Hitler/Mussolini & the Church.

[Coggeh]

Have to hand in a paper soon , (not sure if this should be in learning) anyway ...My book deals with it but only very basically can people give me some resources or posts with more info .

Cheers comrades .

[ComradeOm]

I did read a work from EEY Hales (The Catholic Church in the Modern World) recently that dealt with this in passing but looking around my room I seem to have mislaid it. Not to worry though, I would only have recommended it as example of the extremely well written but equally biased/amateur work that often masqueraded as history before the 1960s. A great read but very outdated and clearly apologist in tone

Ah, I've found it under a pile of books and refreshed my memory. I'll just give a broad outline below and you can use this as a jumping off point for further research. I'm no expert in the field so feel free to correct me

Pius XI obviously had a great deal of contact with Mussolini and, despite certain ideological differences, they had a great deal in common. The most obvious glue between the two being a rabid anti-communism. In buttressing the Italian state, the only alternative to which was perceived to be communism, the Pope was essentially an ally (if not an uncritical one) of Mussolini. You might want to look into the Lateran Treaty - one oft forgotten aspect of which was the establishment of a concordat which secured the Church's place within Italian society and protected many of its rights. The closest example of Pope and Mussolini collaborating was of course Spain; witness the Pius XII's message of congratulations to Franco in 1939 (from Beevor, Battle for Spain):

"With great joy we address you, dearest sons of Catholic Spain, to express our paternal congratulations for the gift of peace and victory, with which God has chosen to crown the Christian heroism of your faith and charity"

There was a similar, if perhaps not as explicit, convergence of Church and fascism in Germany. Von Papen, whose role in Hitler's rise to power is well documented, was a firm Catholic and his Centre Party ultimately voted executive powers to Hitler. As in Italy, a concordat was signed that gave the Church certain freedoms in Germany in exchange for legitimising Hitler's rule. This was largely scraped in the coming years as Hitler launched a number of anti-Catholic campaigns, particularly in Austria and Poland. Even then Pius XII refused to openly condemn the aggression of the Axis Powers during WWII, preferring instead to vainly attempt to arrange peace conferences of all the involved powers

In both cases of course this was an uneasy relationship. Numerous Church encyclical publicly condemned fascism and Nazism (Mit Brennender Sorge of 1937 springs to mind) and there was constant friction over the various Church youth/lay groups (such as Catholic Action). Nonetheless the prospect of regulating Church relations with both countries (through the vehicle of the concordat) and the fear of communism/socialism was enough to allow for the cooperation of Church and state

[Invader Zim]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/catholic-bishop-denies-t100106/index.html?t=100106

The issue of Nazism and the Catholic Church is a tricky one, however the Nazis in particular led a campaign, beginning with relatively innocuous moves such as the banning of Catholic organisations, charities and publication before moving onto a full blown campaign of terror, against Catholics in Germany in order to force them into submission. This campaign, as stated started relatively innocuously, but soon the likes of von Schirach (the leader of the Hitler Youth) began encouraging members of the Hitler Youth to beat Catholic children in Catholic youth organisations to force Catholic children to dissolve their organisations and join the Hitler Youth. The Gestapo began spying on Catholics and drawing up lists of names of potential threats to the regime. Finally the SS murdered several key Catholic leaders, including Fritz Gerlich (the editor of a Catholic magazine) and Adalbert Probst (director of a Catholic sport association for youths) and began putting others, especially by 1937, on trial for various trumped up charges.

The reason for this campaign was because the Nazis required complete subservience to the State from its people. As a result the Nazi regime feared the Catholic Church because Catholics numbered around 40% of the German population, and held allegiance not just to the State but to the Church.

The result of this move by the Nazis was to largely subdue Catholic criticism of the regime, and force many senior Catholic figures into subservient support of the regime.

The bulk of this information was taken from Richard J. Evans The Third Reich in Power: How the Nazis Won Over the Hearts and Minds of a Nation (London, 2005) which has an excellent chapter on the issue of religion under the Nazis, and a section specifically on the Catholic Church.

[Rangi]

Check out the Spanish Civil war where little old ladies who belonged to Catholic women's guilds in the USA had bake sales to raise money for the fascists to buy bullets which in turn they shot children with.

Who ever knew that buying baked goods off of sweet old ladies could be so evil.

