Free Inquiry October/November 2003
Exodus 15 -
The Lord is a man of war.
Dueteronomy 7, God’s orders
to the Israelites on how to conquer and cleanse all of Canaan -
Thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them, thou
shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them. And thou shalt
consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye
shall have no pity upon them... For they will turn away thy son from following
me... so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee
suddenly... the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto
himself, above all people that are on the face of the earth.
Hitler on his invasion of the USSR -
This is a war of annihilation. If we do grasp this, we
shall still beat the enemy, but thirty years later we shall again have to
fight the communist foe.
All the necessary measures -- shooting, exiling, etc. --
we shall take and we can take anyway. The order of the day is first: conquer,
second: rule, third: exploit.
Operational guidelines for the invasion -
The Jewish-Bolshevik intelligentsia, the “oppressor”
of the people up to now, must be eliminated.
Himmler discussing the
Holocaust -
But as far as the children are
concerned, allow me to repeat what I said at the outset: namely that in my
view, we are not justified in allowing hate filled avengers to grow up so that
our children [and] grandchildren are obliged to contend with them.
Matthew 34 -
Do not suppose that I have come
to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
Martin Luther -
Whoever wishes to be a
Christian, let him pluck out the eyes of his reason.
Luther’s On The Jews and Their Lies, a sample -
But since I learned that these
miserable and accursed people to lure themselves even to us... I have
published this little book... Our Lord calls them a “brood of vipers”...
Therefore the blind Jews are truly stupid fools... wherever they have their
synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer self-glory,
conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most
maliciously... they are nothing but thieves and robbers who daily eat no
morsel and wear no thread of clothing which they have not stolen and pilfered
from us by means of their accursed usury... Did I not tell you earlier that a
Jew is such a noble, precious jewel that God and all the angels dance when he
farts?... we must avoid confirming them in their wanton lying, slandering,
cursing and defaming. Nor dare we make ourselves partners in their devilish
ranting and raving by shielding and protecting them, by giving them food,
drink and shelter, or by other neighborly acts... gentle mercy will only tend
to make them worse and worse, while sharp mercy will reform them but little.
Therefore, in any case, away with them! ... their synagogues must be burned
down... their prayer books, their Talmudic writings, also the entire Bible --
be taken from them... they be forbidden... to pray, to teach publicly... They
must be driven from our country... May Christ, our dear Lord, convert them
mercifully and preserve us steadfastly and immovably in the knowledge of him,
which is eternal life. Amen.
From leading Protestant Bishop
Sasse’s forward to a book of Luther’s anti-Semitic commentaries after
Kristallnacht -
On Nov. 10, 1938, on Luther’s
birthday, the synagogues are burning in Germany. The German people ought heed
these words of the greatest anti-Semite of his time, the warner of his people
against the Jews.
Title of a later brochure by
Sasse -
Martin
Luther and the Jews: Do Away with Them!
Der
Sturmer publisher Streicher during
the Nuremberg trial -
Anti-Semitic publications have
existed in Germany for centuries. A book I had, written by Dr. Martin Luther
was, for instance, confiscated. Dr. Martin Luther would very probably sit in
my place in the defendants’ dock today, if this book had been taken into
consideration by the prosecution. In this book The Jews and Their Lies, Dr. Martin Luther writes that the Jews are
a serpent’s brood and one should burn down their synagogues and destroy
them.
Protestant Volkist theologian
Wilhelm Stapel in 1919 -
The German Volk is not an idea of
humanity but an idea of God’s.
Official proclamation by
Protestant Church leaders of Anhalt, Lubeck, Mecklenburg, Nassau-Hesse, Saxony,
Schleswig-Holstein, and Thuringia, 1941 -
From the crucifixion of Christ
to the present day, the Jews have fought Christianity or misused and falsified
it in order to reach their own selfish goals. By Christian baptism nothing is
altered in regard to a Jew’s racial separateness, his national being, and
his biological nature. A German Evangelical church has to care for an further
the religious life of German fellow countrymen; racial Jewish Christians have
no place of rights in it.
From La Civilta Cattoloica (primary Vatican publication) -
1880 -
Oh how wrong and deluded are
those who think that Judaism is just a religion, like Catholicism, Paganism,
Protestantism, and not in fact a race, a people, a nation!
