page_title: Catholic Church and Nazi Germany
section_title: Nazi views on Catholicism
hierarchical_section_title: Catholic Church and Nazi Germany / Overview / Nazi views on Catholicism
caption_attribution_description: English: Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich in Vienna, March 1938
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: Nazism could not accept an autonomous establishment whose legitimacy did not spring from the government, and desired the subordination of the church to the state. Although Article 24 of the NSDAP party platform called for conditional toleration of Christian denominations and the Reichskonkordat with the Vatican was signed in 1933 (purportedly guaranteeing religious freedom for Catholics), Hitler considered religion fundamentally incompatible with National Socialism. His hostility to the church indicated to his subordinates that continuation of the Kirchenkampf would be encouraged.
  Many Nazis suspected Catholics of disloyalty to Germany and supporting "sinister alien forces". William L. Shirer wrote, "Under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler—backed by Hitler—the Nazi regime intended to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists." Anti-clericalism was strong among grassroots party activists.
caption: Heinrich Himmler (left) and Reinhard Heydrich, heads of the Nazi security forces, were vehemently anti-Catholic.
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