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The Scandal of Roman Catholicism Section 2 How "the one true Church" helped the Christian villains rather than the Jewish victims during the holocaust (this page was viewed 7,894 times in 2008) |
| Section : Intro, 1, [ 2 ], 3, 4. |
| Having covered in Section One the way in which the church prepared the soil and sowed the seeds for the Jewish holocaust for centuries leading up to it, this second of four sections deals with the help which Catholic churchmen gave to the Nazi mass-murders during the holocaust: |
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The founder of the Lutheran Church, Martin Luther, was a virulent anti-semite much quoted by Hitler. In fact, the Nazis scheduled their "Crystal Night" purge in honor of Martin Luther's birthday! But Catholics shouldn't be too quick to point a finger at Luther's anti-semitism, because he didn't invent it; he developed it in the arms of his mother, the Roman Catholic Church in which he was raised, educated and ordained as an Augustinian monk. Although he "protested" against many of the Catholic Church's beliefs and practices, one belief he embraced rather than rejected was the Catholic Church's contempt for the Jews. For more on Luther, see my Luther and the Holocaust.
"Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust" is a collection of essays by various scholars with expertise in this matter, largely about the failures of the Protestant churches in Germany to respond appropriately to the Nazi Holocaust. It was edited by Robert Ericksen and Susannah Heschel. There are several excerpts further down on this page.
"Whereas the Catholic Church was often treated as an enemy in the Nazi state, the Protestant churches were treated, in the main, significantly better. In Dachau, the primary destination for priests and pastors persecuted by the Nazis, 447 German clergymen were interned: 411 were Catholic, 36 Protestant.
When the numbers of these clergymen are further broken down, the disparity becomes even greater:
For much more on the deplorable conduct of the majority of Protestant church leaders during the Nazi era, see hist.academic.claremontmckenna.edu/jpetropoulos /church/keithpage/protesta.htm |
Although the behavior of Germany's Lutheran Church may have been worse in some ways than that of the Roman Catholic Church, I am going to leave to others the task of exposing the wrongdoing of the Protestant Lutheran churches, in order to concentrate on the sad role of the Roman Catholic Church, for the following reasons:
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 Catholic Leadership Support for Third Reich Many Roman Catholics who haven't read anything objective about the period imagine that, if they had been in Germany at the time of the Holocaust, they would have naturally been inspired by their church leaders to oppose Hitler and his murdering NAZI administration. But they do so without any evidence to support that view. Since Roman Catholics comprised a larger portion of Germany's population in the 1930's, than they do in the United States today, i.e. about 33% of Germans, vs. 25% of Americans, that would have had quite an impact on Germany's policies. Roman Catholics also comprised at least a third of NAZI Germany's army, police, public servants, railway workers and prison guards, etc., etc., More importantly, however, the cohesion they possessed through their union with Rome and with each other gave them tremendous political strength, which was manifested at the time through their very own political party, which didn't have the power to rule the country itself, but often did have the power to determine which other party did.
One might wish and/or imagine that statements such as the above were the exception leading up to and during World War II in Germany. But History shows that they were not; they were the rule. For decades the Catholic bishops of Germany had been meeting at centrally located Fulda for several days each year to make national policy decisions and often to make policy statements. In the early 1930's, the German hierarchy forbade Catholics from joining the Nazi Party. But all of that changed when Papal Nuncio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, and Hitler agreed on the fateful Reich Concordat of 1933. If, at any time between 1933, when he became Chancellor and his death in 1945, Hitler had considered the annual gathering of Germany's bishops at Fulda a threat he would surely have had them stopped. Yet, even when the Nazis were at their worst in Germany, in 1943, the bishops continued to meet. And the most they managed to do that fateful year was to consider speaking out about the Holocaust and confronting Hitler with a direct accusation. Under pressure from Pius XII, it appears, they decided against such bold action.
