Nazi euthanasia and the Catholic
Church
During the Second World War, the
Roman Catholic Church protested against Aktion T4, the Nazi involuntary
euthanasia programme under which the mentally ill, physically deformed, and
incurably sick were to be killed. The protests formed one of the most
significant public acts of Catholic resistance to Nazism undertaken within
Germany. The euthanasia programme began in 1939, and ultimately resulted in the
murder of more than 70,000 people who were senile, mentally handicapped,
mentally ill, epileptics, cripples, children with Down's Syndrome, or people
with similar afflictions. The murders involved interference in Church welfare institutions,
and awareness of the murderous programme became widespread. Church leaders who
opposed it – chiefly the Catholic Bishop Clemens August von Galen of Münster
and Protestant Bishop Theophil Wurm – were therefore able to rouse widespread
public opposition. Catholic protests
began in the summer of 1940. The Holy See declared on 2 December 1940 that the
policy was contrary to natural and positive Divine law, and that: "The
direct killing of an innocent person because of mental or physical defects is
not allowed." In the summer of 1941, protests were led in Germany by
Bishop von Galen, whose intervention, according to Richard J. Evans, led to
"the strongest, most explicit and most widespread protest movement against
any policy since the beginning of the Third Reich." In 1943, Pope Pius XII
issued the Mystici corporis Christi encyclical, in which he condemned the
practice of killing the disabled. The Encyclical was followed, on 26 September
1943, by an open condemnation from the German Bishops which denounced the killing
of innocent and defenceless people, whether mentally or physically handicapped,
incurably infirm, fatally wounded, innocent hostages, disarmed prisoners of
war, criminal offenders, or belonging to a different race.
Euthanasia programme:
While the Nazi Final Solution
liquidation of the Jews took place primarily on German-occupied Polish
territory, the murder of invalids took place on German soil and involved
interference in Catholic (and Protestant) welfare institutions. Awareness of
the murderous programme therefore became widespread, and the Church leaders who
opposed it – chiefly the Catholic Bishop of Münster, Clemens August von Galen,
and Dr Theophil Wurm, the Protestant Bishop of Württemberg – were therefore
able to rouse widespread public opposition. The intervention led to, in the
words of Evans, "the strongest, most explicit and most widespread protest
movement against any policy since the beginning of the Third Reich." From
1939, the regime began its program of euthanasia, under which those deemed
"racially unfit" were to be "euthanised". The senile, the
mentally handicapped and mentally ill, epileptics, cripples, children with
Down's Syndrome and people with similar afflictions were all to be killed. The
program ultimately involved the systematic murder of more than 70,000 people. Among
those murdered was a cousin of the young Joseph Ratzinger, future Pope Benedict
XVI. By the time the Nazis commenced their programme of killing invalids, the
Catholic Church in Germany had been subject to prolonged persecution from the
State, and had suffered confiscation of property, arrest of clergy, and closure
of lay organisations. The Church hierarchy was therefore wary of challenging
the regime, for fear of further consequences for the Church. However, on
certain matters of doctrine they remained unwilling to compromise.
Catholic protest:
The Papacy and German bishops had
already protested against the Nazi sterilization of the "racially
unfit". Catholic protests against the escalation of this policy into "euthanasia"
began in the summer of 1940. Despite Nazi efforts to transfer hospitals to
state control, large numbers of handicapped people were still under the care of
the Churches. Caritas was the chief organisation running such care services for
the Catholic Church. After Protestant welfare activists took a stand at the
Bethel Hospital in August von Galen's diocese, Galen wrote to Germany's senior
cleric, Cardinal Adolf Bertram, in July 1940 urging the Church to take the
moral position. Bertram urged caution. Archbishop Conrad Groeber of Freiburg
wrote to the head of the Reich Chancellery, and offered to pay all costs being
incurred by the state for the "care of mentally ill people intended for
death." Caritas directors sought urgent direction from the bishops, and
the Fulda Bishops Conference sent a protest letter to the Reich Chancellery on
11 August, then sent Bishop Heinrich Wienken of Caritas to discuss the matter.
Wienken cited the commandment "thous shalt not kill" to officials and
warned them to halt the program or face public protest from the Church. Wienken
subsequently wavered, fearing a firm line might jeopardise his efforts to have
Catholic priests released from Dachau, but was urged to stand firm by Cardinal
Michael von Faulhaber. The government refused to give a written undertaking to
halt the program, and the Vatican declared on 2 December that the policy was
contrary to natural and positive Divine law. Bishop von Galen had the decree
printed in his newspaper on 9 March 1941. Subsequent arrests of priests and
seizure of Jesuit properties by the Gestapo in his home city of Munster,
convinced Galen that the caution advised by his superior had become pointless.
