6, 7. (a) How did Hitler’s Nazi Party come to power in Germany? (b) How did the concordat that the Vatican made with Nazi Germany help Hitler in his push for world domination?

⁶ Through her meddling in politics, the great harlot has brought untold sorrow to mankind. Consider, for example, the facts behind Hitler’s rise to power in Germany​—ugly facts that some would like to expunge from the history books. In May 1924 the Nazi Party held 32 seats in the German Reichstag. By May 1928 these had dwindled to 12 seats. However, the Great Depression engulfed the world in 1930; riding in its wake, the Nazis made a remarkable recovery, gaining 230 out of 608 seats in the German elections of July 1932. Soon after, former chancellor Franz von Papen, a Papal Knight, came to the Nazis’ aid. According to historians, von Papen envisioned a new Holy Roman Empire. His own short tenure as chancellor had been a failure, so now he hoped to gain power through the Nazis. By January 1933, he had mustered support for Hitler from the industrial barons, and through wily intrigues he ensured that Hitler became Germany’s chancellor on January 30, 1933. He himself was made vice-chancellor and was used by Hitler to win the support of Catholic sections of Germany. Within two months of gaining power, Hitler dissolved parliament, dispatched thousands of opposition leaders to concentration camps, and began an open campaign of oppressing the Jews.

⁷ On July 20, 1933, the Vatican’s interest in the rising power of Nazism was displayed when Cardinal Pacelli (who later became Pope Pius XII) signed a concordat in Rome between the Vatican and Nazi Germany. Von Papen signed the document as Hitler’s representative, and Pacelli there conferred on von Papen the high papal decoration of the Grand Cross of the Order of Pius.b In his book Satan in Top Hat, Tibor Koeves writes of this, stating: “The Concordat was a great victory for Hitler. It gave him the first moral support he had received from the outer world, and this from the most exalted source.” The concordat required the Vatican to withdraw its support from Germany’s Catholic Center Party, thus sanctioning Hitler’s one-party “total state.”c Further, its article 14 stated: “The appointments for archbishops, bishops, and the like will be issued only after the governor, installed by the Reich, has duly ascertained that no doubts exist with respect to general political considerations.” By the end of 1933 (proclaimed a “Holy Year” by Pope Pius XI), Vatican support had become a major factor in Hitler’s push for world domination.

8, 9. (a) How did the Vatican as well as the Catholic Church and its clergy react to the Nazi tyranny? (b) What statement did the German Catholic bishops issue at the start of World War II? (c) In what have religio-political relationships resulted?

⁸ Though a handful of priests and nuns protested Hitler’s atrocities​—and suffered for it—​the Vatican as well as the Catholic Church and its army of clergy gave either active or tacit support to the Nazi tyranny, which they regarded as a bulwark against the advance of world Communism. Sitting pretty in the Vatican, Pope Pius XII let the Holocaust on the Jews and the cruel persecutions of Jehovah’s Witnesses and others proceed uncriticized. It is ironical that Pope John Paul II, on visiting Germany in May 1987, should glorify the anti-Nazi stand of one sincere priest. What were the other thousands of the German clergy doing during Hitler’s reign of terror? A pastoral letter issued by the German Catholic bishops in September 1939 at the outbreak of World War II provides enlightenment on this point. It reads in part: “In this decisive hour we admonish our Catholic soldiers to do their duty in obedience to the Fuehrer and to be ready to sacrifice their whole individuality. We appeal to the Faithful to join in ardent prayers that Divine Providence may lead this war to blessed success.”

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Churchill Exposes ‘Harlotry’

In his book The Gathering Storm (1948), Winston Churchill reports that Hitler appointed Franz von Papen as German minister to Vienna for “the undermining or winning over of leading personalities in Austrian politics.” Churchill quotes the U.S. minister in Vienna as saying of von Papen: “In the boldest and most cynical manner . . . Papen proceeded to tell me that . . . he intended to use his reputation as a good Catholic to gain influence with Austrians like Cardinal Innitzer.”

After Austria had capitulated and Hitler’s storm troopers had goose-stepped into Vienna, Catholic cardinal Innitzer ordered that all Austrian churches fly the swastika flag, ring their bells, and pray for Adolf Hitler in honor of his birthday.

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This item appeared in the first edition only of The New York Times, December 7, 1941, the same day Nazi Germany’s ally Japan attacked Pearl Harbor

‘WAR PRAYER’ FOR REICH

Catholic Bishops at Fulda Ask Blessing and Victory

By Telephone to THE NEW YORK TIMES

FULDA, Germany, Dec. 6

The Conference of German Catholic Bishops assembled in Fulda has recommended the introduction of a special “war prayer” which is to be read at the beginning and end of all divine services.

The prayer implores Providence to bless German arms with victory and grant protection to the lives and health of all soldiers. The Bishops further instructed Catholic clergy to keep and remember in a special Sunday sermon at least once a month German soldiers ‘on land, on sea and in the air.”