17 Dec. 45
of his menage in the chapel at prayer.
About 25 to 30 people pressed into this chapel and molested those
present. Bishop Gröber was taken for Bishop Sproll. He was
grabbed by the robe and dragged back and forth."
The Gestapo official in Stuttgart added that Bishop Gröber desired "to
appeal to the Führer and to Reich Minister of the Interior Dr.
Frick," and the Gestapo official added that he had rendered a
detailed report of the demonstration after suppressing counter mass
meetings.
On 23 July 1938 the Reich Minister for Church Affairs, Kerrl, sent a
letter to the Minister of State and Chief of the Presidium Chancellery,
Berlin, stating that Bishop Sproll had angered the population by
abstaining from the plebiscite of 10 April. I now offer in evidence
Document 849-PS, Exhibit Number USA-354. In this letter Kerrl stated
that the Gauleiter and Governor of Württemberg had decided that in
the interest of preserving the State's authority and in the interest of
quiet and order, Bishop Sproll could no longer remain in office. I quote
from the third paragraph of the first page of the Document 849-PS:
"The Reich Governor had explained to
the Ecclesiastical Authority that he would no longer regard Bishop
Sproll as head of the Diocese of Rottenburg on account of his
refraining from the election in the office and that he desired Bishop
Sproll to leave the Gau Württemberg-Hohenzollern because he could
assume no guarantee for his personal safety; that in the case of the
return of the Bishop of Rottenburg he would see to it that all
personal and official intercourse with him on the part of State
offices as well as the Party offices and the Armed Forces would be
denied."
Kerrl further
states in the above letter that his deputy had moved the Foreign Office,
through the German Embassy at the Vatican, to urge the Holy See to
persuade Bishop Sproll to resign his Bishopric. Kerrl concludes by
stating that should the effort to procure the Bishop's resignation prove
unsuccessful, "the Bishop would have to be exiled from the land or
there would have to be a complete boycott of the Bishop by the
authorities."
On 14 July 1939 the Defendant Bormann in his capacity as Deputy of the
Führer issued a Party regulation which provided that Party members
entering the clergy or undertaking the study of theology would have to
leave the Party. I now offer in evidence Document 840-PS, Exhibit Number
USA-355; and this is a copy of a regulation by Bormann, relating to the
admission of the clergy and students of theology into the Party. I quote
from the last paragraph of the English translation, which reads — I
quote. "I