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CHAPTER II IT WAS THE POPE WHO MADE HITLER

OBSCURE origins of the future dictator: failure as an artist, poverty and downfall. — First steps of the political agitator: so-called Bavarian separatism, the funds of the Quai d’Orsay. — Catholic Bavaria, the cradle of Hitlerism. To Pius Xl’s mind, it must supplant Lutheran Prussia. — Mgr. Pacelli, Nuncio at Munich, and Franz von Papen, the Pope’s Privy Chamberlain, destroy the Weimar Republic in order to clear the way for Nazism. — Von Papen, the Vatican’s man, dismisses the Reichstag and prepares triumphant elections for the Nazis. Hitler as Chancellor. —”The Pope is personally favourable to him”. — Mgr. Kaas, President of the Catholic Zentrum, renewing the manoeuvre of don Sturzo in Italy, has special full powers voted to the Chancellor, thus providing him with the basis of his dictatorship. — The Vatican’s victory. — Like Mussolini. Hitler is soon paying his debt towards his protector by concluding a concordat that is”most advantageous to the Church”. Henceforth the entire German Catholic Episcopate is devoted to him and Catholic youth groups are merged with Nazi youth groups. —”Doctrinal” divagations: close relationship of Nazism and Catholicism. Franz von Papen declares:”Nazism is a Christian reaction against the spirit of 1789″.

OPINION is fairly well informed today, through certain works by French or German authors, on the obscure beginnings of the future dictator who was for a moment to eclipse the greatest figures of which Germany was so proud, from Frederick the Great to Bismarck, to end up miserably in the depths of an underground shelter beneath the ruins of his bomb-smashed capital.

First of all, in a recently published book, Walter Gorlitz and Herbert A. Quint, note with what care the Fuhrer tried to cast a veil over his past:

“Hitler categorically forbade all research into the period during which he lived in Vienna. The party immediately undertook to collect all documents concerning his youth, so as to prevent their publication. … He had been brought up in an atmosphere of Catholic thought; outwardly he always remained Catholic. . . .

“Josef Greiner, author of the book La fin du mythe hitlerien, tells how he made Hitler’s acquaintance in September 1907, when he himself had come to Vienna to study painting. The result of the entrance examination brought Hitler squarely face to face with reality: his drawings were not up to standard and he was turned down: he sank into the most dire poverty and remained in that state for years. … He tried to get work as a manual labourer. He found a job in the building trade . . . was turned off the site . . . had no roof over his head and used to sleep on park benches . . .; then he found shelter in a free doss-house . . . and got his meals at the monastery of the Brothers of Charity. During the winter of 19091910, he was occasionally employed in clearing away snow and carrying baggage. The biography of the twentieth century’s second dictator, Benito Mussolini, shows a certain similarity to that of Hitler. There again we see the revolt of the disappointed artist—in the literary field this time—the period of poverty, and imprisonment for begging and vagrancy. . . .”

Mr. Robert Bouchez, former Attache of the French Legation at Munich, gives the following account of the expedients to which Germany’s future master was then reduced:

“It is undoubtedly true that he was often able to eat only because of the help he got from Heita, a prostitute, or from the little French “hostess”Perrette. There was a certain common factor of degradation that seemed to hold these people together. . . .”

Then the young Hitler reached the age of conscription:

“On 5 February 1914”, wrote Gorlitz and Quint, “Hitler was declared unfit for service in the armed forces. . . . On 3 August 1914, the day when Germany declared war on France, he made a request to King Louis III of Bavaria, and on 4 August he already had a reply telling him to enlist in a Bavarian regiment. … By the end of October, Hitler was fighting in the ranks of the”List Regiment”; on 2 December 1914 he received a second-class Iron Cross. On the morning of 16 October 1918, he was gassed.

“Corporal Adolf Hitler was discharged from the hospital at Passewalk during the extremely dark and desperate days of November 1918.

“On 10 May 1919, he was transferred to the headquarters company of the 2nd infantry regiment. According to Hitler, his first political mission was to be a member of a committee of enquiry into the events which had taken place in his regiment during the revolution.

. . . Then the new commander of the Reichswehr at Munich started a course on”civic thought”. Corporal Hitler was detailed to take it. …

“In September 1919, Hitler was told to attend a meeting of the Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (German workers’ party) D.A.P. . . . That night, he found about twenty-five people of humble extraction gathered in the”Leiber” room of the Sternecker-Brau cafe. . . .

“On 16 September, Hitler joined the D.A.P. … He was given card No. 7. There, he met a man who was to have a great influence on him. This was Dietrich Eckart, who became his, so to say, tutor … and introduced him to Alfred Rosenberg. . .. One wonders whether Hitler was not already acquainted with the Deutsche Arbeiter Partei as well as the book by Rudolf Jung, Der Nationale Sozialismns (National Socialism), published in 1911-19F2. The fact that he does not mention the subject in Mein Kampf is, of course, no proof, because the point of writing the book was to set himself up as the sole progenitor of National Socialism.”

“In 1921″, writes Georges Rul,4″Hitler joined the Roehm’s Free Corps. A year later he became Chief of Propaganda.”

Even so, the adventurer was still a starveling, and was ready to work for anyone who would pay him. Indeed, Walter Gorlitz5 tells us that in the opinion of Chancellor Briining:”… it was foreign funds which gave the greatest help in promoting the rise of Hitler and his party between 1920 and 1923.”

