Talk:Catholic Church and Nazi Germany

Weak Maintenance Tags

Recently added [October - November 2014] Maintenance Tags are marginal and lack substantive merit other than a reference to one sentence and come across as "pilling-on". In particular, the POV Tag that the Article's neutrality is "debated". The Tags themselves appear to lack a neutrality.

@Luizpuodzius:

Querendo traduzir é só dá um toque. 2804:14C:5BB3:A319:A0B2:7CBE:F4EA:4026 (talk) 23:43, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Strongly biased

This article looks like a defense statement from the Catholic church. The article seems to try to free Catholics from connections with the Nazis as far as possible. This is misleading. As a start on the work of providing a more correct and balanced presentation, I have appended a reference to Catholic bishops in 2020 admitting that the wartime bishops did not oppose the war. Much more should be done to provide a correct presentation. Joreberg (talk) 13:28, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

And a year later, and nothing has changed. How disappointing.

"Nazi anti-Semitism embraced pseudoscientific racial principles, but ancient antipathies between Christianity and Judaism contributed to European antisemitism. Although outspoken public Catholic resistance to mistreatment of Jews was usually limited to individual efforts, even so, in every country under German occupation, priests played a major role in rescuing Jews." So, I'm confused. Why is there bias and excuse? This is not balanced. How does this meet Wikipedia's requirements. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:ab88:c85:2500:9825:e54d:cb89:d20d (talk • contribs)

This person is right, right before the COVID 19 pandemic in 2020 researchers were allowed to examine the vatican archives to check Pius XI's records and with only a week before they closed the archives back up because of the pandemic they already found documents outlying anti semitism and racism.

Though further research is needed it doesn't look good for the church as a whole and the current defense the artikel is obviously giving the catholic church is almost appalling

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/world/europe/pope-pius-xii-jews-vatican-archives.html 94.110.122.9 (talk) 15:01, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the issue. The article makes pretty clear that individuals worked for and against the regime and the central Church leadership did little. VQuakr (talk) 17:11, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree the article is strongly bias and even lists a theologian, with a clear preference toward being apologetic toward his religion, as a source. 2601:982:8202:CDA0:6528:B0A:1ADB:BEA9 (talk) 05:37, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

The thing is, the resistance of Catholics and the Catholic clergy against the Nazi regime is not made up and is not some kind of attempt to falsify history. That German archbishops and bishops issued a pastoral letter in 1931 condemning National Socialism and forbidding Catholics from joining NSDAP is a fact, and the original can be found here. I believe that historians are in agreement here, Richard Steigmann-Gall in his Apostasy or Religiosity? The Cultural Meanings of the Protestant Vote for Hitler went even as far as saying that "the Nazi party's share of a region's vote was inversely proportional to the Catholic percentage of its population." (page 275)

I'm sure we're all aware that the Catholic Church is a flawed institution that deserves criticism, and the existence of anti-Semitic or pro-Nazi Catholics such as Hudal can't be denied, but the matter of a fact is, the majority was in fact opposed to National Socialism. So unless you have sources that would show the Catholic Church as systematically supportive (rather than opposed to) Nazism, feel free to enrich the main article. Purging entire paragraphs because the author of the linked source has a degree in theology isn't the right way to go around it. Thank you, friends. Brat Forelli (talk) 01:43, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Regarding Robert A. Krieg, I added two secondary sources that substantiate what he wrote. Brat Forelli (talk) 02:33, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

And another two, to four total. All in all, Robert Krieg doesn't write anything that wouldn't be confirmed by historians and contemporary accounts. Brat Forelli (talk) 14:11, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Are theologians somehow disqualified from being experts in Church history? Are they to be silenced? 2.24.107.171 (talk) 22:54, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Hudal, NPOV, and misleading claims

Looking at the article, I see a claim that the pope demanded action against him, but there’s nothing I can find on a quick search that indicates that actually happened.

Josef Tizo is included in the gallery, far as I can tell nothing was done against him either.

