over France.

With the end of the year, the ministry for Propaganda informs the German episcopate that the State counts on a more enthusiastic support on behalf of the ecclesiastics. During the months which follow, certain bishops are not satisfied any more to ask to request " for an advantageous victory in Allemagne" , but " For the victory of Allemagne". After the invasion of the USSR, in June 1941, the episcopate is again made recall to the order by Kerrle, minister of ecclesiastical Businesses, who expected a more energetic support for the " fight against the bolchevisme." Even Mgr Galen which of all the bishops is that which is opposed to the Nazis more, on several occasions expresses his hope in a German victory.

From 1943, many German civils servant consign in their reports/ratios the tepidity of the Church and complain that the Church does not request any more for the victory, but only for one nearest peace. The tepidity of the German Church with respect to the effort of war Nazi does not prevent Mgr Jäger, bishop of Paderborn to require of its faithful to contribute to the fight engaged against the two large enemies of Germany, liberalism and individualism on the one hand, collectivism on the other hand.

The question of the military chaplains had been a stone of obstacle at the time of dignature of the legal settlement of 1933. The Nazis were a priori unfavorable to the presence of the Church in the army, and the Church heard well that the chaplains preserve an independence with respect to the military hierarchy. With the approach of the war, the Nazis show themselves more reconciling. In November 1936, during a maintenance, Hitler had declares with the Cardinal von Faulhaber: " a man esist not if he does not believe in a God. A soldier who undergoes an intense bombardment during four day needs to believe in a God. It is only in February 1983 that the nomination of a general Chaplain is reached which must, according to the legal settlement, to be the subject of a mutual agreement. With their defending body, the bishops had to accept the name of Franz Josef Rarkowski and to give him the rank of bishop. Rarkowski made already function of chief of the military chaplaincy since 1929 and it posted opinions very close to those of the Nazis. The bishops regarded it as a go-getter of an intellectual level lower than their. Throughout all war, the honesty of Rarkowski to Führer will be without fault.

During his incorporation, any soldier must pronounce an oath of allegiance in Hitler: I solemnly swear in front of God unconditionally to obey Führer of Reich and the German people Adolf Hitler,… " According to the catholic doctrines, that the bishops soutenanient, an oath cannot justify what is in addition morally condemnable, and a Christian is untied of his oath if this last enters in conflict with what is due to God. In its pastoral letters, Rarkowski maintains a position very different according to which the catholic soldier is held by his oath. In one of these letters, Rarkowski admits that the fight against the Untermenschen (subman) Bolshevik subjects the heart of the German soldier to severe tests, and requires of the combatants to preserve of any perversion and any degradation. These mental reservations do not have course at the time ds divine offices celebrated in the military camps where the tender in Führer is regarded as a sacred duty.

In all German Reich, only seven catholics refuse to serve their country militarily. Six are carried out and seventh is declared insane. Among the six carried out, there are a priest, Franz Reinisch. The chaplain of the prison refuses the communion under the pretext to him which he violated his duty of Christian while refusing to lend the oath of allegiance to Hitler.

The question of the eugenism

A eugenic policy was preached by the Nazis dice the years 1920:

" If each year, Germany had a million children and eliminated seven from them or eight hundred and thousand among weakest, the end result would be probably an increase in our national force "

The eugenism implemented by the Nazis is a subject of permanent confrontation with the German Catholic church which declares it contrary with the encyclical Casti Conubii published by Pie XI on December 31st, 1930. The promulgation of the first eugenic law ordering the obligatory sterilization of all the people afflicted with certain diseases or infirmities is differed after the signature from the legal settlement, but it comes into effect dice on January 1st, 1934. 32 268 sterilizations are carried out in 1934,73 174 in 1935 and 63 547 in 1936. Negotiations carried out between the episcopate and the ministry for the interior lead to exempt the directors of catholic establishments to request the sterilization of patients entrusted to their care. The cardinal Bertram, representative natural of the German episcopate as a president of the conference of Fulda, gives up a pastoral draft letter under the pressure of the vice-chancellor Franz von Papen. Finally, in January 1934 a letter is read in the churches of Germany, explaining, without however referring to the new law, which it was defended to be made voluntarily sterilize or to cause the sterilization of others. In its pastoral letter of January 1934, Mgr von Galen, bishop of Münster attacks more explicitly and more violently the law Nazi. Vis-a-vis the Minister of Interior Department Frick, made furious against this incentive for the citizens to practice disobedience, the Faulhaber cardinal assumes the contestatrice attitude of the Church.