Robert Bouchez also writes:

“In 1922, he would from time to time even borrow a few marks from Goering. One day when he had come down to tins, Captain Jungmann told me that if he had the choice, Hitler would rather appeal to France than to the Hohenzollerns.” Georges Rul confirms that Hitler was, at one time, in the pay of France.

“Hitler is interested in southern Germany (Bavaria). He says there is a separatist movement in Bavaria. On this ground, Mr. Emile Dard, French Minister at Munich, subsidized Hitler from the secret funds of the Quai d’Orsay in 1923.”

“Morel, a Member of the British Parliament, said in the House that in 1922 the Quai d’Orsay had paid Hitler 200,000 fr.s The French Foreign Ministry did not deny this.”

Moreover, no one was better informed about the uncertain and precarious situation of Hitler in 1922 and 1923 than Robert Bouchez, Attache of the French Legation in Munich:

“1922. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has appointed me Attache to the Foreign Legation in Munich. My duties are those of Vice- Consul. … I saw the birth of the Nazi movement under the flag of piracy, which by the way was pretty quickly got rid of, leaving only the swastika. Later, only the SS was to use that macabre flag again. . . .

“One winter afternoon. Max, my office boy, had just shown in Mgr. Pacelli, the present Plus XII, at the time Nuncio at Munich…. Then, after the cardinal in his quiet black clothes, came a Rhinelander. … He said that he was a former Feldwebel, at present out of work, and in dire straits, and that he was thinking of joining the French Foreign Legion. He gave me to understand that there was a fellow who was worrying him with nationalistic ideas and that if he should worry us, the French, too, he could take care of things. For 10,000 marks he would settle everything. . . . It is a hundred to one that if I had taken out my wallet and given him 2,000 marks as a down payment and asked him to come back for the rest when the job was done, no one would ever have heard of Adolf Hitler.”

This near-encounter of the future Pope with the future Fuhrer is very odd. Indeed, in the Ught of subsequent events, it seems premomtory.

“Mgr. Pacelli”, Ie marquis d’Ormesson tells us,”was extremely popular, and his personal prestige was tremendous.”Soon after the war, his popularity and prestige were to facilitate, first in Bavaria, and later in Prussia, his work for the Concordat. . . . Mgr. Pacelli was heard at the Catholic Congress of Fulda, in 1926, to recall the gratitude that Germany owed the Papacy (Pacelli, Gesammelte Reden, pp. 59 to 62). Georges Goyau10 reports that he pointed out to his listeners from over the Rhine how well Pius XI knew their language: “Just as in the days of Adrian VI”, he told them,”a Pope has spoken to the German pilgrims in their own tongue. . . .”

The fact was that Bavaria was then, more than ever, the object of the Vatican’s very special attention, as Maurice Laporte has very aptly noted:

Catholic Bavaria, cradle of Hitlerism

“Having travelled from one end of Germany to the other, I came to Munich, capital of Catholic Bavaria where northern Germans are looked upon as foreigners. . . .

“Since 1918, the rural population of Bavaria has considerably increased. . . . One can well imagine how very tenderly the Vatican cherishes this Bavaria, where Hitler’s National Socialism ••recruits its strongest contingents. Another grievance that Munich has against Berlin is that she overthrew the dynasty and set up the Republic. Bavaria is as monarchist as she is Catholic.

“Bavaria … is full of quiet strength now that the Stahlhelm encircles her and imposes its discipline upon her. The Stahlhelm has gathered together 200,000 Bavarians, equipped with new uniforms and weapons which every man keeps under his hand so as to be ready for any eventuality. . . .

“The Bavarians plan to build at Munich, with their own money, a Palace of National Socialism. . . . The Bavarians will always go along with any party that will help them to strangle the Republic of Berlin.. . .

“Hitler has found himself a new vocation that will dll his entire life—to beat down France. From hamlet to hamlet, from town to town he goes lecturing—running down the French and insulting the Jews. His language is coarse to the point of brutality—that of a man on whom civilization has laid only the thinnest veneer of culture. . ..

This condottiere, like his comrade and model Mussolini, was naturally viewed with favour in the Vatican, where he was seen as a new man who might restore to its old glory the Germanic Holy Roman Empire. Naturally, it put all its power behind this movement, which, as we shall see, starting in Munich, was to reunite”the Germanies”.

As Joseph Rovan writes:

“The Catholic leaders of Bavaria founded the Bayerische Volkspartei (the Bavarian People’s Party, BVP), which was designed to have a separate existence. . . . The chiefs of the BVP were to support the right-wing agitators, the professional conspirators of the Bunde (societies), the black Reichswehr, and the ultra-nationalists of the Volkisch movements. Its slogan”Bavaria for the Bavarians!” enabled the Nazis quietly to prepare . . . their vengeful anti-Semitic and m the end ultra-unitarian programme. . . . Catholic Bavaria will now welcome and protect all troublemakers, all the society members, all the assassins of the Vehmgericht.”

Gonzague de Reynold”testifies to the way in which the Germans of Roman obedience came to supplant the Protestant majority:

“National Socialism set upon Prussia, and destroyed it. … The Nazi regime represents a return to power of southern Germany. The names and background of its chiefs show quite clearly that Hitler is Austrian, Goering is Bavarian, Goebbels a Rhinelander, and so on. National Socialism has created an army altogether different from the Prussian or Prussianized army.’

