Posted on 05/19/2010 4:51:12 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
And in WWI, some served in the higher ranks, commanding large units. Many were killed in the line of duty.
My point is not to criticize them in any way, merely to point out they shared as many dangers as everyone else, and sometimes more.
"During the Nazi occupation, the Catholic Church in Poland experienced enormous clerical and material losses."According to the latest research by W. Jacewicz and J. WoÅ, in the years 19391945, 2,801 members of the clergy lost their lives; they were either murdered during the occupation or killed in military manoeuvres.
"Among them were 6 bishops, 1,926 diocesan priests and clerics, 375 priests and clerics from monastic orders, 205 brothers, and 289 sisters.
"599 diocesan priests and clerics were killed in executions, as well as 281 members of the monastic clergy (priests, brothers and sisters).
"Of the 1,345 members of the clergy murdered in death camps, 798 perished in Dachau, 167 in Auschwitz, 90 in DziaÅdowo, 85 in Sachsenhausen, 71 in Gusen, 40 in Stutthof, and the rest in camps such as Buchenwald, Gross-Rosen, Mauthausen, Majdanek, Bojanowo, and others."
And that's just Poland. The numbers for other countries were not as great -- hundreds instead of thousands -- but the total was at least another thousand.
Now must run, will look for more data later...
The only German branch of service that had no Chaplains [as policy] was the Waffen SS. But that rule was ignored by at least Willi Bittrich, and possibly by Felix Steiner. Not sure about Hausser.
SS buckle [different eagle]: “Meine Ehre Heisst Treue” [”My Honor is Loyalty”].
That news quiz looks really difficult.
Many Freepers would not accept James Carroll as a reliable source, but in this case, possibly make an exception:
pg 29 "One hears quite a lot about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Protestant theologian, and Bernhard Lichtenberg, dean of the Catholic Cathedral in Berlin, both martyred."They were true heroes for all. More than three thousand Catholic priests and nuns perished in the camps, although most of those were Poles put to death more for being Slavic than Catholic.
"German clergy were killed at the front as chaplains in the German army at a rate greater than priests and ministers were ever sent to the camps.
"As the historian William Sheridan Allen wrote about the German clergy, 'From an actuarial point of view it was safer to oppose Hitler than to support him.' "
Nevertheless, it is a slander to say that the Catholic Church did not resist Hitler...."
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