Pope Pius XII's ambassador, Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, celebrating Hitler's birthdayOn April 20, 1939, (Archbishop) Orsenigo celebrated Hitler's birthday. The celebrations, initiated by Pope Pius XII, when he preceded Orsenigo as Papal Nuncio to Germany) became a tradition. Each year, in the name of the Catholic bishops and the dioceses in Germany, April 20, Cardinal Bertram of Breslau sent "warmest congratulations to the Führer, with "fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars." . (Source: Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, by John Cornwell) This same head of the German Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Bertram, opposed all public protest against the deportation and massacre of the Jews (Northern Illinois University Press in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2008,
and a whole site devoted to pictures of R. C. "High Priests" When the German-speaking American sociologist, Gordon C. Zahn, went to Germany in the 1950's, in the hope of finding evidence of resistance on the part of his Roman Catholic Church to the NAZI regime, he was astounded to learn that it took little more than one hand to count the number of Roman Catholics who had refused to be good patriots and to serve in Hitler's armed services! And far from being inspired by their Catholic church to "resist evil", several of these heroic conscientious objectors, which included at least one priest, were actually refused the sacraments on the grounds that their refusal to cooperate with the NAZI government was proof that they were bad Catholics! "Despite repeated inquiries among the chancery officials and Catholics who had been active in the pre-Hitler peace movement, the writer (Zahn) was able to learn of no more than seven Catholics who openly refused military service. Six of these men were executed for their refusal. The seventh, charged with a capital offense, was fortunate enough to escape death only by being placed in indefinite custody in what one informant described as a military mental institution."
"The (ordinary) German Catholic supported Hitler's wars not only because such support was required by the NAZI ruler but also because his religious leaders formally called upon him to do so; not only because the actions and opinion of his fellow citizens made him feel obligated to share the nation's burdens and sorrows but also because, by example and open encouragement, the Catholic press and Catholic organizations gave their total commitment to the nation's cause; not only because of deep-felt fears of the terrible price (that) nonconformity would bring or the warm surge of satisfaction accompanying nationalistic or patriotic identification with the war effort, but also because his most cherished religious values had been called into play to encourage him to take his post 'on the field of honor' 'in the defense of Volk and Vaterland.' (the people and the fatherland) "
( p. 56) , and "What about the hundreds of German priests serving the German army and occupation forces in eastern Europe, who were in the thick of killing operations, holding services for and hearing the confessions of the killers? Did they see Jews as innocent and the mass slaughtering of Jews as wrong? Did the priests tell the many Catholics among the hundreds of thousands of Germans participating in the mass annihilation that they were sinning? The evidence strongly suggests that they did not. If they had viewed the killing of the Jews as a crime and a sin, then we would in all likelihood know about such a view and of their initiatives among the perpetrators, because it has been the practice of the Church to put forward any evidence that would cast a favorable light upon itself. The testimony that does exist is not heartening. Of an estimated one thousand Catholic and Protestant clergy serving as military chaplains, fewer than ten cases (most are Catholic priests) have come to light - some of which are dubious - where it can be said that the chaplains conveyed disapproval of or urged resistance to the mass murder. . .
Guenter Lewy devoted an entire chapter to his explanation of why the German hierarchy supported Hitler's administration, despite all their reservations about it. The following is his excellent summary of that outstanding chapter:
" That which we bishops had to tell you today with grievously moved soul may not however serve anyone as an excuse to neglect his national duties. On the contrary! With the full authority of our holy office we urge you again today: In this time of war fulfil your patriotic duties most conscientiously! Don't let anyone surpass you in willingness to make sacrifices and readiness to do your share! Be faithful to our people ! " The Church, declared Bishop Landersdorfer in December 1941, supported the struggle against Bolshevism and hoped that it would be possible "once and for all to render this pest harmless." Even though, as the Bishop observed, it was difficult to avoid the impression that the help of the Church in this war was not at all welcomed by the government, the Catholics, despite all harassment of the Church, had to continue serving their people. The Nazis were biding their time, impatiently waiting for the day on which they could afford to settle final accounts with the Church. Reacting to a memorandum of Cardinal Bertram, Goebbels wrote in his diary on May 16, 1943: "I could just burst with rage when I think that we cannot possibly call the guilty ones to account now. We shall have to save our vengeance until later." The Church, for her part, honored the truce, and in the event of a German victory would undoubtedly have invoked with pride her services to the war effort. When Germany lost the war, the Church could point to her many protests against specific acts of wrongdoing and to the fact that she had been persecuted by the Nazi state. Unhappily this persecution had nothing to do with the Church's attitude to Hitler's wars, which the Church supported wholeheartedly. In fact, much of the regime's hostility was due to the desire to get rid of an unwanted ally whom the Nazis intended to destroy as a force in Germany as soon as the war was over. |
" In February 1940 Archbishop Grober directed a lengthy letter to the Reich Defense Council in which he protested against these aspersions and reaffirmed the dedication of the Catholics to the national cause. The Church, he wrote, at the beginning of the war had taken steps to effect a truce, but certain elements on the other side were unwilling to honor it. Two months later, on the occasion of Hitler's birthday, April 20, 1940, in the name of the episcopate Cardinal Bertram congratulated the Reich Chancellor and Führer. The "most cordial felicitations" of the bishops, Bertram wrote, go to the Führer, together with the "fervent prayers which on April 20 the Catholics of Germany send to heaven from the altars for people, army, fatherland, for state and Führer." The German Catholics, Bertram insisted, contrary to the thinking of certain circles, were fully loyal and merely wanted to maintain Germany in the Christian faith. Only thus could the necessary strength be mustered successfully to conclude (win) the war. Bertram ended his letter with the request that Hitler not take offense at this pleading for the rights of the Church, but regard it as "inseparable from the sincere wishes which the supreme pastors of millions of your subjects cherish for people and fatherland, for state and Führer."
