Michael Brooks
The Catholic Church has long been associated with complicity in the Holocaust, with many claiming that Pope Pius XII was complicit in the atrocities. However, recently unsealed documents from Vatican City archives reveal a more complicated reality, with a mix of actions and views among European Catholics and church leadership. While it is true that many Catholics turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, others were victims of the Nazi regime. Many Catholic clergy, nuns, and priests died in concentration camps, SS and Gestapo torture chambers, or in fields and villages across Europe.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Number of Catholics who died in concentration camps | Many thousands |
| Catholic clergy imprisoned at Dachau | 2,720 |
| Number of Catholic clergy who died at Dachau | 1,034 |
| Catholic clergy who died at other camps | Otto Neururer, Bernhard Lichtenberg, Gerhard Hirschfelder, Titus Brandsma, Alojs Andritzki, Engelmar Unzeitig, Giuseppe Girotti |
| Catholic clergy who survived | 1,545 |
| Percentage of Catholics in Death Books | 46.8% |
| Number of Catholics in Death Books | 32,000 |
| Number of Catholics deported to Auschwitz | 13,000 |
| Total number of Catholics who died | Tens of millions |
| Catholics who died as soldiers, in forced labor, as civilian casualties in the fighting, or as victims in the gas chambers | Tens of millions |
| Catholic institutions destroyed | Churches, cathedrals, monasteries, convents, schools, universities, and monuments |
| Catholic bishops who refused to speak against the deportation of Jews from Holland | Dutch Catholic bishops |
| Catholic bishops who spoke against Nazi actions | German bishops |
| Catholic bishops who denounced the denazification program and the war crimes trials | German Episcopacy |
| Catholic saints who were Jews | Edith Stein |
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What You'll Learn
Catholic clergy persecuted and sent to concentration camps
The Holocaust, the Nazi persecution and murder of millions of people deemed "undesirable" according to Nazi ideology, included the persecution of the Catholic Church. The Nazis claimed jurisdiction over all collective and social activity, and the Catholic Church suffered under this policy. Clergy were watched closely, denounced, arrested, and sent to concentration camps. Catholic schools, presses, trade unions, political parties, and youth leagues were eradicated. Monasteries and convents were targeted for expropriation, and prominent Catholic lay leaders were murdered.
Dachau concentration camp was used by the Nazis for many of their most-hated enemies, including Catholic priests. Of the 2,720 clergy sent to Dachau, 2,579 were Catholic priests, along with uncertain numbers of seminarians and lay brothers. Most were Polish priests (1,748), with 411 German priests also imprisoned. Of the 1,034 priests who died in the camp, 868 were Polish. The priests were housed in a special "priest block" and were targeted for particularly brutal treatment by the SS guards.
In total, it is estimated that at least 3,000 Polish priests were sent to concentration camps, including Auschwitz. Priests from across Europe were also condemned to death and labour camps: 300 priests died at Sachsenhausen, 780 at Mauthausen, and 5,000 at Buchenwald. These numbers do not include the priests who were murdered en route to the camps or who died from diseases and exhaustion in the inhuman cattle cars used to transport victims.
In Poland, the Nazis instigated a policy of genocide against the country's Jewish minority, but they also murdered or suppressed the ethnic Polish elites, including religious leaders. Special death squads of SS and police were sent to arrest or execute anyone considered capable of resisting the occupation, including clergymen. Between 1939 and 1945, an estimated 3,000 members (18%) of the Polish clergy were murdered, with 1,992 killed in concentration camps.
In February 1933, Hermann Göring banned all Catholic newspapers in Cologne, claiming that Catholics were illegally engaging in politics. Catholic priests and nuns in Germany experienced sweeping changes to their daily lives. While permitted to attend Mass, Catholics lived in an oppressive atmosphere of propaganda and fear of arrest.
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Catholic martyrs of the Holocaust
The Catholic Church faced persecution by the Nazi regime, with many thousands of Catholic men, women, and children dying in concentration camps, SS and Gestapo torture chambers, or in fields and villages across Europe. The Nazis targeted the Church, closing Catholic schools and confiscating properties. Clergy were sent to concentration camps, and youth were sterilized.