On 6, 13 and 20 July 1941, Galen spoke against the seizure of properties and
the expulsions of nuns, monks, and religious and criticised the euthanasia
programme. In an attempt to cow Galen, the police raided his sister's convent,
and detained her in the cellar. She escaped the confinement and Galen, who had
also received news of the imminent removal of further patients, launched his
most audacious challenge on the regime in a 3 August sermon. He declared the
murders to be illegal and said that he had formally accused those responsible
for murders in his diocese in a letter to the public prosecutor. The policy
opened the way to the murder of all "unproductive people", like old
horses or cows, including invalid war veterans. He asked "Who can trust
his doctor anymore?" He declared, wrote Evans, that Catholics must
"avoid those who blasphemed, attacked their religion, or brought about the
death of innocent men and women. Otherwise they would become involved in their
guilt." Galen said that it was the duty of Christians to resist the taking
of human life, even if it meant losing their own lives.
Reaction:
"The sensation created by
the sermons", wrote Evans, "was enormous". Kershaw characterised Von Galen's 1941
"open attack" on the government's euthanasia program as a
"vigorous denunciation of Nazi inhumanity and barbarism." According
to Gill, "Galen used his condemnation of this appalling policy to draw
wider conclusions about the nature of the Nazi state. He spoke of a moral
danger to Germany from the regime's violations of basic human rights. Galen had
the sermons read in parish churches. The British broadcast excerpts over the
BBC German service, dropped leaflets over Germany, and distributed the sermons
in occupied countries. Following the war, Pope Pius XII proclaimed von Galen a
hero and promoted him to Cardinal. There were demonstrations across Catholic
Germany. Hitler himself faced angry demonstrators at Nuremberg, the only time
he was confronted with such resistance by ordinary Germans.[6] The regime did
not halt the murders, but took the program underground. Bishop Antonius Hilfrich of Limburg wrote to
the Justice Minister, denouncing the murders. Bishop Albert Stohr of Mainz from
the pulpit condemned the taking of life. Some of the priests who distributed
the sermons were among those arrested and sent to the concentration camps amid
the public reaction to the sermons. Bishop von Preysing's Cathedral
Administrator, Fr Bernhard Lichtenberg, met his demise for protesting directly
to Dr Conti, the Nazi State Medical Director. On 28 August 1941, he endorsed
Galen's sermons in a letter to Conti, pointing to the German constitution which
defined euthanasia as an act of murder. He was arrested soon after and later
died en route to Dachau. Hitler wanted to have Galen removed, but Goebbels told
him this would result in the loss of the loyalty of Westphalia. The regional
Nazi leader and Hitler's deputy Martin Bormann called for Galen to be hanged,
but Hitler and Goebbels urged a delay in retribution till war's end. In a 1942
Table Talk Hitler reportedly said: "The fact that I remain silent in
public over Church affairs is not in the least misunderstood by the sly foxes
of the Catholic Church, and I am quite sure that a man like Bishop von Galen
knows full well that after the war I shall extract retribution to the last
farthing." With the programme now public knowledge, nurses and staff
(particularly in Catholics institutions) increasingly sought to obstruct
implementation of the policy. Under
pressure from growing protests, Hitler halted the main euthanasia program on 24
August 1941, though less systematic murder of the handicapped continued. The
techniques learnt from the Nazi euthanasia program were later transferred for
use in the Holocaust genocide.
1942 Pastoral Letter:
In the United States, the
National Catholic Welfare Conference reported that the German Catholic bishops
jointly expressed their "horror" at the policy in their 1942 Pastoral
Letter: Every man has the natural right to life and the goods essential for
living. The living God, the Creator of all life, is sole master over life and
death. With deep horror Christian Germans have learned that, by order of the
State authorities, numerous insane persons, entrusted to asylums and
institutions, were destroyed as so-called "unproductive citizens." At
present a large-scale campaign is being made for the killing of incurables
through a film recommended by the authorities and designed to calm the
conscience through appeals to pity. We German Bishops shall not cease to
protest against the killing of innocent persons. Nobody's life is safe unless
the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is observed.
Mystici corporis Christi:
In 1943, Pope Pius XII issued the
encyclical Mystici corporis Christi, in which he condemned the practice of
killing the disabled. He stated his "profound grief" at the murder of
the deformed, the insane, and those suffering from hereditary disease... as
though they were a useless burden to Society," in condemnation of the
ongoing Nazi euthanasia program. The Encyclical was followed, on 26 September
1943, by an open condemnation from the German Bishops which, from every German
pulpit, denounced the killing of "innocent and defenceless mentally
handicapped, incurably infirm and fatally wounded, innocent hostages, and
disarmed prisoners of war and criminal offenders, people of a foreign race or
descent." Paragraph 94 of Mystici corporis Christi reads: For as the
Apostle with good reason admonishes us: "Those that seem the more feeble
members of the Body are more necessary; and those that we think the less
honorable members of the Body, we surround with more abundant honour."
Conscious of the obligations of Our high office We deem it necessary to
reiterate this grave statement today, when to Our profound grief We see at
times the deformed, the insane, and those suffering from hereditary disease
deprived of their lives, as though they were a useless burden to Society; and
this procedure is hailed by some as a manifestation of human progress, and as
something that is entirely in accordance with the common good. Yet who that is
possessed of sound judgment does not recognize that this not only violates the
natural and the divine law written in the heart of every man, but that it
outrages the noblest instincts of humanity? The blood of these unfortunate
victims who are all the dearer to our Redeemer because they are deserving of
greater pity, "cries to God from the earth."
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