An incomplete confession: German bishops forgot their blessing on Hitler's wars.

Much well-deserved praise greeted the January 1995 statement of Germany's Catholic bishops marking the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Their admission that Christians (more specifically Catholics, one may assume) must share responsibility for the evils of the Holocaust was a sincere and courageous mea culpa: "During the period of the Third Reich Christians did not carry out the required resistance to racist anti-Semitism." It is fair to add, however, that this admission would have carried added force had it included the equally frank acknowledgment that this moral failure was traceable at least in part to the failure of church leadership to remind the faithful that such resistance was, in fact, "required" of them.

The bishops' January statement fell short in another, more crucial, sense. It ignored the church's failure to come to terms with what history must record as an even costlier moral failure. The missing confession could have used much the same wording: "During the period of the Third Reich, Christians did not carry out the required resistance to its unjust wars." In this case the failure was more complicated: not only did the spiritual leaders fail to remind their flocks that such resistance was required, but they actively contributed to the formation and maintenance of war morale. Though there may have been bishops tainted with anti-Semitic sentiments, there were no official statements endorsing the Final Solution. In contrast, episcopal support for the Nazi war effort was publicly declared from the beginning and often shocking in its extremes of patriotic zeal and expression.

The present-day German hierarchy also marked the anniversary of VE-Day by issuing a statement in May dealing with World War 11. As with the statement on the Holocaust, there is much to praise. It provides a general accounting of the great price paid by soldiers and civilians alike for Hitler's commitment to the ideology of "total war," and places special emphasis upon the devastation suffered by most major German cities in the Allied bombings.

Consideration is given to the postwar sufferings of the almost 12 million Germans forced to flee from their homes--with more than 2 million perishing in the process--a loss balanced, the bishops admit, by the destruction and sufferings visited upon neighboring populations as the result of German aggression. In this context reference is made again Gordon C. Zahn is the author of numerous books, including In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jagerstatter (Templegate). to the horrors of the concentration camps and programs designed for the elimination, not only of European Jewry but other "undesirable" categories of human beings. All this, sustained through terror directed against all who dared to take a stand against the party and its powers, resulted in tyranny over the German population itself. Such resisters became helpless victims of the gross abuses and distortions of what passed for Nazi "justice."

This leads the bishops to raise a series of crucial questions: "Where was the protest against despotic acts and violent deeds? Why was there no outcry throughout the land when in one night all the synagogues burned? Why was there no resistance to the obvious preparations for war? Why was it that the German people came to their senses only after the catastrophe?" All good questions , and the bishops to their credit do not shy away from giving a strong answer: "Grave responsibility is theirs who, because of their position, could have known what was happening and through their influence could have prevented such crimes but had not done so, even made them possible and thereby assumed solidarity with the criminals."

The focus then shifts to Catholic resistance and actions directed against the church and its faithful members because of what is described as the "deep chasm" separating the church and its teachings from Nazi policies. Those who refused to comply with the regime and its demands are honored, some individually by name, others as groups and categories--laymen and women, priests, members of religious orders--for demonstration of heroism and readiness to sacrifice, even to the point of martyrdom. Particular reference is made to the 12,000 Catholic priests (every second priest in Germany) who suffered abuse or even death in prison and concentration camps.

Bearing more closely upon the point of my essay, the state-ment continues, "With our predecessors in episcopal office we face the question whether the protest of the church was always sufficiently clear to counteract inhuman measures and to strengthen the power of resistance of Christians and the general population. In this we must confess there were failures, mistakes, and contradictions."

Rejecting the easy assumption of collective guilt, the bishops stress the need for an honest examination of conscience declaring, "With respect to the injustice and suffering brought to humanity and nations under the sign of National Socialism, there can be no justification for not facing the question of guilt. Only where guilt is acknowledged and repented can forgiveness and reconciliation take place."

