It seems as if many readers do not understand the historical facts behind the – often rocky – relationship between the Nazi party and the Catholic church (Letters, 18 September). Initially, the Catholic church was – unlike the Protestant church, which introduced the German "heil" salute as early as 1934 and became a form of "state church" – "public enemy" to the Nazis with its ideas of Volksgemeinschaft and Führerprinzip, the principles of racially pure people's unity and Führer leadership.

The SS prohibited its members from exercising their Catholic belief, which was originally regarded as something that contradicted an SS member's ethos (interestingly, it was Himmler who allowed SS men to convert to Islam from 1939 to make inroads with the Muslim world). The German Catholic church was among Hitler's staunchest critics, and priests faced prosecution. With the beginning of the war, this hostile stance towards the Catholic church changed: war sometimes requires "tolerance" when in the interest of the war effort (Stalin, for example, allowed the Russian peasant population to turn – once again – to religion after the June 1941 invasion to boost morale).

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In order to win the support of some 14 nations, the majority of them Catholic, in their fight against "Bolshevism", the Nazis successfully appealed to a sense of a common "European" identity founded on cultural heritage and religion: Operation Barbarossa was portrayed as a "crusade" against the "unholy alliance" of Bolshevism and Zionism.

Pope Pius XII's role is still not thoroughly researched and the present negative assessment of his role may change after US and UK archives are fully opened.

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Bellamy salute

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Flag salute" redirects here. For the poem by Esther Pope, see Flag Salute.

Bellamy salute, September 1915.

Children performing the Bellamy salute to the flag of the United States, 1941.

A group of U.S. schoolchildren performing the Bellamy salute, May 1942

The Bellamy salute is a palm-out salute described by Francis Bellamy, the author of the American Pledge of Allegiance, as the gesture which was to accompany the pledge. During the period when it was used with the Pledge of Allegiance, it was sometimes known as the "flag salute". Both the Pledge and its salute originated in 1892. Later, during the 1920s and 1930s, Italian fascists and Nazis adopted a salute which was very similar, and which was derived from the Roman salute, a gesture that was popularly (albeit erroneously) believed to have been used in ancient Rome.[1] This resulted in controversy over the use of the Bellamy salute in the United States. It was officially replaced by the hand-over-heart salute when Congress amended the Flag Code on December 22, 1942.