Catholics Confronting Hitler: The Catholic Church and the Nazis & A Man for Others: Maximilian Kolbe the “Saint of Auschwitz.”

Catholics Confronting Hitler: The Catholic Church and the Nazis.  By Peter Bartley, Ignatius Press, 2016.

 

A Man for Others: Maximilian Kolbe the “Saint of Auschwitz.”  By Patricia Treece, Marytown Press, 1993.

 

Catholics Confronting Hitler and A Man for Others are two books that discuss the role of the Catholic Church during the Second World War.  There is a prominent branch of historiography whose views have made their way into many popular culture venues which claims that the Church at best did nothing to fight the horrors of Nazism and at worst was directly complicit is the Third Reich’s crimes.  These books directly attack this perspective, using numerous anecdotes, quotes, and reinterpretations of various events in order to advance their contentions that large portions of the Church were active opponents of Nazism throughout the movement’s existence.

 

Bartley’s opening passages set up his thesis, as he describes the Vatican’s history and official pronouncements:

 

“Long before the Nazis came to political prominence, their ideology came under attack in the speeches of the papal nuncio Archbishop Pacelli before his recall to Rome in 1929.  Years earlier, the Church’s position on racialism and exaggerated nationalism had been made crystal clear, and by the highest authority.  In the encyclical Ubi Arcano Dei of 23 December 1922, Pope Pius XI proclaimed:

 

Patriotism… becomes merely… an added incentive to grave injustice when true love of country is debased to the condition of an extreme nationalism, when we forget that all men are our brothers and members of the same great human family.

 

The following year, anti-Semitism was repudiated in a sermon preached by the archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Faulhaber.  At the same time, Faulhaber addressed a letter to the chancellor, Gustave Stresesmann, complaining of “the blind raging hatred of our Jewish fellow citizens and other ethnic groups.”  Letter and sermon coincided with the failed Beer Hall Putsch and brought down on Faulhaber the special loathing of Nazis, who jeeringly designated him “the Jewish Cardinal.”  At his trial for his part in the putsch, Ludendorff launched into a lengthy tirade directed against the Catholic clergy for the protection they gave to Jews.  Stresemann, however, praised Faulhaber for his moral stance.”

 

While Catholics Confronting Hitler directly refutes many of the allegations levelled against the Church, it is important to note that the book does not serve as a whitewash.  While the leading figures and official pronouncements of the Church did much to fight Nazism, Bartley does devote a considerable amount of time to castigating self-professed Catholics who were active Nazis, and he also criticizes a priest who served as the leader of a central European nation and did very little to oppose Hitler.  

 

Bartley illustrates how the Church mobilized to create as united a front as possible in order to battle Nazism, writing that:

 

“The 1930 election result rang alarm bells within the Church.  The issue of Catholic membership in the Nazi Party, which until then had been left undecided, now became a matter of urgency.  Towards the end of the year, the senior German prelate, Cardinal Bertram of Breslau, published a statement critical of “false nationalism and the worship of race.”  He and the other bishops well knew that increasing numbers of Catholics were being drawn to National Socialism, whether out of sympathy with its patriotic appeal or because of its economic aims, while remaining largely ignorant of its fundamentally unchristian character.”

 

Catholics Confronting Hitler analyzes the relationship between the Church and anti-Semitism, and concludes that though many individual Catholics and Catholic communities, as well as some influential churchmen, have been highly hostile to Jews and involved in various persecutions; that there have been many other figures throughout Church history who have defended the Jews, and that particularly during the early half of the twentieth century, the popes and other prominent churchmen did much to combat anti-semitism.

 

“The anti-Jewish boycott provoked anger abroad and drew from the Holy See the first papal note of protest sent to Berlin.  Like many subsequent papal notes of protest, it was ignored.  According to the writer Sebastian Hoffner, who left a personal account of life in Hitler’s Germany, one effect of the boycott was to place the Jewish situation firmly in the public eye.  Germans who previously had given little thought to the matter now felt it necessary to have an opinion about Jews.  Invidious distinctions came to be made between “decent” Jews and the rest.

 

While the Nazis were hounding Jews and labour activists, an intense religious struggle was taking place.  Priests had their homes searched, Catholic government employees were dismissed from their posts, and a campaign of intimidation was begun against members of Catholic organizations, all within days of the passing of the Enabling Law.  The bishops protested these indignities in a letter of 1 April.  German Protestantism suffered from being fragmented.  Unlike the Catholic Church, which was international and hierarchical, the Protestant church was, as Konrad Heiden, Hitler’s first biographer pointed out, a German church to begin with.  Hitler’s task here was not to lure believers away from their church but to win them back.  The Lutheran church generally looked favourably on Hitler’s new order.  The die-hard conservatism of most Protestants made it difficult to accept a republic born of a coalition of Socialists and Catholics.  Many harboured sentiments of German nationalism, which, for some, sought expression in the movement of German Christians, a pro-Hitler wing of German Protestantism that aimed to adapt Christianity to neo-pagan race theory.  Originating in prewar Germany, the movement was energized by the advent of Hitler. Recalling Marcion of the second century, the German Christians aspired to a form of Christianity free of Old Testament influence, the more extreme among them wishing to “Aryanize” Christ.”

 

Overall, Catholics Confronting Hitler provides an excellent look at a complex and fascinating time for the Church, and contrary to a widespread narrative, the Church did much to distinguish itself by its actions.  Bartley advances the point that it was a dangerous, live-wire situation, where speaking out too loudly could have led to the deaths of thousands and led to the endangerment of millions.  It’s a compelling and in some ways overwhelming assessment of some of the world’s darkest hours.

 

While Catholics Confronting Hitler is a panoramic continent-wide view of the Church’s actions during the era of Nazism, A Man for Others focuses on one man’s personal story of moral courage and living by example.  A Man for Others is a biography of St. Maximillian Kolbe, a Catholic priest who died in Auschwitz.  When another prisoner escape, the Nazis ordered that numerous other prisoners be put to death as retribution.  When a younger man with a family was selected for execution, Kolbe stepped up and asked to be taken in the other man’s place.  Treece notes that it is entirely possible that the Nazi guards, who often indulged in cruelty and violence, could have simply decided to take both Kolbe and the other man, but instead the latter’s life was saved, and some of the later passages focus on that man’s life after being freed after the war.

 

Kolbe once declared, “The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hetacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love.”  While Kolbe’s famous sacrifice is at the center of the book, there are many other important incidents in Kolbe’s life that are also extremely interesting, such as Kolbe’s parents’ marriage, where they placed their faith over everything else, and his time in Japan.  There are many other little details that show what kind of man Kolbe was, such as his refusal to accept gifts of food without sharing them with all of the other prisoners.  

 

From international politics to one man setting a strong moral example, these two books are essential reading for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the role that the Catholic Church played in the struggle against Nazism.  Both books center on what it means to cling to principles in turbulent times, and both narratives explain how faith can shape history.

 

 

–Chris Chan