1893 -
[The Jewish nation] does not
work, but traffics in the property and the work of others, it does not
produce, but lives and grows fat with the products of the arts and industry of
the nations that give it refuge. It is the giant octopus that with its
oversized tentacles envelops everything. It has its stomach in the banks...
and its suction cups everywhere: in contracts and monopolies, in credits
unions and banks, in shipping and in the railroads, in the town treasuries and
in state finance. It represents the kingdom of capital... the aristocracy of
gold... It reigns unopposed.
1897 -
The Jew remains always in every
place immutably a Jew. His nationality is not in the soil where he is born,
not in the language that he speaks, but in his seed.
1922 -
The world is sick... Everywhere
peoples are in the grip of inexplicable convulsions. Who is responsible? The
Synagogue.
1936 (after passage of the
Nuremberg Laws) -
[Jews are] uniquely endowed
with the qualities of parasites and destroyers.
1937 -
... an obvious fact that the Jews
are a disruptive element because of their dominating spirit and their
revolutionary tendency. Judaism is... a foreign body that irritates and provokes
the reactions of the organism it has contaminated.
1938 -
...the Jews continual
persecution of Christians, particularly the Catholic church, and the alliance
with Freemasons, socialists, and other anti-Christians groups.
Pius IX encyclical -
For revolution, even against a
government which practices injustice and exemplifies a tyranny, is not
permitted.
Leo XIII encyclical -
To cast aside obedience and by
popular violence to incite revolt, is therefore treason, not against man only,
but against God.
Oath required of German
bishops by the Nazi-Vatican concordant -
In the performance of my
spiritual office and in my solicitude for the welfare and the interest of the
German Reich, I will endeavor to avoid all detrimental acts which might
endanger it. (Note: since Hitler was the Reich the oath was effectively to
him.)
Benedictine Galen’s opinion
on the Weimer principle of power from the people -
The power of government has its
source not in the people but in God. Article 1 is [therefore] misleading and
untrue; it robs God of the honor to which he is entitled as the one true
authority -- such action might rightly be called sacrilegious.
Mein Kampf
The volkish minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each
in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking about God's will,
and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's
will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys
His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will.
The task of preserving and advancing the highest humanity, given to this
earth by the benevolence of the Almighty, seems a truly high mission.
Human culture and civilization on this continent are inseparably bound
up with the presence of the Aryan. If he dies out or declines, the dark veils of
an age without culture will again descend upon this globe. The undermining of
the existence of human culture by the destruction of its bearer seems in the
eyes of a volkish philosophy the most execrable crime. Anyone who dares lay
hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent
creator of this miracle and contributes to the explosion from paradise.
The Germanic inhabitant of the American continent, who has remained
racially pure and unmixed, rose to be master of the continent; he will remain
the master as long as he does not fall a victim to defilement of the blood. The
result of all racial crossing is therefore in brief always the following: (a)
Lowering of the level of the higher race. (b) Physical and intellectual
regression and hence the beginning of a slowly but surely progressing illness.
To bring about such a development is, then, nothing else but to sin against the
will of the Eternal Creator.
It is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator if His most gifted beings
by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands are allowed to degenerate in the
present proletarian morass.
Peoples which bastardize themselves, or let themselves be bastardized, sin
against the will of eternal Providence.
If our churches also sin [by presiding over interracial marriages] against
the image of the Lord, whose importance they still highly emphasize, it is
entirely because of the line of their present activity which speaks of the
spirit and lets its bearer, the man, degenerate into a depraved proletarian.
[Would not an societal admonition] finally put to and end to the constant and
continuous original sin of racial poisoning, and to give the Almighty Creator
beings such as He Himself created?
A volkish state must therefore begin by raising marriage from the level of a
continuous defilement of the race, and give it the consecration of an
institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not
monstrosities halfway between man and ape.
What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our
race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood,
the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may mature
for the fulfillment of the mission allotted it by the creator of the universe.
Then, from the child's story-book to the last newspaper in the country, and
every theatre and cinema, every pillar where placards are posted and every free
space on the hoardings should be utilized in the service of this one great
mission, until the faint hearted cry, "Lord, deliver us," which our
patriotic associations send up to Heaven today would be transformed into an
ardent prayer: 'Almighty God, bless our arms when the hour comes.
