Religion & Ethics: Content from Across the ABC




Date/Time 25 Feb 2017 4:42:13pm
Wikipedia on Nazism and religion:

"The resistance of churches against the Nazis was the longest lasting and most bitter of any German institution."

"Some historians see the Nazi movement and Adolf Hitler as fundamentally hostile to Christianity, though not irreligious."

"After a failed assassination on Hitler's life in 1943 which involved Martin Niemöller, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and other elements of the Confessing Church (a Protestant organisation), Hitler ordered the arrest of Protestant, mainly Lutheran clergy. Catholic clergy were also suppressed if they spoke out against the régime. Dachau had a special "priest block." Of the 2,720 priests (among them 2,579 Catholic) held in Dachau, 1,034 did not survive the camp. The majority of these priests were Polish (1,780), of whom 868 died in Dachau."

"Although both Hitler and Mussolini were anticlerical, they both understood that it would be rash to begin their Kulturkampfs prematurely, such a clash, possibly inevitable in the future, were put off for a while they dealt with other enemies."
