“..That such a man could go so far toward realising his ambitions ..and above all ..find millions of willing tools and helpers ..a phenomenon ..world will ponder for centuries to come.” Konrad Heiden.
There is a certainty, that with the rise of extremism, there will always be a victim and when defined, many will clamour for extreme measures if the clasp of morality is loosened. For Hitler and his Nazis, the World of Judaism was to be that victim and it appears Hitler saw this as providential, and too many followed. We need to always remember, that without Hitler there would have been no rise of Nazism. With that ideological hatred that Hitler force fed his legions of fellow haters, antisemitism would not have been resurrected with such venom and 6,000,000 Jews would not have been Slaughtered in The Holocaust. What that says of those who stood by and watched, from the sidelines of History, with the mounting hatred for the Jews and the scale of Intolerance that was meted out to innocent People, beggars belief. For me it says way too much of the Indifference that was clearly shown and was even seen as duplicitous when Hitler took this as an acquiescent green light toward the complete annihilation of the Jewish People. The isolation of an entire People, the incarceration of a community of People and the eventual destruction of those 6,000,000 People, Jewish People, was forecast, telegraphed, dictated and delivered ahead of a World already steeped in what to expect. What Hitler sought when he wished to restore Austria to the fold will warn the World of what might be next!
“..Providence ..charged me with a mission to reunite ..German peoples with a mission to restore my homeland to ..German Reich. ..believed in this mission. ..lived for it ..and ..now fulfilled it.” Adolf Hitler.
From the stand point of history we can all ramp up an anti-Christian bias, and anti-Religious tendency or even an anti-Catholic prejudice for that matter. When history declines to explore the probing concerns of those who seek the truth from the Church, the whole Christian ethic of our Church is called into question! I write about The Holocaust, and for me it is important to examine every detail of its dismembering historical relevance. This history, which not only raises the issue of our own Christian duty but also avails the atheist, the agnostic and the nonbeliever of a powerful ally, with the sheer lack of the Church’s integrity in responses to this historical event. The clear failure of human rights toward these Jews then faced with annihilation questions the very moral grounding of those who willingly participated and voluntarily perpetrated the crimes in The Holocaust. Not only that though, it also brings to bear an accusation of those moralising ethics of a Church’s audited and audible silence!
“..I have created a world power out of ..German Reich. I am boundlessly proud that I was blessed by Providence ..to lead this battle.” Adolf Hitler.
The Nazi Regime was an illegal organ of the German Government based upon its repressive nature, antisemitism and abuse of power. Dictatorial excess cannot be deemed legal when protest is considered illegal and the process of Law is merely a tool of the regime! Whatever providence had decided for the German People, it was Hitler who handed them the tools to commit to the most heinous of crimes ever perpetrated against any Peoples! So many questions are posed not least of which finds the Church in concordat with this illegal Government at a time when its repressive nature was on display. Too many within Germany, and within the Catholic Church in Germany more specifically, did far too much to legitimise the Nazi regime, Hitler could glow in the praise that was liberally heaped upon him. Many senior Catholic figures, both inside and outside of Germany, gave Hitler and his anti-Church devotees an audible credence and even a visible acceptance. The image of Nazi saluting Bishops does much to add to the disenfranchisement now being experienced in the Church today. Thou shall place no false Gods before me yet Hitler managed to displace God and the Church under the noses of those Bishops who looked the other way!
“..I must in all modesty say that my own person is indispensable. Neither a military nor a civilian personality could replace me…. I am convinced of ..strength of my brain and my resolution . ..fate of ..Reich ..dependent entirely upon me.” Adolf Hitler.