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Zuccotti came to the following conclusions (among many others): "There were in Rome in 1943 and 1944 hundreds of parish churches, 1,120 religious institutions for women, and 152 for men. Given that surprisingly large number, the statistics of 100 female convents and 55 male institutions (including eleven parish churches) that sheltered Jews becomes less impressive. Most Catholic institutions, after all, took pride in their reputation as dispensers of hospitality and succor. It should have been the norm rather than the exception for them to shelter Jews and others in distress. Perhaps more did, but perhaps not. What is certain is that we will never really know" (Zuccotti, p. 201) In his chapter on the beginning of the tribulations for the Jews of Rome, John Cornwell explains that the trucks carting the Jews off to their deaths were driven right past St. Peter's square, so that the Roman Catholic soldiers on them could see the famous center of Catholicism. He also shows that contrary to the figment that Pope Pius XII had to fear NAZI retribution against him and his church, the German occupiers themselves didn't want to move against the Jews of Rome, because these German occupiers feared the reaction of the Italian Catholic population, which was very sympathetic to the Jews. Pope Pius refused to intervene on behalf of the Jews of Rome even though the leadership of the German occupation itself was urging him to protest publicly and to register his objections with Berlin. Instead, five days later this entry appears in the meticulously kept log at Auschwitz:
"Transport, Jews from Rome. |
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The deniers of the Catholic Church's complicity in the holocaust are so numerous that there is barely a Roman Catholic in a million, no matter how educated, who is even aware of the atrocities perpetrated in the Roman Catholic country of Croatia in the name and under the leadership of their own Catholic hierarchy, and the full knowledge and approval of the Vatican during World War II. Although a puppet of Hitler, Ante Pavelic, the dictator of Catholic Croatia, once chided Hitler on a visit to Berlin about his `lenient' treatment of German Jews, boasting that in comparison he had completely solved the Jewish question in Croatia, while some Jews remained alive in Hitler's Third Reich. This is such an important and unknown area of the Catholic Church's complicity in the Holocaust that we devote an entire web chapter to it at CatholicArrogance.Org/CroatianHolocaust.html. |
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on the "Index of Forbidden Books" Because Adolf Hitler and so many of the other Nazi leaders were Roman Catholics, and it was important to them to be viewed as such by the citizenry of their Christian nations, the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church had several powerful tools it could have used to influence them, namely, the threat of excommunication, denial of access to the public sacraments, and the placement of the Nazi bible, Hitler's "Mein Kampf" on the "Index of Forbidden Books". That famous list of banned books is now defunct, but it was very much in use in those times. In the recent 19th century 1,359 "dangerous works" had been thus censured. The following are excerpts from the Amazon.com editorials about Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" (which means "My Struggle"). "As Hitler's power increased, pressure was put on all party members to buy the book. Gradually this pressure was extended to all elements of the German population. Soon Mein Kampf was even being passed out to newlywed couples as a gift. Ironically, and frighteningly, by the time Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933, what has been considered by many to be the most satanic book ever written was running neck and neck with the Bible at the top of the German bestseller lists."
