Twenty-First Day: Monday, 17th December, 1945
[Page 45]
The evidence relating to the systematic effort of the
defendants and co-conspirators to eliminate the Christian
churches in Germany has been previously introduced in
Exhibit USA Book "H" by Major Wallis with respect to the
Nazi efforts to eliminate the Christian Church. The evidence
now to be presented is limited to proving and pointing out
the responsibility of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party
and the members thereof, for illegal activities against the
Christian Church and clergy.
The defendant Bormann issued a secret decree to all
Gauleiter entitled, "Relationship of National Socialism and
Christianity". And that is Document D-75, toward the top, I
believe, your Honour. It is Exhibit USA 348. In this decree
Reichsleiter Bormann flatly declares that National Socialism
and Christianity are incompatible and that the influence of
the churches in Germany must be eliminated. I quote from
pertinent portions of this decree beginning with the first
paragraph thereof, top of page 3, which reads as follows:
Our National Socialist ideology is far loftier than the
concepts of Christianity which, in their essential
points, have been taken over from Jewry. For this
reason, also, we do not need Christianity.... If,
therefore, in the future our youth learn nothing more
of this Christianity whose doctrines are far below
ours, Christianity will disappear by itself.... It
follows from the irreconcilability of National [Page 46]
For the first time in German history, the Fuehrer
consciously and completely has the leadership of the
people in his own hand. With the Party, its components,
and attached units the Fuehrer has created for himself,
and thereby the German Reich Leadership, an instrument
which makes him independent of the Church. All
influences which might impair or damage the leadership
of the people, exercised by the Fuehrer with the help
of the N.S.D.A.P., must be eliminated. More and more
the people must be separated from the churches and
their organs, the pastors. Of course, the churches must
and will, seen from their viewpoint, defend themselves
against this loss of power. But never again must an
influence on leadership Of the people be yielded to the
churches. This influence must be broken completely and
finally.
Only the Reich Government and, by its direction, the
Party, its components and attached units have a right
to leadership of the people. Just as the deleterious
influences of astrologers, seers, and other fakirs are
eliminated and suppressed by the State, so must the
possibility of Church influence also be totally
removed. Not until this has happened does the State
leadership have influence on the individual citizens.
Not until then are people and Reich secure in their
existence for all the future...." [Page 47]
COLONEL STOREY: I beg your pardon, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: This is 098-PS.
COLONEL STOREY: Document 098-PS.
THE PRESIDENT: The one before you referred to was 070-PS.
COLONEL STOREY: Yes -- 070-PS.
THE PRESIDENT: Before that, D-75.
COLONEL STOREY: That's correct. With your Honour's
permission, rather than quote the whole document I will
summarise it: divergence between Nazism and the churches,
the attitude of the latter on the racial question; celibacy
of the priests; monasteries and nunneries, etc. Bormann
further declares that the churches could not be subjugated
through compromise but only through a new philosophy of life
as prophesied in Rosenberg's writings. Bormann proposes the
creation of a National Socialist Catechism in order to give
that part of the German youth which declines to practice
confessional religion a moral foundation and to lay a moral
basis for National Socialist doctrines, which are gradually
to supplant the Christian religions. Bormann suggests that
some of the Ten Commandments could be merged with the
National Socialist Catechism and states that a few new
Commandments should be added, such as: "Thou shalt be
courageous; Thou shalt not be cowardly; Thou shalt believe
in God's presence in the living nature, animals, and plants;
Thou shalt keep thy blood pure;" etc. He concludes that he
considers the problem so important that it should be
discussed with the members of the Reich Directorate as soon
as possible.
And now a quotation from the fifth paragraph on the first
page of that translation:
THE PRESIDENT: Do you suggest that these Blockleiter were
actually present at that discussion?
COLONEL STOREY: Your Honour, in connection with the policy
directives, the security of the sect goes from the top to
the bottom, and if that policy is adopted they may by
directive send for the Blockleiter. He is to discuss it in
connection with the Reichsleiter, who are the Party
Directors, and I assume that, if the Party Directors
establish it as a policy, then they were to issue
appropriate directives to the other subordinate members. Mr.
Lambert has suggested also that it would not be possible to
discuss this matter with all the Leadership Corps and
therefore they discussed it with the Party Directors.
[Page 48]
COLONEL STOREY: No, Sir, that does not follow, but it shows
that it was a subject of discussion for the Board of
Directors of the Nazi Party.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but the question is, who are the
Directors?
COL. STOREY: Five or six of them sit here, a total of 16.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but I thought that you were asking us to
declare the whole of the organisation down to the
Blockleiter as criminal.
COLONEL STOREY: That is true, your Honour, but this is one
piece of evidence, one instance of the criminality of the
organisation, and we cannot prove at each stage that all of
them knew about it. We are trying to select different
offenses and different crimes that were committed within the
Party.