One hesitates to criticize so courageous and forthcoming a mea culpa, particularly one so rare as an admission of moral failure on the part of ecclesiastical authority. Even so, there remains that one glaring omission and the valuable lesson it could hold for today's Christian faced with personal responsibility for forming a correct conscience relating to war and participation in war. That omission, the absence of any acknowledgment or apology for the support given by those same "predecessors" to what must rank as one of history's most unjust wars, demands recognition.

In 1939, Military Bishop Franz Josef Rarkowski greeted the outbreak of war in Poland with a message to Catholics in uniform, calling upon them to consider "what is at stake for our Volk in these stormy days; and, in whatever is asked of you, each sees before him the shining example of a true warrior, our Fuehrer and Supreme Commander, the first and most valiant soldier of the Greater German Reich, who is even now with you at the battlefront." Some allowance might be made for a military bishop taking it as part of his professional responsibility to bolster the morale of the armed forces. Even granting that possibility, however, the rabid nationalism of all of Rarkowski's wartime pastorals went far beyond the call of duty.

But he was by no means alone. The eight Bavarian bishops in a joint pastoral (issued after the victories over Poland, France, and the neutral Low Countries but before the invasion of the Soviet Union) echoed much the same theme and tone: "...beloved flock, we are today directing a word of exhortation to you in our fatherly love and concern, that it may inspire you to devote your full efforts to service of the Fatherland and the precious Homeland (Heimat) in conscientious fulfillment of duty and serious awareness of your mission...."

Such sentiments were standard for all episcopal statements issued throughout the war, even for Bishop (later Cardinal) von Galen, rightly honored as the most heroic of his peers for public sermons denouncing actions taken by the Gestapo against seminaries as well as other open protests against Nazi interferences with religious activities. Yet in his first wartime pastoral he declared, "...Once again a large part of our men and youth has been called to arms, and they are engaged in bloody conflict or stand guard on the borders in firm determination to shield the Fatherland and to risk their lives to win for our Volk a peace of freedom and justice."

Readers with long memories might dismiss my critique as academic "ax-grinding"--perhaps with some justification. When my documented 1962 study, German Catholics and Hitler's Wars (still in print and available from the University of Notre Dame Press), was published, it provoked a major controversy on both sides of the Atlantic involving even higher circles of the Vatican.

"Ax-grinding" or not, the point the book sought to make was important and the May statement's failure to address that point makes it no less relevant today. Why in so commendably honest an assessment, one which admits the "serious responsibility" of those who "because of their position could have known what was happening," is there no reference at all to the support provided by those "predecessors" to Hitler's war? Surely German Catholic soldiers and airmen who obeyed their orders and participated in what the bishops now recognize as crimes against humanity would have taken strong encouragement from the bishop of Trier's 1940 admonition that "...we must now put all of our inner and external powers at the service of the Volk, not only as Germans but also as Christians following the principles of our Faith; we must make every sacrifice that the situation demands of us; we must patiently bear every cross that is placed upon us...." Not only as Germans but also as Christians.

Following upon January's apology for German Catholicism's failure to oppose the Holocaust, a similar apology for having encouraged support for, and participation in, what few today would deny was an unjust war should not have been unthinkable. It would have cleared German Catholicism's record of what remains a major blemish and might have inspired religious leaders of every faith and every nation to recognize and condemn the evils of nationalism which provided the seeds for Hitler's war and many other "little" wars since. Furthermore, so courageous an act might inspire a long overdue review of the church's traditional theology of war and its application (or, more accurately, its nonapplication) to actual wars.

By completing their unfinished mea culpa, the German bishops could open the way to a much needed reevaluation of the church's readiness to give active support (and, all too often, its blessing) to Caesar's wars whenever and wherever they occur. A sincere expression of contrition for the tragic record of ecclesiastical support for Hitler's war might even yet provide the opportunity for religion to accept and fulfill its true mission and, by so doing, make a truly significant contribution to the history of human warfare.