The first priest to die was Aloysius Zuzek. Dachau became the centre for the imprisonment of clergymen, with 2,579 (94.88%) of the 2,720 clerics recorded as imprisoned there being Roman Catholics. 1,034 Catholic priests died at Dachau, including many of the 108 Polish Martyrs of World War II. Among the Catholic clergy who died at Dachau were Blessed Gerhard Hirschfelder, who died of hunger and illness in 1942, Saint Titus Brandsma, a Dutch Carmelite who died of a lethal injection in 1942, and Blessed Bernhard Lichtenberg, who died during transport to Dachau in 1943.
In 1941, Martin Bormann, one of the most powerful figures in the Third Reich, issued a secret decree for all Gauleiters, stating:
> The conflict of the Church with National Socialism is a conflict to the death. It is a battle of two opposing worlds view, which can only end with the victory of one side and the total annihilation of the other.
Many Catholics turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, and others remained silent out of fear for their lives and the safety of their families. However, there were also many Catholics who were killed for proclaiming the truth to the Nazi regime.
On 13 June 1999, Pope John Paul II beatified 33 people, including Wladyslaw Goral (1898-1945) and Leon Wetmanski (1886-1941), two bishops, and many priests, like Jozef Pawlowski (1890-1942) of Kielce, who was executed by hanging in Dachau for helping Jews. Zygmunt Pisarski (1902-1943) in Lublin was shot for risking his life to save communists. Nuns were also martyred, including Maria Antonina Kratochwil (1881-1942), a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, who helped Jewish girls in prison, and Maria Klemensa Staszewska (1890-1943), executed at Auschwitz for hiding Jewish girls in a convent.
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Catholic priests who resisted the Nazis
The Roman Catholic Church and its members faced intense persecution by the Nazi regime. Clergy were watched closely, frequently denounced, arrested, and sent to concentration camps. Catholic schools, presses, trade unions, political parties, and youth leagues were eradicated. Catholic welfare institutions were interfered with or transferred to state control. Monasteries and convents were targeted for expropriation. Religious orders had their properties seized, and some youth were sterilized. Catholic activists were arrested, and prominent Catholic lay leaders were murdered. Many thousands of Catholic men, women, and children died in concentration camps, SS and Gestapo torture chambers, or in fields and villages across Europe.
Despite the dangers, many Catholic priests resisted the Nazis and helped those being persecuted. In 1941, Catholics in the Netherlands took part in strikes and protests against the Nazi treatment of Jews. When the Nazis declared that all Jewish converts and Jews married to non-Jews would be exempt from deportation if the opposition ceased, the Archbishop of Utrecht refused to be deterred. In response, the authorities deported all Catholics of Jewish descent, but Catholics helped thousands to escape and hid another 40,000. Forty-nine priests gave their lives for providing help to Jews.
The Provincial of the Dominican Province of Teutonia, Laurentius Siemer, was a spiritual leader of the German Resistance. He was influential in the Committee for Matters Relating to the Orders, which formed in response to Nazi attacks on Catholic monasteries. He encouraged bishops to intercede on behalf of the Orders and oppose the Nazi state more emphatically. Figures like Galen and Preysing attempted to protect German priests from arrest. In his famous 1941 anti-euthanasia sermons, Galen denounced the confiscation of church properties and the mistreatment of Catholics in Germany.
Other Catholic priests who resisted the Nazis include Heinrich Maier, who founded groups that sought to influence the course of the war in favor of the Allies, and Alfred Delp, who was closely watched and ultimately denounced, imprisoned, and executed.
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Catholic survivors of the Holocaust
The Holocaust saw the persecution of Catholics, with thousands of Catholic men, women, and children dying in concentration camps, SS and Gestapo torture chambers, or in fields and villages across Europe. The Nazis targeted the Catholic Church, confiscating properties, closing schools, and persecuting clergy—many of whom were sent to concentration camps. Dachau, for instance, became the centre for the imprisonment of clergymen, with 1,034 Catholic priests dying there.