His [the Jew's] life is entirely only of this world, and his spirit is
inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous
was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course the latter made no
secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took
his whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity....
In return Christ was nailed to the cross.
At times of greatest distress, fury against him [the Jew] finally breaks out,
and the plundered and ruined masses begin to defend themselves against the
scourge of God.
They [German leaders who collaborated with Jews] made a pact with the devil
and landed in hell.
And so he [the Jew] advances on his fatal road until another force comes
forth to oppose him, and in a mighty struggle hurls the heaven-stormer back to
Lucifer.
With Satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for
the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood.
Religion is ridiculed [by Jews], ethics and morality represented as outmoded.
Parallel to the training of the body a struggle against the poisoning of the
soul must begin. Our whole public life today is like a hothouse for sexual ideas
and simulations. Just look at the bill of fare served up in our movies,
vaudeville and theaters, and you will hardly be able to deny that this is not
the right kind of food, particularly for youth... Theater, art, literature,
cinema, press, posters and window displays must be cleansed of all
manifestations of our rotting world placed in the service of a moral, political,
and cultural idea.
The great masses of people do not no consist of philosophers; precisely for
the masses, faith is often the sole foundation for a moral attitude.
For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of [Nazi]
doctrine?.... Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church.
Though its doctrinal edifice.... comes into collision with exact science and
research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little
syllable of its doctrines.
We Germans, by God, have never lacked scientific education.
In any case the Jew reached his desired goal: Catholics and Protestants wage
a merry war with one another, and the mortal enemy of Aryan humanity and all
Christendom laughs up his sleeve.
{Hitler hopes that] through compatibility on both {Protestant and Catholic]
sides, the nation is given a future which by its greatness would gradually have
a conciliatory effect in this province as elsewhere.
It is, therefore, necessary that the National Socialist movement be
recognized and established in the eyes of all as the champion of a definite
political purpose. Whatever heaven has in store for us, let men recognize us by
our very visor!
MK
and a 1936 speech -
I am convinced that I am acting
as an agent of our Almighty creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for
the Lord’s work.
Hitler writing in the 1920s -
The Boshevization of
Germany...means the complete annihilation of the entire Christian-western
culture.
Hitler 1922 -
My feeling as a Christian
points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once
in loneliness, surrounded by only a few followers, recognized these Jews for
what they are and summoned men the fight against them and who, God’s truth!,
was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love, as a
Christian and as a man, I read through the passage which tells is how the lord
rose at last in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the temple
the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was the fight for the world
against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest
emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for
this He had to shed His blood upon the cross. As a Christian I have no duty to
allow myself to be cheated... For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own
people.
Hitler
We want to prevent our Germany
from suffering, as Another did, the death upon the cross.
Hitler 1923 -
The Jews are undoubtedly a
race, but not human. They cannot be human in the sense of being an image of
God, the Eternal. The Jews are the image of the Devil.
Hitler 1926 in reference to
the Jews -
The task which Christ began but
did not finish, I will complete.
Hitler upon assuming power in
1933 -
May Almighty God take our work
to his grace, give true form to our will, bless our insight, and endow us with
the confidence of our Volk.
Hitler, first speech to
Reichstag -
While the regime is determined
to carry through the political and moral purging of our public life, it is
creating and ensuring the prerequisites for a really deep inner religiosity.
Benefits of a personal nature, which might arise from a compromise with
atheistic organizations, could outweigh the results which become apparent
through the destruction of general religious-ethical values. The national
regime seeks in both Christian confessions the factors most important for the
maintenance of our Volkism. The struggle against a materialistic philosophy
and for the creation of a true folk community serves the interests of the
German nation as well as our Christian belief.
Hitler 1933 -
I too declare that I will never
join forces with the parties that destroy Christianity. If there are those who
now protect a threatened Christianity, where was their Christianity in those
fourteen years when they went arm and arm with atheism?
Hitler, 1933 speech -
We were convinced that the
people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight
against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical
declarations: we have stamped it out.
Hitler, 1936 -
I go with the certainty of a
sleepwalker along the path laid out for me by Providence.
Hitler, 1934 speech -
National Socialism neither
opposes the church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary it stands on
the ground of a real Christianity.
Hitler, 1938 speech -
We will not allow
mystically-minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the
world beyond
Hitler 1941 -
I am Fuhrer of a Reich that
will last for a thousand years to come. No power can shake the German Reich
now. Divine Providence has willed it that I carry the fulfillment of a
Germanic task.