Document 107-PS, which is Exhibit USA 351, and which we now
offer in evidence, is a circular letter, dated 17th June,
1938, addressed, by the defendant Bormann as Reichsleiter
and Deputy of the Fuehrer, to all Reichsleiter and
Gauleiter. Bormann's letter encloses a copy of rules,
prepared by Reichsleiter Hierl, setting forth certain
restrictive regulations with respect to participation of the
Reich Labour Service in religious celebrations. I quote
pertinent portions of the directions issued by Reichsleiter
Hierl, beginning, with the first paragraph, the list of
directions in Document 107-PS, on Page 1 of the English
translation:
What religious beliefs person has is not a decisive
factor, but it is decisive that he first of all feels
himself a German.
Every religious practice is forbidden in the Reich
Labour Service because it disturbs the comradelike
harmony of all working men and women.
On this basis, every participation of the Reich Labour
Service in religious arrangements and celebration is
not possible." [Page 49]
On 23rd July, 1938, the Reich Minister for Church Affairs,
Kerrl, sent a letter to the Minister of State and Chief of
the Praesidium Chancellery, Berlin, stating that Bishop
Sproll had angered the population by abstaining from the
plebiscite of 10th April. I now offer in evidence Document
849-PS, Exhibit USA 354. In this letter Kerrl stated that
the Gauleiter and Governor of Wuerttemberg had decided that,
in the interest of preserving the State's authority, and in
the interest of quiet and order, Bishop Sproll could no
longer remain in office. I quote from the third paragraph of
the first page of the Document 849-PS:
On 14th July, 1939, the defendant Bormann in his capacity as
Deputy of the Fuehrer issued a Party regulation which
provided that Party members entering the clergy or
undertaking the study of theology would have to leave
[Page 50]
I now offer in evidence Document 3268-PS, Exhibit USA 356,
which contains excerpts from the Allocution of His Holiness
Pope Pius XII, to the Sacred College, 2nd June, 1945. In
this address His Holiness, after declaring that he had
acquired an appreciation of the great qualities of the
German people in the course of 12 years of residence in
their midst, expressed the hope that Germany could "rise to
new dignity and a new life once it has laid the satanic
specter raised by National Socialism, and the guilty have
expiated the crimes they have committed." After referring to
repeated violations by the German Government of the
Concordat concluded in 1933, His Holiness declared as
follows, and I quote from the last paragraph of Page 1 of
the English translation of Document 3268-PS:
In the meantime the Holy See itself multiplied its
representations and protests to governing authorities
in Germany, reminding them, in clear and energetic
language, of their duty to respect and fulfill the
obligations of the natural law itself that were
confirmed by the Concordat. In these critical years,
joining the alert vigilance of a pastor to the long
suffering patience of a father, our great predecessor,
Pius XI, fulfilled his mission as Supreme Pontiff with
intrepid courage.
But when, after he had tried all means of persuasion in
vain, he saw himself clearly faced with deliberate
violations of a solemn pact, with a religious
persecution masked or open but always rigorously
organised, he proclaimed to the world on Passion
Sunday, 1937, in his Encyclical, 'Mit brennender Sorge'
that National Socialism really was: the arrogant
apostasy from Jesus Christ, the denial of His doctrine
and of His work of redemption, the cult of violence,
the idolatry of race and blood, the overthrow of human
liberty and dignity... [Page 51]
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 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 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 those 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 interned priest, with
barbed wire, the scourging and the crowning with thorns
of our Redeemer."
(The Tribunal adjourned until 1000 hours on 18th December, 1945.).
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(Part 16 of 16)
[COLONEL STOREY continues]
"National Socialist and Christian concepts are
irreconcilable....
Socialist and Christian concepts that a strengthening
of existing confessions, and every assistance for
originating Christian confessions, is to be rejected by
us. A differentiation between the various Christian
confessions is not to be made here. For this reason,
also, the thought of an erection of an Evangelical
National Church by merger of the various Evangelical
churches has been definitely given up, because the
Evangelical Church is just as inimical to us as the
Catholic Church. Any strengthening of the Evangelical
Church would merely react against us....
I next offer in evidence Document 070-PS, towards the
beginning, Exhibit USA 349, which is a copy of a letter
issued from Bormann's office, dated 25th April, 1941, to the
defendant Rosenberg in his capacity as the Fuehrer's
representative for the supervision of the entire mental and
ideological training and education of the N.S.D.A.P. In this
letter Bormann's office states that the measures have been
taken leading to the progressive cancellation of morning
prayers and other religious services, and their substitution
by Nazi mottoes and slogans. I quote from the first
paragraph of Document 070-PS:
"We are inducing schools more and more to reduce and
abolish morning religious services. Similarly the
confessional and general prayers in several parts of
the Reich have already been replaced by National
Socialist mottoes. I would be grateful to know your
opinion on a future National Socialist morning service
instead of the present confessional morning services
which are usually conducted once per week...."
In a letter from Reichsleiter Bormann to Reichsleiter
Rosenberg dated 22nd February, 1940, Document 098-PS,
Exhibit USA 350, which I offer in evidence, Bormann declares
to Rosenberg that the Christian religion and National
Socialism are incompatible. Bormann cites, as examples of
hostile...
"Christianity and National Socialism are phenomena
which originated from entirely different basic causes.