In practice, this relatively clear attitude raises a certain number of problems: For example, which has to be the attitude of the confessors vis-a-vis civils servant having taken part in the application of the law? The bishops bring to these questions an answer less clear than would have wished it the Vatican. Hard a Casuistique grants the right to announce to the authorities the patients having to be sterilized with the catholic doctors and the employees of the social services which can thus keep their employment. On the other hand, to establish a file asking for the sterilization of somebody is an act of " collaboration formelle" , rejected. In 1940, the the Holy Office tolerates the participation of male nurses in operations of sterilization if they are threatened to lose their employment and if another male nurse would make it if they did not do it.

September 1st, 1939, Hitler crosses the limit which separates the eugenism from the Euthanasie by giving the order to kill all the people reached of terminal illness. From September 1939 in August 1941, approximately 70 000 patients, often of defective mental or the incurable demented people will be gauzes.

The program of euthanasia is classified ultra secrecy, but information filters rather quickly, involving protests of the Bertram cardinal near the authorities in August 1940 and of the cardinal Faulhaber a few months later. Protestant ecclesiastics also raise protests, but the government continues its program of massacre.

Once again, it is of Mgr von Galen that comes the firmest reaction. In a sermon pronounced with the church Saint Lambert of Münster, on August 3rd, 1941, he explains in detail how the innocent patients are killed and how one misleads the families by falsified announcementes of death. Copies of the sermon are distributed in all Germany and on the face, among the soldiers. The official ones receive the agreement of Bormann, private secretary of Hitler so that one hangs Galen, but finally, no proceedings are brought against him not to transform it into martyr. The Minister for Propaganda Goebbels had been opposed there in these terms:

" If anything were tried against the bishop, it would be to fear that the population of Münster should not be lost pout all the duration of the war, and it would be to fear that is lost, undoubtedly, very whole Westphalia. "

Shortly after the sermon of August 3rd, Hitler gives the order to stop the program of euthanasia.

Persecution and extermination of the Jews

At the beginning of the 20th century the Jews account for 1,04% of the German population, which is less than Poland (16%) or of the Central European country like Austria or Hungary (4%), but much more than France (0.22%). After measurements of exclusion which characterize the Moyen-âge Christian Europe (See the articles Antisémitisme and Antijudaïsme), the Jews of Germany know a " émancipation" during the XIXeme century, i.e. they obtain the same rights as the other Germans. This regularization is effective in Prussia, in the Hanover and the Nassau, in 1848, in the Holstein in 1863, Saxony in 1868.

The traditional Antijudaïsme catholic rests on the interpretation which is made responsibility " of Juifs" in the death of the Christ, esprimée by the verse evangelic That its blood falls down on us and on our children! . In the years 1870, urged on by the fact that many known Jews paricipaient with the movement anticatholic of the Kulturkampf, the Parti the Center, catholic had launched a vigorous campaign anti-semite during the summer 1875. From this time, the German catholics preserve a hostility with respect to the Jewish Libéralisme but they do not cultivate the racial anti-semitism, such as it could develop among Austrian catholics like Karl Lueger and which will be one of the bases of the ideology Nazi. Owing to the fact that Karl Marx and the communist revolutionist Karl Liebknecht was Jewish, the visceral hostility of the Church with respect to Communism also flashes back on the Jews.

The racist anti-semitism is an element of the doctrines Nazi which do not cease continuing between 1920 and 1945. According to Raul Hilberg, once the Nazis are with the capacity, as from 1933, it will carry out of 1933 to 1940 a more aiming policy of persecution of the Jews where less to encourage them with the emigration, and a policy of annihilation, 1941 to 1945.

From 1920 to 1933, the laic catholics, clerks or who fight against the rise of the anti-semitism are far from numerous. An association as the Verein für die Abwehr der Antisemitismus which gathers Christian and Jews to fight against the anti-semitism counts only 2 catholic priests in his committee of patronage. If the German bishops denounces in the doctrines Nazi the glorification of the race and blood, they are practically not expressed on propaganda anti-semite and violences which it generates.