As for the threat of excommunication or denial of access to the public sacraments, during the "Kulturkampf", just 50 years earlier, the church had declared that priests who cooperated with Chancellor Bismark against the Catholic Church were automatically excommunicated. Shortly after WW II, Pope Pius XII declared that any Catholic in Italy who joined the Communist party, even if they did nothing further, were ipso facto excommunicated. Pius XII also used that sledge hammer a little later to crush the liberal "Worker Priest" movement in France. At the same time, the Vatican was working "underground" to get some of the worst Nazi war criminals out of Europe, providing only that they be "Catholics". The Nazi dictator of Slovakia was not only a Catholic, but a priest, named Doctor Monsignor Tiso. Tiso was not harassed by Pius XII either during the Holocaust or afterwards. When Cardinal Stepinac was convicted on war crimes against innocent non-Catholics, largely on the testimony of his Catholic countrymen, instead of taking action against the disgraced churchman -- whom he had supported along with his good friend, the mass-murdering Ante Pavelic, Pope Pius XII excommunicated the truth-telling witnesses ! Defenders of Pius XII claim that he was wise not to play "the excommunication card" because it probably wouldn't have worked, as the Catholic population might have rallied to Hitler, or it might have made matters worse for either the Catholic Church or even the Jewish victims. The trouble with these excuses is that the excommunication option wasn't set aside in favor of some better option. As James Carroll pointed out in Constantine's Sword, "Even an indirect endorsement meant everything to Hitler as he sought to establish his legitimacy at home and abroad. In these early months of 1933, Catholic leaders went from being Hitler's staunch opponents to his latest allies. This transformation was dramatically symbolized by the fact that in 1932, the Fulda Episcopal Conference, representing the Catholic hierarchy of Germany, banned membership in the Nazi Party" and forbade priests from offering communion to anyone wearing the swastika; then, on March 28, 1933, two weeks after Pacelli offered his overture to Hitler, the same Fulda conferees voted to lift the ban on Catholic membership in the Nazi Party. The bishops expressed, as they put it, 'a certain confidence in the new government, subject to reservations concerning some religious and moral lapses.' Swastika bearers would now be welcomed at the communion rail. [p. 498] This policy was a complete repudiation of an important provision of the Roman Catholic Church's "Code of Canon Law", i.e. Canon # 915, which the Conservative Church of the last century couldn't manage to invoke against Nazi Catholics political leaders in Germany, but which Conservative Republican Catholics in the U.S.A. have been urging the Church to invoke against today's Liberal Democratic Catholic politicians in America.Here are the findings of the book, "Betrayal:German Churches and the Holocaust", by Ericksen and Heschel:
" Secular historians tend to ignore churches, as well as Christian teachings, in their attempts to explain the relation between the German people and the Nazi regime. This book assumes, by contrast, that the Christian component in Nazi Germany is worthy of careful consideration. A few figures help clarify the picture. The German census of May 1939 indicates that 54 percent of Germans considered themselves Protestant and 40 percent considered themselves Catholic, with only 3.5 percent claiming to be neo-pagan "believers in God," and 1.5 percent unbelievers.' This census came more than six years into the Hitler era. Both Catholic and Protestant churches remained official state churches throughout the Nazi regime, which meant that the state collected a church tax and funded church expenses. Religious education remained a part of the state education system, chaplains served the military, and theological faculties remained funded and active within the state universities. Article 24 in the Nazi Party Program always professed "positive Christianity" as the foundation of the German state.
Clearly, the Nazi regime had no real sympathy for Christianity and little use for theologians, but we may still ask how the churches themselves experienced the regime. Certainly, Hitler's effort to separate church from state was perceived correctly by many church leaders as an effort to reduce their power and influence, yet the separation of church from state is hardly an act of persecution. In 1936, when the Nazi Party demanded that the swastika be removed from church newspapers and from church altars, there were loud protests from church leaders. Pastors who had placed the swastika on the altar, next to the cross, claimed the swastika was a key element in the religious life of their congregants. Church officials who placed the swastika on the masthead of their church newspapers meant thereby to proclaim their support for the regime. At the time, the Nazi policy prohibiting church use of the swastika was most likely experienced as an act of persecution, denying
churches full participation in the life of the Third Reich. Yet this is hardly the persecution that church leaders complained of in the postwar years. For historians seeking to evaluate the churches' intentions, the important point is that the church itself did not forbid the swastika.