Statement by Hitler to General
Gerhart Engel in 1941 -
I an now as before a Catholic
and will always remain so.
Hitler -
I learned much from the Order
of the Jesuits. Until now, there has never been anything more grandiose, on
the earth, than the hierarchical organization of the Catholic church. I
transferred much of this organization into my own party.
Hitler’s theological
justification for Operation Barbarrosa -
The dear God, once again, makes
it like that. He suddenly casts the masses of humanity to earth and each one
has to look after itself and how he gets through. One person takes something
away from the other. And at the end you can only say that the stronger wins.
That is after all the most sensible order of things.
Hitler, 1944 speech -
I may not be a light of the
church, a pulpiteer, but deep down I am a Pius man, and believe that whoever
fights bravely in defense of the natural laws framed by God and never
capitulates will never be deserted by the lawgiver, but will, in the end,
receive the blessings of Providence.
Hitler statement to Wehrmacht
soldiers in 1944 -
Providence will bestow victory
on the people that has done the most to earn it. If therefore Providence
grants life as the prize to those who have fought and defended most
courageously, then our people will find mercy from the just arbiter who at all
times gave victory to the most meritorious.
Hitler’s Table Talk, 1940s -
Cristianity is an invention of
sick brains... So it’s not opportune to hurl ourselves now into a struggle
with the churches. The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural
death... Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism the
destroyer. Nevertheless, the Galilean, who later was called Christ, intended
something quite different. He must be considered as a popular leader who took
up His position against Jewry... For the Galiean’s object was to liberate
His country form Jewish oppression. He set Himself against Jewish capitalism,
and that’s why the Jews liquidated Him... Christ was an Aryan, and St. Paul
used his doctrine to mobilize the criminal underworld and thus organize a
proto-Bolshevism.
Speer on Hitler’s beliefs in
the 1940s -
Even after 1942 Hitler went on
maintaining that he regarded the church as indispensable in political life. He
would be happy, he said in one of those teatime talks at Obersalzberg, if
someday a prominent churchman turned up who was suited to lead one of the
churches -- or if possible both the Catholic and Protestant churches reunited.
He still regretted that Reich Bishop Muler was not the right man to carry of
his far reaching plans. But he sharply condemned the campaign against the
church, he said, to replace the church by any party ideology.
Statement commonly heard after
news of the Hitler’s survival of the 1945 bomb plot -
Thank God the Fuhrer is alive.
Baldur von Schirach, head of
the Hitler Youth -
Who serves Hitler, who serves
Germany, serves God.
Wehrmacht oath written by the
military command grateful for the elimination of the Brownshirt militia via the
“Night of the Long Knives” -
I swear by God this holy oath
to the Fuhrer of the German Reich and the German people, Adolf Hitler.
SS oath -
I pledge to you Adolf Hitler my
obedience unto death, so help me God.
Statement on soldier and camp
guard belt buckles -
God is with us.
Prelunch invocation of German
school children
Fuhrer, my Fuhrer, bequeathed
to me by the Lord.
Goebbels, 1936 -
We have a feeling that Germany
has been transformed into a great house of God... where the Fuhrer as our
mediator stood before the throne of the Almighty.
Goering -
God gave the savior to the
German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith, that (Hitler) was
sent by God to save Germany.
Hess, 1938 -
With all our strength we will
endeavor to be worthy of the Fuhrer thou, O Lord, has sent us!
Himmler to SS guards -
You have a responsibility
before God and Hitler for everything that is happening. I myself hate this
bloody business and I have been moved to the depths of my soul. But I am
obeying the highest law by doing my duty.
Streicher, 1938 -
Bring up the children to have a
healthy hatred, a healthy wrath. Tell the children, ‘Yes indeed, Jesus
whipped them and drove them out. He hated the Jews!”
Text on Nazi era German
postcard -
Front: Peace on earth, good
will towards men
Back: Jews get out
1935 statement by the primate
of Poland -
There will be the Jewish
problem as long as the Jews remain.
Easter 1933 message to
millions of Protestants from the mainstream Prussian church administration
concerning Hitler’s rise to power -
The risen Christ goes forth in
Germany to a people to who God has spoken by means of a great turning point in
history. We know that we are at one with all Protestant fellow believers in
joy at the awakening of the deepest powers of our nation to a patriotic
consciousness, to a true community of the Volk, and to a religious renewal...
