Position of the German Government in the difficulties with the Catholic Church over the implementation of the Concordat
Source: Documents on German Foreign Policy , series C vol.II p.752. No. 406 Circular of the Foreign Ministry II Vat. 377.
BERLIN, April 18, 1934
The difficulties in the matter of Church policy which are involved in the implementation of the Reich Concordat, which - as in Italy after the conclusion of the Lateran Treaties - are attributable principally to extensive demands of the Church with regard to Catholic organisations, are being blown up more and more in the foreign press with a tendentiousness aimed against National Socialism and represented in a false light. In the public mind abroad the impression has grown apace, therefore, that in the new Germany the Catholic Church, its clergy, and its institutions are being most severely attacked and persecuted. This is due particularly to the circumstance that members of the Austrian Episcopate, in supporting the Dollfuss regime against National Socialism, have set themselves up as spokesmen of their allegedly sorely tried co-religionists in the new Germany and have spoken of the intentions of the Reich Government and the National Socialist party to fight the Church [kulturkaempferischen Absichten]. In addition to this, finally, is the fact that the appointment of Alfred Rosenberg, the author of The Myth of the 20th Century , as director of ideological training of the NSDAP, confirmed leading circles in the Catholic Church in their fears that National Socialism was aiming at the extermination of Christianity in Germany and the formation of a united Germanic Church.
The Reich Government has very strongly assailed this erroneous view and the distortion of the situation of the Catholic Church in Germany, which has also appeared in the Vatican press, in two pro memories to the Holy See, copies of which are attached for your confidential information, one of which was sent on January 15, the other on March 16 of this year to the Cardinal Secretary of State. In view of the agitation in Catholic circles abroad, which is still not abating, it seems desirable and necessary, however, that erroneous views and rumours concerning Church conditions in Germany be combated also by our Missions abroad. Please, therefore, when the opportunity offers, particularly in conversations with official agencies and with representatives of the press, make use of the ideas contained in the enclosed documents, and exert your influence there in the direction of enlightenment.
It should be stressed primarily that the National Socialist party, like the Reich Government, had not the remotest intention of creating or promoting an anti-Christian religious movement; that, on the contrary, through the Reich Concordat, the Reich Government had taken the Catholic Church under its special protection, and that the NSDAP in its program had expressly taken the standpoint of positive Christianity. The Reich Government could not, however, any more than the government of any other country, tolerate or accept the fact that members of the German clergy, after the opportunity to engage in partisan activity had been taken away from them, and forbidden by the Reich Concordat, should misuse the pulpit, the confessional, the school, and the Church organisations for agitation against the existing regime and against measures deemed necessary by the State.
Meanwhile, as regards the individual questions connected with the implementation of the Reich Concordat, insofar as they still required clarification, the Reich Government was still willing, through the pending negotiations, to come to an agreement which would take account of the reasonable interests of both State and Church. The full text of the speech of Bavarian State Secretary Dauser, mentioned in the pro memoriam of March 16, in which the real attitude of National Socialism toward the Catholic Church is aptly expressed, has been translated into various languages here. Several copies of it are being sent separately to each of our missions, for such use as seems appropriate. By order: KOEPKE