It is impossible to over-emphasize the importance of the presence of the extremely busy Mgr. PacelU, the future Plus XII, in Munich during these years when the Nazi party was learning to walk. Besides, a keen and accurate observer, F. Charles-Roux14 has rightly said: “Never in this age has there been a time when the Catholics have played a more important role in world politics than during the ministry of Cardinal Pacelli”.

The Vatican’s support constitutes the decisive factor in Hitler’s lightning rise, and it may be said that National Socialism was created by the Papacy. To convince oneself of this fact it is only necessary to read the documents and testimonies that follow. . . . They are of the first importance for the understanding of contemporary events. They show how the concerted efforts of Franz von Papen, the Pope’s Privy Chamberlain, and Mgr. Pacelli, Nuncio at Berlin, overcame every obstacle that was still confronting the”man of Providence”.

The Vatican does not conceal its satisfaction

As Maurice Laporte”writes:”The Catholic position: the racial programme! . . . Hitler raised anti-Semitism to the status of a dogma.

“Pius XI, receiving a delegation of German Catholic youth, after the Reichstag elections, is said to have declared: ‘Blessed be this youth which renews itself in a Germany that also is renewing itself.”

Yes, indeed! This remark, made to young Catholics, was made on the morrow of Hitler’s victory. . . . ‘Our feelings, including our anti-Semitism, are therefore fully compatible with Christian beliefs!’ declared Hitler on 6 September, at Koenigsberg.”

These feelings, in themselves very unchristian, were especially compatible with a certain”apostolic”will to crush, and indeed to exterminate, the”heretics”and the Jews, as well as all liberals. This was to be demonstrated in the concentration camps for internal use, and later in the great slaughter-houses of Auschwitz, Dachau and elsewhere.

“No-one must be surprised, after this, if Hitler’s heresies on the predestination of the German race to rule the world, presented as having the approval of the Pope and the German Episcopate, should have carried away the entire German youth. . . .”Maurice Laporte16 continues,”The Father of Christianity, the Nazis used to say, will surely recognize in the National Socialists the true, the only defenders of the Christian faith. German women, by voting for List No. 9, by making your sons and husbands vote for Hitler, you will be voting above all for the greatest Germany, ever-religious and free! Hitlerist racism, strong and victorious, is on its way to power.”

Mgr. Pacelli’s plan: To destroy the Weimar Republic

“. . . The immediate problem to Mgr. Pacelli’s mind is this”, writes Nazareno Padellaro, “The Weimar Constitution introduces afresh the principle of the separation of the Church from the State. How can it be rendered ineffectual? … A new task awaits the Nuncio in the capital of the Reich, but he has no intention of abandoning the work which he began at Munich, in order to perform it. …

“The nuncial residence at Berlin, according to the National Socialist writer Harder . . . rapidly became a centre of political and diplomatic life. All Berlin came to consider the nunciature as the Court of Catholic thinking. . . . In every one of his speeches, the Nuncio insistently returns to the necessity of a close union with Rome. . . .”

This close union of German with the Papacy—so close that it continued even after defeat—is to be the goal of Privy Chamberlain Franz von Papen:

“On 20 July 1932, von Papen intervened in Prussia where the old government, which was doing its utmost to delay the formation of a National Socialist government, was still in power. He proclaimed martial law in Berlin and the Province of Brandenburg and sent a detachment of infantry to throw the Ministers out of their offices.. . .

“The people at the head of the old regime gave way with no other opposition than the lodgmg before the Supreme Court of Justice of a complaint for violation of the Constitution. . . .”

According to Walter Gorlitz and Herbert A. Quint,!8″The National Socialist press reported rumours of the conclusion of an alliance between von Papen and Hitler. . . . With the approval of Hitler, Goering and Strasser started conversations with Mgr. Kaas, chief of the Catholic Centre party. . . . Von Papen was ready to create a post of Vice-Chancellor for Hitler. . . .”

This brings us to the decisive period. The German Catholics were obliged to abandon all resistance to National Socialism, because of the support it had been given by the Papacy. All that remained to be done, was to win them over completely to Hitler’s cause, through Mgr. Kaas, their chief. This was soon done.

The alliance between von Papen and Hitler

Paul Winkler is categorical:”… Von Papen dismissed the Reichstag and, in agreement with Hitler, organized new elections which had to result in a Nazi victory. The alliance between vo Papen and Hitler seemed unshakable. On 20 July 1932, von Pape dismissed the Socialist Government of Prussia. . . .

“Hitler came into power thanks only to the intrigues of von Papen.”

Pius XI and Hitler

“The ecclesiastical hierarchy”, said the Mercure de France “has always observed the principle of ‘politics first’, and the German Catholics were therefore fully in line with tradition in constituting the Centre party (Dos Zentrum), as well as the Bavarian People’s Party. . . . With a religious majority, and closely knit politically, they could assert themselves in Parliament by shifting its centre of gravity.

“Hence, with the methodical spirit which characterizes the German, the Catholics organized themselves into a political party first of all in order to subsist and to develop as a Church. It was the personnel of the ecclesiastical administration that served as political personnel.