Did the churches only pretend to be enthusiastic supporters of National socialism in order to protect themselves? If the churches had truly been persecuted victims, we might expect to have heard a cry of relief when the war ended and Hitler came to his had end. By the summer of 1945, we would expect to have seen church proclamations vehemently denouncing Nazism and condemning the murder of the Jews. But we do not. This silence is one strong indicator of the attitudes held during previous years.
As subsequent chapters indicate, there were many enthusiastic supporters of National Socialism in both the Catholic and Protestant churches. Conversely, there were few church figures who exhibited a stance, by word or deed, in opposition to the regime.. . (Many of Germany's) Catholics believed in discipline, punctuality, cleanliness, and respect for authority; and the Nazi Party advocated all of these traditional virtues. The Catholic and Protestant churches both fervently opposed godless communism, and Hitler professed himself the most powerful anti-Communist in Germany. Christians tended to be stridently antimodern, rejecting the modern tendencies toward urban, secular culture that had begun to permeate Germany in the 1920s. They did not like the fast lifestyle of the roaring twenties or the open, democratic practices of Weimar Germany, which advocated freedom of speech and belief and practiced tolerance toward the culturally diverse.
Hitler attracted Christians by criticizing the liberalism of democratic government and by advocating a tougher, law-and-order approach to German society. He opposed pornography, prostitution, abortion, homosexuality, and the "obscenity" of modern art, and he awarded bronze, silver, and gold medals to women who produced four, six, and eight children, thus encouraging them to remain in their traditional role in the home. This appeal to traditional values, coupled with the militaristic nationalism that Hitler offered in response to the national humiliation of the Versailles Treaty, made National Socialism an attractive option to many; even most Christians in Germany. (pp.10-11) If the Catholic Church had problems with Hitler, It could have told its clergy to tell the faithful, in the confessional if not the pulpit, that any participation in the holocaust was immoral. The Church could have stopped issuing glowing recommendations of the administration and prayers for the success of Hitler's war effort. Instead, the bishops of Germany and the Vatican sent all kinds of signals to the faithful that Hitler was a fellow Roman Catholic leader who was to be respected and obeyed. They celebrated Hitler's birthday with the ringing of bells throughout the country, prayed regularly for God's blessing on Hitler's war.
The Churches helped the Nazis with their church records:
"From April, 1933 (the very beginning of the Nazi regime), only those who could prove their Aryan lineage back at least two generations could work in Nazi controlled jobs. In most instances this required documentation based on church records. "The Church co-operated as a matter of course, complaining only that priests already overburdened with work were not receiving compensation for this special service to the state. The very question of whether the Church should lend its help to the Nazi state in sorting out people of Jewish descent was never debated. . . And the co-operation of the Church in this matter continued right through the war years, ( i.e. from 1933 through 1945) when the price of being Jewish was no longer dismissal from a government job and loss of livelihood, but deportation and outright physical destruction." [Lewy, p. 282 ] |
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who suffered at Hitler's hands. So much emphasis has been placed on the persecution of the Jews (who suffered the most deaths at Hitler's hands), that many other targets of NAZI hatred tend to be overlooked!
