page_title: Catholic bishops in Nazi Germany
section_title: Relations with the Nazi regime
hierarchical_section_title: Catholic bishops in Nazi Germany / Relations with the Nazi regime
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Begrüßungsfeier anläßlich der Inthronisation Sr. Exzellenz des Bischofs von Berlin Dr. Konrad Graf von Preysing. - e.G. 4883. Am 8. September 1935 fand im Berliner Sportpalast die Begrüßungsfeier anläßlich der Inthronisation Sr. Exzellenz des Bischofs von Berlin, Dr. Konrad Graf von Preysing, statt. Unser Bild zeigt Dr. Konrad Graf von Preysing, den neuen Bischof von Berlin bei seiner Ansprache.
context_page_description: Catholic bishops in Nazi Germany differed in their responses to the rise of Nazi Germany, World War II, and the Holocaust during the years 1933–1945. In the 1930s, the Episcopate of the Catholic Church of Germany comprised 6 Archbishops and 19 bishops while German Catholics comprised around one third of the population of Germany served by 20,000 priests. In the lead up to the 1933 Nazi takeover, German Catholic leaders were outspoken in their criticism of Nazism. Following the Nazi takeover, the Catholic Church sought an accord with the Government, was pressured to conform, and faced persecution. The regime had flagrant disregard for the Reich concordat with the Holy See, and the episcopate had various disagreements with the Nazi government, but it never declared an official sanction of the various attempts to overthrow the Hitler regime. Ian Kershaw wrote that the churches "engaged in a bitter war of attrition with the regime, receiving the demonstrative backing of millions of churchgoers.
context_section_description: The German Episcopate had various disagreements with the Nazi government, but it never declared an official sanction of the various attempts to overthrow the Hitler regime. The Vatican too persisted in seeking to maintain a "legal modus vivendi" with the regime. Thus when Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen of Münster delivered his famous 1941 denunciations of Nazi euthanasia and the lawlessness of the Gestapo, he also said that the church had never sought the overthrow of the regime. Cardinal Bertram, head of the German Catholic Bishops Conference, "developed an ineffectual protest system" to satisfy the demands of other bishops, without annoying the regime. On 10 August 1940, the president of the Bishops Conference on the one hand begged Hitler to resist influences hostile to Christianity - but at the same time assured the Führer of his "loyalty to the state as it is".
  Only gradually did Catholic resistance from the hierarchy re-emerge, in the form of the efforts of individual clerics, including Cardinal Preysing of Berlin, Bishop Galen of Münster, and Bishop Grober of Freiberg. The regime responded with arrests, the withdrawal of teaching privileges, and the seizure of church publishing houses. Pastoral letters of 1942 and 1943 denounced government breaches of the Concordat and declared support for human rights and rule of law.
  Kershaw wrote that, while the "detestation of Nazism was overwhelming within the Catholic Church", it did not preclude church leaders approving of areas of the regime's policies, particularly where Nazism "blended into 'mainstream' national aspirations" - like support for "patriotic" foreign policy or war aims, obedience to state authority (where this did not contravene divine law); and destruction of atheistic Marxism and Soviet Bolshevism. Traditional Christian anti-Judaism was "no bulwark" against Nazi biological antisemitism, wrote Kershaw, and on these issues "the churches as institutions felt on uncertain grounds". Opposition was generally left to fragmented and largely individual efforts. Yet from the early stages of Nazism, Nazi ideology and Catholic doctrine clashed - from Alfred Rosenberg's anti-Catholic stance in The Myth of the Twentieth Century, to the Nazi sterilization and euthanasia programs. The Nazis also moved early against the church's organisational interests - attacking Political Catholicism, Catholic schools and the Catholic press. Against these things, church leaders mounted vigorous defences.
  Preysing
  Bishop von Preysing was among the most firm and consistent bishops to oppose the Nazis. Preysing served as Bishop of Eichstatt from 1932 to 1935 and in 1935 was appointed as Bishop of Berlin - the capital of Nazi Germany. Preysing was loathed by Hitler, who said "the foulest of carrion are those who come clothed in the cloak of humility and the foulest of these Count Presying! What a beast!". He spoke out in public sermons and argued the case for firm opposition at bishops' conferences. Bishop von Preysing was one of the Catholic contacts of the Kreisau Circle of the German Resistance. His Advent Pastoral Letters of 1942 and 1943 on the nature of human rights reflected the anti-Nazi theology of the Barmen Declaration of the Confessing Church, leading one to be broadcast in German by the BBC. In 1944, Preysing met with and gave a blessing to Claus von Stauffenberg, in the lead up to the July Plot to assassinate Hitler, and spoke with the resistance leader on whether the need for radical change could justify tyrannicide.
  Galen
  The Bishop of Münster, Clemens August Graf von Galen was Preysing's cousin. In response to Nazi Ideologist Alfred RosenbergThe Myth of the Twentieth Century, Galen derided the neo-pagan theories of Rosenberg as perhaps no more than "an occasion for laughter in the educated world", but warned that "his immense importance lies in the acceptance of his basic notions as the authentic philosophy of National Socialism and in his almost unlimited power in the field of German education. Herr Rosenberg must be taken seriously if the German situation is to be u
caption: Bishop Konrad von Preysing was Bishop of Berlin, the capital city of Nazi Germany. He provided aid to the city's Jews and had links to the German Resistance.
exif: {}