From 1933, physical violences to which SA were delivered on the Jews yield little by little the step to more bureaucratic measurements: laws of exclusion prohibit the Jews from exerting an employment in the public office and a certain number of parapublic and cultural professions. In September 1935, the laws of Nuremberg prohibit the marriages between Jews and Aryens. In the years which follow, series of measure aim at exproprier the Jews and to despoil them more and more hard. November 9th, 1938, the Night of crystal mark a resumption of the physical aggressions and the beginning of the deportation: 20 000 Jews are interned in concentration camps like Dachau.

For this period, of 1933 to 1939, certain catholic bishops are obliging with respect to the values of the race. For example, in the Handbuch of Mgr Gröber published in 1937:

" Each people is in him even responsible for the success of its existence, and the contribution of a completely foreign blood will always represent a risk for the nation which proved its historical value. This is why, one can refuse with no people the right to maintain the purity of his racial origin and to take guarantees to this end. The Christian religion requires simply that the means used not fish against the moral law and natural justice. "

During the summer 1934, a social democrat newspaper of Prague publishes the text of a sermon against the racial hate allotted to the Faulhaber cardinal who had it in fact never pronounced. In a development, the secretary of the cardinal explained that in his sermons pronounced at the time of the Advent, " the Cardinal had defended the Old Testament of the Children of Israel, but had not given an opinion with regard to the current Jewish question. " It is that indeed lÉglise takes positions relatively firm concerning fidelity with the Old Testament (i.e., the Bible of the Jews, that Nazis as Rosenberg attacks violently. It is firm also on the " non-aryanité" of Christ, but it does not make to defense of the oppressed Jews a war-horse.

The question of the converted Jews and the " Mischlinge" catholics will be the source of recurring conflicts between the Catholic church and the capacity. Mischlinge is the name given to those which the Nazis regard from a racial point of view as " half-juifs" or " quarter-juifs". According to a census of 1939, there is approximately 72 000 Mischlinge with the first degree (2 Jewish grandparents) and some 39 000 Mischlinge with the second degree (only one Jewish grandparent). These people are often catholics: In the current of the XIXeme century, an appreciable number of Jews had converted with Christianity, and in practically all the cases, it was about Catholicism. There are thus many catholics having a Jew among their ancestor. The bishops seek to protect these nonAryan catholics. In 1937, the Church thus opposes a refusal at the request of the ministry for the ecclesiastical businesses to consult the files diocesans concerning conversions and the mixed marriages. 2 catholic associations deal specifically of the converts and the nonAryan catholics: St Raphaelsverein and Paulus Bund. In 1938, St Raphaelsverein allows the emigration of 1850 of them.

Catholics support the Jews without bond with Catholicism. They are exceptions. After the Night of crystal, the senior of the cathedral of Berlin, Bernhard Lichtenberg decides to request publicly for the Jews with each prayer of the evening. In 1941, he also protests against the euthanasia. He is condemned to two years of prison, and to its exit, Gestapo directs it on Dachau. He dies during the voyage.

September 1st, 1941, the port of the Jewish star which was already in force in Poland becomes obligatory in Germany. This measurement concerns also the Jews converted with Catholicism after 1935. TheAryan ones married to an Aryan spouse are exempted port of star. Is it necessary to envisage in the churches of the special benches for the Jews? In a letter with its fellow-members dated September 17th, the cardinal Bertram advises to avoid the " precipitated measurements which could wound the juifs". The bishops of Berlin intervene, in vain, at Gestapo to exempt the catholic Jews to carry star.

The massive deportations of German Jews towards the east begin on October 15th, 1941. The not-Aryan catholics are not saved, contrary to vague promises which had been made. The bishops still intervene so that priests and nuns not-Aryan can go voluntary to accompany the deportees to celebrate offices and to make catechism with the children. But well quickly, of information on the fate which waits the off-set Jews go up to the bishops at the same time as the soldiers who return from the Russian face tell the atrocities of which they were pilot: Jewish civilians are killed per thousands with the machine-gun. In August 1942, a Protestant officer, Kurt Gerstein tries to alert the Apostolic nuncio, Mgr Orsenigo on the facts of which it was pilot in the first Death camps. As the nuncio refuses to receive it, he tells his history with the legal adviser of Mgr Preysing, bishop of Berlin. The bishops have other advisers resulting from the army or administration.

