Solemn declaration by the Austrian bishops

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Original Document of the Solemn Declaration
The accompanying letter from Cardinal Innitzer with his handwritten "And Heil Hitler!"
Preface to the solemn declaration by Cardinal Innitzer and Prince Archbishop Waitz
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The solemn declaration of the Austrian bishops of March 18, 1938 is a call by the Catholic bishops of Austria to all believers to vote yes in the referendum on April 10, 1938 on the annexation of Austria to Hitler's Germany . In it, the bishops express their appreciation of the National Socialist movement for its achievements “in the field of national and economic development and social policy” and “accompany this work for the future with their best wishes for blessings”. It would be “of course a national duty to acknowledge the German Reich as Germans”. The Vienna Cardinal Theodor Innitzer sent the declaration with an accompanying letter to the acting head of the NSDAP in Austria, Gauleiter Josef Bürckel . The declaration was published in all newspapers and proclaimed from the pulpits in all churches on March 27th.

Text of the Solemn Declaration

Solemn declaration!

Out of innermost conviction and with free will, we declare the signed bishops of the Austrian ecclesiastical province on the occasion of the great historical events in German-Austria:

We gladly acknowledge that the National Socialist movement in the field of national and economic development as well as social policy for the German Reich and people and especially for the poorest strata of the people achieved and is doing outstandingly. We are also convinced that the work of the National Socialist movement averted the danger of godless Bolshevism, which would destroy everything.

The bishops accompany this work for the future with their best wishes for blessings and will also exhort the believers in this spirit.

On the day of the referendum it is of course a national duty for us bishops to confess to the German Empire as Germans, and we also expect all believing Christians to know what they owe their people.

Vienna, March 18, 1938.

The declaration is signed by Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, Prince Archbishop Sigismund Waitz , Bishops Adam Hefter , Ferdinand Stanislaus Pawlikowski , Johannes Maria Gföllner and Michael Memelauer .

prehistory

On March 10, 1938 , the clergy conference met in Vienna under the leadership of Cardinal Innitzer, a pillar of the Austro-Fascist corporate state , and resolutely supported Chancellor Schuschnigg and the independence of the Austrian state. On March 12, 1938, Adolf Hitler marched into Austria . This began a terror against Jews and political opponents - social democrats , communists and representatives of the corporate state. Archbishop Waitz of Salzburg was temporarily placed under house arrest, and Bishop Pawlikowski of Graz-Seckau was imprisoned for 24 hours as the only bishop in the entire German-speaking area because of his objection to this approach by the National Socialists against Waitz. Even if these two bishops were briefly deprived of their freedom, the Nazi regime did not dare to attack them directly. The base, especially clergymen, suffered all the more from Nazi measures and persecution.

After the Protestants had already addressed addresses of allegiance to the Nazi leadership, the Catholic Church also swung in. On March 13, Cardinal Innitzer issued an appeal that was published in the Catholic Reichspost : “The Catholics of the Archdiocese of Vienna are requested to pray on Sundays to thank God the Lord for the bloodless course of the great political upheaval and for a happy future to ask for Austria. Of course, all orders of the authorities must be followed with pleasure and willingly. "The newspaper commented on this appeal:" The highest church prince of our country has blessed the long-awaited hour of German unification. So, looking the Führer openly in the eye, we can say: We Germans of Austria are joining the German community of fate today as one. "

On March 14th, Innitzer welcomed the German “Führer” to Austria with a phone call and let him know that when he arrived in Vienna, all the church bells would ring on his instructions. When Hitler moved into Vienna, the church bells rang for an hour and all churches were decorated with swastika flags .

On March 15, Cardinal Innitzer met Hitler at the Hotel Imperial . Afterwards he issued a pastoral directive in which it said: “ Pastors and believers stand completely behind the great German state and its leader, whose world-historical struggle against the criminal delusion of Bolshevism (...) is evidently accompanied by the blessing of Providence. (...) The pastor must therefore stay away from any politics and should look forward to the development of things with confidence (...) ”. Bürckel refused to publish the pastoral instruction and worked out a recommendation for the planned referendum on the Anschluss. As a result, the three documents Solemn Declaration, the Foreword to the Solemn Declaration and Innitzer's letter accompanying the Solemn Declaration, the so-called “March Declarations”, were created. They are essentially based on Innitzer's pastoral instructions.