In the conviction that the renewal of the Volk and Reich can be achieved and
secured only by these powers, the church knows itself bound in gratitude to
the leadership of the new Germany. It is joyfully prepared to cooperate in the
national and moral renewal of the people.
From Papen, who made Hitler
chancellor and helped negotiate the concordat -
The Third Reich is
the first world power which not only acknowledges but also puts into practice
the high principles of the papacy.
From the official Nazi paper
Volkischer Beobachter during concordat negotiations -
The Pope will raise no
objections to Hitler’s government, since the government view that first of
all order must prevail in a state that is thoroughly in keeping with
Christianity. As long as the Reich Cabinet fights against Communism, the
Vatican will not cause the slightest difficulty for it.
Views of the future Pius XII
to Cardinal Ritter after the 1932 elections -
It is to be hoped and desired
that, like the Zentrum, and the Bavarian People’s Party, so too the other
parties which stand on Christian principles and which now also include the
National Socialist Party, now the strongest party in the Reichstag, will use
every means to hold off the cultural Bolshevising of Germany, which is on the
march behind the Communist Party.
Comments on Pius XI concerning
the policies of the new Chancellor, Hitler -
Until recently the voice of the
Roman Pope remained the only one to point out the serious dangers threatening
Christian culture which has been introduced into almost all nations.
Cardinal Faulhaber’s notes
on the views of Pius XI on the new Chancellor -
I am pleased; he is the first
statesman to have spoken out against Bolshevism.
Cardinal Faulhaber’s
observations about the new Chancellor -
He speaks very Piusly, in
Konisberg, about providence and how he prays.
Comments by Cardinal Faulhaber
over accepting a one party state -
The concordat as a whole is so
important, for instance confessional schools, that I feel that it ought not
fail on this point [banning of the Zentrum].”
Official statement by Catholic
Bishops on Catholics and the new regime -
The episcopate believes it can
cherish the confidence that the designated general prohibitions and warnings
need no longer be considered necessary. For Catholic Christians, to whom the
voice of the church is sacred, it is not necessary at the present moment, to
make special admonition to be loyal to the lawful government and to fulfill
conscientiously the duties of citizenship, rejecting on principle all illegal
or subversive behavior.
Birthday message to Hitler
from Zentrum party head Kaas as he negotiated the concordat that banned his
party -
Sincere good wishes for today
and assurances of unswerving collaboration
in the great work of the creation of a Germany united within, socially at peace, and outwardly free. [Emphases
added]
Long distance telephone query
from Kaas about the state of the Zentrum party he had abandoned -
You still haven’t disbanded?
Report by Papen to Berlin on
the opinion in Rome -
Disbanding of the
Zentrum is approved here and considered to be settled with the conclusion of
the concordat.
Official statement of Zentrum
upon its disbandment -
The political revolution has
placed German civil life upon a completely new foundation which no longer
leaves any room for a party-political activity... Therefore the Zentrum is
disbanding... in agreement with Reich Chancellor Hitler [which gives] its
supporters the chance to make their energies wholly available for the national
front under the leadership of the Chancellor, for positive co-operation
towards the stabilization of our national, social,
economic and cultural conditions, and collaboration in the restoration of law and order. [Emphasis added]
Future Pius XII on the
premature demise of the Zentrum party before finalization of the concordat -
A pity that it had to come now.
Feelings of future Pius XII on
the signing of the concordat -
Something has been created by a
determined use of the general situation under God’s benevolent and gracious
help. If it is implemented in an equally loyal way it will prove to be a
blessing to the church as well as to the state, and can protect immortal souls
from the infinitely many dangers which we have all faced. even yesterday, with
trembling hearts.
Letter to Hitler from Cardinal
Faulhaber concerning the successful concordat -
What the old parliament and
parties did not accomplish in sixty years, your statesmanlike foresight has
achieved in six months. For Germany’s reputation in the West and in the
East, and before the whole world, this handshake with the papacy - the
greatest moral power of world history - is a feat of immeasurable blessing.
