Betrayal
Page 33
11. Pastoral letter of January 30, 1939, Amtsblatt fiir die Erzdiozese Freiburg, no. 3, February 8, 1939, 15.
12. Pastoral letter for Lent 1939, Amtsblatt des Bistums Limburg, no. 1, February 6, 1939, 1-8.
13. Article "Marxismus," Grober, Handbuch der religiosen Gegenwartsfragen, 404.
14. Article "Bolschewismus," ibid., 86.
15. Ibid., 87.
16. Article "Kunst," ibid., 372.
17. Karl Adam, "Deutsches Volkstum and Katholisches Christentum," Theologische Quartalschrift, CXIV, 1933, 60-62.
18. "Vor 17 )ahren: Marxismus Ober Deutschland," Klerusblatt, XVI, 1935, 785-88.
19. F. Schiihlein, "Geschichte der Juden," Lexikon fur Theologie and Kirche, 2nd ed., Freiburg, Br., 1933, V, 687.
20. Gustav Lehmacher, S.J., "Rassenwerte," Stimmen der Zeit, CXXVI, 1933, 81.
21. "Verdient die katholische Kirche den Namen 'Judenkirche'?," Klerusblatt, XVIII, 1937, 542.
22. Theodor Bogler, O.S.B., Der Glaube von gestern and heute, Cologne, 1939, 150.
23. Erwin Roderich Kienitz, Christliche Ehe. Eine Darstellung des Eherechts and Ehemoral der katholischen Kirche fiir Seelsorger and Laien, Munich, 1938, 47-54.
24. Denkschrift fiber die Reform des Deutschen Strafrechtes, mimeographed, 39 pp., copy in Diocesan Archives Passau.
25. Circular letter of the "Kirchliche Informationsstelle der Bischofichen Behdrden Deutschlands," no. 341, September 16, 1935, Diocesan Archives Eichstatt.
26. This was the complaint of Alfred Richter, "Parteiprogramm der NSDAP and Reichskonkordat: Zum dritten Jahrestag der Unterzeichnung des Reichskonkordats (20 Juli 1933)," Deutschlands Erneuerung, XX, 1936, 468. The occurrence of such marriages was confirmed to me by the former Vicar General of Hildesheim, Dr. Wilhelm Offenstein, in an interview on February 5, 1962. The German Federal Republic subsequently legalized these illegal marriages.
27. Deutsche Briefe, no. 52, September 27, 1935, 6-7.
28. Regierungsrat Munster, "Die Regelung des Rassenproblems durch die Narnberger Gesetze," Klerusblatt, XVII, 1936, 47.
29. Alois Hudal, Die Grundlagen des Nationalsozialismus, Leipzig, 1937, 75 and 88.
30. The Conference of the Bavarian Bishops in March 1934 decided to request permission from the Ministry of the Interior to charge a small sum so that priests would be able to hire additional research help. Niederschrift der Konferenz der bayerischen Bischofe in Miinchen am 21.Mfrz1934,3.
31. J. Demleitner, "Volksgenealogie," Klerusblatt, XV, 1934, 503.
32. All of the diocesan archives preserved contain voluminous files of correspondence in connection with the certification of Aryan descent.
33. Bertram to Pacelli, September 2, 1933, copy in Diocesan Archives Passau.
34. Protokoll der Verwaltungsratssitzung and der Hauptversarmnlung des St. Raphaelsvereins in Dortmund am Freitag, den 27 August 1937, mimeo, 12 pp. Diocesan Archives Mainz, file "St. Raphaelsverein"; minutes of the Fulda Bishops' Conference of August 1939, Bundesarchiv (Koblenz), R43II/177x. The recent claim of a German Catholic paper, Petrusblatt (Berlin, April 16, 1966), that the St. Raphaelsverein helped 1,950 Jews to emigrate and supported 25,000 Jews has no foundation in fact-unless one still wants to use the concept "Jew" as a term of racial classification.
35. Bundesarchiv (Koblenz), R4311/174.
36. Von einem deutschen, romisch-katholischen Priester, "Die katholische Kirche and die Judenfrage," Line heilige Kirche, XVI, 1934, 177.
