Posted on 04/23/2013 9:37:23 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
In a segment titled “God and Hitler,” Gordon Robertson (son of Rev. Pat Robertson), hosted a discussion on the Catholic Church’s response to Hitler. Several errors of fact were made.
1) It is wrong to paint Hitler as a Catholic. Though he was baptized, he excommunicated himself, latae sententiae, when he sought, in his words, to “crush [the Catholic Church] like a toad.” He made good on his pledge by persecuting 8,000 priests, over 500 of whom were killed in concentration camps. He also sought to assassinate the pope.
2) The 1933 Nazi-Vatican Concordat was not a show of solidarity. As Rabbi David Dalin has shown, it was a protective measure designed to protect German Catholics from persecution. In fact, at least 34 letters of protest were sent from the Vatican to the Nazis between 1933 and 1937, culminating in a 1937 encyclical that condemned Nazi violations of the Concordat and its racial ideology. It was smuggled out of Italy and distributed on Palm Sunday to Catholics in Germany. Nothing like this happened in Protestant churches in Germany.
3) It is not true that Hitler met resistance from Protestants alone. There are 800,000 trees planted in Israel that represent the 800,000 Jews saved by the Catholic Church. None have been planted as a tribute to Protestants. During the war, the New York Times twice said the Church was “a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent”; Albert Einstein also singled out the Church during the war. After the war, Golda Meir praised the work of the Church, as did the ADL, the World Jewish Congress, and scores of other Jewish organizations.
4) It is factually wrong to say the Vatican archives have “never been seen.” Many scholars have had access. As for Pope Pius XII being “Hitler’s Pope,” it should be noted that John Cornwell, the ex-seminarian who originated this term, retracted it years ago. So why does “The 700 Club” continue to cite it?
From now on, I'd best be watching 700 Club so I know what I'm going to be linked to and blamed for as a possible source, as a Protestant.
; )
Bonhoeffer yes but what what was Niemöller's position regarding the Nazis in 1932 and 1933?
If the Protestants formed a strong front against the Nazis, why was it necessary to form the Confessing Church?
Without getting into Bismarck's Kulturkampf, nationalist politics, patriotism, the aftermath of WWI, historic anti-Semitism, the völkisch movement and a fear of the Red Terror, the basic problems of the Church resisting Nazism was the deep split between Protestants and Catholics.
Hitler had a more difficult time with the Catholic Church because it is more monolithic and trans-national in leadership whereas Protestants are inherently fragmented and local in leadership. The Nazis could more easily remove, flip, or replace Protestant pastors than Catholic clergy. Additional problems were presented by the split between mainstream denominations and groups such as Jehovahs Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists.
An additional problem preventing a united front against Nazism was that neither Jew nor Christian recognized that to the neopagan Nazis, Christianity was seen as just a large Jewish sect.
I agree that Hitler excommunicated himself but could you provide a reference showing Hitler to have been a member, or associate of Los von Rom?
The Nazis were not fans of Luther, they just used him to advance their agenda which after the war would have been the complete elimination of Christianity within the Third Reich.
The Hitler's Pope monniker came straight from Moscow.
Thank you for your good will and thank you for yhour prayers!
As a Catholic, I am happy to see that the truth about the persecution of religious people in Nazi Germany is finally becoming better known. Shame on the 700 Club for disemminating falsehoods about this time in Germany.
I am Catholic and I have always known about the persecution of the Catholic Church under Hitler. The fact is, the Catholic Church was persecuted under Otto von Bismarck as well by the imposition of the “May Laws” which terrorized the clergy in the 1870’s. The law was eventually overturned.
However, I digress. You are correct that for 65+ years the American press has ignored the terrible circumstances of ALL the CHRISTIAN churches under Nazism. It was untrue that the Lutherans did not resist. In fact, they put up a very good fight against the Nazi plan to replace the historic Lutheran Church with a “German Church”, filled with heretical pastors who were willing to toe the line and impose radical nationalism, anti-Semitism, and also willing to replace the crosses in the Lutheran churches with a picture of “Der Fuehrer”.