In 1942, one still finds in Reich more 150 000 Mischlinge or not-Aryan married to the Aryan ones, which are not held to carry yellow star, but in March, it is decided that the interraciaux marriages must be dissolved. In the name of the German bishops, Mgr Bertram protests near the ecclesiastical Ministry for the businesses. In February 1943, Gestapo seizes in Berlin several thousands catholic Jews married to the Aryan ones. The Aryan wives follow their husbands until their place of detention and claim them while howling during hours. Gestapo yields. In the event of promulgation of the decree breaking the interraciaux marriages, the bishops had envisaged to make read a declaration in all the churches to point out the insolubility of the marriage. The decree is finally deferred.

During all the interventions which they make near the authorities to protect the Christian Jews and the Mischlinge , the bishops do not tackle the subject of the Jews non-chétiens. They make some statements well disputing the injustices whose are victims the foreign races, but these declarations are conceived in a very general language. In the same way, there is in Germany only one handle of Jews hidden by the clergy.

Compromises and resistances

For all the period Nazi, the Catholic church of Germany could remain as an independent institution, with bishops who could freely communicate between them and with the lower levels of the clergy, and of faithful which could go about freely in the churches. The interventions and the pastoral letters of the bishops have of this fact filed in a completely correct way and form a corpus from where one can release from broad outlines: Since the beginning of the seizure of power by the Nazis and the legal settlement which followed, the Church is in permanent negotiation with the authorities to defend the legal settlement, i.e. the independence of the Church in the religious field, in exchange of what, it legitimates the government in place and supports it, by patriotism, in its nationalist orientations until in the madness of the Second world war. Concerning the moral aspects, it knew to be opposed vigorously in the business of the eugenism. It remained almost dumb opposite the persecution and the extermination of the Jews, while defending with some success the " non-Aryens" catholics. This Accommodement could be taxed with " capitulation". No element makes it possible to charge this attitude to the only bishops:

" the capitulation was not the fact of bishops, of the prelates of the party of the Center or Monsignori, but the fact of the happy medium of German Catholicism "

No leader, that it is laic or ecclesiastic cannot be at the same time opposed a long time to the values, with the modes to think adopted by the group which it directs and to expect to preserve its management position and its influence.

A figure is significant attitude of the German catholics: In 1939, the catholics accounted for 43,1% of the population of Reich Grand German (including Austria and Protectorate. At that time, according to internal documents with the S, they accounted for 22,7% of the S. Undoubtedly less implied in the Nazism than the average of the Germans, but nevertheless, well integrated.

In spite of the wild repression which was exerted on the opponents, there was a German Résistance to the Nazism, within which one counts many catholics. Guenter Lewy notes that not only the bishops never encouraged Resistance, but they always condemned it. Until the fall of the Nazism, they protest that the government of Führer Hitler is the legitimate authority to which each one owes obedience.

In their system concentrationnaire, the Nazis gathered little by little all the priests with Dachau in a certain number of barraquements known under the name of " barraque of the prêtres". 447 German priests forwarded by Dachau, 94 died there. No doubt all were not the Resistant ones and could have been stopped for simple imprudent remarks. This number shows nevertheless that for a certain number of courageous catholics the compromise had limits.

Barraque of the priests with Dachau: Statistics by nationality Statistics drawn up according to the documents found with the camp the Austrians are counted as Germans.

Catholics 2579, Protestant, 109, Orthodoxe Greeks 22

Among the catholics who took part in the groups of Resistance, one can quote the Jesuits Augustinus Rösch and Alfred Delp, the trade unionists Bernhardt Letterhaus and Jacob Kaiser. Among the refractory priests Josef Metzger, Alfons Maria Washmann and Josef Losch, all three carried out. The father Franz Reinisch conscientious objector, was also carried out to him, and the senior Lichtenberg who requested each evening for the Jews died in the train which took it along to Dachau.

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