....The Nazi party was founded in 1919, in Munich. In the period from 1919 to the failed Beer Hall Putsch (overthrow) in Munich in 1923, the Nazis openly courted Catholics. Their openness to Catholicism enabled the Nazis to gain supporters and to stand out from other popular movements. In the aftermath of the 1923 failure, which saw Hitler briefly imprisoned, the Nazi movement was re-founded in 1925 in a way that left little room for its earlier Catholic orientation....
....[a] distinguishing feature among Catholics in Munich and the surrounding areas was their hostility to what they saw as an excessive ultramontanism by the BVP [Bavarian People's Party] and the bishops of the Church. The ultramontane movement, Hastings explained, came about in the 18th and 19th centuries as Catholics in Europe increasingly looked to the Pope who resided "over the mountains" (ultra montes). In the decade before World War I there was a Catholic Reform movement in region around Munich consisting in a push for a new form of religious identity that was loyal to the Catholic Church in a spiritual sense, but more open to a radically nationalistic political and cultural course, Hastings observed. The Nazis were able to take advantage of these local tendencies, combined with the general disillusionment following World War I, to appeal to Catholics in the initial stages of their development. By 1923, the Nazis had obtained the support of many thousands of Catholics in and around Munich....
....1923 was the high point of their efforts. That year they set off on a membership drive designed to draw Catholics into their party. Their efforts were successful, even to the point where numerous Catholic priests became involved. In speeches at the time, Hitler openly referred to his Catholic faith and the influence it had had on his political activism. In 1923, the Nazi newspaper, the Beobachter, even started publishing Sunday Mass times and exhorted its readers to fulfill their religious obligations. This closeness between Catholics and the Nazi party came to a sudden end, however, with the the Beer Hall Putsch in November of that year.
Releated threads:
Was Hitler a Christian?
The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany: an exhaustive survey of John Toland's biography of Hitler
Pope would have quit if captured by Nazis
Report Details Catholic Role in Nazi Abuses
Hitler's Pope? (Book review of The Myth of Hitler's Pope)
Freeper Homer J Simpson has been posting day by day newspaper reports of the second world war. The NAZI’s seized a lot of Catholic properties and even replaced Catholic nuns at hospitals with ‘Nazi sisters’.
They were most definitely not friendly to the Catholic Church.
Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth to you, Alex.
Nothing like flogging the usual Catholic/Nazi posts or the ever popular devisiveness of the IC of the BVM.
Good article. The unsaid point is that Hitler was elected by his large Protestant voter support.
Much like communism/Leftism/socialism does today. They can be seen as a secular religion that demands obedience in a way Christianity does not.
A strong Catholic element could simply mean that there were individual Catholics in the Nazi Party, which wouldn't surprise me in the least. At first, the people of Germany saw the Nazis as simply a Nationalist movement, and many who had felt emasculated by the Versailles decisions would have felt drawn to it.
But even with that, there is absolutely NO EVIDENCE that the Church herself had any connection to the Nazis. IIRC, the man who would become Pope Pius XII spoke out strongly against what the Nazis were becoming even before Kristallnacht, when the intentions of the Party became clear.
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Merry Christmas Alex and may God Bless you really because you need it.
It must be Christmas time, all the Catholic haters are out in force as usual.
No surprise here.