7 Jan. 46
The present Pope, Pope Pius XII, then Cardinal Pacelli,
negotiated and signed the concordat on behalf of the Vatican. As
Archbishop Pacelli he had previously been Papal Nuncio in Germany for 12
years.
Relying upon the Nazis' assurances, particularly Hitler's speech of
March 23, 1933 above quoted (3387-PS), the Catholic hierarchy revoked
its previous opposition against Catholics becoming members of the
National Socialist Party. I offer in evidence Document Number 3389-PS,
Exhibit USA-566, a pastoral letter, dated March 23, 1933, from the
Bishop of Cologne, and I quote from the Völkischer Beobachter
for March 29, 1933 Page 2 Columns 2 and 3:
"The Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal
Schulte, announces to the Archdiocese of Cologne a declaration of the
Bishops' Conference at Fulda, which states:
"The bishops of the diocese of Germany, in their dutiful
solicitude to keep the Catholic faith pure and to protect the
inviolable aims and rights of the Catholic Church, have adopted, for
weighty reasons during the last years, an attitude of opposition
toward the National Socialist movement, through prohibitions and
warnings, which were to remain in effect as long and as far as those
reasons remained valid.
"It should now be recognized that there are public and solemn
declarations issued by the highest representative of the Reich
Government — who at the same time is the authoritarian leader of
that movement — which acknowledge the inviolability of the
teachings of the Catholic faith and the unswerving mission and rights
of the Church and which expressly guarantee the full validity of the
legal pacts concluded between the several German Länder and the
Church.
"Without lifting the condemnation, implied in our previous
measures, of certain religious and ethical errors, the Episcopate now
believes it can be confident that those general prohibitions and
warnings prescribed need no longer be regarded as necessary."
The Catholic Center Party, yielding to these assurances and to,
pressure, was dissolved on July 5, 1933. 1 refer to Document Number
2403-PS, already in evidence as part of U. S. Document Book B, an
excerpt from Documents of German Politics, the official Nazi
publication, a document of which the Court can take judicial notice; and
I quote from the last five lines of Page 1 of the English translation,
appearing on Page 55 of the original German text, which states:
"Also the parties of German
Catholicism which were supposed to be most deeply rooted, had to bow
to the law of the New