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I keep a copy of William L. Shirer's massive The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich on my bookshelf for reference. It is an antidote to the persistent current attempt to falsify the nature of the Nazi phenomenon. Shirer may not have had access to all the documents we do now, but he was writing before ideology tried to make off with the record. He writes as an honest reporter, without a whetstone before him.
Let's look, for example, at the position of the Catholic Church in Shirer's account. No trace here of any “Hitler's pope” nonsense. In a section titled “The Persecution of the Christian Churches,” Shirer notes that although the Nazi platform offered religious toleration, “Hitler...had inveighed against political Catholicism in Mein Kampf” (p. 234). According to Mein Kampf, he offered toleration only because he thought it was tactically impossible to defeat the Catholic Church head-on. Five days after the signing of the famous Koncordat with the Church—simply standard practice with any relatively hostile national government from the Church's point of view—Hitler promulgated a sterilization law, anathema to the Church then as now. Five days after that, he dissolved the Catholic Youth League. “During the next years, thousands of Catholic priests, nuns, and lay leaders were arrested.” (p. 235). The leader of Catholic Action was assassinated by the party. Catholic publications were suppressed.
This is strikingly more hostile than the party's attitude towards, say, gays. The Koncordat, in turn, suggested nothing like the level of friendship and cooperation Hitler officially extended to the Communists in the Hitler-Stalin Pact; not to mention that Stalin came close to formally joining the Axis. By contrast, the significance of the Koncordat was nothing more, on the Church's side, than recognizing that the Nazis were the de facto government of Germany.
The long-term Nazi plans were even clearer. There was no space allocated to churches in Hitler's redesigned postwar Berlin. “...Under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler, who were backed by Hitler, the Nazi regime intended eventually to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists. As Bormann, one of the men closest to Hitler, said publicly in 1941, 'National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable.'” (p. 240). QED. When Hitler took Poland, according to Admiral Canaris's diary from the time, orders went out that “the nobility and the clergy were to be exterminated.”At one point, Hitler planned to kidnap the Pope.
After the war, the Nazis planned to set up a “National Church,” based on thirty articles, including:
This “National Church” was obviously not a Christian Church; it was the religion of German nationalism.
The Protestant record was less honourable than the Catholic; odd too that they get off scot-free. “The Protestant clergy—Niemoeller was typical—quite openly supported the Nationalist and even the Nazi enemies of the Republic. Like Niemoeller, most of the pastors welcomed the advent of Adolf Hitler to the chancellorship in 1933” (p. 237). They shared the common disease of the intellectuals, embracing Hitler early. While there was a Protestant resistance, it was a minority. Even Boenhoeffer, famous for his anti-Nazi stance and his execution by Hitler, opposed the Nazis in the name, not of democracy, but of a return to the older Prussian nobility. In Norway, the head of the Lutheran Church, Bishop Berggrav, agreed to serve in Hitler's Quisling government of occupation (p. 709).
Shirer reports that the Pope took an active role in a plot, early on in the war, to overthrow Hitler (p. 693), by “intervening with Britain for reasonable peace terms” with any new non-Nazi government. The famous “Valkyrie” plot to assassinate Hitler, again, was largely a Catholic enterprise. Von Stauffenberg was a devout Catholic, from a prominent Catholic family. He wrestled with the theological justification for tyrannicide before framing his plans.
To say that the Catholic Church is in any way responsible for, or collaborated with, Hitler, is rather like saying the Jews were, or did.
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| Pius XII |
Let's look, for example, at the position of the Catholic Church in Shirer's account. No trace here of any “Hitler's pope” nonsense. In a section titled “The Persecution of the Christian Churches,” Shirer notes that although the Nazi platform offered religious toleration, “Hitler...had inveighed against political Catholicism in Mein Kampf” (p. 234). According to Mein Kampf, he offered toleration only because he thought it was tactically impossible to defeat the Catholic Church head-on. Five days after the signing of the famous Koncordat with the Church—simply standard practice with any relatively hostile national government from the Church's point of view—Hitler promulgated a sterilization law, anathema to the Church then as now. Five days after that, he dissolved the Catholic Youth League. “During the next years, thousands of Catholic priests, nuns, and lay leaders were arrested.” (p. 235). The leader of Catholic Action was assassinated by the party. Catholic publications were suppressed.
This is strikingly more hostile than the party's attitude towards, say, gays. The Koncordat, in turn, suggested nothing like the level of friendship and cooperation Hitler officially extended to the Communists in the Hitler-Stalin Pact; not to mention that Stalin came close to formally joining the Axis. By contrast, the significance of the Koncordat was nothing more, on the Church's side, than recognizing that the Nazis were the de facto government of Germany.
The long-term Nazi plans were even clearer. There was no space allocated to churches in Hitler's redesigned postwar Berlin. “...Under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler, who were backed by Hitler, the Nazi regime intended eventually to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists. As Bormann, one of the men closest to Hitler, said publicly in 1941, 'National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable.'” (p. 240). QED. When Hitler took Poland, according to Admiral Canaris's diary from the time, orders went out that “the nobility and the clergy were to be exterminated.”At one point, Hitler planned to kidnap the Pope.
After the war, the Nazis planned to set up a “National Church,” based on thirty articles, including:
5. The National Church is determined to exterminate irrevocably ... the strange and foreign Christian faiths imported into Germany in the ill-omened year 800.
13. The National Church demands immediate cessation of the publishing and dissemination of the Bible in Germany.
19. On the altars three must be nothing but Mein Kampf (p. 240).
This “National Church” was obviously not a Christian Church; it was the religion of German nationalism.
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| Martin Niemoeller. |
The Protestant record was less honourable than the Catholic; odd too that they get off scot-free. “The Protestant clergy—Niemoeller was typical—quite openly supported the Nationalist and even the Nazi enemies of the Republic. Like Niemoeller, most of the pastors welcomed the advent of Adolf Hitler to the chancellorship in 1933” (p. 237). They shared the common disease of the intellectuals, embracing Hitler early. While there was a Protestant resistance, it was a minority. Even Boenhoeffer, famous for his anti-Nazi stance and his execution by Hitler, opposed the Nazis in the name, not of democracy, but of a return to the older Prussian nobility. In Norway, the head of the Lutheran Church, Bishop Berggrav, agreed to serve in Hitler's Quisling government of occupation (p. 709).
 |
| Von Stauffenberg |
Shirer reports that the Pope took an active role in a plot, early on in the war, to overthrow Hitler (p. 693), by “intervening with Britain for reasonable peace terms” with any new non-Nazi government. The famous “Valkyrie” plot to assassinate Hitler, again, was largely a Catholic enterprise. Von Stauffenberg was a devout Catholic, from a prominent Catholic family. He wrestled with the theological justification for tyrannicide before framing his plans.
To say that the Catholic Church is in any way responsible for, or collaborated with, Hitler, is rather like saying the Jews were, or did.
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