Fascism and the Catholic Church
in Germany
before WWII
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