Posted on 01/17/2013 4:24:25 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
The News of the Week in Review
Twenty News Questions – 11
Strategic Islands of the South Pacific Battleground (map) – 12
War Scales in Pacific in an Uneasy Balance (Baldwin) – 13
Transport is Key to China’s Future (Atkinson) – 14
Goebbels ‘Explains’ Reverses (Axelsson) – 15
Russian Infantry Masses for Attack (Parker) – 15-16
The Mediterranean World: Focus of War (map) – 17
Allies Fight Hard for Mediterranean Mastery (Middleton) – 18
Answers to Twenty News Questions – 18
The News of the Week in Review
Twenty News Questions – 11
Strategic Islands of the South Pacific Battleground (map) – 12
War Scales in Pacific in an Uneasy Balance (Baldwin) – 13
Transport is Key to China’s Future (Atkinson) – 14
Goebbels ‘Explains’ Reverses (Axelsson) – 15
Russian Infantry Masses for Attack (Parker) – 15-16
The Mediterranean World: Focus of War (map) – 17
Allies Fight Hard for Mediterranean Mastery (Middleton) – 18
Answers to Twenty News Questions – 18
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/jan1943/f17jan43.htm
Soviets Advancing, Germans Retreating
Sunday, January 17, 1943 www.onwar.com
On the Eastern Front... There are Soviet advances from Orel to the Caucasus. Millerovo and Zimoviki are captured. Around Stalingrad, there is a lull in the fighting as the Red Army forces regroup for a final offensive.
In New Guinea... The Australians penetrate Japanese positions at Sanananda. Japanese resistance continues here and against the converging Americans attacking at Giruwa.
In Morocco... The Casablanca Conference. The Anglo-American strategy discussions continue.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
January 17th, 1943
UNITED KINGDOM: London: Anti-aircraft shells and shrapnel kill 23 people and injure 60 during a raid on the city by 118 German planes; six are reported lost.
Minesweeper HMS Steadfast launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
FRANCE: Brothels should be established at all Waffen-SS garrisons in occupied France. This is the view of Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer, who believes that what he calls “this naturalness” will increase the performance of his men, presumably in their military duties.
Himmler’s order was conveyed in a letter to Karl Albrecht Oberg, the head of the police and the SS in occupied France, on 5 January. he is apparently worried by the increase is sexual diseases amongst the SS soldiers; prostitutes in the brothels, however, would come under regular medical supervision.
GERMANY: Raiding Berlin for the second night in a row, the RAF drops 8,000-pound bombs on the city; the BBC broadcaster Richard Dimbleby flies as an observer.
U.S.S.R.: Soviet Navy lists submarine L-23 Black Sea Fleet Karkinitski zaliv (mined off Yevpatoeria by German ASW aircraft). (Dave Shirlaw)
CHINA: Chungking: In a move to strengthen the alliance with China and end a long-standing Chinese grievance, Britain and the US have surrendered their century-old neo-colonial territorial rights to the international settlements. The decision made by Britain and America, formally agreed last week, abrogates their citizens’ rights to immunity from Chinese law and national rights to station troops under the so-called “unequal treaties”, legacies of the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion. The deal was the result of pressure from the Chinese Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, who said that the humiliation of a century had been wiped away.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: 37 105mm and 12 155mm artillery pound the Gifu with 1,700 shells between 1430 and 1600 into the “Gifu”, an area of 1000 square yards, on Guadalcanal. An all out assault is precluded due to the hour, which wastes the effect of this barrage. US troops 300 yards from the pocket are dazed by the concussion. US forces also use loudspeakers to broadcast a demand for surrender.
U.S.A.: Light fleet carrier USS Cowpens launched.
Escort carrier USS Natoma Bay laid down.
Destroyer escort USS Flaherty launched.
(Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: SS Vestfold, while in Convoy HX-222 with HMS LCT 2239, 2267 and 2344 as deck cargo, torpedoed and sunk by U-268. (Dave Shirlaw)
"Cardinal Konrad Graf von Preysing, the bishop of Berlin during the Nazi era, viewed the Third Reich as a corrupt and pernicious regime.
As early as May 1933, Preysing challenged the ideological tenets of Nazism and openly called for their repudiation.
