Read all about the Catholic Churches so called collusion with the Nazis.
In the 1930s, Catholics constituted a third of the population of Germany and "Political Catholicism" was a major force in the interwar Weimar Republic. Prior to 1933, Catholic leaders denounced Nazi doctrines while Catholic regions generally did not vote Nazi. Though hostility between the Nazi Party and the Catholic Church was real, the Nazi Party first developed in largely Catholic Munich, where many Catholics, lay and clerical, offered enthusiastic support.[3] This early [minority] affinity lessened after 1923. By 1925, Nazism had embarked on a different path following its reconstitution in 1920 taking a decidedly anti-Catholic-anti-Christian identity.[4] In early 1931, the German Bishops issued an edict excommunicating all Nazi leadership and banned Catholics from membership. The ban was conditionally modified in the Spring of 1933 under pressure to address State law requiring all Civil Servants and Trade Union workers be members of the Nazi Party, while retaining condemnation of core Nazi ideology.[5] In early 1933, following Nazi successes in the 1932 elections, lay Catholic monarchist Franz von Papen, and acting Chancellor and Presidential advisor, General Kurt von Schleicher, assisted Adolf Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg. In March, amidst the intimidating atmosphere of Nazi terror tactics and negotiation[6] following the Reichstag Fire Decree[7] the lay Catholic Centre Party, (led by prelate Ludwig Kaas), on condition demand of a written commitment the President's veto power be retained,[8] the allied BNVP and the monarchists DNVP voted for the Enabling Act. The Center Party's attitude had become crucial since the act could not be passed by the Nazi and DNVP coalition alone. It marked the transition in Adolf Hitler's reign from democratic to dictatorial power.[9] By June 1933 the only institutions not under Nazi domination were the military and the churches.[10] The Reichskonkordat treaty of July 1933, signed between Germany and the Holy See, pledged to respect the autonomy of the Catholic Church, but required clerics to refrain from politics. Hitler welcomed the treaty, though he routinely violated it in the Nazi struggle with the churches.[11] When president Hindenberg died in August 1934, the Nazis claimed jurisdiction over all levels of government and a referendum confirmed Hitler as sole Führer (leader) of Germany. A Nazi program known as Gleichschaltung sought control of all collective and social activity and interfered with Catholic schooling, youth groups, workers and cultural groups. The church insisted on its loyalty to the nation, but resisted regimentation and oppression of church organizations and contraventions of doctrine such as the sterilization law of 1933.
Hitler's ideologues Goebbels, Himmler, Rosenberg and Bormann hoped to de-Christianize Germany, or at least distort its theology to their point of view.[12][13] The government moved to close all Catholic institutions which were not strictly religious. Catholic schools were shut by 1939, the Catholic press by 1941.[14][15] Clergy, women and men religious, and lay leaders were targeted. During the course of Hitler's rule, thousands were arrested, often on trumped up charges of currency smuggling or "immorality".[16] Germany's senior cleric, Cardinal Bertram, developed an ineffectual protest system, leaving broader Catholic resistance to individual conscience. By 1937 the church hierarchy, which initially sought dètente, was highly disillusioned. Pius XI issued the Mit brennender Sorge encyclical. It condemned racism, accused the Nazis of violations of the Concordat and "fundamental hostility" to the church.[16] The state responded by renewing its crackdown and propaganda against Catholics.[14] Despite violence against Catholic Poland, some German priests offered prayers for the German cause at the outbreak of war. Nevertheless, security chief Reinhard Heydrich soon orchestrated an intensification of restrictions on church activities. Expropriation of monasteries, convents and church properties surged from 1941. Bishop August von Galen's ensuing 1941 denunciation of Nazi euthanasia and defence of human rights roused rare popular dissent. The German bishops denounced Nazi policy towards the church in pastoral letters, calling it "unjust oppression".[17][18]
Pius XII, former nuncio to Germany, became Pope on the eve of war. His legacy is contested. As Vatican Secretary of State, he advocated Détente via the Reich Concordat, hoping it would build trust and respect within Hitler's government, and assisted in drafting the anti-Nazi Mit brennender Sorge. His first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, called the invasion of Poland an "hour of darkness". He affirmed the policy of Vatican neutrality, but maintained links to the German Resistance. Controversy surrounding his reluctance to speak publicly in explicit terms about Nazi crimes continues.[19] He used diplomacy to aid war victims, lobbied for peace, shared intelligence with the Allies, and employed Vatican Radio and other media to speak out against atrocities like race murders. In Mystici corporis Christi (1943) he denounced the murder of the handicapped. A denunciation from German bishops of the murder of the "innocent and defenceless", including "people of a foreign race or descent", followed.[20] While Nazi antisemitism embraced modern pseudo-scientific racial principles, ancient antipathies between Christianity and Judaism contributed to European antisemitism. Under Pius XII, the church rescued many thousands of Jews by issuing false documents, lobbying Axis officials, hiding them in monasteries, convents, schools and elsewhere; including the Vatican and Castel Gandolfo.
In regions of Poland, Slovenia and Austria annexed by Nazi Germany, Nazi persecution of the Church was at its harshest. In Germany and its conquests, Catholic responses to Nazism varied. The papal nuncio in Berlin, Cesare Orsenigo, was timid in protesting Nazi crimes and had sympathies with Italian Fascism. German priests in general were closely watched and often denounced, imprisoned or executed, such as German priest-philosopher, Alfred Delp. From 1940, the Nazis gathered priest-dissidents in dedicated clergy barracks at Dachau, where (95%) of its 2,720 inmates were Catholic (mostly Poles, and 411 Germans), 1034 died there. In Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, the Nazis attempted to eradicate the church and over 1800 Polish Catholic clergy died in concentration camps; most notably, Saint Maximilian Kolbe. Influential members of the German Resistance included Jesuits of the Kreisau Circle and laymen such as July plotters Klaus von Stauffenberg, Jakob Kaiser and Bernhard Letterhaus, whose faith inspired resistance.[21] Elsewhere, vigorous resistance from bishops such as Johannes de Jong and Jules-Géraud Saliège, papal diplomats such as Angelo Rotta, and nuns such as Margit Slachta, can be contrasted with the apathy of others and the outright collaboration of Catholic politicians such as Slovakia's Msgr Jozef Tiso and fanatical Croat nationalists. From within the Vatican, Msgr Hugh O'Flaherty coordinated the rescue of thousands of Allied POWs, and civilians, including Jews. A rogue Austrian bishop, Alois Hudal, of the college for German priests in Rome, was an informant for Nazi intelligence. After the war, he and Msgr Krunoslav Draganovic of the Croatian College assisted the so-called "ratlines" facilitating fugitive Nazis to flee Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_Nazi_Germany