Both differ fundamentally so strongly that it will not
be possible to construct a Christian teaching which
would be completely compatible with the point of view
of the National Socialist ideology; just as the
communities of Christian faith would never be able to
stand by the ideology of National Socialism in its
entirety..."
Then I quote from the last paragraph on Page 5 of that
document:
"The Fuehrer's deputy finds it necessary that all these
questions should be thoroughly discussed in the near
future in the presence of the Reich Leaders
(Reichsleiter) who are especially affected by them..."
I next offer in evidence Document 107-PS.
"The Reich Labour Service is a training school in
which the German youth should be educated to national
unity in the spirit of National Socialism....
The Tribunal will appreciate that the position of the
defendant Bormann as Deputy of the Fuehrer of the Leadership
Corps of the Nazi Party and Chief of the Nazi Party
Chancellery, and the position of the defendant Rosenberg as
the Fuehrer's representative for the whole spiritual and
philosophical education of the Nazi Party, give to the views
of these defendants on religion and religious policy the
highest official backing. The anti-Christian utterances and
policies of these two defendants reveal a community of mind
and intention amongst the most powerful leaders of the Party
which was amply confirmed, as the evidence will show, by the
actual treatment of the churches since 1933 and throughout
the course of the conspiracy. I now offer in evidence
Document 2349-PS, Exhibit USA 352, which is an excerpt from
the book "The Myth of the 20th Century," written by the
defendant Rosenberg. I quote from that document:
"The idea of honour -- national honour -- is for us
the beginning and the end of our entire thinking and
doing. It does not admit of any equal-valued centre of
force alongside it, no matter of what kind, neither
Christian love, nor the Free-Masonic humanity, nor the
Roman philosophy."
I now offer in evidence Document 848-PS, Exhibit USA 353,
which is a Gestapo telegram, dated 24th July, 1938,
dispatched from Berlin to Nurem-
"The Party, on 23rd July, 1938, from 2100 hours on
carried out the third demonstration against Bishop
Sproll. Participants, about 2,500-3,000, were brought
from outside by bus, etc. The Rottenburg populace again
did not participate in the demonstration. This town
took a rather hostile attitude toward the
demonstrations. The action got completely out of hand
of the Party member responsible for it. The
demonstrators stormed the palace, beat in the gates and
doors. About 150 to 200 people forced their way into
the palace, searched through the rooms, threw files out
of the windows and rummaged through the beds in the
rooms of the palace. One bed was ignited. The Bishop
was with Archbishop Groeber of Freiburg and the ladies
and gentlemen of his menage in the chapel at prayer.
About 25 to 30 people pressed into this chapel and
molested those present. Archbishop Groeber was taken
for Bishop Sproll. He was grabbed by the robe and
dragged back and forth."
The Gestapo official in Stuttgart added that Bishop Groeber
desires "to turn to the Fuehrer and to Reich Minister of the
Interior Dr. Frick, anew," and the Gestapo official added
that he had found a report of the demonstration after
"suppressing counter mass meetings."
"The Reich Governor had explained to the Ecclesiastical
Board that he would no longer regard Bishop Sproll as
head of the Diocese of Rottenburg, on account of his
refraining from the election in the office and that he
desired Bishop Sproll to leave the Gau area because he
could assume no guarantee for his personal safety; that
in the case of the return of the Bishop of Rottenburg,
he would see to it that all personal and official
intercourse with him on the part of State offices, as
well as the Party offices and the Armed Forces, would
be denied."
Kerrl further states in the above letter that his deputy had
moved the Foreign Office through the German Embassy at the
Vatican to urge the Holy See to persuade Bishop Sproll to
resign his Bishopric. Kerrl concludes by stating that should
the effort to procure the Bishop's resignation prove
unsuccessful, "the Bishop would have to be exiled from the
land or there would have to be a complete boycott of the
Bishop by the authorities."
"I decree that in the future Party members who enter
the clergy or who turn to the study of theology have to
leave the Party."
In this directive Bormann also refers to an earlier decree,
dated 9th February, 1939, in which he had ruled that the
admission of members of the clergy into the Party was to be
avoided. In this decree, also, Bormann refers with approval
to a regulation of the Reich Treasurer of the Party, dated
10th May, 1939, providing that "clergymen as well as other
fellow Germans who are also closely connected with the
Church cannot be admitted into the Party."
"The struggle against the Church did, in fact, become
ever more bitter, there was the dissolution of Catholic
organisations; the gradual suppression of the
flourishing Catholic schools, both public and private;
the enforced weaning of youth from family and Church;
the pressure brought to bear on the conscience of
citizens, and especially of civil servants; the
systematic defamation, by means of a clever, closely
organised propaganda, of the Church, the clergy, the
faithful, the Church's institutions, teachings and
history; the closing, dissolution, confiscation of
religious houses and other ecclesiastical institutions;
the complete suppression of the Catholic Press and
publishing houses...
From the prisons, concentration camps, and fortresses
are now pouring out, together with the political
prisoners, also the crowds of those, whether clergy or
laymen, whose only crime was their fidelity to Christ
and to the faith of their fathers or the dauntless
fulfillment of their duties as priests...
THE PRESIDENT: I think perhaps it would be time now to
adjourn.