The concern I have is that this article might be a bit too generous in the defense of specific actions by specific Catholics.

Obviously a thorny subject, but a Catholic historian’s view should not be included without explicitly identifying that conflict of interest, especially when the claim is, as far as I can tell, misleading since it implies action was taken when as far as I can tell it was not: It raises very hard questions about NPOV if the article includes apparently misleading or loaded statements like this.

Regardless, the lead to the article is a mess and is not a summary of anything. I’ll confess a certain cynicism about Catholicism as a good little Protestant and it’s probably best I don’t edit it directly.2601:601:9D00:10:1E4:994F:554B:5554 (talk) 05:29, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Hello,

Fortunately, I'm the person behind the sentence that you took issue with. I thank you for your balanced and honest perspective, and that you decided to revert your edit and take it to this talk page instead.

Since you mentioned being a Protestant, I understand feeling some kind of hostility or cynicism towards the Catholic Church, but you shouldn't let it skew your perspective too much. The paragraph is about the Persilscheine, and here both German Catholic and Protestant Churches were complicit. The main source of this paragraph, Christian complicity? : changing views on German churches and the Holocaust by Robert Ericksen, discusses Protestant contribution here a lot:

Immediately in 1945, Protestant church leaders raised protests against the Allied plan of denazification. They claimed that the Americans and British could not understand Germany nor recognize who the real Nazis were. They raised the now familiar argument that the number of true Nazis was very, very small. We can see in retrospect that the very prominent Bishop Wurm, for example, criticized denazification at least partly because his own son had been caught falsifying his Fragebogen (his Allied questionnaire) by not mentioning that he had already joined the Nazi Party by the mid-1920s. That highlights one major reason for Protestants to have opposed denazification: a large number of Christians would be caught in its snares. Church leaders literally complained that only communists would be left to run Germany if the good Christians who had “innocently joined the Nazi Party” were removed from positions of influence via denazification. Protestant pastors sabotaged denazification by writing letters of recommendation for all who asked, even for some accused and convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. These letters became so notorious in postwar Germany that they were tagged with a satirical name based on a common soap product. So-called Persilscheine were “soap certificates” designed to wash someone clean of any Nazi taint. Protestant church officials in Bavaria had to warn pastors not to write too many such letters and to try not to fill them each with the same phrases, lest they lose all credibility.

Now, there I'm not trying to defend the Catholic Church by "what about Protestants?!", but simply point out that it would be false to portray the Catholic Church as "pro-Nazi" in any way, or use the Persilscheine to attack either the Protestants or the Catholic Church without the needed context. I think it's necessary to find and provide sources on Vatican reaction (if any) rather than imply that Vatican was complicit in rescuing Nazi criminals.

The source of main criticism of Pius XII doesn't come from the fact that he was somewhat friendly towards the Nazi regime or that he was complicit in the Persilscheine or the Ratlines - these would be extremely grave accusations that one would need to present explicit proof of. The criticism of him simply comes from the fact that he didn't do enough. As Patricia M. Keefe wrotes in her article "Popes Pius XI and Pius XII, the Catholic Church, and the Nazi Persecution of the Jews":

It cannot be denied, of course, that from the very day of his election to the Papacy and right up to the last hour before the outbreak of war, Pius XII laboured unceasingly by diplomatic means to prevent hostilities from breaking out. In May 1939, he had approached the governments of Poland, France, Italy, Great Britain and Germany, offering to summon a Conference to try to resolve differences and promote peace, but this offer was not accepted. On the other hand, the most shameful account of the spiritual leadership of Pius XII during the years of the Second World War, from 1939 to 1945, consists of a list, not of what he did, but rather of what he failed to do. There was, admittedly, much that he did which could be described as positive. Unfortunately, they were all private actions, while the public actions for which the world was waiting were conspicuous by their absence.