37. Report of the Gestapo, Munich, January 1, 1937, Bayerisches Geheintes Staatsarchiv (Munich), MA1946/019.
38. Quoted in Alfons Erb, Bernhard Lichtenberg, Berlin, 1949, 43.
39. Quoted in Leon Poliakov, Harvest of Hate, London, 1956, 30.
40. Quoted in Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, Chicago, 1961, 262.
41. Several such letters can be found in Diocesan Archives Limburg, file "Nichtarier."
42. Bertram to the German bishops, September 17, 1941, Diocesan Archives Limburg, file "Nichtarier."
43. Berning to Bertram, October 27, 1941, copy in Diocesan Archives Limburg, file "Nichtarier."
44. Hilfrich to Wienken, October 27, 1941, Diocesan Archives Limburg, file "Nichtarier."
45. Wienken to Hilfrich, October 30, 1941, Diocesan Archives Limburg, file "Nichtarier."
46. Niederschrift fiber die Konferenz der Bischofe der Kolner- and Paderborner Kirchenprovinz am 24. and 25. November 1941 in Paderborn, mimeo, 5.
47. Stewart W. Herman Jr., Its Your Souls We Want, New York, 1943, 234; Bernhard Losener, "Das Reichsministerium des Inneren and die Judengesetzgebung: Aufzeichnungen," Vierteljalrresheftfiir Zeitgeschichte, IX, 1961, 310.
48. Inge Scholl, Die weisse Rose, Frankfurt a.M., 1961, 126-28.
49. "Augenzeugenbericht zu den Massenvergasungen," Vierteljahresheft fiir Zeitgeschichte, I, 1953, 193. The opening scene of Hochhuth's play Der Stellz'ertreter is based on Gerstein's account, which is considered fully reliable by all students of the subject.
50. Interview with Dr. Gertrud Luckner, March 9, 1962. One such officer, Dr. Alfons Hildenbrand, took special leave from his unit stationed near Minsk in order to report about the massacres he had witnessed to Cardinal Faulhaber. Cf. Thomas Dehler, "Sie zuckten mit der Achsel," Fritz J. Raddatz, ed., Suinnia inuria oder Durfte der Papst schweigen? Reinbeck bei Hamburg, 1963, 231.
51. Interview with Dr. Joseph Muller, March 26, 1962.
52. Hilberg, op. cit., 267.
53. Bertram to Thierack, November 11, 1942. Archives of the Ministry of Justice (Bonn), R 22 Gr. 5/XXII-2; copy in Diocesan Archives Aachen.
54. Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, Berlin Underground 1938-1945, trans. Barrows Mussey, New York, 1947, 92.
55. Bertram to Thierack, March 2, 1943. Archives of the Ministry of Justice (Bonn), R 22 Gr. 5/XXII-2; copy in Diocesan Archives Mainz, 1/1.
56. Preysing to the German bishops, April 16, 1943, Diocesan Archives Limburg, file "Nichtarier."
57. Memo on oral information from Preysing relayed to the Bishop of Limburg, etc., on June 26, 1943, by Father Odilo Braun, O.P., Diocesan Archives Limburg, file "Nichtarier."
58. Bertram to the Minister of the Interior and the RSHA, November 17, 1943, copy in Diocesan Archives Limburg, file "Nichtarier."
59. Archbishop Joseph Frings, Pastoral letter of December 12, 1942, in Wilhelm Corsten, ed., Kellner Aktenstiicke zur Lage der Katholischen Kirche in Deutschland 1933-1945, Cologne, 1949, doc. 218, 269.
60. Joint pastoral letter of August 19, 1943, ibid., doc. 227, 301-3.
61. Bertram to Thierack, January 29, 1944, Bundesarchiv (Koblenz), R 22 Or. 5/XXI, Ia.
62. From an internal report, National Archives, (Washington, D.C.), T-580, roll 42, file 245.
63. Erb, op. cit., 46-65.
64. For the text of the protests, see W. W. Visser't Hooft, ed., Holldndische Kirchendokumente, Zollikon-Zurich, 1944, 58-60.