Origin of the declarations

The solemn declaration was drawn up by Cardinal Innitzer and Prince Archbishop Waitz together with the new Reich Commissioner Gauleiter Bürckel for the referendum on the annexation of Austria to the German Empire. The cover letter was written by Cardinal Innitzer. He sent the solemn declaration with this accompanying letter to Bürckel: “You can see from this that we bishops have fulfilled our national duty voluntarily and without coercion. I know that this declaration will be followed by a good cooperation. ”The letter ended with“ And Heil Hitler ! ”, Written by the cardinal himself over his name. The Nazi negotiator Josef Himmelreich advised the handwritten addition “Heil Hitler!” And promised the bishops “the much-anticipated understanding between state and church on a broad basis even faster”. The foreword was written by the Salzburg Prince Archbishop Sigismund Waitz and Cardinal Innitzer together with Gauleiter Josef Bürckel. It was signed by Innitzer and Waitz.

distribution

On March 28, 1938, the Völkischer Beobachter only had one subject, the Solemn Declaration. Together with the preface to the solemn declaration and Innitzer's cover letter with the handwritten addition “Heil Hitler!” It was posted all over the German Reich at the time, printed in the newspapers and distributed as a leaflet. In Austria the declaration was published in all church newspapers and read from the pulpits in all churches on March 27th.

Post-history

On March 25, the official Vatican newspaper described Osservatore Romano Innitzer's idea that the Nazi struggle against Bolshevism was "an object of the blessing of divine providence" as " blasphemy ". The newspaper later wrote that the statements of the Austrian bishops had been made “without any prior agreement with the Vatican and without his subsequent approval”. Innitzer thereupon sent an open letter to the “dear” Gauleiter Bürckel on April 1, 1938, in which he decidedly stated that the episcopal appeal was not a relaxing gesture and should be seen solely as a “confession of our common German blood”.

Innitzer was summoned to Rome , where he was subjected to severe criticism. Pope Pius XI was outraged that Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli is said to have spoken of the "most shameful episode in church history". In Rome Innitzer first signed Pacelli's amendment to the Solemn Declaration. This appeared on April 6 in the Osservatore Romano, but not in any Austrian newspaper. It says: The “Solemn Declaration” naturally did not want to endorse what was and is not compatible with the law of God, freedom and the rights of the Catholic Church. In addition, the declaration by state and party should not be understood as the conscience of the faithful and should not be used programmatically. For the future it is required that there are no changes to the Austrian Concordat without an agreement with the Holy See, and that the rights of the Catholic school system are secured.

After the referendum on April 10, the relationship between the Catholic Church and the regime deteriorated. The Church's expectations were not met. The Nazi regime increasingly interfered with church rights: the abolition of all Catholic associations, the confiscation of church property and finally the abolition of the theological faculty in Salzburg. Innitzer tried to negotiate an agreement with Hitler. These negotiations finally failed in August 1938. In October 1938, after the youth celebration for the Rosary Festival in front of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, there was a spontaneous Catholic rally and the following day the Archbishop's Palace was stormed by the Hitler Youth . Innitzer had a declaration read out in the churches in which it said: “1. The solemn declaration of the Austrian bishops on March 18 was based on the sincere will to come to a peaceful cooperation with the new authorities of the country. 2. At the devotion of the Catholic youth on October 7th in St. Stephen's Cathedral, the cardinal did not attack the Führer and Reich Chancellor with a single word and neither anticipated nor wanted the rallies after the celebration. (...) 5. The cardinal never had the historically significant one Overlooked the hour in which his homeland was returned to the German fatherland. Together with the other German cardinals, he thanked the Fiihrer for this and arranged for thanksgiving services and bells to ring for the whole of the Ostmark. " Innitzer concluded his statement with the remark that the Catholic, out of his conscience, had to fulfill his duty to the state, but that the bishop must at all times comply with the sworn duty of conscience to stand up for the rights of God and the Church ” .