By January 1943 he was the only top German Catholic prelate who consistently opposed the German government's Jewish policies.
Preysing threatened to resign his post if the other German bishops continued their collaborative behavior."
"Rita Rosani was a member of the Italian Resistance and the only Italian female resister known to have been killed in combat.
Born in Trieste, Rosani was a schoolteacher at the local Jewish school until 1943, when she joined the Resistance.
She met her death on September 17, 1944, after fighting in several actions in the Verona region."
In July 1943 Hawaii's strength will further increase on the arrival of the 33rd Infantry Division.
The 33rd had suffered 6,900 casualties in France in WWI, and would suffer another 2,400 in the Pacific in WWII.
In the mid 1930s it was the assigned unit of a certain Colonel George C. Marshall, who would move on to greater fame.
In September 1942, the 33rd moved from training at Camp (Nathan B) Forest in south-central Tennessee to Fort Lewis, Washington, where it "now" is being joined by over 100 freshly minted 90-day wonder lieutenants.
It will soon transfer to the Mohave Desert to train for North Africa.
But, eventually the 33rd will see combat in New Guinea and the Philippines before landing in Japan.
The 33rd includes a certain young lieutenant whose fate is of some importance to, ahem, yours truly... ;-)
What criteria is used to formulate such statement?
Doubtless the key word is "consistently", at least as seen from a Jewish perspective.
If you wish to learn the Catholic perspective itself, I'd recommend this link.
You will notice there that, while several other prelates are mentioned, Bishop Preysing is given highest honors.
Indeed, for whatever my opinion might be worth, Preysing's views most closely resemble those of the previous Pope, Pius XI, who appointed Preysing Bishop of Berlin in 1935.
And that is no doubt one reason why Pius XII elevated Preysing to Cardinal in 1946.
Was that young lieutenant a “90-day wonder”?
He always considered the “wonder” part to be that somehow he passed the course when so many others, that he thought better at it, washed out.
You replied:
Doubtless the key word is "consistently", at least as seen from a Jewish perspective.
Using the word "consistently" is fine as long as background clarification is provided. Inter-faith sensitivities are such that many will interpret the term as written to mean some variant of Preysing being the only bishop consistently opposing the Nazis by 1943.
If you wish to learn the Catholic perspective itself, I'd recommend this link.
Thanks. The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933-1945 by J.S Conway in 1968 is a pretty good initial read on the subject. The vast majority of primary information on the subject remains untranslated.
A very good read on Nazi policy actually carried out toward Jews and Christians is The Black Book of Poland written by the Polish Ministry of Information (In exile) and published in 1942.
Even for books, articles and assorted documents that have been translated such as top Nazi Alfred Rosenberg's The Myth of the Twentieth Century, American historians have by and large steered clear of them.
The facts of history are that some Catholic (and other) clergy supported the Nazis, more opposed them, but many tried to remain "neutral", out of concern for the fate of the German people.
Another word for "neutral" is "collaborative", and those are referred to in the statement:
Here is how Catholic News Agency puts it:
"Von Preysing came from a staunchly Catholic Bavarian background, and had been appointed Bishop of Berlin in 1935.
This was a position of importance; he may have been a suffragan to the Archbishop of Breslau – modern Wroclaw in Poland – but he was also the bishop of the Capital of Germany.
The appointment of Von Preysing was a clear message from the Vatican to Hitler.
Von Preysing had been an outspoken opponent of the Nazis from very early on.
When they came to power in 1933, he had said during a sermon, 'we have fallen into the hands of criminals and fools'...
"Somehow, the Nazis did not dare to touch Von Preysing, who ran the organization for the duration of the war.
They knew he was involved in the drafting of the Encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge, the fierce denunciation of Nazism by Pope Pius XI, knew of his involvement in the work of Bl.
Bernard Lichtenberg, knew, too, of his attempts to have the German Bishops Conference speak out against the death camps.
(Fearful of what would happen, the senior bishops had overruled both Von Preysing and Cologne’s Archbishop, Josef Frings).
"They were aware, too, of his enormous popularity.
"This seems to have protected him even in July 1944.
