Alois Hudal

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Alois Karl Hudal (born May 31, 1885 in Graz , Styria , † May 19, 1963 in Rome , Italy) was an Austrian Catholic theologian, rector of the German college of priests Santa Maria dell'Anima and titular bishop of Aela and, after the Second World War, a refugee from National Socialists .

Career

Hudal studied theology in Graz from 1904 to 1908 and was ordained a priest on July 19, 1908 . He received his doctorate in Graz for 1911 Dr. theol. and then went to the German priestly college Santa Maria dell'Anima in Rome for study purposes . There he obtained a second doctorate and habilitation in the field of the Old Testament . Then Hudal dealt intensively with the Eastern Churches and was to receive a chair in this area in Vienna , which was not established. Instead, he became associate professor for the Old Testament in Graz from 1923 onwards. In 1923 Hudal was appointed rector of the Santa Maria dell'Anima priestly college , which he sought to develop into the spiritual center of the German clergy in Rome in the following years. There he got to know Eugenio Pacelli , the papal nuncio for Germany and later Pope Pius XII, who ordained him bishop on June 18, 1933. He was later awarded the title of " Papal Assistant to the Throne " by the Pope . He found his final resting place on the Campo Santo Teutonico in Rome .

Relationship to National Socialism

Hudal saw similarities in the goals of National Socialism and those of the Catholic Church, above all in the restoration of an anti- liberal , anti-international order and corresponding values, as well as in the defense against "East Bolshevism ". He strove for a “symbiosis” between Catholicism and National Socialism , which he also expressed in his main work “The Basics of National Socialism” (1936). The book, which for Adolf Hitler contained the dedication “To the leader of the German uprising [and] Siegfried of German hope and greatness”, earned him the reputation of a “court theologian of the Nazis”. Hudal advocated National Socialism, provided that it did not try to take the place of Christianity and function as dogmatic metaphysics . However, he criticized Alfred Rosenberg for rejecting Christianity. The most important ideological link between Hudal's Christianity and National Socialism was anti-Bolshevism .

In connection with the vote on the connection of Austria , Hudal, as rector of the Collegio Teutonico di Santa Maria dell'Anima in Rome , invited to a solemn Te Deum (thanksgiving service) in the church of Santa Maria dell'Anima on Easter Sunday (April 6, 1938) . This was given to him by Pope Pius XI. however, prohibited ( Il Santo Padre si oppone a una tale funzione ; Eng : The Holy Father protests against such a celebration ). Hudal was beside himself and attributed the ban to the "intriguing influence in the Vatican".

As a result, it became clear that Hudal, with his affiliation-friendly attitude, was isolated in the Vatican and that his relations with the Curia, and in particular with Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, were significantly cooled by this so-called “Te Deum incident”. In spite of Hudal's intervention directed at Pacelli, the Pope refused to receive a German-speaking group of pilgrims in the Vatican the day after the prohibited Te Deum .

On April 1, the Vice Rector of Anima, Heinrich Schneider, sent a list of the participants in the referendum to the German embassy at the Holy See.

The German and Austrian seminary students who studied at the Anima were brought to Gaeta in a special train on April 10, 1938, the day of the Reichstag election and referendum. There was an extra- territorial option on board the German armored cruiser Admiral Scheer . It is suspected that the authorities saw the armored cruiser voting location more “neutral” than an already extraterritorial embassy. Bishop Hudal himself took part in the vote.

Those who voted on the Admiral Scheer voted for the connection with 92%. Decades later it was claimed that the majority of those who voted from the church and from the German and Austrian exiles living in Italy had voted against the Anschluss. Hudal himself then repeatedly spoke of the shame of Gaeta , but he avoided referring to this episode in his autobiography.

The vote on the Scheer was one of the possibilities that the NSDAP / AO had organized for Germans living abroad to participate in the Reichstag election / referendum on April 10, 1938. On German warships in Gaeta, Palermo, Catania, Messina and Genoa, 12,618 people took part in the vote. The Scheer was the largest ship. Not only seminary students took part in the vote, but also German exiles. Erich Maria Remarque reports that his Austrian housekeeper had to vote because otherwise she would not have received a passport.