Certainly, with Catholics seeking a more fundamental truth than actually exists, more questions are being asked and need resolved. Placed upon the integrity of what the Church knew, what the Church managed to achieve or even what the Church ventured to enact in The Holocaust, there have too many unanswered questions! In the striking silence that permeates the Catastrophe for the Jews of Europe, there is a clear and defining guilt that is aimed at the heart of the Church and the Vatican in particular. Here though, it is for my Church to disprove this guilt exists and in view of the cataclysmic slaughter that was watched over by my ‘catholic church'(sic), it is an imperative if moral probity is to be an enabling facet of the Church’s teachings? What Hitler clearly learned from his Church was a seeming countenance in his own ability to get away with Murder and murder on a grand scale.
“..I learned much from ..Jesuits. ..Until now ..there has never been anything more grandiose ..on ..earth ..than ..hierarchical organisation of ..Catholic Church. I transferred much of this organisation into my own party. .. I am founding an Order. ..we will raise up a youth which will make ..world tremble.” Adolf Hitler.
During those years in which The Holocaust was allowed to destroy 6,000,000 Jewish lives, and with a seeming impunity, little was voiced in denunciating the ever increasing rage against the Jews. That silence is of such consequence when the role of the Church is moderator, arbiter and conscience of its community. For me, a consequence would have amounted to none of the 6,000,000 Jews having been mistreated in the slightest, segregated or maligned at all, let alone for them to have been Murdered. Today there is a much vaunted assertion that persists of what was being said positively back then. But that omission of fact has little of relevance of what was actually being said, when it could have stemmed the haemorrhaging flow of Jewish blood. What had been issued at the time amounts to a cursory response that is derided and is clearly shown by a lack of compassion for the Jews who were being relentlessly ground to death in the grist mill of Hitler’s well versed and documented ‘endlosung’.
“..when ..heads of ..major nations in ..world faced ..new Germany with cool reserve and considerable suspicion ..Catholic Church ..greatest moral power on earth ..through ..Concordat expressed its confidence in ..new German government.” Guenter Lewy.
Nor was any statement or comment made during the writing of this concordat that was of real benefit to those in their direst hour of immediate need. When speaking up would have made all the difference to those on their final journey toward annihilation, those who could effect change chose to ignore a People’s plight. I speak too here, not only for the 6,000,000 Jews who were slaughtered, all ritually murdered on the sacrificial table, but for our own culpability in that loss to our own humanity. From within the depths of the slaughter, we have to explore the abandonment of our God. We need to establish if the teachings of Jesus were so blatantly ignored they become superfluous to all coming generations. As to the shepherding role of the Church, an abandonment of that charitable principle was carried out, in order for those involved at the point of the destruction to enable and deliver for Hitler, and his Reich, a resolve. That solution which would prove final, and in genocidal terms, conclusive, for all these Jewish People could have been tempered, ameliorated or even abandoned by that same protest that the Church was delivering on behalf of the ill, the infirm or the weak willed!
“..there are sacred obligations of conscience from which no one has ..power to release us and which we must fulfil even if it costs us our lives.” Cardinal von Galen.
We all have to accept from within the community of humanity that what was done was a grave wrong. But also, what was allowed to happen was also a great wrong, and it was done by a so-called Christian people and in our name. We are still led by a Catholic Church already steeped in the tradition of antisemitism and the smell of duplicity hangs over her like an angry God seething that we stooped so low. My Church must do more to rectify the wrongs that were clearly done and openly endorse the need for an appropriate response that is full and unflinching. In its own resolve to be open and honest the Church can no longer protest it did enough! The very integrity of the Church lies at the heart of these concerns, and the words of Jesus Christ ring out when we deny the basic of a human right to any others which we seek for ourselves!
“..If ..danger of ..reproduction of that curse of God in ..Jewish blood is finally to come to an end ..there is only one way ..extermination of that people.” Julius Streicher.
Of course there are many protestations which have suggested that the Church was encumbered by protocol. For the Church, not to meddle in State affairs, is to abandon those who are in fear of a State settled upon their destruction. There is a moral duty on us all to ensure the least able are defended by the more enabled. Which is why, when Cardinal Clement August von Galen urged protest over the T4 Euthanasia Project, his protest loomed extraordinarily large and loud. His voice was well heard and it was audible. He was reasoned with moral and ethical certainty and we see that he acted with the authority of a Church founded upon those Christian principles. That same voice however, was redundant when it came to the Jews of Germany and Europe who faced an unprecedented slaughter of such magnitude, History had not yet invented the term to bring our comprehension of its detail into focus.
