What was it like to be a German Catholic living under Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s? Decades after the fact, it’s easy to demonize Adolf Hitler. Attempted genocide is, after all, demonic. But how did ordinary German Catholics respond when they read propaganda in their newspapers and saw Jews and other minorities being arrested?
It must be admitted that some Germans, including some Catholics, agreed with Hitler. They accepted Hitler’s attempt to blame Jews for the country’s financial struggles after World War I. On the other hand, some German leaders, including Catholic bishops and Protestant churchmen, publicly criticized Nazism.
While the Nazis were generally unwilling to openly retaliate against Church leaders, they were less diplomatic toward ordinary Germans. For example, the leader of Catholic Action in Germany, Erich Klausener, was assassinated by the Gestapo in 1934 after he publicly criticized the regime in a speech. Among the many priests who were arrested, Father Otto Neururer counseled a Catholic woman against marrying a divorced man. The man had friends in high places, and Blessed Otto died a martyr in Buchenwald concentration camp. Every man and every woman must decide how to respond when something objectively evil is being promoted by society.
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