>>8425200 PB Notable
Haven't even seen any posts since this one in PB. Been digging ever since, and could use help continuing.
My initial dig on anyone in that photo, Franz Bornewasser, the Bishop of Trier, quickly led to a primary evidence source in the Nuremberg Trials, and it is so massive that I haven't gotten any further. I'm not sure the individuals in this photo are the point, but maybe the EVENT when the photo was taken– was it at the signing of the Concordat, the church's "deal with the devil"? Look at the expressions of resignation on the bishops' faces. Man, they know.
"Documents prepared by the American OSS, and used in evidence at the Nuremberg Trials, record that the Nazis were cautious with regard to the murder of church leaders, and conscious of not wanting to create martyrs. Nevertheless, Catholic leaders frequently faced violence or the threat of violence, particularly at the hands of the SA, the SS or Hitler Youth. A number of cases were cited by the OSS, including two attacks against Bishop Bornewasser of Trier.
HOLY COW LOOK AT THIS:
http://lawcollections.library.cornell.edu/nuremberg/catalog/nur:00773
"S R & A 3114.4 / The Nazi Master Plan / Annex 4: The Persecution of the Christian Churches / Office of Strategic Services / Research and Analysis Branch / Draft for the War Crimes Staff/ Approved by the Prosecution Review Board / CONFIDENTIAL"
(title page in pic related)
Please take a look at this document, anons. I can NOT recall us ever digging this over the last three-plus years, and this thing is WILD. I'd never even HEARD of the Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection before today. Why it's at the Cornell Law Library instead of the Library of Congress or National Archives, I have no idea.
I'd like to read it in detail later. Am skimming now, but from secondary sources given elsewhere, a section of the "plan" guaranteed church religious freedom to the Catholic Church in exchange for political support.
This sauce is a good quick read for the basics:
https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-5/agreement-catholic-church
"Church leaders and clergy held a range of opinions about National Socialism. Some Catholic leaders welcomed Hitler’s call to “overcome the un-Germanic spirit” and feared that “atheistic communism” was more of a threat to the Catholic Church than the Nazis were. Others opposed the Nazis. According to historian Doris Bergen, “Many German Catholic clergy were initially suspicious of Nazism. They saw Nazi ideas as anti-Christian, especially the emphasis on race and blood and the obvious disrespect for human life . . . some priests had refused to administer the sacrament of communion to church members in Stormtrooper or SS uniforms." Some who opposed the Nazis also urged great caution; they were fearful of attacks on priests and nuns. That concern prompted officials of the Vatican to discuss with Hitler the possibility of an agreement: the Church would pledge to abstain from political activity in Germany in exchange for the Reich’s promise not to persecute the Catholic Church and its members…
… In July 1933, Hitler and Pope Pius XI signed a concordat, or treaty. Historian Fritz Stern explains:
On the face of it, the Vatican had scored a great triumph. No government under Weimar had been willing to sign such a concordat, which would recognize the principal rights of the church—rights that presumably would render it immune from the kind of persecution it had suffered [in the past]. By the terms of the concordat the church renounced all political activities and in turn the state guaranteed the right to free worship, to circulate pastoral epistles, to maintain Catholic schools and property. The Vatican had reason to be satisfied: Catholic rights had been put on a new basis and at the same time a regime had been strengthened that seemed to correspond to the Vatican’s sense that Mussolini and Hitler were indispensable bulwarks against Bolshevism.
Hitler had even more reason to be satisfied. The concordat was his first international agreement, and it vastly enhanced his respectability in Germany and abroad. A great moral authority had trusted his word. But did the Vatican . . . really believe that National Socialism would abide by the concordat, was there really much likelihood that the regime would leave untouched a rival organization with its own dogmas and with such sweeping power over education?"
Faster read, and pretty good: https://www.vanityfair.com/style/1999/10/pope-pius-xii-199910