Hudal's work was received critically by both the Catholic Church and the National Socialists. He was expressly praised by Hitler for his work; It is claimed that he also received the NSDAP's golden party badge , but there is no evidence of this. At the same time he was suspected of infiltration and ingratiation by radical anti-church ideologues of neo-paganism within the NSDAP because he stood in the way of their plans to finally eliminate the churches after a war they had won. Even within the Catholic Church, his advocacy of building bridges to National Socialism made him an outsider, who was therefore denied even higher offices, with the exception of the pure honorary title of "papal assistant to the throne". He lost his professorship in Graz in 1945 after the end of the Nazi regime, but, according to information in his autobiography, got it back after a court case, on the condition that he did not hold it, and without mentioning his name in the status of the university.

While the Wehrmacht and the security service were in power in Rome (September 1943 - June 1944), Hudal stood up for those persecuted by the Germans. Among other things, he hid two New Zealand officers who had escaped from their prison camp in the Anima until they were liberated on June 4, 1944. One of them, John Burns, wrote in his memoir “Life is a twisted path” (Das Leben ist a winding path) clearly reported about it.

After a large-scale raid against the Jews had begun on the morning of October 16, 1943, Hudal sent a letter to the German city commander of Rome, General Rainer Stahel, with the request that the raid be stopped immediately because it was feared that “the Pope will otherwise take a public position against it ”. Nevertheless, the raid was probably ended by the SD as planned at around 2 p.m., after "only" over 1,000 Jews could be arrested, far fewer than the 8,000 Hitler had ordered. As Hudal wrote after the war, Stahel is said to have got in touch with Himmler and achieved with him that “in consideration of the special character of Rome, these arrests are to be stopped immediately”. Further research is needed to determine how reliable this information is.

Some historians have argued that Hudal's letter was not written by himself but by German ambassador to the Vatican Ernst v. Weizsäcker was suggested and written by German diplomats, and that Hudal was only asked to sign it. This representation is refuted on the one hand by Hudal's statement in his memoir that the nephew of Pope Pius XII, Carlo Pacelli, came to see him and suggested the letter. On the other hand, because Rainer Decker found the original, typewritten draft of the letter in Hudal's estate. The draft, which is much longer than the excerpt sent to Berlin, contains Hudal's handwritten corrections as well as greetings to Stahel in the introduction, reminding of their mutual acquaintance, a Rittmeister Diemert, and a comment, after which, as discussed in March , Germany might need the good offices of the Vatican in the near future. Weizsäcker and the other diplomats could not have known these details. Hence there is little doubt that the letter was written by Hudal himself and not by anyone else, and that it was prompted by a visit from the Pope's nephew Carlo Pacelli on the morning of October 16, 1943.

After the end of the war he worked as an escape helper for National Socialists, u. a. for Franz Stangl , and described these actions as a “charitable act of charity”. In March 1948 he created a leaflet for emigrants with important information on support options from the Catholic Church. Hudal portrayed those persecuted for their crimes during the Nazi era as if they had been politically persecuted, "in many cases entirely innocent personally, only the executing organs of the orders of higher authorities and thus victims of atonement for major undesirable developments in the system". In addition, Hudal repeatedly emphasized the usefulness of the SS men as experienced fighters against "anti-Christian Bolshevism".

The escape route to South America and the Middle East, known as the Rat Line , was run by Hudal together with Krunoslav Draganović . They received support from the Red Cross and Caritas , as well as from Giuseppe Siri , the Archbishop of Genoa . In addition, Hudal also worked closely with the German support association Stille Hilfe von Helene Elisabeth von Isenburg , which was supported by representatives of both the Protestant (Bishop Theophil Wurm ) and the Catholic (Auxiliary Bishop Johannes Neuhäusler ) Church.

He wrote articles for the German émigré magazine Der Weg , published in Buenos Aires , in which many refugee Nazi perpetrators ( Johann von Leers , Gerhard Bohne ) were active.

Knowledge of these processes reached up to the highest levels of European post-war politics, especially in the area of ​​the conservative parties in Austria, Germany and Italy. At times he was even said to have helped Martin Bormann to escape to South America, but this turned out to be wrong.

