page_title: Jesuits and Nazi Germany
section_title: Poland
hierarchical_section_title: Jesuits and Nazi Germany / The Nazi Empire / Poland
caption_attribution_description: English: The body of Edward Kosibowicz - abbot of jesuit monastery in Warsaw's district Mokotów - murdered by German troops on 2nd August 1944. Photo taken during the exhumation in 1945. Polski: Zwłoki księdza superiora Edwarda Kosibowicza, przełożonego Domu Pisarzy Towarzystwa Jezusowego na warszawskim Mokotowie, zamordowanego przez Niemców w dniu 2 sierpnia 1944. Zdjęcie wykonane podczas ekshumacji w 1945.
context_page_description: At the outbreak of World War II, the Society of Jesus had some 1700 members in Nazi Germany, divided into three provinces: Eastern, Lower and Upper Germany. Nazi leaders had some admiration for the discipline of the Jesuit order, but opposed its principles. Of the 152 Jesuits murdered by the Nazis across Europe, 27 died in captivity or its results, and 43 in the concentration camps.
  Hitler was anticlerical and had particular disdain for the Jesuits. The Jesuit Provincial, Augustin Rosch, ended the war on death row for his role in the July Plot to overthrow Hitler. The Catholic Church faced persecution in Nazi Germany and persecution was particularly severe in Poland. The Superior General of the Jesuits at the outbreak of War was Wlodzimierz Ledochowski, a Pole. Vatican Radio, which spoke out against Axis atrocities, was run by the Jesuit Filippo Soccorsi.
  Jesuits made up the largest contingent of clergy imprisoned in the Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration Camp, where some 30 Jesuits died. Several Jesuits were prominent in the small German Resistance, including the influential martyr Alfred Delp of the Kreisau Circle.
context_section_description: The Superior General of the worldwide Jesuit order at the outbreak of war was Wlodzimierz Ledochowski, a Pole. The Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland was particularly severe. Vincent Lapomarda wrote that Ledochowski helped "stiffen the general attitude of the Jesuits against the Nazis" and that he permitted Vatican Radio to carry on its campaign against the Nazis in Poland. Vatican Radio was run by the Jesuit Filippo Soccorsi and spoke out against Nazi oppression – particularly with regard to Poland and to Vichy-French antisemitism.
  Hitler's plans for the Germanization of the East saw no place for the Christian churches. Nazi policy towards the Church was at its most severe in the territories it annexed to Greater Germany, where the Nazis set about systematically dismantling the Church – arresting its leaders, exiling its clergymen, closing its churches, monasteries and convents. Many clergymen were murdered.
  Jesuit-run Vatican Radio reported in November 1940 that religious life for Catholics in Poland had been brutally restricted and that at least 400 clergy had been deported to Germany in the preceding four months. Among the Nazi crimes against Catholics in Poland was the massacre in the Jesuit residence on Rakowiecka Street in Warsaw (1944).
  Among the most significant Polish Jesuits to survive the Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration Camp was Adam Kozłowiecki, who later served as a Cardinal. He was arrested as a young priest at the Jesuit College in Kraków in 1939, and remained imprisoned until April 1945. He later wrote his recollections of his time at Dachau, where the highest percentage among incarcerated clergy  were Jesuits.
caption: Exhumed body of Fr Edward Kosibowicz SJ, Father Superior at the site of the Massacre in the Jesuit monastery on Rakowiecka Street in Warsaw (1944).
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