“..suspicion verging on certainty ..numerous unexpected deaths of mentally ill people do not occur of themselves but are deliberately brought about ..doctrine is being followed ..according to which one may destroy so-called ‘worthless life’ that is ..kill innocent people if one considers ..their lives are of no further value for ..nation and ..state.” Cardinal von Galen.
Remember, von Galen issued his missal and it was read out in Churches on July 6th. 1941, while the slaughter of the Jewish People was in full swing. Hitler’s response was immediate, he swept the T4 detail under ground and had 3 Priests who had distributed the tract beheaded. Though Hitler did not abandon the Euthanasia Project fully, as has been stated, he used others means to circumvent what the Church protest had illuminated. Here is where der Einsatzgruppe, who were destroying the enormous vestiges of Russian and Eastern Judaism, worked in unison with those who now brought their T4 expertise out into the wider field of operations. Along with those other innocent souls, those who are now declared insane, or slightly disabled, or simply ill, or at pains with the existence of daily life or those Hitler had declared unworthy of living, stood the host of Judaism. Here, as The Wannsee Conference would extract from a detailed census account of the presence of the Jewish People in their midst, would be some 11,293,300 Jewish People. These Jews, an innocent target for a ruthless illegality, would receive no quarter. Surely the Church’s confessional must have been ringing with the resonance for forgiveness from the multitude of Catholic perpetrators who sought to assuage their guilt in both that T4 programme and The Holocaust?
“..Einsatzgruppen ..called upon to fulfil a repulsive duty. ..you are soldiers who have to carry out every order unconditionally. You have a responsibility before God and Hitler for everything that is happening. I myself hate this bloody business and I have been moved to ..depths of my soul. ..I am obeying ..highest law by doing my duty. Man must defend himself against bedbugs ..rats ..vermin.” Heinrich Himmler.
However, the Catholic Church’s protest did not rise to the task expected of it, nor did it emanate with any significant level of compassion; that which Christ himself would have demanded, Love thy neighbour as thyself, was abandoned to a large degree by a wave of silence which catapulted Hitler toward a gain he felt empowered to undertake. For those who walk along, after the steps of Christ, they need to step inside those shoes and adopt the honest, human and charitable attitude of the very same Jesus I see as my Christ. Also, in that preamble back to history, are we to be led to believe that, simply because of von Galen’s protest, and it was practically 7 weeks after the missal was being read out in Church’s, that Hitler had to explore other hidden avenues for the murder of those useless mouths unworthy of life, and The Jews of Europe?
“..hold a solemn requiem mass in memory of der Fuhrer.” Cardinal Bertram.
How can we as Catholics look favourably at a Church that does not frown more emphatically at Hitler’s role in The Holocaust, or even World War 2? Can we more than just accept that Hitler was a Catholic and not have been removed from that communion for his betrayal of all Christian values! Look also to those who administered for Hitler in the depths of the carnage, over the Killing sites and within the Death Camps. Bormann, Frank, Goebbels, Heydrich, Himmler, Hoess, or Muller none of whom have been admonished or excommunicated for their hatred of Humanity! We also have it on authority that many, like Brunner, Eichmann, Mengele and Stangl, and too many more were secured safety by Vatican intervention. Can we simply ignore what was achieved by the Church in aide of those whose despicable nature drove 6,000,000 Jews toward Destruction? When so little was said that would have prevented the Catastrophe in the first place, can we find any morality? What does emerge from the tracts of evidence is an unholy alliance with unholy people that was ranged against a God fearing and holier Jewish presence that was all but obliterated.
“..You shall love your neighbour as yourself. .. There is no other commandment greater than these.” Jesus Christ.
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