In 1962 Hudal wrote about his activities: “All these experiences led me to dedicate all of my charitable work after 1945 primarily to the former members of National Socialism and Fascism, especially the so-called war criminals who were persecuted by communists and 'Christian' democrats. ... To help here, to save some, without opportunistic and calculating considerations, selfless and brave, was in these times the natural requirement of a true Christianity that knows no Talmud hatred, but only love, kindness and forgiveness ... "

It was only after pressure from the Vatican that Hudal resigned as rector of the German priests' college in 1952, but still worked as theological expert for the Holy Office (the later Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) until the end of 1953 , until he undertook this activity in a bitter farewell letter to Pope Pius XII. documented, gave up on his own initiative. He died in Rome on May 19, 1963. In his posthumously published memoirs he rejects National Socialism in its historically concrete form, but still sticks to his idea of ​​the connection between Christianity, nationalism and socialism (in the sense of a Christian social doctrine ) as an idea and with a clear anti-communism.

He was buried in the Campo Santo Teutonico in Rome, where his mother Maria Hudal-Wieser had already been buried.

research

The opening of the Hudal archive of the college of priests Collegio Teutonico di Santa Maria dell'Anima in autumn 2006 was the impetus to study the person Hudal in more detail. A symposium of historians on this occasion did not produce a uniform picture. In addition to the well-known allegations, it was also mentioned that Hudal maintained contacts with the Italian Resistenza until 1945 and saved Jews from deportation .

Johann Ickx, the archivist of the Collegio Teutonico di Santa Maria dell'Anima, said on the occasion of the inspection of Hudal's estate that his alleged membership in the NSDAP was just as much an invention as his concrete help in the escape of Adolf Eichmann . Hudal himself was not innocent of this suspicion insofar as he confirmed in his memoir that he had helped “so-called war criminals”.

According to the Catholic News Agency of October 11, 2006, the new finds cast "a somewhat milder light on the figure of Hudal, who is also regarded as rather sinister in church circles". It would not be possible to “wash clean” the “brown bishop” because the “contradictions and errors in his thinking are too blatant”. Although blanket convictions are no longer permissible, "Hudal should not be hyped up as a misunderstood martyr of a hopeless but noble cause".

