The Concordat between the Church and Nazi Germany came after intense pressure from Hitler and was signed to guarantee religious freedom. The Nazi Reich continued to sign treaties with France and England

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On July 20th, the anniversary of the concordat between the Church and Nazi Germany was commemorated in Germany.

Signed on July 20, 1933, the political significance of this act is widely overestimated in an anti-clerical sense.

It is argued that by signing the Concordat (in German “Reichskonkordat”), the Vatican accommodated the ideology of National Socialism, thereby providing recognition to the German Reich and helping Hitler gain international prestige after his rise to power.

But is this really the case?

 

Nazi Germany signed treaties across Europe

First of all, there is no evidence of the international isolation of Germany; on the contrary, the opposite was true!

Five days before the signing of the Concordat between the Vatican and Nazi Germany, the so-called “Four-Power Pact” (or “Pact of the Four Powers”) was concluded in Rome, a treaty of consensus and cooperation between Great Britain, France, fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany.

Shortly before the signing of the “Reichskonkordat”, Germany had also signed similar agreements with the major German Protestant denominations.

Between 1933 and 1939, the German Reich concluded no fewer than three multilateral treaties and 40 bilateral international treaties with 21 states.

It cannot be assumed that European states modeled their foreign policies toward Germany based on the Vatican’s actions. The content of the Concordat between the Church and Nazi Germany included the protection of denominational schools and a ban on political party activities by clergy and church associations.

Issues that were irrelevant and of no interest to most European states.

Moreover, Britain and France, the two main powers of Western Europe, had been negotiating with Hitler’s Germany since April 1933 and continued to do so afterward.

 

France, Britain, and praise for Hitler

In 1936, former British Prime Minister Lloyd George met Adolf Hitler and was so impressed that he called him “the greatest living German” and “the George Washington of Germany.” Even in May 1938, when Nazi antisemitism was blatantly obvious, the English national football team performed the Nazi salute before an international match in Hamburg.

No condemnations of Nazi totalitarian oppression and antisemitism came even from French politicians.

By contrast, it was the Vatican that in 1934 had already established a scientific commission to study a resolution based on “racism, fascism, totalitarianism, and Bolshevism,” whose results were incorporated into Vatican statements in subsequent years. Particularly in the “Mit brennender Sorge“, a harsh indictment of Germany unusually written in German.

Four years later, on September 6, 1938, Pope Pius XI famously stated: “For Christ and in Christ we are spiritual descendants of Abraham. No, it is impossible to partake in antisemitism, to share it. Antisemitism is inadmissible. We are spiritually Semitic.”

Already in 1934, German bishops, led by Cardinal von Faulhaber, defended Christianity’s Jewish origins and rejected Nazi pagan racism. Their sermons, published under the title “Judentum, Christentum, Germanentum”, were widely disseminated across Germany.

 

Concordat aimed at safeguarding religious freedom

Regarding the Concordat between the Church and Nazi Germany, explains Robert S. Wistrich, one of the foremost historians of antisemitism (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), “the Vatican believed it would help guarantee religious freedom and the legal status of the Catholic minority in the Third Reich.”¹R. Wistrich, “Hitler and the Holocaust”, Rizzoli 2003.

It was certainly not a blessing of the political system; indeed, Wistrich acknowledges that the Church “showed resistance to the enterprise and seductions of Nazi ideology.”²R. Wistrich, “Hitler and the Holocaust”, Rizzoli 2003. It was customary for the Holy See to deal with all possible partners – even totalitarian regimes – to protect itself and ensure spiritual care.

Furthermore, it should be noted that the Concordat was concluded with the then President of the Republic, Paul von Hindenburg, through the mediation of Franz von Papen. Not with Hitler, who had been Reich Chancellor for only six months and, although already implementing terrible measures, the horror he would bring was yet to come.

It must also be considered that initially Pope Pius XI saw Hitler as a possible enemy of Communist Bolshevism, the real persecutor of the Church at that time. He included this “anti-communist praise” for the Führer in some audiences in March 1933, only to completely revise it two months later when he realized the growing repression by Hitler against politicians, officials, and Catholic clergy³T. Schulze, “Anticommunism as a political guideline of the Vatican? The Holy See and the Nazi regime in 1933”, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 2012, pp. 353–379.

However, Pius XI signed the Concordat and, as we wrote some years ago, the then Secretary of State, Cardinal Pacelli (future Pius XII), revealed to the British embassy that the treaty was like “a gun held to their head with no alternative.”⁴cited in A. Tornielli, “Pius XII. Eugenio Pacelli, a man on the throne of Peter”, Mondadori 2007, p. 195.

Indeed, in the weeks preceding the Concordat, the Nazi regime exerted explicit pressure on the Vatican by imprisoning 92 priests, closing various Catholic newspapers and clubs⁵A. Tornielli, “Pius XII. The Pope of the Jews”, Piemme 2002, p. 78.

The Concordat between the Vatican and Hitler effectively granted a brief truce to Catholic associations, and repression against them eased for a while.

But the Führer had no intention of honoring the agreements, and soon violations resumed, triggering as many as 70 official protests from the Catholic side over the following four years, which were practically ignored⁶cited in A. Tornielli, “Pius XII. Eugenio Pacelli, a man on the throne of Peter”, Mondadori 2007, pp. 195-238.