The Catholic Church has since reflected on its conduct during the Holocaust, with Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII both expressing pleas for forgiveness and sorrow, which was echoed by Pope Benedict XVI during his pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 2000. The Catholic Church has also been accused of complicity in the Holocaust, with claims that Pope Pius XII was complicit, and that Catholic priests, nuns, and bishops were ardent members of the Nazi Party. While it is true that many Catholics turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, the Church itself was a target of the Nazis.
Many Catholics were alarmed by the Nazis and their anti-Semitic speeches, radical nationalism, and willingness to use violence and intimidation. However, some saw the Nazis as a potential ally against the spread of Communism, and only small numbers of Catholics voted for the National Socialists in the elections prior to 1933.
The Nazis established a Reich Chamber of Authorship and Reich Press Chamber, and dissident writers were terrorised. Fritz Gerlich, the editor of Munich's Catholic weekly, Der Gerade Weg, was killed in the June–July 1934 Night of the Long Knives purge for his criticism of the Nazi movement. Writer and theologian Dietrich von Hildebrand was forced to flee Germany, and poet Ernst Wiechert was arrested and sent to Dachau Concentration Camp.
In conclusion, while some Catholics did collaborate with the Nazis, many others were victims of persecution and survived the horrors of the Holocaust. The Catholic Church has since reflected on its conduct during this dark period of history and sought forgiveness, while also acknowledging its own suffering at the hands of the Nazis.
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Catholic complicity in the Holocaust
The Catholic Church was a target of the Nazis, and many thousands of Catholic men, women, and children died in concentration camps, SS and Gestapo torture chambers, or in fields and villages across Europe. The Nazis' long-term plan was to de-Christianize Germany, and their ideology could not accept an autonomous establishment whose legitimacy did not spring from the government. They desired the subordination of the church to the state, and Catholics were suspected of insufficient patriotism, disloyalty to the Fatherland, or serving the interests of "sinister alien forces".
Hitler moved quickly to eliminate Political Catholicism. The Nazis arrested thousands of members of the German Centre Party, and Catholic schools, presses, trade unions, political parties, and youth leagues were eradicated. Anti-Catholic propaganda and "morality" trials were staged, and monasteries and convents were targeted for expropriation. Welfare institutions were interfered with or transferred to state control. Clergy were watched closely, denounced, arrested, and sent to concentration camps. Of a total of 2,720 clerics recorded as imprisoned at Dachau, some 2,579 (or 94.88%) were Roman Catholics. 1,034 Catholic priests died there.
However, it is true that many Catholics turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, and others remained silent out of fear for their lives and the safety of their families. There were many ex-Catholic members of the ruling Nazi circles, and there were Catholics in some numbers who supported the Nazis out of a twisted sense of nationalism, anti-Semitic beliefs, or for personal advancement in a corrupt and evil state. While Catholic officials condemned violence against the Jews, some—such as Cardinal Augustus Hlond of Poland—openly approved of non-violent anti-Jewish discrimination. The greatest failings of Roman Catholics, however, came not in action but in inaction. All too often, the Catholic clergy and laity remained silent while Jews were persecuted and killed.
The case of Edith Stein is instructive. Stein was a Roman Catholic nun, and her death provides an opportunity to examine Catholic complicity in the Holocaust. After her parents were killed in Auschwitz, Stein and her brother were put in the care of local Catholics and secretly baptized. The church resisted returning them to their Jewish family after the war, claiming that they were Catholic. This incident demonstrates the church's attitude toward Jews during the Holocaust.
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Frequently asked questions
Yes, many thousands of Catholics died in the Holocaust.
Catholics were victims of the gas chambers, and many were also killed in concentration camps, SS and Gestapo torture chambers, or in fields and villages across Europe.
Yes, clergy were particularly targeted as upholders of national culture and identity. Many Catholic priests, monks, and nuns suffered repression during World War II, with thousands killed at Nazi and Soviet hands.
Yes, clergy were persecuted and sent to concentration camps, with their properties seized. Dachau became the centre for the imprisonment of clergymen.
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