[Invader Zim]

Check out the Spanish Civil war where little old ladies who belonged to Catholic women's guilds in the USA had bake sales to raise money for the fascists to buy bullets which in turn they shot children with.

Who ever knew that buying baked goods off of sweet old ladies could be so evil.

I doubt that these people made the connection betweent he money they sent and the attrocities committed by the fascists. They were supporting a war against communism during the 'first cold war', as some historians have dubbed it. It is doubtful that they were, or had, fascist sympathies. What they did have were anti-communist sypathies, sympathies heightened by the actions of some elements on the republican side. Which included, especially in the early months of the War, the murder (and in the case of nuns, raped them first) of something in the region of 7,000 Catholic clergy, and in some cases execution of entire Catholic communities.

[Andy Bowden]

Evans does good stuff on the relationship between Nazism and religion. Should be noted that while Hitler opposed Christian religions, it was because he viewed it as originating from Judaism, he wasn't an athiest and made reference to a "creator" in his speeches and writings.

[Invader Zim]

Evans does good stuff on the relationship between Nazism and religion. Should be noted that while Hitler opposed Christian religions, it was because he viewed it as originating from Judaism, he wasn't an athiest and made reference to a "creator" in his speeches and writings.


Well nobody actually knows whether Hitler was religious or not, his statements on the topic were highly conflicted (as on most topics). His speeches are misleading sources because of his audiences. Hitler often couldn't openly criticise christian religion because the bulk of Germany was Christian, and various Christian sections of German societies were potentially very powerful and he couldn't afford to offend them. That said, he and the other senior Nazis certainly weren't opposed to the principal of christian religion, as long as it operated as another bastion of the Nazi state. Which is why a single combined Christian Church was proposed for the state.

So even if Hitler wasn't religious, which is largely irrelevent, most German's were, thus Christianity (whether the nazis liked it or not) had a place within nazi society.

[Diagoras]

I doubt that these people made the connection betweent he money they sent and the attrocities committed by the fascists. They were supporting a war against communism during the 'first cold war', as some historians have dubbed it. It is doubtful that they were, or had, fascist sympathies. What they did have were anti-communist sypathies, sympathies heightened by the actions of some elements on the republican side. Which included, especially in the early months of the War, the murder (and in the case of nuns, raped them first) of something in the region of 7,000 Catholic clergy, and in some cases execution of entire Catholic communities.

Well, I am sure that they didn't specifically intend for their muffins to be used to shoot children, but in the context of a war, they did know that the funds would in some way be going to an authoritarian Catholic group fighting in armed conflict, resulting in the death of people. Their belief in the holiness of such a crusade, and the anesthetized abstractions that undergird such beliefs, of course does not excuse such actions.

As far as reactions by the populace against the Catholic church, they weren't without cause. The Catholic church weren't just a pack of liars and pedophiles, manipulating the poor into giving up their money and fondling their children. They were also a recognized institution that supported and defended the aristocracy, consistently preached the views of the establishment from the pulpit, and actively opposed labor unions and other "communist" influences (favoring church-run soup kitchens instead). They provided ideological and material support against democratic and labor movements, and their opulent churches were symbols of that wealth, flaunted in the midst of much poverty. Stringing up many of these priests by the lamp posts is not an entirely objectionable thing. As far as massacres of entire Catholic communities, I am genuinely unfamiliar with such incidences. It sounds more like propaganda than anything else, but any sources you could offer would be appreciated.

[Black Dagger]

There's a lot of interesting content on wikipedia about the 'ratlines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(history))' - escape routes for italian and eastern european nazi's facilitated by the vatican. So yeah, if you're looking for content that shows some links between the catholic church and fascism during/in the aftermath of WWII - check that out.

[ComradeOm]

There's a lot of interesting content on wikipedia about the 'ratlines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(history))' - escape routes for italian and eastern european nazi's facilitated by the vatican. So yeah, if you're looking for content that shows some links between the catholic church and fascism during/in the aftermath of WWII - check that out.Oh yeah, I forgot about these. The name that springs to my mind is Marcel Déat, Vichy collaborator, who escaped France at the end of the war and spent the next decade hiding in various Italian monasteries until his death in 1955. There was another very similar case, who was eventually returned to France, but the name escapes me at the moment