Recently I read a book about the terrible circumstances faithful Lutherans had when the Nazis came after them and indoctrinated their children with the toxic Nazi philosophy. The book is named, “Day of No Return”, by Kressmann Taylor. It is well worth reading. I highly recommend it. Martin Niemoeller’s name is prominent in the story.
Why do want to sully this thread with FACTS? Don’t you know that some are easily distracted when they are forced to look away from the pretty, sparkly thingys Rome shines in their faces?....
The communists, the national socialists, and certain hate-filled anti-Catholic protestants certainly do shine "pretty, sparkly thingys" in peoples' faces ... when honest folk speak the truth, however, those "pretty, sparkly thingys" are revealed to be distortions, fabrications and half truths.
Recently I read a book about the terrible circumstances faithful Lutherans had when the Nazis came after them and indoctrinated their children with the toxic Nazi philosophy. The book is named, “Day of No Return”, by Kressmann Taylor. It is well worth reading. I highly recommend it. Martin Niemoeller’s name is prominent in the story.
The Catholic Church didn't object to Hitler's Germany until 1938-39 at the earliest, as it viewed Bolshevism as a greater threat. As late as 1941, the Pope described Hitler's offensive against Russian Bolshevism as "high-minded gallantry in defense of the foundations of Christian culture."
But I digress - I'm interrupting a perfectly good Protestant-bashing thread.
And don't defend the communists, either.
"it viewed Bolshevism as a greater threat
And rightly so. Communism inspired a vast empire of evil that began long before Hitler hatched his mad schemes, and continued long after Hitler had been defeated, destroyed, and discredited. National Socialism's death toll, bad as it was, pales in comparison to that of Internationalist Communism. Indeed, Stalin had murdered millions in Ukraine before anybody outside of a certain beer-hall had ever even heard of Adolph Hitler. Meanwhile, National Socialism is rightly almost universally reviled ... yet Communism, its twin in demonic evil, remains quite popular in some parts of the world.
But don't let facts get in the way of a good anti-Catholic rant.
Niemoller did not oppose Hitler's accession to power, but I expect you knew that. However, eight years in Sachsenhausen and Dachau might indicate that he paid for that sin of commission, and his instigation of what became known as the Stuttgarter Schuldbekenntnis after the war indicated his true conversion.
The point of my post was not to compare Catholic to Protestant per se, but was, however, to note that German Protestants did play an active role against Hitler and some did so in high-profile ways.
"Through us infinite wrong was brought over many peoples and countries. That which we often testified to in our communities, we express now in the name of the whole church: We did fight for long years in the name of Jesus Christ against the mentality that found its awful expression in the National Socialist regime of violence; but we accuse ourselves for not standing to our beliefs more courageously, for not praying more faithfully, for not believing more joyously, and for not loving more ardently." -- Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt, 1945
And this from a man who spent eight years in concentration camps.
Los von Rom was a movement I regarded as a parallel to Bismarck's Kulturkampf. By the time Hitler was a teenager, both movements were pretty much spent.
Wrong. Papal encyclical Mit brennender Sorge was read aloud from the pulpit across Germany and Austria in March 1937.
But I digress - I'm interrupting a perfectly good Protestant-bashing thread.
You are being overly sensitive and missing the point. Be it the atheist communists or neopagan Nazis, divisions within Judeo-Christian denominations were exploited by the Bolsheviks and Nazis to divide, conquor and destroy Judeo-Christianity.
Yes but my original question was regarding a statement that Hitler belonged to Los von Rom, a movement that had largely spent itself by the time Hitler was a teenager.
The movement was quite alive when he came to Vienna.
He came from the movement's cradle, Linz.
He was a vocal supporter of its most successful political avatar, Karl Lueger.
He was an admirer of the movement's house philosopher Georg von Schoenerer.
What else do we need to know?
He was a supporter of Los von Rom.
I lost all my links in a crash years ago but American Jews sent money to the Vatican during the war because they knew it would be used to rescue Jews.
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