Persecution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich

Summary: "Here are the writings and speeches of the Pope and the German hierarchy, the official decrees and instructions of the government, and the speeches and teachings of the [Nazi] Party. The cumulative weight of this testimony is sufficient to establish the German persecution as the worst, because it is the most efficient, of modern times." --The Commonweal (1941)"Complete and devastating . . . The facts are authentic an...d incontrovertible. The documents are likewise authentic and thoroughly substantiated. . . . To anyone who thinks there is no persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany, we recommend this volume." --America (1941)Originally published in 1941, this volume exists as a potent archive of the Catholic Church's early, vigorous resistance to the German National Socialist Party's brutal policies against religion. Included here is everything from brief speeches given even to small groups as early as 1933, expressing the church's grave concern over increasing governmental anti-Christian and anti-Catholic policies, to internal church documents. The book also includes Pope Pius XI's enycyclical denouncing Nazism, the full text of the concordat between the Third Reich and Holy See, and sixteen editorial "cartoons" capturing the virulence and vulgarity of the Nazi anti-Catholic campaign. The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich is an important documentation of this often-overlooked resistance movement. [read more]