page_title: Catholic Church and Nazi Germany
section_title: Public caution
hierarchical_section_title: Catholic Church and Nazi Germany / The papacy / Pius XII / Public caution
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Nuntius Eugenio Pacelli (später Pius XII.) nach Abschluß des Preussischen Konkordates.
context_page_description: Popes Pius XI and Pius XII led the Catholic Church during the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. Around a third of Germans were Catholic in the 1930s, generally in southern Germany; Protestants dominated the north. Although the German Catholic church had opposed the Nazi Party, the Catholic-aligned Centre Party capitulated in 1933. In the 1933 elections, the percentage of Catholics voting for the Nazi Party was lower than the national average. Adolf Hitler and several other key Nazis had been raised Catholic, but became hostile to the church in adulthood; Article 24 of the NSDAP party platform called for conditional toleration of Christian denominations and the 1933 Reichskonkordat treaty with the Vatican purportedly guaranteed religious freedom for Catholics, but the Nazis were essentially hostile to Catholicism. Catholic press, schools, and youth organizations were closed, property was confiscated, and about one-third of its clergy faced reprisals from authorities; Catholic lay leaders were targeted during the Night of the Long Knives.
context_section_description: In public, Pius spoke cautiously about Nazi crimes. When Myron Charles Taylor urged him to condemn Nazi atrocities, he "obliquely referred to the evils of modern warfare". In a conversation with Archbishop Giovanni Montini, Pius said: "We would like to utter words of fire against such actions; and the only thing restraining Us from speaking is the fear of making the plight of the victims worse". In June 1943, Pope Pius XII told the Sacred College of Cardinals in a secret address that: "Every word We address to the competent authority on this subject, and all Our public utterances have to be carefully weighed and measured by Us in the interests of the victims themselves, lest, contrary to Our intentions, We make their situation worse and harder to bear". Nazi brutality made an enormous impression on Pius. In December 1942, when Secretary of State Maglione was asked if Pius would issue a proclamation similar to the Allied "German Policy of Extermination of the Jewish Race", he replied that the Vatican was "unable to denounce publicly particular atrocities."
caption: Pacelli (left) and Robert Leiber in 1929
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