“Rome looked with an approving eye on this politico-religious activity, for it provided the Holy See with the means of influencing an essentially Protestant government; the skill with which a certain Leo XIII used it is well known. In the end, the Catholic circles in Rome conceived an exaggerated admiration of the way in which the German Church was organized, and held it up as an example to the Catholics of other countries.

“All was not perfect with the Germans—far from it, indeed—and some of their bishops were worried by the fact. To have an idea of the situation it was sufficient to attend a few of their big demonstrations, especially their annual Katholikentag. . ..

“On 31 December 1930, Cardinal Bertram, Archbishop of Breslau and Primate of Gennany, declared: ‘We, Christians and Catholics, do not recognize racial religion. . . .’

“In the spring of 1932, some uncertainty was noticeable among German Catholic leaders: they had been informed that the ‘Pope was personally favourable to Hitler’.

“That Pins XI should feel drawn to Hitler, should not be a matter for surprise. … In his opinion, Europe can regain her equilibrium only through German hegemony. In Poland, where under Benedict XV he had been sent on mission by Cardinal Gasparri, he supported German interests. . . .

“The Pope’s liking for the Fuhrer is understandable. The Vatican, because of the Anschluss, had for some time been thinking of changing the centre of gravity of the Reich: the Jesuits were openly working towards that end, especially in Austria. Now everyone knows just how much Plus XI counted upon her for the triumph of what he calls ‘his policy’. What he wanted to prevent was the hegemony of a Protestant Prussia and, depending on the Reich to dominate Europe—which would ward off the danger of German federalism— he was seeking a way of building up a Reich in which the Catholics would be masters. . . .

“Even in March 1933, when they met at Fulda, the German bishops took advantage of Hitler’s speech at Potsdam to declare that it was necessary to ‘recognize that the highest representative of the Reich Government, who is at the same time the authoritative head of the National Socialist movement, has made solemn public declarations which take account of the inviolability of Catholic doctrine, as well as of the work and immutable rights of the Church, and which, on behalf of the Reich Government, formally declare that treaties concluded between the German countries and the Catholic Church shall remain fully and entirely valid. . . .’

“Von Papen leaves for Rome to sign a concordat with the Pope. . . . He also will have to conform in every respect to Mussolini’s ideas. The strategy which enabled the latter to achieve the Lateran Treaty and the Concordat has been summed up as follows by an eminent Roman prelate:

“It has even been said that the Concordat concluded between Chancellor Hitler and the Pope had assured the Catholic Church a privileged position in Germany. . . . But — and this is what is most serious for the future of Catholicism in Germany — consciences are deeply disturbed. How, indeed, is one to explain the adherence of the entire ecclesiastic hierarchy to Hitlerism, which a few months ago was so solemnly condemned? . . .”

The Ultramontanists raise Hitler to power

Joseph Rovan penetratingly analyses the task pursued by von Papen:

“To be sure, throughout these fourteen years (1919-1933) the Zentrum will be the axis of all parliamentary majorities possible. But this uninterrupted presence in the government will not succeed in saving the Republic, nor is it a proof of the democratic nature of the policy of the great Catholic party. . . .

“The Catholic ‘integralism’ of the first two decades of the twentieth century, at once theological, political and social, appears as a general movement of distrust of the modern world. The ‘integralist’ sets himself the ideal of keeping as completely as possible to the letter of acts and decisions issued by the Pontifical Power, and of being absolutely intransigent in the face of the ‘liberal heresies’ ; in the political field he is readily conservative, not to say reactionary, he rejects democracy and extols the principle of authority. The adversaries of universal franchise were recruited from among the same ‘integralist’ circles which at that time had attempted to disrupt the unity of interdenominational Christian trade-unionism, while keeping the Zentrum a strictly denominational party, closely subjected to the directives of the hierarchy.

“Franz von Papen thought of dictatorship. In order the better to prepare for it and to complete the break-up of the Republic, he forcibly suppressed the democratic government of Prussia. … So the Prussian police, the last armed body in the service of democracy, passed into the hands of the apprentice dictator. . . . Thanks to von Papen, member of the Zentrum since 1920 and owner of the party’s official paper, Germania, Hitler came into power on 30 January 1933.

“German political Catholicism (the Zentrum), instead of becoming Christian democracy, will inevitably be led on 26 March 1933 to vote full powers to Hitler. . . . For the voting of full powers atwo-thirds majority was necessary and the votes of the Zentrum represented an indispensable contribution. . . . The Republic was dead. . . .

“The members of the Zentrum and of the Bavarian People’s Party had passed the law on full powers. . . .

“In the correspondence and declarations of the ecclesiastic dignitaries under the Nazi regime, we shall see again and again the fervent support of the bishops.. . . The Nazi programme .. .appeared to many Gennan Catholics as nearer to their fundamental position than liberal democracy … the massive support of the Catholic people to Hitler’s”National Uprising”… the attempts at compromise which were already being made in the spring of 1933 by eminent members of the hierarchy and the suppression of the very recent excommunication against Party members . . . throw a harsh and cruel light upon the ambiguous character of relations between German Catholicism and democracy, both as a political system and as an idea. . . . The democratic ideal made few hearts beat faster. . . . The attraction of an authoritative system, of a strong power, the spirit of the Syllabus interpreted in a way that was ahnost official yet solicited remained fully alive. A Christianity for which the spirit of the crusades was still an ideal after three years of Nazi dictatorship could obviously not understand the essential link which makes democracy depend for its life on civilian society.” Catholics and Christian Socialists vote for Hitler’s dictatorship “On the evening of 30 January 1933, the day when the cabinet was constituted”, writes von Papen,”I was standing behind Hitler, on the balcony of the new chancellery. We were watching an endless procession, hundreds of thousands of men who, torch in hand, were marching past Hindenburg and the Fuhrer. Hitler’s face was ecstatic, and when he turned to speak to me, there was a sob in his voice. ‘What a tremendous task we have set ourselves, Herr von Papen! . . .’ I was happy to be able to concur. . . .

