Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression On 18 November 1942 the Papal Secretary of State requested
the Archbishop of Breslau, Cardinal Bertram, to use every
effort to assist Polish Catholic workers transferred to
Germany, who were being deprived of the consolations of
religion. In addition, he again appealed for help for the
Polish priests detained in various concentration camps,
whose death rate was "still on the increase." (3265-PS). On
7 December 1942 the Cardinal Archbishop of Breslau replied
that all possible efforts were being put forward by the
German Bishops without success on behalf of the victims of
concentration camps and labor battalions, and deplored "the
intolerable decrees" against religious ministration to
Poles. (3266-PS)
On 2 March 1943, the Cardinal Secretary of State addressed a
note to von Ribbentrop, Reichsminister for Foreign Affairs,
in which the violations of religious rights and conscience
among the civilian population of Poland were set out in
detail, and the time, locality, and character of the
persecutions were specified. Priests and Ecclesiastics were
still being arrested, thrust into concentration camps, and
treated with scorn and derision, while many had been
summarily executed. Religious instruction was hampered;
Catholic schools were closed; the use of the Polish lan-
[Page 284]
guage in sacred functions and even in the Sacrament of
Penance was forbidden. Even the natural right of marriage
was denied to men of Polish nationality under 28 years of
age to women under 25. In the territory called "General
Government" similar conditions existed and against these the
Holy See vigorously protested. To save the harassed and
persecuted leaders of the Catholic Church, the Vatican had
petitioned that they be allowed to emigrate to neutral
countries of Europe or America. The only concession made was
that they would all be collected in one concentration camp
Dachau. (3264-PS)
The Nazi conspirators adopted a dilatory and obstructionist
policy toward complaints as to religious affairs in the
overrun territories, and a decision was "taken by those
competent to do so. *** that no further consideration will
be taken of proposals or requests concerning the territories
which do not belong to the Old Reich." (3262-PS)
"Those competent" to make decisions on complaints as to
religious affairs in the overrun territories -- especially
the Party Chancery, headed by Bormann -- the methods they
used, and the reasons for their attitude are outlined by the
Cardinal Archbishop of Breslau, a German
living in Germany, in a letter to the Papal Secretary of
State on 7 December 1942 as follows:
"Your Eminence knows very well the greatest difficulty
in the way of opening negotiations comes from the
overruling authority which the "National Socialist
Party Chancery" (Kanzlei der Nazion-sozstschen Parez,
known as the Partei-Kanzlei) exercises in relation to
the Chancery of the Reich (Reichskanzlei) and to the
single Reich Ministries. This 'Parteikanzlei' directs
the course to be followed by the State, whereas the
Ministries and the Chancery of the Reich are obliged
and compelled to adjust their decrees to these
directions. Besides, there is the fact that the
"Supreme Office for the Security of the Reich" called
the 'Reichsscherheitshauptamt' enjoys an authority
which precludes all legal action and all appeals. Under
it are the 'Secret Offices for Public Security' called
'Geheime Staatspolizei' (a title shortened usually to
Gestapo) of which there is one for each Province.
Against the decrees of this Central Office
(Reichsscherheitshauptamt) and of the Secret Offices
(Geheime Staatspolizei) there is no appeal through the
Courts, and no complaint made to the Ministries has any
effect. Not infrequently the Councillors of the
Ministries suggest that they have not been able to do
as they would wish to, because of the opposition of
these Party offices. As far as the executive
[Page 285]
power is concerned, the organization called the SS,
that is Schutzstaffeln der Partei, is in practice
supreme.
"This hastily sketched interrelation of authorities is
the reason why many of the petitions and protests made
by the Bishops to the Ministries have been foiled. Even
if we present our complaints to the so-called Supreme
Security Office, there is rarely any reply; and when
there is, it is negative.
"On a number of very grave and fundamental issues we
have also presented our complaints to the Supreme
Leader of the Reich (Fuehrer). Either no answer is
given, or it is apparently edited by the above-mentioned Party Chancery, which does not consider
itself bound by the Concordat made with the Holy See." (3266-PS)
The interchange of correspondence following the transmission
of the above-described note of 2 March 1943 on the religious
situation in the overrun Polish Provinces illustrates the
same evasive tactics. (3269-PS)
In his Allocution to the Sacred College, on 2 June 1945, His
Holiness Pope Pius XII recalled, byway of example, "some
details from the abundant accounts which have reached us
from priests and laymen who were interned in the
concentration camp at Dachau":
"In the forefront, for the number and harshness of the
treatment meted out to them, are the Polish priests.
From 1940 to 1945, 2,800 Polish ecclesiastics and
religious were imprisoned in that camp; among them was
the Auxiliary bishop of Wloclawek, who died there of
typhus. In April last there were left only 816, all the
others being dead except
for two or three transferred to another camp.
In the
summer of 1942, 480 German-speaking ministers of
religion were known to be gathered there; of these, 45
were Protestants, all the others Catholic priests. In
spite of the continuous inflow of new internees,
especially from some dioceses of Bavaria, Rhenania and
Westphalia, their number, as a result of the high rate
of mortality, at the beginning of this year, did not
surpass 350. Nor should we pass over in silence these
belonging to occupied territories, Holland, Belgium,
France (among whom the Bishop of Clermont), Luxembourg,
Slovenia, Italy. Many of those priests and laymen
endured indescribable sufferings for their faith and
for their vocation. In one case the hatred of the
impious against Christ
reached the point of parodying on the person of an
[Page 286]
interned priest, with barbed wire, the scourging and
the crowning with thorns of our
Redeemer." (3268-PS)
Further revealing figure on the persecution of Polish
priests are contained in the following extract from Charge
No. 17 against Hans Frank, Governor-General of Poland,
submitted by the Polish Government, entitled "Maltreatment
and Persecution of the Catholic Clergy in the Western
Provinces":
The original plaintext version of
part
one or
part
two of this file is available via
ftp.
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Volume
I Chapter VII
Means Used by the Nazi Conspiractors in Gaining Control of the German State
(Part 36 of 55)