The Church and the Reich
During
Hitler’s fascist rule in Germany all organized institutions were either
controlled by the Nazi party or shut down. Since the Roman Catholic
Church was one of the biggest organized institutions in Germany, it became
a target for the Nazi leaders. The Nazi party wanted to control all
aspects of life in the society from religion to art. The struggle
between the Roman Catholic Church and the Nazi party can be evaluated from
this perspective. The Catholic Church did not want anything more
than to protect its rights and institutions. There was no official
negative reaction by the Pope against Hitler’s anti-Semitism until Hitler
suppressed the Catholic Church in Germany.
The
Catholic Church felt the danger of the Nazi party after the Nazis increased
their number of seats in the Reichstag in the 1930 election. The
Catholic leaders considered Hitler’s movement as a threat to the church.
From 1930 to 1933, the relations between the Catholic Church and the Nazi
party were chilly. The Catholic leadership was worried that Hitler
would restrict church activity. While the bishops openly directed
their verbal attacks against the Nazi party program, Pope Pius XI (Achille
Ratti 1922-1939) remained silent.
Although
the Pope condemned the French fascist party, Action Francaise, he did not
condemn the Nazi party.1 However,
some bishops acted independently of the Pope, condemning the Nazi party.
Some of them even went further and introduced new regulations in their
churches. According to these new regulations, Catholics were forbidden
to join the Nazi party. Also, the Nazi party members were not allowed
to participate in church services.2
The Center Party
The
Center Party (CP) was the largest Catholic party in Germany until it dissolved
itself in 1933. Neither the CP nor the Bavarian People’s Party (BPP),
another Catholic party, were able to receive the full support of the Catholics
at the polls. The CP and the BPP opposed the Nazi party until 1933.
Both the church and the Catholic parties changed their attitude toward
the Nazis after the Reichstag elections on March 5, 1933. The CP
and the BPP won only 92 seats in the 647-seat German parliament.
The Nazi party and its ally, the Hugenberg Nationalists, won 288 and 52
seats respectively. They constituted a majority but did not have
enough seats to change the constitution, which required a two-thirds majority.
Hitler’s first main goal was to establish his authority over the state.
In order to take this step, Hitler had to persuade the CP and the BPP members
to give their support. The day after the elections, Hitler declared
that he would respect the present position of the church and would not
change it. Negotiations between the Pope and the Nazi leaders were
also initiated to discuss the position of Catholics in Germany.
The
Catholic leaders trusted Hitler. The CP and the BPP brought about
their own ends by supporting Hitler in his “Enabling Act,” giving Hitler
extraordinary power. Without the support of Catholic parties, Hitler
could not have reached his goal easily. For Catholics the vote became
a loyalty issue toward the state. They were afraid of being called
less patriotic than other Germans. The Catholics were hoping to save
Catholic civil servants from Hitler's purge but they could not even save
themselves in the end. On March 23, 1933, the Enabling Act was passed
in the Reichstag. After the act was passed, bishops urged Catholics
to support the state. Support was demanded not for the Nazis, but
for the state itself. However, after the Enabling Act was passed
the Nazis became “the state” and the state became synonymous to the Nazis.
After the Enabling
Act was passed and the rights of Catholics became protected by the treaty
between the Pope and the Nazi leaders, there was no need for the Center
party. The CP dissolved itself on July 10, 1933, leaving the protection
of German Catholics to the Nazis. Nazi Germany signed a concordat
with the Pope on July 20, which made the Third Reich the guarantor of the
civic and religious interests of German Catholics. The treaty gave
guarantees for Catholic schools and continued governmental subsidies to
the Church; it banned priests from participating in politics, and closed
all the political, social and vocational organizations that made up the
German Catholic sub-cultural infrastructure.
Hitler never respected
this treaty. He shut down the Catholic Youth League, arrested Catholic
priests and nuns, and suppressed the Catholic publications. The Pope
responded to Hitler with a public encyclical on March 14, 1937. He
criticized the German suppression of Catholics. He attacked Hitler
without addressing him by name. “Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian
Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the
personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God who "Reached
from end to end mightily, and ordered all things sweetly" (Wisdom viii.
1). Neither is he a believer in God.”3
It is also claimed
that Pius XI was planning to issue another encyclical regarding anti-Semitism
and racism. He appointed some people to gather the documents and
information about the subject. The text was prepared under the title
of “The Unity of Human Races” but Pius XI’s death in February, 1939 left
his efforts fruitless because his successor the Pius XII never published
it.4