‘You are an old soldier, Herr van Papen’, he said to me; ‘so you know that one has always to march with the largest and strongest batallions. If you and I march together, we are assured of a majority and, consequently, of success’.

“The governmental statement drawn up by Hitler and myself specifically acknowledged the great conservative principles. . . . Hitler particularly insisted upon the necessity of obtaining special (full) powers.. . .

“After Chancellor Hitler’s statement, Mgr. Kaas, Chief of the Catholic Party, Ritter van Lex (Bavarian Catholic Party), Messrs. Maier (State Party) and Smiptendoerfer (Christian Socialists) announced that their respective groups would vote for the law of full powers to Hitler. After a speech by President Goering, this law was voted…. It constituted the sole basis of Hitler’s dictatorship… . The fact that all parties except the Socialists voted for full powers had a far more decisive effect than the Nazi victory in the elections. . . .”

The victory of the Vatican

“Hitler Chancellor! So ran the headlines of the German newspapers the day after the 30 January 1933”, writes Robert d’Harcourt. “That day will always be the red-letter day of National Socialism, and one of the most important dates in the history of Germany. . . . Von Papen was the true victor of 30 January. Not only did he put Hitler in the saddle by bringing pressure to bear upon old Hindenburg and should therefore logically have some control over him, but also he held in his hands the most effective instruments of power: he was simultaneously Vice-Chancellor and Imperial Commissioner for Prussia and, in the latter capacity, the hierarchial superior of Goering, who had been appointed Minister of Interior for Prussia.”

But Franz von Papen, as we have seen, was the alter ego of Mgr. Pacelli, Apostolic Nuncio—that is to say, the “secular arm” of Pius XI.

Pius XI made Hitler

The “Mercure de France” of 15 January 1934 showed — and nobody contradicted it — that it was Plus XI who had”made”Hitler, for the latter, had the Zentrum not been broken up by the Pope, could not have come into power — or at least not by legal means. . . .

“By not leaving the German Zentrum enough time to re-form”, writes this review, “Pius XI deliberately shattered the obstacle in Hitler’s path — an obstacle which the latter could not have surmounted.

. . . Does the Vatican consider it made a political error in thus clearing the way to power for Hitler? It would seem not. …

“How does the Church reconcile this policy with its doctrine? Hitlerism was condemned and remained condemned, but — as we have said—the Vatican distinguishes between Hitler’s doctrine and the person of the Fuhrer.. ..”

It should be added that by virtue of this truly subtle distinguo worthy of Escobar, the bishops in Germany and, later, in Austria were able to flatter as they wished”the person of the Fuhrer”and to advise their flock to submit completely to his orders, however monstrous they might be.

To those who still believe in Hitler’s anti-Christianity we suggest that they read the following words:

Gorlitz and Quint recall that”After the electoral victory, the ‘National Government’ inaugurated its activities with an official ceremony at the garrison church of Potsdam (12 March 1933)—an idea conceived by Hitler, who wanted to demonstrate by it the merging, as it were, of tradition and revolution. The Reichswehr and the police participated with units which had taken part in the national revolution: the SA, the SS and the Stahlhelm. The notabilities of the conservative elements in Germany: the Crown Prince, Marshal von Mackensen, Prussian princes and many former generals were invited. . . . The meeting ended with a prayer of thanksgiving. . . .

“On 1 May 1933, Hitler spoke . . . assuming a voice of almost religious gravity in exhorting the masses to fight together in order to be able to say at the supreme hour of their appearance before God: ‘As you see, O Lord! we have changed. The German people is no longer a people of dishonour, of shame, of faithlessness. No Lord, the German people is again strong in the spirit of sacrifice. O Lord! We do not stray from Thee! Bless us in the battle we are fighting for our liberty and therefore for our race’. …”

The Concordat which was soon to be signed was particularly advantageous for the Roman Catholic Church, as Pius XI was to stress with satisfaction; since it had been ready for a long time, it was soon signed. In fact, it merely ratified the deep understanding between conquering Germanism and papal imperialism—that politico-religious collusion which tended to give to Berlin the control of temporal matters in Europe, and to the Vatican the control of the spiritual sphere, and which was later to be so strikingly confirmed by events.

The Concordat with Hitler

Now, let us see what Joseph Rovan has to say.”The Imperial Concordat negotiated by Franz von Papen after Hitler’s accession, fulfilled one of the dearest wishes of the German Catholics, one of the aims towards which the Holy See’s policy had been directed for a hundred years. . . . The Pontifical Nuncio at Munich (Mgr. Pacelli) who, though accredited to the Bavarian Government, was in fact representing the Holy See in Germany as a whole, had undertaken a long-term task which after fifteen years ended in the Imperial Concordat. . . . Throughout this period he was negotiating at the Reich level and was preparing individual concordats. On more than one occasion … the Reich Government, presided over by militant Catholics, joined him in the preparation of a general concordat, but internal resistance from Socialist and Liberal quarters, as well as the federalist interest of the Bavarian and Prussian Governments, put a stop to these attempts every time. . . .

