From ........... THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND NAZI GERMANY

By Guenter Lewy

Pub. by McGraw-Hill Book Company New York London Sydney Toronto

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS No. 64-21072

"Guenter Lewy left his native Germany as a boy of fifteen in 1939, emigrated to Palestine and then to the United States. He has since taught at Columbia University and Smith College, and is now Associate Professor of Government at the University of Massachusetts

THE FIRST 120 DAYS OF HITLER'S RULE .................page 50-52

.......Bishop Berning later characterized the talk, lasting one hour and a quarter, as "cordial and to the point." He began the conversation by stating the Church's basic position:

The bishops, it goes without saying, rendered the state and the authorities what according to God's command is their due. The Church has done this under earlier forms of government, and she would do the same under the present one; she would urge the faithful to be obedient and respectful. The bishops gladly recognized that the new state promoted Christianity, raised the level of morality and fought the battle against Bolshevism and godlessness with vigor and success. But the bishops at the same time shared the fears which existed in many [Roman] Catholic circles and which made the confident cooperation with the state more difficult..............

Bishop Berning then listed the Church's apprehensions over her right to handle her own affairs in full independence (some of the measures taken against the Protestant churches had caused alarm) the freedom of the confessional schools, the rights of the Catholic organizations and the dismissal of Catholic civil servants. He asked for a clarifying statement that perhaps could be brought to the attention of the public at large.

Hitler began a lengthy and somewhat unsystematic speech by answering the last point, saying that his views could be communicated to the other bishops but that the public should only be informed of the fact that the visit had taken place. He welcomed the opportunity to explain himself to a [Roman] Catholic bishop, for he had been reproached with being an enemy of Christianity and this reproach had hurt him deeply. He was convinced that without Christianity one could neither run a personal life nor a state, and Germany in particular needed the kind of religious and moral foundation only Christianity could provide. But Hitler also had come to realize that the Christian churches in the last centuries had not mustered enough strength to overcome the enemies of both state and Christianity unaided. They had falsely believed that liberalism Socialism and Bolshevism could be defeated by way of intellectual arguments. Hence he had decided to come to the Church's help and he had undertaken to destroy godlessness and Bolshevism. Occasional harshness might accompany this fight but that could not be avoided. After relaying this last sentence, Bishop Berning commented,

"He spoke with warmth and equanimity, here and there temperamentally. Not a word against the Church, for the bishop nothing but appreciation."

Hitler then touched upon the Jewish question and, again stressing the fundamental agreement between National Socialism and [Roman] Catholicism, pointed out that the [Roman Cathoic] Church always had regarded the Jews as parasites and had banished them into the ghetto.

He was merely going to do what the Church had done for 1,500 years.

52 ................. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND NAZI GERMANY

Altogether, Hitler affirmed, he was personally convinced of the great power and significance of Christianity and he therefore would not permit the founding of another religion. For this reason he had parted company with Ludendorff, and Rosenberg's book was no concern of his - it was a private publication.

Being a [Roman] Catholic himself, he would not tolerate another Kulturkampf and the rights of the [Roman Catholic] Church would be left intact.

Concerning the school question, Hitler declared that he would never accept an entirely secular school system. Character could be built only on the basis of religion. We must have believers, Bishop Berning reports him saying:

"Trouble with Poland is on the horizon. We need soldiers, devout soldiers. Devout soldiers are the most valuable, for they risk all. Therefore we shall keep the confessional schools in order to bring up believers," and in this task Church and State must cooperate closely.

Hitler also promised to continue the [Roman] Catholic organizations if they promoted Christian ideas and at the same time maintained a positive relationship to the state and were public-spirited. But all residues of liberalism and marxism would have to be eliminated. The Chancellor expressed the hope that it would continue to be possible to employ civil servants who were members of the Center party, though economy measures and the need to make room for National Socialists might lead to some hardships. Hitler ended the talk by stressing the great importance he attributed to working closely with the [Roman] Catholic Church.

Much the same note was struck by Hitler in a letter addressed on April 28 to Cardinal Bertram in reply to the memos submitted by the latter to Hindenburg and Frick, as well as to a communication of April 16 to the Chancellor himself.

Bertram in all of these had pleaded for the [Roman] Catholic civil servants and those organizations under attack. In his letter to Hitler he had emphasized that neither the bishops nor the [Roman] Catholic organizations had any intention of intervening in purely secular political affairs. The [Roman] Catholic organizations had always done their share in raising Christians who were strong spiritually as well as physically and who were prepared to make sacrifices for the fatherland.

This striving they would continue, but such work required a measure of independence without which nothing would come of that happy and successful cooperation these organizations were prepared to render.

-END QUOTE-

Well documented,..... .describes how Roman Catholic "church" and it's newspapers supported Hitler throughout WW2 [and beyond].

Lewy does not detail the explicitly Roman Catholic "Ustashi" terrorist regime which ruled (allied with Hitler) Croatia during WW2.

See -

Avro Manhattan's The Vatican's Holocaust - Ozark Books

and

Vladimir Dedijer's The Yugoslav Auschwitz - Prometheus

A State Department Report [ the La Vista report,

kept top secret until 1984 ] confirms these two books.