"Eleven million precious (European) lives were lost during the Holocaust of World War II. Six million of these were Polish citizens. Half of these Polish citizens were non-Jews. On August 22, 1939, a few days before the official start of World War II, Hitler authorized his commanders, with these infamous words, to kill "without pity or mercy, all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space [lebensraum] we need". [ http://www.holocaustforgotten.com, ]
Heinrich Himmler echoed Hitler's decree: "At the break of dawn on September 1, 1939, the German armies crossed the Polish frontier. Within a week's time the uneven contest brought German tanks into the outskirts of Warsaw. On September 3 France and England, realizing the futility of further appeasing Hitler, declared war upon Germany. . . By September 17 practically all Polish forces had been defeated or surrounded and the siege of Warsaw had begun. On September 30 the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs, Kerrl, sent word that after the entry of the German troops into Warsaw, expected momentarily, the bells of all the churches should ring during the noon hour for seven days "out of grateful commemoration of the victory and of the dead."15 Cardinal Bertram suggested compliance,'0 and the church bells in all dioceses rang out to celebrate Hitler's first victory. Meanwhile the S.S. was beginning to execute the Führer's order to solve the Polish problem by murdering the country's intelligentsia. The clergy was one of the first victims. During the months of October and November 214 Polish priests were executed, among them the entire cathedral chapter of the bishopric of Pelplin. By the end of the year 1939 approximately 1,000 members of the Polish secular and regular clergy had been imprisoned, many in newly constructed concentration camps. On September 21 Cardinal Hlond, the Primate of Poland, had arrived in Rome and had personally reported the German atrocities to the Pope. The Vatican radio and L'Osservatore Romano told the story to the world. But in spite of these reports the German bishops continued to support the war effort.(Lewy, p. 226-27 ) (as the New York Times Sept. 25 article shows)
the great Italian Catholic poet : "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those, who in time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." "I swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." - Elie Weisel Although documentation regarding the victims of NAZI aggression in the Soviet Union is harder to come by, the number may have been as high as 16 million. Check out the great book Defying Hitler, based on a journal kept by a young law student who had rare insight as to what was going on as Hitler was rising to power in pre-World-War-II Germany. A book by another Roman Catholic, John Cornwell, a Historian from England shows exactly how and why that happened, all under the leadership of the Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli, who was the Papal Nuncio (i.e. representative) to Germany from 1917 through 1929, then Cardinal and Secretary of State in the Vatican, until he took control of the entire Roman Catholic Church from 1939 through 1958. Here are some significant excerpts: "In a talk to 500 priests of his Chicago diocese in May of 1937, Cardinal George Mundelein made these well-informed observations on the tragic transformation of German public opinion, 'Perhaps you will ask how it is that a nation of 60 million intelligent people will submit in fear and servitude to an alien, an Austrian paper hanger, and a poor one at that, and a few associates like Goebbels and Göring, who dictate every move of the people's lives?' The Cardinal went on to suggest that the brains of 60 million Germans had been removed without their even noticing it." (Hitler's Pope, p. 183) The Christian churches aren't the only ones why have been trying to put distance between themselves and the Nazi's since their defeat. Even Leni Riefenstahl, the famous producer of Hitler's incredibly successful propaganda films, like the 1934 "Triumph of the Will", spent most of her very long life denying her important contributions to the early successes of the Third Reich.
Speaking of Catholic nuns convicted of playing important parts in the 1996 genocide in Rwanda, Pope John Paul II declared that "members who have acted against the evangelic law . . . will be called to render account of their own actions. All Church members that have sinned during the genocide must have the courage to assume the consequences of deeds they have done against God and fellow men." |
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Reflections of an Aryan German who lived through the insanity: A German veteran of World War I, Sebastian Haffner, wrote in his book, Defying Hitler: "As Bismarck once remarked in a famous speech, moral courage is, in any case, a rare virtue in Germany, but it deserts a German completely the moment he puts on a uniform. As soldier and officer, he is indisputably and outstandingly courageous on the field of battle. He is usually even prepared to open fire on his own compatriots if ordered to do so. Yet he is as timid as a lamb at the thought of opposing authority. The suggestion of such a confrontation always conjures up the nightmare of a firing squad and he is immediately paralyzed. It is not death he fears, but this particular death, which scares him out of his wits. That makes any idea of insubordination or a coup d'état altogether impossible for the German military -- whoever happens to be in power." ( - ch. 8, p 39-40 )
Cardinal Faulhaber reported to the German episcopate on his three hour meeting with Hitler in his mountain retreat, on November 4, that at first it was extremely tense but gradually became more and more friendly and the talk ended on a fully harmonious note. "The Chancellor dwelt at length on the disastrous results of a Bolshevik victory in Spain." (which Hitler and the church helped to avert). "The Catholic Church should not deceive herself: if National Socialism does not succeed in defeating Bolshevism, then Church and Christianity in Europe too are finished. Bolshevism is the mortal enemy of the Church as much as of Fascism." Faulhaber replied that the Church had always been aware of this threat. The German bishops had stated their views on Bolshevism in their joint pastoral letter of 1936 and in earlier years. He had been present personally when Pius XI in 1933 called the Chancellor of the German Reich the first statesman who, together with the Pope, had clearly recognized the Bolshevik danger. He, Faulhaber, over the years, had continuously warned against the Red menace."
The following is an excerpt from an article about a French priest who has done outstanding work to document how the Nazis and their local allies made community after community in the East "Jew-free":
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