“The Concordat gave the National Socialist Party, which practically everybody thought of as a usurper government, if not indeed as a band of brigands, the prestige of an agreement with the most ancient of international powers. It was rather like an international certificate of respectability. . . .

“The Concordat agreed that the State should have the right of veto over episcopal nominations; moreover, the bishops had to swear allegiance to the Fuhrer.

Right until the end of the war the Nazi state continued to pay most of its financial contributions that, under the Concordats, it had agreed to pay to the Church. … It will be seen later that after 1945, the governmental party, C.D.U. (Chancellor Kourad Adenauer’s Christian Democrat Party), confirmed in no uncertain fashion the validity of the Concordat concluded by Hitler.”

Now let us see how Franz von Papen stresses the importance of the Concordat which he signed in Hitler’s name:

“The unremitting battle for religious freedom that the Catholic Zentrum was fighting had the active support of the first Apostolic Nuncio in Gemiany, Mgr. Eugenio Pacelli, who is now Pius XII. No doubt it is centuries since a sovereign pontifF knew Germany and the Germans as well as does His Holiness. At first his task was a delicate one: indeed, he was accused of wishing to convert Prussia, an essentially Protestant country. . . . During the time when he was in Berlin, I had the honour from time to time of inviting him to my home, together with a few prominent conservatives and some figures who were eminent in the world of German Catholicism. . . .

“Not since the faraway days of the Reformation, had a Concordat been concluded between the Vatican and the Reich. . . .

“The new situation in Germany seemed to offer an opportunity to resume the interrupted conversations. . . . Mussolini, who had resolved the problem of relations with the Vatican with the Lateran Treaties, insisted when he spoke to me upon the necessity of acting as soon as possible. ‘The signature of this convention with the Vatican will for the first tune establish the credit of your Government in the eyes of foreigners’, he asserted. At my request, he told his ambassador in Berlin to stress the urgency of the Concordat. . . . Chancellor Hitler asked me to assure the Papal Secretary of State (Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli) that he would immediately muzzle the anti-clerical clan. . . . On 20 July, the treaty was signed at the papal secretariat.. ..

“The problem of confessional schools seemed now to be solved once and for all, and the general terms of the concordat were more favourable than those of any such convention that had up to then been signed by the Vatican. . . .”

The Nazi regime, like the Fascist regime, was therefore”harmomously reconciled”with the Church. But when one knows the latter’s primordial role in the Fuhrer’s accession to power, one might very well say that the harmony was established in advance.

The following document is a striking illustration—even while it tries to excuse it—of the monstrous character of this agreement between two essentially opposite doctrines—Catholicism and Nazism. To be able to find agreement between the universality of the first and the brutal racism of the latter, is to have recourse to acrobatics, contortions and distortions of thought and the abuse of words characterizing this fine piece of casuistry which we owe to Michaele Schmaus, Professor in the Faculty of Theology of Munich. Incidentally, it should be noted that this apologist for Nazism has since been raised by Pius XII to the rank of Prince of the Church, and that La Croix (2 September 1954) calls him the”great theologian of Munich”. Fascism is therefore inextricably involved with the political system and the hierarchical organization of the totalitarian, absolutist and intolerant Papacy. Furthermore, the Papacy, by its numerous promotions of German ecclesiastics and by its many concessions of this nature made after Hitler’s defeat, has shown quite clearly that it has no intention of disowning the defeated dictator.

The Roman Church, the wet-nurse of Nazism

“‘Empire et Eglise’ is a series of writings which was used in the building up of the Third Reich by the joint forces of the National Socialist State and Catholic Christianity. This collection is based on the conviction that there is no fundamental contradiction between today’s national renaissance in the natural order of things and the supernatural life of the Church. Quite the contrary, the restoration of the political system seems to have its natural result in being achieved by the strength it draws from the deepest religious faith.

“Entirely German and entirely Catholic, this is the way in which these writings seek to examine and encourage the relationship and co-operation between the Catholic Church and National Socialism and so point the way to a fruitful collaboration, such as is already to be seen in the basic fact that they have made a Concordat.. . .

“The National Socialist movement is the most vigorous and the most massive reaction against the spirit of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. …

“‘National Socialism has as the very centre of its conception of the world the idea of a people made of blood and earth, of destiny and mission. . .. A consequence of love for the people is an entirely justified concern about purity of blood, the basis of a nation’s spiritual make-up. . . . Consequently, it is natural to wonder whether the Catholic vision of the world and man, and National Socialist thought and purpose are able to join forces on common ground. Every Catholic who follows the instructions of the German bishops must be in general agreement with this proposition. . . .

“Between the Catholic faith and liberal thought no compromise is possible. There is an irreconcilable enmity between Liberalism and Catholicism, even if, for political Catholicism, the realization of Catholic ideas should sometimes be unattainable owing to the ups and downs of day-to-day tactics. . . . There is nothing more opposed to Catholicism than the concept of the democratic man.