65. Werner Warmbrunn, The Dutch under German Occupation 1940-1945, Stanford, 1963, 161.
66. Philip Friedman, Their Brothers' Keepers, New York, 1957, 70-71; C. Leclef, ed., Le Cardinal von Roy et l'Occupation Allemande en Belgique: Actes et Documents, Brussels, 1945, ch. 8.
67. Emile Maurice Guerry, L'Eglise Catholique en France sous l'Occupation, Paris, 1947, 33-65; Jules Geraud Saliege, Fiirchtet ouch nicht: Hirtenbriefe and Ansprachen, Offenburg, 1949, 150-51; Friedman, op.cit., 49-51.
68. The case of a Jewish mother and her son, who were hidden in a monastery near Berlin, is described by Kurt R. Grossmann, Die unbesungenen Holden, Berlin, 1957, 153.
69. Grossmann, op. cit., 113; Ernst Schnydrig, "Hilfe fur die verfolgten Juden," Zentralvorstand des Deutschen Caritasverband, An der Aufgabe geu'achsen [sixtieth anniversary Festschrift], Freiburg, Br., 1957, 74-77; interview with Dr. Gertrud Luckner, March 9, 1962.
70. Cf. Gertrud Ehrle, ed., Licht fiber dem Abgrund, Freiburg, Br., 1951, 118-24.
71. Heinrich Grilber, "Zu Rolf Hochhuth's'Stellvertreter,"' Raddatz, op. cit., 202.
72. "Th
esen christlicher Lehrverkundigung im Hinblick auf umlaufende Irrtiimer fiber das Gottesvolk des Alten Bundes" (Schwalbacher Thesen), Freiburger Rundbrief II, 1949-1950, no. 8/9, 9.
73. Cf. Hilda Graf, Leben enter dent Kreuz. Eine Studie uber Edith Stein, Frankfurt a.M., 1954, 130.
74. Note of the Papal Secretariat of State to the German government, September 9, 1933, Documents on German Foreign Policy, C, I, doc. , 794.
75. Civilta Cattolica, no. 2024, quoted in Daniel Carpi, "The Catholic Church and Italian Jewry under the Fascists (to the death of Pius XI)," Yad Vashem Studies, IV, 1960, 51.
76. Ibid., 51-52.
77. Cf. Yves M.- J. Congar, Die Katholische Kirche and die Rassenfrage, trans. W. Armbruster, Recklinghausen, 1961, 69.
78. The statement was first reported in La Croix, no. 17060, September 17, 1938. It is accepted as accurate by Luigi Sturzo, Nationalism and Internationalism, New York, 1946, 47.
79. Domenico Tardini, Pius XII, trans. Franz Johns, Freiburg, Br., 1961, 59.
80. Quoted in Poliakov, op. cit., 300.
81. Abetz to Foreign Ministry, August 28, 1942, Politisclu's Arcluv tit's Aus7i,drtigcn Andes (Bonn), Staatssekretdr, Vatikan, Bd. 4.
82. Tittmann to the Secretary of State, July 30, 1942, U.S. Diplomatic Papers 1942, III, 772.
83. Taylor to Maglione, September 26, 1942, ibid., 776.
84. Tittmann's summary of Holy See statement of October 10, 1942, ibid., 777.
85. Tittmann to the Department of State, December 22, 1942, Department of State Papers, 740.0016 European War 1939/689.
86. Corsten, KbIner Aktensthcke, doc. 220, 280. The message was mimeographed and distributed in Germany by the diocesan chanceries. I have seen a copy in Diocesan Archives Eichstatt.
87. Pius XII to the Cardinals, June 2, 1943, excerpts in Amtsblatt fiir die Erzdiiizese Munchen nod Freising, August 12, 1943.
88. Memo of Wormann, Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen Anrtes (Bonn), Staatssekretiir, Bd. 4.
89. Weizsacker to Wormann etc., December 5, 1941, quoted in Hilberg, op. cit., 441.
90. Hilberg, op. cit., 427.
91. Gumbert (of the German Embassy at the Quirinal) to the Foreign Ministry, October 16, 1943, Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen Anrtes (Bonn), Inland II g, 192. Bishop Hudal had signed this letter at the urging of several anti-Nazi officials in the German legations at the Quirinal and Holy See, who had composed it. I have used the English translation of Hilberg, op. cit., 429.