Comments by a Communist to a
skeptical Catholic Erwin von Aretin during concordat negotiations, both were
concentration camp inmates -
So where are your bishops? In
the old days if a stage play was given that didn’t suit them, they were
always there. But now, when thousands are being murdered, no one gets up in
the pulpit and breathes even a word... You’ll see that the bishops want to
make a concordat so that they are protected and we can all go to hell
together.
Aretin’s observation after
signing of the concordat -
I really felt rather foolish
when my Nuremberg friend grinned at me at me from a distance.
Jesuit Friedrich Muckerman on
the concordat during the war -
Anyone who still fought against
National Socialism as the arch-enemy of the church now came under the
suspicion of being a pessimist, of opposing the supreme authority in the
church; he was decried as a fanatic... these men were even blamed for
sabotaging the concordant.
Comment by Cardinal Bertram to
future Pius XII on possible retribution if protest extended beyond helping
Catholics -
Jews can help themselves.
Comment on the same subject at
about the same time by Cardinal Faulhaber -
The Jews are capable of helping
themselves.
Faulhaber telegram after he
survived a bomb in 1939 -
To thank divine Providence in
the name of the archdiocese for the Fuhrer’s fortunate escape.
Comments by Catholic Wehrmacht
Bishop Franz-Justus Rarkowski in 1940 -
The German people has a good
conscience and knows which people it is that before God and history bears the
responsibility for this presently raging, gigantic struggle. The German people
knows who lightheartedly unleashed the dogs of war. Our opponents believed in
the power of their money bags and the repressive force of that shameful and
un-Christian Treaty of Versailles.
Bishop Meiser, head of the
Bavarian Protestant Church after four years of “Church Struggle” -
Thank you God for every success
which, through your grace, you have so far granted him {Hitler] for the good
of our people.
Observation by Nazi Hans Frank
about Hitler’s early speechs -
He placed before the protection
of the Almighty in the most serious and solemn exhortation the salvation of
the honor of the German soldier and worker in his life-task.
The opinion of Cardinal
Faulhaber after a three hour long interview with Hitler in 1936.
The Reich Chancellor
undoubtedly believes in God. He recognizes Christianity as the builder of
western culture.
Catholic authorities on the
plebiscite to withdraw Germany from the League of Nations -
In the hours of our nation’s
destiny the Catholics of the Berlin diocese, in unshakable love for Volk and
fatherland, stand solidly behind the Fuhrer and Chancellor in his fight for
the equal rights and honor of the nation, and the restoration of a just peace
between the nations.
Protestant authorities on the
same subject -
At this decisive hour for Volk
and fatherland we greet our Fuhrer. We give thanks for the manly action and
the clear word which safeguard Germany’s honor. In the name of more than
2500 Protestant pastors... we pledge loyal obedience and remembrance in
prayers.
From a signed declaration of
support for Hitler by Austrian bishops after the Anschlus -
Through the actions of the
National Socialist Movement the danger of Godless Bolshevism, which would
destroy everything, will be fended off.
Item added by Cardinal
Innitzer when signing above declaration -
Heil Hitler.
Statement from Cardinal
Bertram published in a Nazi newspaper after the Anschlus -
The great deed of safeguarding
peace among the nations moves the German episcopate acting in the name of all
the German dioceses, respectfully to extend congratulations and thanks and to
order a festive ringing of bells on Sunday.
Upon becoming Pius XII in 1939
the new Pope wanted to get off to a fresh start with Hitler -
To the Illustrious Herr Adolf
Hitler, Fuhrer and Chancellor of the German Reich! Here at the beginning of
Our Pontificate We wish to assure you that We remain devoted to the spiritual
welfare of the German people entrusted to your leadership... During the many
years we spent in Germany, We did all in our Our power to establish harmonious
relations between Church and State. Now that the responsibilities of Our
pastoral function have increased Our opportunities, how much more ardently do
We pray to reach that goal.
Call by the Catholic Bishop of
Mainz on Hitler’s 50th birthday -
Pray for “the Fuhrer and
Chancellor, the inspirer, enlarger and protector of the Reich.
Birthday greetings from Pius
XII through Cardinal Bertram starting with Hitler’s 50th and continuing
through 1945 -
Warmest congratulations to the
Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany with fervent
prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars.
A partly accurate statement
made by a woman during the successful protest against the removal of crosses
from Bavarian schools -
The Fuhrer doesn’t want this,
and certainly knows nothing of the removal of the crosses.
