Now that this discussion on Hitler is into a more intellectual stage, I would like to add my two cents.
>From my first-hand conversations with German-Americans who lived in Germany >during the war, one needs to separate the Third Reich rule in the first half >from the second half of the regime. Most Germans and others agree that Hitler >and the Nazis were great during the first half of their reign. During this >period, they pulled the country out of internal political and economic chaos >and provided national self-respect after World War I. Hence the Pope and the >Church may for very good reasons supported Hitler for the first period. The >right-wing regime was also a bulwark against the neighboring communist USSR. So the take home message, form this case study is that people change. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Just because something / opinion is written in black and white, it does not make it true/ factual / correct. Some individuals like to quote books without knowing the authors' agenda. Some refuse to accept the bias even after "studying" the work. They rather parrot, refer and interpret the material endlessly, to support their own agenda and perspectives. The third aspect, is the limitations of looking at history from a narrow and focused perspective. For starters, historians view events in a short time capsule. Ten years of evolving history may be compressed into one page. This gets further distorted if the historical actions are separated from the social-political-economic and other historical environment of the time. This is like someone trying to analyze the current Iraq war without linking it to the atmosphere post 9/11/2001. Or trying to analyze the London bombings without a connection to far-away Iraq and Afghanistan. That will likely be done 50-100 years for now. Finally, the pope is accused of being silent while the Holocaust occurred. How much does the State of Israel today heed the requests from the Church to end the genocide of the displaced Palestinian people? Other popes received a similar reaction to their pleas and prayers to stop the wars in the Mid-East over the last twenty years. So the Pope's desires and success / failure are easier debated than accomplished. Kind Regards, GL ----------- Frederick wrote: * Cornwell, like other scholars, made use of the Vatican archives to research the conduct of Eugenio Pacelli, both as Nuncio to Germany and as Pope. Thus, according to Cornwell, Pope Pius XII facilitated the dictator's rise and, ultimately, the Holocaust.... * The nature of the Nazi Party's relations with the Catholic Church is also complicated. Before Hitler rose to power, many Catholic priests and leaders vociferously opposed Nazism on the grounds of its incompatibility with Christian morals. Nazi Party membership was forbidden until the takeover and a policy reversal. At his trial Franz von Papen said that until 1936 the Catholic Church hoped for a Christian alignment to the beneficial aspects he said they saw in national socialism. (This statement came after Pope Pius XII ended Von Papen's appointment as Papal chamberlain and ambassador to the Holy See, but before his restoration under Pope John XXIII.) In 1937 Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge condemning Nazi ideology. The Catholic opposition to the euthanasia programs led them to be quietly ended in August 28, 1941, (according to Spielvogel pp. 257-258,) but the German Catholics never protested Nazi anti-Semitism in any comparable way. In Nazi Germany, all known political dissenters were imprisoned, and many priests were sent to the concentration camps for their opposition, including the parson of the Berlin Cathedral Bernhard Lichtenberg. Among the punished priests were Poles persecuted primarily for their nationality. However, Hitler was never directly excommunicated by the Catholic Church and several Catholic bishops in Germany or Austria are recorded as encouraging prayers of support for "The F?hrer;" this despite the fact the original Reichsconcordate of Germany with the Holy See proscribed any active political participation by the priesthood. _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