92. Weizsacker to the Foreign Ministry, October 17, 1943, Politisches Archie des Auszudrtigen Antes (Bonn), Inland II g, 192. The translation is that of Poliakov, op. cit., 297-98, n. 16.
93. Cf. Robert Leiber, S.J., "Pius XII and die Juden in Rom 1943-1944," Stinunen der Zeit, CLXVII, 1960-61,429-30.
94. Weizsacker to the Foreign Ministry, October 28, 1943, Politisches Archie des Auswhrtigen Anntes (Bonn), Inland Il g, 192. The English translation is that of Poliakov, op. cit., 297-98, n. 16.
95. Cf. Hilberg, op. cit., 539; Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution, New York, 1953, 431-32. The successful intervention of the Papal Nuncio in Rumania was attested to by the former Chief Rabbi of Rumania at the Eichmann trial (cf. New York Times, May 24, 1961, 12).
96. Statement of Dr. Senatro on March 11, 1963 at a public discussion in Berlin, Raddatz, op. cit., 223.
97. Poliakov, op. cit., 302.
98. Louis de Jong, "Jews and non-Jews in Nazi-Occupied Holland," Max Beloff, ed., On the Track of Tyranny, London, 1960, 148-49.
99. Tittmann to the Department of State, October 6, 1942, U.S. Diplomatic Papers 1942, III, 777; Tittmann dispatch of September 8, 1942, Department of State papers, 740.00116 European War 1939/573,1/2.
100. Reported by Weizsacker, September 23, 1943, Politisches Archie des Auswartiges Antes (Bonn), Staatssekretar, Vatikan, Bd. 4.
101. Robert Leiber, S.J., "Der Papst and die Verfolgung der Juden," Raddatz, op. cit., 104.
102. Pius XII to the German bishops, August 6, 1940, copy in Diocesan Archives Regensburg.
Chapter 8: Mirhaei B. Lu'. erl
1. This Fr. Mayer is not to be confused with the Munich Jesuit, Fr. Rupert Mayer, who was one of Nazism's most persistent opponents and later became the subject of a significant and widely reported controversy, centering on his arrest on 5 June 1937. Rupert Mayer's case became famous because Cardinal Michael Faulhaber of Munich changed his remarks to the convention of Catholic Men on 4 July 1937 to deal specifically and bluntly with Mayer's arrest as an attack on the Catholic Church and a violation of the 1933 Concordat between the Third Reich and the Vatican. For an English translation of Faulhaber's speech, see The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich (London: Burns & Oates, 1940), appendix 3, 538-43.
2. Article 24 from the official program of the NSDAP reads as follows: "We insist upon freedom for all religious confessions in the state, providing they do not endanger its existence or offend the German race's sense of decency and morality. The Party as such stands for a positive Christianity, without binding itself denominationally to a particular confession. It fights against the Jewish-materialistic spirit at home and abroad and believes that any lasting recovery of our people must be based on the spiritual principle [that] the welfare of the community comes before that of the individual." Cited from The Third Reich and the Christian Churches, ed. Peter Matheson (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1981), 1.
3. The texts of the inquiry and the Mayer response are found in Katholische Kirche and Nat ionalsozialismus: Dokumente 1930-35, ed. Hans Muller (Munich, 1963), documents 1 and 2, pp. 13-15. Guenter Lewy cites this incident as an example of the growing sense of alarm about National Socialism within Germany's Catholic bishops as well as the difficulty of maintaining episcopal unity against the Nazi Party in the face of fears that left-wing social radicalism was threatening the Church. See G. Lewy, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germane/ (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 8-15.
4. The key point of this change in position was the declaration of the German bishops on 28 March 1933, which lifted the prohibitions against the Nazi Party.