Now, concerning Hudal and Pius XII, I recommend you to look at Hudal's Wikipedia page - which I have never contributed to myself. It mentions that Hudal had a relationship with future Pius XII which broke off in 1937 due to Hudal's. His article also mentions "Pope's Ban" on Hudal from Vatican, which seems to confirm Hesemann's writings.

I managed to find a paper called "Alois Hudal – ein Anti-Pacelli? Zur Diskussion um die Haltung des Vatikans gegenüber dem Nationalsozialismus" where it says that Hudal was the Pope "most certainly" ordered his removal himself. Here is the original quote:

1952 wurde Alois Hudal gegen seinen Willen vom Vatikan seines Amtes als Rektor der Anima enthoben. Offenbar waren an seiner „Kaltstellung“ nicht nur deutsche und österreichische Bischöfe beteiligt, sondern auch höchste vatikanische Stellen – mit ziemlicher Wahrscheinlichkeit sogar der Papst selbst. Besondere Brisanz erhält dieser Aspekt dadurch, daß Hudal offenbar einer der wichtigsten „Kronzeugen“ und Informanten für Hochhuths umstrittenes Bühnenstück „Der Stellvertreter“ wurde, das – obwohl von Hochhuth selbst als Fiktion bezeichnet – auf Pacelli einen großen Schatten warf.

And my translation:

In 1952, Alois Hudal was removed from his post as Rector of the Anima by the Vatican against his will. Apparently, not only German and Austrian bishops were involved in his "cold setting", but also the highest Vatican authorities - almost certainly even the Pope himself. This aspect is given particular explosiveness by the fact that Hudal apparently became one of the most important "key witnesses" and informants for Hochhuth's controversial stage play "Der Stellvertreter", which - although described by Hochhuth himself as fiction - cast a large shadow over Pacelli.

Of course, the only problem is that this paper was written by Dominik Burkard, whom German Wikipedia identifies as Roman Catholic theologian. But as you can see, Pius XII disliked Hudal and the Vatican did demand his resignation, which makes Hesemman correct, not to mention that Wikipedia itself mentions "Pope's ban" against Hudal as I mentioned earlier.

Regarding Hesseman, you said that "the claim is, as far as I can tell, misleading since it implies action was taken when as far as I can tell it was not". But in his The "Rat Lines" and the Pope, which I used as the source, he does mention Pius XII calling for Hudal's removal very clearly:

Under increased pressure from the Vatican ("The Holy Father demanded that Bishop A.H. move away from the anima ...") Hudal was asked to resign in 1951 by the Austrian Bishops' Conference, and indeed did so a year later. After increased pressure from the Vatican, the Holy Father demanded Bishop Hudal’s removal from the anima. Hudal was asked to resign in 1951 by the Austrian Bishops' Conference, and indeed did so a year later.

But to end this all on a positive note, I did not mean to force any agenda with my edit and I'm sorry if it seemed biased. I do not really have any opinion on the matter, and my interest in the Church comes from Max Weber's analysis of it, where he identifies religion, both Protestantism and Catholicism, as very important cultural and sociological factors. The Catholic Church had enormous cultural influence which affected nations, cultures and individuals at large, which I'm interested in researching. So even if you're an atheist, you'd still be influenced by Catholicism as long as you were raised in a Catholic culture. Likewise there's the "Protestant work ethic" from Protestant side, which makes Weber identify Protestants as a factor in the foundation of capitalism.

Lastly, I don't think you should dismiss a historian as biased because of his faith - there was a person who would delete entire paragraphs from "Demographic history of Kosovo", arguing that Serbian historians aren't credible at all. This person ended up getting an IP ban. But I'll take your concerns into account and will explicitly state that this sentence was produced on the basis of Hesemann's text, who is a Roman Catholic.

Thanks! Brat Forelli (talk) 12:50, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Extreme bias and apologia

This article has changed radically over the last year. Sections have been removed which showed how the Nazis took advantage of the well-meaning lay people. Nazi ideologues co-opted Christian ideas to have a broader appeal to the average citizen. 71.236.194.142 (talk) 13:01, 15 November 2023 (UTC)