Since the will of God runs through the whole of history, we may read in this history, without fear of error, the fact that God wished to entrust the German people with one of His highest missions. . . .

“The reawakened idea of strict authority leads us once again to a new understanding of ecclesiastical authority. The mistrust of liberty is founded on the Catholic doctrine of original sin . . . the laws of National Socialism and of Catholic authority point in the same direction . . . hence the faithful Catholic will find a bridge to the spring of life of the Nazis. . . .”

Adler und Kreuz

“The essentially vulnerable point of all the episcopal declarations which followed the triumphant Nazi elections of 5 March 1933, is to be found in the first official document of the Church, which was signed by all German bishops, i.e., the pastoral letter of 3 June 1933. This begins on an optimistic note and a declaration of joy which are reported by Robert d’Harcourt of the Academic francaise:

“The men at the head of the new state have, to our great joy, categorically asserted that they base both their work and themselves on Christian grounds. A declaration of solemn frankness which deserves the sincere gratitude of all Catholics. . . .”

A portrait of the Privy Chamberlain

In her book ‘The Embassy Looks On’, Martha Dodd, daughter of William-E. Dodd, who was United States Ambassador in Germany during Hitler’s time, writes of the bloody day of 30 June 1934:

“Von Schleicher has just been killed. … He had been Prime Minister for only a short time and was betrayed, it was said, by his friend Franz von Papen. . . A mortal enemy of the Nazis, he was feared by them for his brilliant qualities and his liberal politics which, if he had had the ambition, could one day have enabled him to catch up with Hitler. . . .

“My father had no liking at all for Franz von Papen, for he remembered only too well his cowardice, his spying, his treachery and his perjury. . . .”

Von Papen (a predestined name), Eminence grise of the Vatican, was to continue this crooked work for a long time to come, and finally, at Nuremberg, to escape”miraculously”, so to say, from the punishment meted out to the war criminals.

Pierre Laval at the Vatican

Francois Charies-Roux”tells us that”In January 1935 our Foreign Minister, Pierre Laval, went to Rome. Strange as it may seem, this was the first official visit to be paid by a French Foreign Minister to the Vatican—the very first in the whole of French history. The conversation (between Pius XI and Laval) began easily with a discussion about the negotiations that Laval was conducting with Mussolini, and about the agreement which was to be signed the same evening, an agreement upon which the Holy See looked with a very favourable eye. . . .

“On the evening of 7 January, . . . Mussolini, . . . turning to Laval, asked him:

‘Have you seen the Osservatore Romano?

‘No.’

‘Well, it is shouting Hosannah.’

“It was true: that evening’s edition of the Holy See’s paper contained a dithyrambic article . . . relating the Pope’s audience to the Minister, and the latter’s visit to Cardinal Pacelli. . . .

In fact, under the cover of a few colonial conventions: a statute concerning the Italians in Tunisia and territorial concessions granted by France to Italy in southern Libya and Somaliland, the future head of the Vichy Government appears to have secretly pledged his personal assistance to the Papacy in a number of schemes, beginning with the annexation of Ethiopia by Fascist Italy (3 October 1935). But, on the other hand, the enthusiastic welcome given to Pierre Laval by the Holy Father did not change his attitude towards the Saar plebiscite, which took place a few days later, on 13 January 1935, as Robert d’Harcourt32 reports:

“On the very eve of the poll, the Catholic deans of the Saar, following the initiative of their hierarchical chiefs of Trier and Speyer, made a united declaration in favour of the union. Berlin had won. Mgr. Hudal, the German rector of the ‘Anima’ at Rome, had the nerve to go a good deal further and spoke of the increased confidence that was due to the Government of the Third Reich.'”

The Pope’s “missus dominicus”

Bernard Lavergne tells us that”… The great spiritual home of this entire Catholic Rhineland is a Benedictine monastery, which is very well known in Germany but almost unknown in France, the monastery of Maria Laach in the Eifel near Mayen, 30 km to the west of Coblenz. . . . They pride themselves on having preserved intact the anti-liberal, counter-revolutionary, pangermanistic and ultramontane spirit, as befits good German monks.

“This monastery’s exceptional influence over the entire Catholic world beyond the Rhine comes of its having been for many a long year the principal spokesman used by the Papacy to acquaint the German bishops with its directives. This monastery was also behind the creation of the Catholic party, the Zentrum, set up during the reign of William II. The Emperor would sometimes visit this monastery to see its superfor, a true”missus dominicus”of the Pope. Hitler often sent his ‘alter ego’ there: the celebrated Herr Goebbels. . . .

“Vis-d-vis German politicians the doctrine of Maria Laach is tantamount to saying that beyond the Rhine Catholicism must be integrated, that is, closely associated with German political power in order that the German State may take full advantage of the considerable political support that the Papacy is able to offer — a no doubt skilful policy, but one which is the very essence of clericalism.

“That is certainly what is happening, for, ever since the tradition of having only Italian popes has been established, and that Italy has lived in ever greater economic and political symbiosis with Germany, the Holy See’s diplomatic activity has always shown a marked predilection for German political theories. This predilection of the Holy See for Germany, which, far from diminishing, has recently become more marked, is m part the direct work of the monks of Maria Laach. . ..

“Dom Ildefonso Herwegen, abbot of the monastery in Hitler’s day, had a very complaisant attitude to the Nazi regime. Moreover, at that time, the prior of Maria Laach was a Prussian reserve officer….

