Reichskonkordat
The Reichskonkordat ("Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich"[1]) was a treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent Nazi Germany. It was signed on 20 July 1933 by Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII, on behalf of Pope Pius XI and Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen on behalf of President Paul von Hindenburg and the German government. It was ratified 10 September 1933 and it has been in force from that date onward. The treaty guarantees the rights of the Catholic Church in Germany. When bishops take office, Article 16 states they are required to take an oath of loyalty to the Governor or President of the German Reich established according to the constitution. The treaty also requires all clergy to abstain from working in and for political parties. Nazi breaches of the agreement began almost as soon as it had been signed and intensified afterwards, leading to protest from the Church, including in the 1937 Mit brennender Sorge encyclical of Pope Pius XI. The Nazis planned to eliminate the Church's influence by restricting its organizations to purely religious activities.[2]
Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich
The Reichskonkordat is the most controversial of several concordats that the Vatican negotiated during the pontificate of Pius XI. It is frequently discussed in works that deal with the rise of Hitler in the early 1930s and the Holocaust. The concordat has been described by some as giving moral legitimacy to the Nazi regime soon after Hitler had acquired quasi-dictatorial powers through the Enabling Act of 1933, an Act itself facilitated through the support of the Catholic Centre Party.
The treaty places constraints on the political activity of German clergy of the Catholic Church. With passage of the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, for example, a policy of nonintervention was followed. The majority of the German church hierarchy regarded the treaty as a symbol of peace between church and state.[3] From a Catholic Church perspective, it has been argued that the Concordat prevented even greater evils being unleashed against the Church.[4] Though some German bishops were unenthusiastic, and the Allies at the end of World War II felt it inappropriate, Pope Pius XII successfully argued to keep the concordat in force. It is still in force today.
Nazi period[edit]
Nazis take power[edit]
In January 1933, Hitler became Chancellor. The passing of the Enabling Act on 23 March, in part, removed the Reichstag as an obstacle to concluding a concordat with the Vatican.[20] Hitler offered the possibility of friendly co-operation promising not to threaten the Reichstag, the President, the States, or the Churches if granted the emergency powers. With Nazi paramilitary encircling the building, he said: "It is for you, gentlemen of the Reichstag to decide between war and peace."[21] The Act allowed Hitler and his Cabinet to rule by emergency decree for four years, though Hindenburg remained President.[22]
German Catholics were wary of the new government:
After World War II[edit]
Pius XII put a high priority on preserving the concordat from the Nazi era, although the bishops were unenthusiastic about it and the Allies considered the request inappropriate.[109] After the war, the concordat remained in place and the Catholic Church was restored to its previous position.[110]
When Lower Saxony passed a new school law, the Holy See complained that it violated the terms of the concordat. The federal government called upon the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) for clarification. In its ruling of 26 March 1957, the court decided that the circumstances surrounding the conclusion of the concordat did not invalidate it.[111]
Declaring its lack of jurisdiction in matters of public international law and considering the fact that the German constitution grants authority in school matters to the state governments, the Constitutional Court ruled that the federal government had no authority to intervene. So while the federal government was obligated by the concordat, the court could not enforce its application in all areas because said court lacks legal authority to do so.[111]
Critics also say that the concordat undermined the separation of church and state.[112] The Weimar constitution (some of whose regulations, namely articles 136–139 and 141 were re-enacted in article 140 of the current German constitution) does not speak of a "separation", but rather rules out any state religion while protecting religious freedom, religious holidays and leaving open the possibility of cooperation. However, there was a continual conflict between article 18 of the concordat and article 138 of the Weimar constitution.
Assessment[edit]
Anthony Rhodes regarded Hitler's desire for a concordat with the Vatican as being driven principally by the prestige and respectability it brought to his regime abroad whilst at the same time eliminating the opposition of the Centre Party.[113] Rhodes took the view that if the survival of Catholic education and youth organisations was taken to be the principal aim of papal diplomacy during this period then the signing of the concordat to prevent greater evils was justified.[114] Many of the Centre Party deputies were priests who had not been afraid to raise their voices in the past and would almost certainly have voted against Hitler's assumption of dictatorial powers.[115] The voluntary dissolution of the Centre Party removed that obstacle and Hitler now had absolute power and brought respectability to the state: "Within six months of its birth, the Third Reich had been given full approval by the highest spiritual power on earth".[55] Ian Kershaw considered the role of the Centre Party in Hitler's removal of almost all constitutional restraints as "particularly ignominious."[116]
John Cornwell views Cardinal Pacelli as being an example of a "fellow traveller" of the Nazis who, through the concordat, was willing to accept the generosity of Hitler in the educational sphere (more schools, teachers and student slots), so long as the Church withdrew from the social and political sphere, at the same time as Jews were being dismissed from universities and Jewish student slots were being reduced. He argues that the Catholic Centre Party vote was decisive in the adoption of dictatorial powers by Hitler and that the party's subsequent dissolution was at Pacelli's prompting.[117] Michael Phayer is of the opinion that the concordat conditioned German bishops to avoid speaking out against anything that was not strictly related to church matters, leading to a muted response to the attacks on Mosaic Jews.[118] Carlo Falconi described the concordat as "The Devil's Pact with Hitler".[119] Albert Einstein in private conversation relating to the concordat said "Since when can one make a pact with Christ and Satan at the same time?"[120] Daniel Goldhagen recalled how Hitler had said: "To attain our aim we should stop at nothing even if we must join forces with the devil," and that, in Goldhagen's view, is what Hitler did in agreeing the concordat with the church.[121] Gordon Zahn felt that though the signing of the concordat was distasteful for Cardinal Pacelli it had spared the church in Germany from greater hardship and persecution.[56]