See also

literature

  • Maximilian Liebmann: Theodor Innitzer and the Anschluss: Austria's Church 1938. Chapter III B, p. 65ff .: The March declarations of the Austrian episcopate . Graz, 1988
  • Maximilian Liebmann: From March to October 1938. The Catholic Diocesan Bishops and National Socialism in Austria. In: Think of the days of the past, learn from the years of history! 70 years after 1938. The Austrian bishops. Vienna 2008 ( Online , PDF; 0.5 MB, accessed April 20, 2020).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ letters claiming the Catholic bishops of Austria , the original document, March 18, 1938 ÖNB ÖGZ S56 / 57, accessed on 20 April 2020
  2. ↑ Gerhard Tomkowitz, Dieter Wagner: "One people, one empire, one leader". The "Anschluss" of Austria in 1938 . Piper Verlag Munich, 2nd edition 1988, p. 95f.
  3. ↑ Oskar Veselky: bishop and clergy of the diocese of Seckau under Nazi rule. Graz 1981, p. 308 f.
  4. ↑ Maximilian Liebmann: From the Dominance of the Catholic Church to Free Churches in the Free State - from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the present. In: Rudolf Leeb, Maximilian Liebmann, Georg Scheibelreiter, Peter G. Tropper (eds.): History of Christianity in Austria. From late antiquity to the present (Austrian history, ed. V. Wolfram Herwig). Vienna 2003
  5. ↑ Maximilian Liebmann: The time of Prince Bishop Pawlikowski . In: Karl Amon, Maximilian Liebmann (Hrsg.): Church history of Styria. Graz, 1993, pp. 309-373
  6. ↑ Not a hero song . KirchenZeitung, March 6, 1918, accessed April 25, 2020.
  7. ↑ Gerhard Tomkowitz, Dieter Wagner: "One people, one empire, one leader". The "Anschluss" of Austria in 1938 . Piper Verlag Munich, 2nd edition 1988, p. 313
  8. ↑ Anna Ehrlich : Gentiles, Jews, Christians, Muslims. The history of religions in Austria. Amalthea, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-85002-682-6 .
  9. ↑ Maximilian Liebmann : The original version of the “Solemn Declaration” from March 1938 . In: NAGDL 2 (1982/83), pp. 78-87.
  10. ↑ a b c d Maximilian Liebmann: "Heil Hitler!" - Pastoral conditions: From political Catholicism to pastoral Catholicism . 2009
  11. ↑ Cardinal Innitzer: Too sincere. Spiegel, April 10, 1967, accessed April 20, 2020
  12. ^ Declaration by the Archbishop of Vienna to the Gauleiter , original document, March 18, 1938, ÖNB OEGZ S56 / 61, accessed on April 20, 2020
  13. ↑ Alfred Palka: "We want to confess to Christ, our leader and master ...". In: Der Fels 8–9 / 2013, pp. 243–247 ( as PDF online ).
  14. ^ Foreword to the declaration by Cardinal Innitzer , original document, March 21, 1938, ÖNB OEGZ S56 / 59, accessed on April 20, 2020
  15. ^ The world until yesterday: Cardinal Innitzer: "Heil Hitler!": The mistake of his life . Die Presse, March 30, 2008, accessed April 20, 2020
  16. ^ A b Maximilian Liebmann: From March to October 1938. The Catholic Diocesan Bishops and National Socialism in Austria . In: Think of the days of the past, learn from the years of history! 70 years after 1938. The Austrian bishops. Vienna 2008. ( PDF file, 0.5MB , accessed April 20, 2020)
  17. ^ The Confession of the Catholic Bishops. Complete recognition of National Socialism . In: Illustrierte Kronenzeitung, March 28, 1938
  18. ^ A call from the bishops of German Austria: Do your national duty on April 10th! In: Neues Wiener Abendblatt, March 28, 1938
  19. ↑ a b Erika Weinzierl: Church and National Socialism . Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance, accessed on April 21, 2020
  20. ↑ a b c Maximilian Liebmann: Theodor Innitzer and the connection: Austria's Church 1938. Graz, 1988
  21. ↑ Andrea Moser: "Tear down the walls" . Diploma thesis at the University of Vienna, 2008, accessed on May 5, 2020