Comments by Catholic Wehrmacht
Bishop Franz-Justus Rarkowski in 1940 -
The German people has a good
conscience and knows which people it is that before God
and history bears the responsibility for this presently raging, gigantic
struggle. The German people knows who lightheartedly unleashed the dogs of
war. Our opponents believed in the power of their money bags and the
repressive force of that shameful and un-Christian Treaty of Versailles.
Catholic bishop of Paderborn a
few days after the invasion of the USSR -
For the protection of
Christianity in our Fatherland, for the rescue of the Church from the threat
of anti-Christian Bolshevism.
Bishop of Eichstatt at the
same time -
A crusade, a holy war for
homeland and people, for faith and church, for Christ and his most holy cross.
Prayer by Catholic Bishop
Galen about the invasion of the USSR the same summer he protested the euthanasia
program and denounced attacks upon the Church -
[Please grant] successful
defense against the Bolshevik threat to our people.
Galen’s opinion in 1943 -
The war is true and just.
Galen’s advice to a friend
upon being drafted the same year -
Go and serve your Fatherland.
Hitler’s order of the day to
German troops on the eastern front -
God’s mercy on our people and
the entire world if this Barbaric enemy had been able to move his tens of
thousands of tanks before we moved ours!... this enemy does not consist of
soldiers, but a majority of beasts... [USSR poverty] is a result of nearly a
25-year Jewish rule that, as bolshevism, is basically similar to the general
form of capitalism... With the Lord’s aid you not only will bring victory
but also the most essential condition for peace.
1943 comment to papal
representative to Fascist Croat regime by Pius XII -
In spite of everything, no one
wants to acknowledge the one, real and principal enemy of Europe; no true,
communal military crusade against Bolshevism has been initiated.
Pius XII opinion on the Nazi
struggle against Bolshevism -
High minded gallantry in
defense of Christian culture.
Opinion of Nazi official
Weizsacker about Pius XII in 1943 -
By all accounts, the Pope...
has not allowed himself to be stampeded into making any demonstrative
pronouncement against the removal of Jews from Rome... He [Pius] has done
everything he could... not to injure the relationship between the Vatican and
the German government.
Pius XI on Mussolini who
negotiated the 1929 concordat -
A man sent by Providence
The bishop of Terracina on the
invasion of Ethiopia -
Today Italy is Fascist and the
hearts of all Italians beat together with yours (Mussolini’s).
1941 statement by Cardinal
Stepinac -
God... has given us Ante
Pavelic [Catholic fascist Croat dictator], and moved the leader of a friendly
and allied people, Adolf Hitler, to use his victorious troops to disperse our
oppressors... Glory be to God, our gratitude to Adolf Hitler and loyalty to
our Poglavnik.
1942 BBC broadcast -
The worst atrocities are being
committed in the environs of the archbishop of Zagreb [Stepinac]. The blood is
flowing in streams. The Orthodox are being forcibly converted to Catholicism
and we do not hear the archbishop’s voice preaching revolt. Instead it is
reported [correctly] that he is taking part in Nazi and Fascist parades.
Franco on Hitler -
Adolf Hitler, son of the
Catholic, died while defending Christianity... With the palm of the martyr,
God gives Hitler the laurels of Victory.
U. S. State Dept. report, 1947
(released 1984) -
The Vatican, which maintained
an “apostolic” visitor in Zagreb from June 1941 until the end of the war,
was aware of the killing campaign... Croation Catholic authorities condemned
the atrocities committed by the Ustashi, but remained otherwise supportive of
the regime... The Vatican... is the largest single organization involved in
the illegal movement of emigrants... the justification... for its
participation in this illegal traffic is simply the propagation of the Faith.
It is the Vatican’s desire to assist any person, regardless of... political
beliefs, as long as that person can prove himself to be Catholic... in hose
Latin America countries where the Church is a controlling or dominating
factor, the Vatican has brought pressure to bear which has resulted in the...
countries taking an attitude almost as favoring the entry their country of
former Nazis and former Fascists... so long as they are anti-Communist.
Estrongo Nachama, Auschwitz
survivor -
We called upon God, dear God,
to help us. But God didn’t help us.
Observation by world-renowned
New Testament scholar Kittle in 1946 -
Christianity in Germany bears a
greater responsibility before God than the National Socialists, the SS, and
the Gestapo.
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