5. See Lewy, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany; Klaus Scholder, Die Kirchen and das Dritte Reich, vol. 1, Vorgeschichte and Zeit der Illusionen, 1918-1934 (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Ullstein, 1977, 2nd ed., 1986). Scholder's work was translated into English by John Bowden and published as The Churches and the Third Reich in two volumes: vol. 1, Prelimi nary History and the Time of Illusions, 1918-1934 and vol. 2, The Year of Disillusionment, 1934 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988); Heinz Hiirten, Deutsche Katholiken 1918-1945 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoningh, 1992). Ludwig Volk has done extensive work in this area. See especially Katholische Kirche and Nationalsozialismus: Ausgezvahlte Aufsatze von Ludwig Volk, ed. Dieter Albrecht (Mainz: Matthias-Grunewald Verlag, 1987). See also John Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933-45 (New York: Basic Books, 1968); and Ernst C. Helmreich, The German Churches under Hitler: Background, Struggle, and Epilogue (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1979).
6. After the war the Allies set up tribunals to investigate the background of persons who wished to assume or continue in positions of public service, including all levels of teaching. This was part of a policy to remove Nazi beliefs from places of influence in German society and culture. In the process of trying to pass through "denazification," one gathered letters of testimony to one's good character, as often as not from fellow former Nazis. Germans, most of whom quickly learned to disrespect and elude the process, still sardonically refer to the paper declarations associated with denazification as "Persilschc ine," Persil being the trade name for a common brand of German detergent. In English one might translate this as "Tide certificates," or perhaps as "soap certificates."
7. Joseph Lortz, Geschichte der Kirche in ideengeschichtlicher Betrachtung: Eine Sinndeutung der christlichen Vergangenheit in Grundziigen (Munster: Aschendorff Verlag, 1932). Lortz was revising this text for its second edition in the early part of 1933. In 1965 the 23rd edition of this
text was published! It was first translated into English by Edwin G. Kaiser and published in 1938 under the title: History of the Church (Milwaukee: Bruce Co., 1938).
8. Lortz, History of the Church, v.
9. Ibid., 390 [emphasis in the original text].
10. Ibid., 550. The importance of this statement, made in 1932, becomes even more decisive when we turn to the supplement Lortz added to the second edition of his History of the Church in 1933. This supplement, titled "National Socialism and the Church," appeared again in the third edition and then in a revised and expanded form in the fourth (1936). However, it suddenly disappeared from the fifth edition in 1937, with no replacement or explanation.
11. Lortz, "Nationalsozialismus and Kirche," in Geschichte der Kirche, Nachtrag, [a "Nachtrag" is an appendix to the text], 3.
12. Ibid., 4.
13. Joseph Lortz, "Katholischer Zugang zur Nationalsozialismus," Reich and Kirche 2 (Munster i.W., Aschendorff, 1933), 5ff. Translation by the author.
14. Ibid., 7.
15. Ibid., 10.
16. "National Socialism understands life basically as task and obligation, not as pleasure. It recognizes as fundamental the God-given arrangement of human society and rejects the egalitarianism which destroys genuine living as a disastrous and fundamental mistake. On the other hand, it proclaims straight out the right of craftsmen and farmers to a dignified existence and so remains true to the authentic Christian content of true socialism. It recognizes the unnatural and untraditional nature of modern urban areas and industrial cities as centers of disease, which threaten the life of humanity, physical as well as spiritual, and it draws out of this recognition fundamental conclusions for the formation of the whole nation. So, while National Socialism strives to bring people's lives once again to health, by leading us back to a natural basis, it serves the re-formation of a humanity restored to full and healthy substance. In this way, however, National Socialism (assuming the realization of its program and the liberating effect of its outgrowth) produces the inescapable condition of all religious life, regulated according to a fundamental theological proposition, namely, that grace operates in accordance with the realities of nature. A sound, mature generation which lives with a restrained simplicity and an acknowledgment of positive Christianity presents the truths of basic Christianity, namely, that grace offers entirely other for mative possibilities than liberalism, whose outcome is alienated from nature and rooted in a hostility to religion. The natural person is the Catholic person." Lortz, "Katholischer Zugang zur Nationalsozialismus," 10-11.