That month, the German resistance, whose existence Winston Churchill denied in Parliament, carried out one last desperate attempt to remove Hitler, the last of a whole series of attempts.
Its leadership came from the Kreisau circle, in which Catholics played a major role.
Its leader, Graf von Moltke, noted in his diaries that Von Preysing attended their meetings infrequently.
"...Von Stauffenberg was a staunch Catholic, whose moral compass had not been twisted by the Nazis.
The same is true of many of the other conspirators, who included the pious Protestant second in command of the secret service, the Abwehr, Hans Oster, and his friend, the Protestant theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
"Of course, the attempt failed and Von Stauffenberg, Oster, Bonhoeffer and almost 5,000 others were tortured, humiliated and killed, some only weeks before the end of the war.
Von Preysing, however, was left untouched.
This is rather odd for the Gestapo knew that the clergy were involved, indeed, that they were sorry the attempt had failed...
What they did not know was that the Vatican knew of the action.
Although Josef Müller, the confidant of Von Faulhaber, had been arrested in 1943, there were still enough contacts with the Papacy through the Abwehr in Rome...
"For most German Catholics, the period between 1933 and 1945 was one of relentless darkness, in which they merely tried to survive.
"The Holy Father has spoken of the experience of his own family during the war, an experience that is perhaps more typical than any of the examples seen so far.
His father suffered loss of jobs for his rather outspoken dislike for the Nazis, but never went as far as to resist them openly.
He may have had the fate of his wife and children in mind, a consideration easily forgotten by those in less perilous circumstances.
"One of Joseph Ratzinger’s cousins, who had Down Syndrome, was murdered under the Nazi euthanasia program..."
My point again is that, while several other Catholic prelates are mentioned, von Preysing receives the obvious place of honor.
We might note, however, that neither CNS nor Wikipedia mentions anything about von Preysing's alleged threat (dated as January 17, 1943)
Very true but look at "Christian" churches today. The church Obama networked at and that of say Jerry Falwell are like night and day but to someone of another faith both are seen as Christian.
The Paulist Center of Boston where Sen. John Kerry shows up for photo op's with Father Frank D. Desiderio during political campaigns is a completely different animal from that of Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York desires. Again, to a person of another faith, the two are seen as Catholic Christians.
Similarly, the German church; Catholic and Protestant was all over the socio-political map.
Another word for "neutral" is "collaborative"
True but such position can stem from sympathy, or intimidation. Both were at hand.
Furthermore, church history during times of persecution is that Clergy are the first targets of the persecutors. Knowing that at least one person sitting in a pew was an informant, a pastor had to choose his words carefully lest the flock suddenly lose it's shepherd.
Nor is there evidence that von Preysing or any other German Catholic official ever spoke out publicly against the Holocaust.
What Rabbis ever spoke publicly about the treatment of Gypsies, or of euthanasia?
Did the German Catholic clergy ever speak publicly about the slaughter of Catholics in German occupied Poland? If they did, what German publication would have published such statement?
The Holocaust as defined at Wanssee began in 1942. By that time, the clergy of Obama and John Kerryesque congregations were arguably in greater proportion since those clergy who actively opposed the Nazis during the prior 10 years had been, murdered, stripped of office, forbidden to preach, thrown in concentration camps, or otherwise intimidated into silence.
Nor did the Pope, for that matter, even though (or more likely, because) the numbers of clergy arrested and held was many thousands, of whom about three thousand died in Nazi hands:
According to the latest research conducted by W. Jacewicz and J. WoS in the years 1939-1945, 2,801 clergy lost their lives.
Among them were:
In 1999 Pope John Paul II beatified 108 of those killed as "Blessed Polish Martyrs".
Those include:
Again, my point here is: even if the Church were to speak publicly about the Holocaust, you might expect it to begin by condemning the murder of its own clergy.
But it did not.
And that is the context for any discussion of allegations about "Hitler's Pope".
I understand your point but am not sure how much different the situation is today when looking around the World at ongoing persecution of Catholics and the relative silence of the Vatican.
If a Catholic Church in Nigeria is set ablaze along with it's congregation inside, Rome might respond with some statement calling for an increase in peace and goodwill. I don't understand it.
Well, obviously he was a bright man who was a quick study. :-))
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