literature

  • Rainer Decker: Bishop Alois Hudal and the raid on Jews in Rome on October 16, 1943. In: Roman quarterly. No. 113, Issue 3/4, 2019, pp. 233–255 ( summary online at herder.de).
  • John Burns: Life is a winding path. Capture, escape, escape and final refuge with the help of the Mattei family of Montecelio and Bishop Alois Hudal of Santa Maria dell'Anima in Rome. Rome 2002.
  • Alois Hudal: The Basics of National Socialism. An investigation into the history of ideas. Johannes Günther Verlag, Leipzig / Vienna 1937, Reprint Facsimile-Verlag, Bremen 1982.
  • Alois Hudal: Roman Diaries. Leopold Stocker Verlag, Graz / Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 3-7020-0242-1 .
  • Ernst Klee : Persil notes and false passports. Fischer-TB 10956, Frankfurt 1991, ISBN 3-596-10956-6 .
  • Gitta Serenyi : On the edge. Frankfurt / Berlin / Vienna 1980, ISBN 3-492-11867-4 .
  • Thomas Brechenmacher : Alois Hudal - the "brown bishop"? In: Freiburg circular. No. 2 14, 2007, ISSN  0344-1385 , pp. 130-132.
  • Markus Langer: Alois Hudal. Bishop between the cross and the swastika. Attempt a biography. Univ. Dissertation, Vienna 1995.
  • Dominik Burkard: Alois Hudal - an anti-Pacelli? For the discussion about the attitude of the Vatican towards National Socialism. In: Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 59.1, 2007, ISSN  0044-3441 , pp. 61–89.
  • Uki Goñi : Odessa. The true story. Escape aid for Nazi war criminals. Berlin / Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-935936-40-0 .
  • Gerald Steinacher : Nazis on the run. How war criminals escaped overseas via Italy. Studienverlag, Vienna / Innsbruck / Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-7065-4026-1 .
  • Christian Blankenstein: The notables of yesterday and their traces in today. 15 portraits from Austria. Traugott Bautz, Nordhausen 2012, ISBN 978-3-86945410-8 (including about Hudal).
  • Martin Lätzel:  Alois Hudal. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 21, Bautz, Nordhausen 2003, ISBN 3-88309-110-3 , Sp. 687-692.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Peter Rohrbacher: “Habent sua fata libelli”: The “race problem” as reflected in the posthumous private library of Bishop Alois Hudals. In: Roman historical communications. 57, 2015, 325–364 ( online as a PDF file at academia.edu).
  • Hansjakob Stehle : Passports from the Pope? In: The time. May 4, 1984, pp. 9-12 , accessed on May 13, 2020 (from newly discovered documents: Why all roads of the ex-Nazis to South America lead via Rome; Zeit-Dossier).
  • Johannes Sachslehner : Hitler's husband in the Vatican. Bishop Alois Hudal. Molden 2019, 288 pages.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Review of Timothy W. Ryback: Hitler's books (Fackelträger Verlag, Cologne 2010). In: Die Zeit , No. 18, March 12, 2010, literature supplement, p. 72.
  2. ↑ The Shame of Gaeta . In: The furrow . April 13, 1968.
  3. ↑ Alois C. Hudal: Roman diaries - life confession of an old bishop . Leopold Stocker Verlag, Graz / Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 3-7020-0242-1 , p. 239 .
  4. ↑ Chronicle of the Anima . April 6, 1938.
  5. ^ Markus Langer: Alois Hudal. Bishop between the cross and the swastika. Attempt a biography . December 1995, p. 136 .
  6. ^ A b c Robert A. Graham: La Questione Religiosa Nella Crisi Dell'Asse . In: La Civiltà Cattolica . No. 3041 , 1977, pp. 447 .
  7. ^ Postcard on the occasion of the follow-up vote on board the Admiral Scheer in Gaeta. In: germanpostalhistory.com. Retrieved April 27, 2017 .
  8. ^ Markus Langer: Alois Hudal. Bishop between the cross and the swastika. Attempt a biography . 1995, p. 136 .
  9. ^ Source collection of NS press instructions from the pre-war period. Volume 6 / I. 1938 Source texts January to April, Munich 1999, Document 1109, DNB-Rundbrief of April 11, 38, p. 381: "Do not open the report about the vote on the armored ship Admiral Scheer, but place it well, but without comment."
  10. ↑ Neues Wiener Tagblatt . April 12, 1938, p. 2.
  11. ↑ Anna Pawlikowska: Watykański agent III Rzeszy. In: znak.org.pl. June 14, 2010, Retrieved April 27, 2017 (Polish).
  12. ^ Volker Koop: Hitler's fifth column. 2009, p. 129.
  13. ^ Pierre Blet: Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican . Paulist Press, New York 1999, pp. 216 .
  14. ↑ Dan Kurzman: A Special Mission: Hitler's Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII . Da Capo Press, Cambridge 2007, pp. 183-85 .
  15. ↑ Alois C. Hudal: Roman diaries - life confession of an old bishop . Leopold Stocker Verlag, Graz - Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 3-7020-0242-1 , p. 214-5 .
  16. ^ Rainer Decker: Bishop Alois Hudal and the raid on Jews in Rome on October 16, 1943 . In: Roman quarterly . No. 311 3-4 , 2019, pp. 237-39 .
  17. ^ Rainer Decker: Bishop Alois Hudal and the raid on Jews in Rome on October 16, 1943 . In: Roman quarterly . No. 311 3-4 , 2019, pp. 254 .
  18. ^ Albrecht Weiland: The Campo Santo Teutonico in Rome and its grave monuments. Volume I. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1988, ISBN 3451208822 , p. 275 f.
  19. ^ Italy: Symposium on Bishop Hudal. In: archivioradiovaticana.va. Vatican Radio, October 7, 2006, accessed on May 13, 2020 . Symposium on Bishop Hudal, Oct. 7, 2006.
personal data
SURNAME Hudal, Alois
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hudal, Luigi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian bishop and escape helper for various Nazi criminals
DATE OF BIRTH May 31, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Graz
DATE OF DEATH May 19, 1963
Place of death Rome