Now for a few more extracts from a work by a German author, Giinther Buxbaum, who brings out very well the Catholic”hierarchy”‘s enthusiastic adherence to this National Socialist movement, which was condemned by the Papacy in theory, but not in practice.

Here the Holy See’s downright hypocrisy is shown in a very strong light.

Under the sign of the cross

“This is the first collective pastoral letter after Hitler’s accession to power. It is dated 3 June 1933. In it. the German Episcopate . . . proclaims its ‘pride’ and ‘joy’ at ‘being German’, and continues to declare its readiness to make ‘the greatest sacrifices for the people and the nation’.

“Similarly, the pastoral letter of August 1936 and that of Christmas of the same year calls upon . . . ‘German unity’. It ends with a wish that speaks of a marked ‘loyalty’:

“‘May our Fuhrer, supported by the collaboration of every citizen, succeed, with the help of God, in carrying through this immensely heavy task with a firm and unshakable hand!

“Immediately after the resignation of the Schuschnigg cabinet, which took place on 11 March 1938, Mgr. Tnnitzer made the following appeal to his flock:

“‘Today the Catholics of the Diocese of Vienna are invited to give thanks to God, our Master, for having seen fit to let the great political changes in Austria take place without bloodshed, and to pray for a happy future for our country. It goes without saying that all the instructions of the authorities should be obeyed willingly and with good grace.’

“On 14 March, the day after the Austrian Anschluss, Hitler arrived in Vienna. Mgr. Innitzer immediately asked for an interview with him. The result of the interview was made known through a press release which contained the Cardinal’s directives. . . . Hence the recommendation to the flock to ‘follow unreservedly the Great German State and its Fuhrer’ as well as the other recommendation, addressed to the clergy, ‘to refrain from taking part in polities’. This again is in accordance with the decisions not only of the Pope, but also of the German Episcopate. . . .

“The fourth paragraph forecasts nothing less than the dissolution of the Catholic youth associations ; for this is the special meaning of the invitation to the ‘chiefs of the youth organizations to make ready for their reunion with the youth organizations of the German Reich’. … To hand over Catholic youth to Baldur von Schirach’s control was to make it follow the ‘Rosenberg line’. . . . One has only to examine now the third paragraph of his bulletin:

“From a belief in the communion of spirits derives, for Christians, the conviction that the nation’s natural community must fulfil a divine idea; hence the practice of the natural virtues must be the condition of a true religious life”. . .

“That is the crucial point of all these directives. . . . This bulletin is the manifest agreement between Catholicism and National Socialism. . . .

“In Germany, people are devoted to the authoritarian spirit of the National Socialist movement. To illustrate this point, one need do no more than take a close look at the speeches made at the Maria Laach congress. We shall mention only that of the Reverend Father Ildefonso Herwegen, Abbot of this Benedictine monastery who had long had the reputation of being the mouthpiece of those who sympathized with National Socialism. On this occasion, he was pleased to draw a parallel between the authoritarian spirit of monastic life and that of the Third Reich.

“Two years later, in 1935, he wrote a preface to the strangest book that has ever appeared amongst Catholic publications in Germany. It was called ‘Katholisch-Konservatives Erbgut’. This anthology, which is a collection of texts by the principal German Catholic theorists, from Gorres to Vogelsang, would have us believe that National Socialism is based purely and simply on the fundamental ideas of Catholicism….”

That well-known journalist Emile Bure also recalls how the most eminent representatives of His Holiness have put all their weight behind Hitler’s adventures:

“It has been established beyond a shadow of doubt that in 1914 as in 1939, the Vatican was always on the side of ..the Germans. Why? Because it liked the Germans? No! It was because it disliked the democracy which the Allies were trying to establish. When Clemenceau used to say: ‘No agreement with the Church is possible, because she wants the opposite of what we want’, he was not speaking lightly. . . .

“When Hitler had brought about the Anschluss with the maximum ferocity of which he was capable. Cardinal Innitzer rushed to assure him of the obedience of the Austrian Catholic clergy. … In 1936, when anti-Semitism was rife in the universities and schools, and when Jewish shops were being sacked, the Polish Cardinal Hlond said of the Jews that they were ‘the advance guard of Bolshevism and atheism’. Cardinal Hlond certainly has on his conscience more than one of the crimes perpetrated on Polish territory during the war at the cry of ‘Down with the Jews!’.

“I shall not return to the case of Mgr. Stepinac, Archbishop of Zagreb, who in Croatia blessed and protected the Government of Pavelitch, assassin of King Alexander of Serbia, and of Barthou, and obtained an audience of the Pope during the war. I shall charitably omit the mention of the abominable conduct of certain high dignitaries of the French Church during the occupation. My dossier is too full for it to be exhausted in a single article. . . .”

Finally, Mr. J. Tchernoff also gives the same evidence:

“Nazi Germany was panting under the strain of continual rearmament. In 1936, her position was becoming unbearable; she had to choose between an attack on Russia, with the help of Japan, and an attack on France, who, according to Mein Kampf, was Germany’s principal enemy.

“On this page of history we see the crystallization of the reoccupation of the Rhineland, the preparations for the Anschluss and the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia; the Spanish war and the fulfilment of Mussolini’s grandiose plan which was intended to make him master of the whole Mediterranean region.