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Against Bolshevism: Georg Werthmann and the Role of Ideology in the Catholic Military Chaplaincy, 1939–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2009

LAUREN N. FAULKNER
LAUREN N. FAULKNER*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Notre Dame, 219 O'Shaughnessy Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA; [email protected].
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Abstract

From 1939 to 1945, Georg Werthmann worked tirelessly to preserve the Catholic military chaplaincy of the German armed forces from Nazi Party interference. He and the men who worked under him valued their service as integral to the Catholic German soldiers in need of spiritual help; they also viewed the war in which they were engaged as a crusade against Bolshevism, an enemy to be beaten at any cost. The article focuses on the reactions of Werthmann and select chaplains and seminarians to two military regulations concerning the chaplaincy, and on their understanding of Bolshevism, revealing that Nazi and Catholic ideologies shared significant commonalities that encouraged their wartime service.

Contre le bolchévisme: georg werthmann et le rôle de l'idéologie dans l'aumônerie militaire catholique, 1939–1945

De 1939 à 1945, Georg Werthmann n'a pas ménagé ses efforts pour sauvegarder l'aumônerie militaire catholique au sein des forces armées allemandes de l'interférence du parti nazi. Lui et les hommes travaillant sous ses ordres ont considéré leur service comme indispensable aux soldats allemands catholiques en besoin d'aide spirituelle; ils considéraient aussi la guerre qu'ils menaient comme une croisade contre le bolchévisme, un ennemi qui devait être vaincu à tout prix. Cet article se concentre sur les réactions de Werthmann et de certains aumôniers et séminaristes face à deux régulations militaires concernant l'aumônerie, et leur interprétation du bolchévisme. L'auteure révèle ainsi que les idéologies catholiques et nazies avaient des points communs significatifs qui encourageaient leur engagement durant la guerre.

Gegen den bolschewismus: georg werthmann und die rolle der ideologie in der katholischen militärseelsorge, 1939–1945

Georg Werthmann arbeitete von 1939 bis 1945 unermüdlich daran, die katholische Militärseelsorge der deutschen Streitkräfte vor der Einmischung der nationalsozialistischen Partei zu bewahren. Er und seine Mitarbeiter sahen ihren Dienst als wesentlich für die katholischen deutschen Soldaten, die der Seelsorge bedurften, an; denn die Soldaten betrachteten den Krieg auch als einen Kreuzzug gegen den Bolschewismus – ein Gegner der um jeden Preis geschlagen werden mußte. Der Artikel konzentriert sich auf die Reaktionen von Werthmann und einigen Militärseelsorgern und Seminaristen auf zwei die Seelsorge betreffende Militäranweisungen. Er befaßt sich außerdem mit ihrem Verständnis des Bolschewismus. Daraus wird ersichtlich, daß die nationalsozialistische und die katholische Ideologie wichtige Gemeinsamkeiten hatten, die die Zusammenarbeit während des Krieges förderten.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , February 2010 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 From the document collection ‘Sammlung Werthmann’ in the Katholisches Militärbischofsamtes Berlin (henceforth referred to as KMBA SW), 1009/VII (Nr. 1), copy of official report filed by John Cotter, 1 May 1945.

2 KMBA SW 1009/VII (Nr. 1), copy of Gregor Zimmer interview (English version); undated.

3 I have chosen to focus on Catholic conscripts because of their unique military status. According to a secret appendix of the 1933 concordat signed between Nazi Germany and the Vatican, during a general mobilisation, Catholic theology students and seminarians who had not been ordained to the sub-deacon level were liable for military service, but the authorities accorded men who had been ordained beyond this point – as well as conscripted Catholic priests – special status: they did not have to bear weapons. Protestant seminarians and clergy were liable for full military service.

4 Werthmann is mentioned in the following works that analyse the function and impact of the German Catholic chaplaincy during the Second World War: Breuer, Thomas, Dem Führer gehorsam: wie die deutschen Katholiken von ihrer Kirche zum Kriegsdienst verpflichtet wurden: Dokumente (Oberursel: Publik-Forum, 1989)Google Scholar; Güsgen, Johannes, Die katholische Militärseelsorge in Deutschland zwischen 1920 und 1945: Ihre Praxis und Entwicklung in der Reichswehr der Weimarer Republik und der Wehrmacht des nationalsozialistischen Deutschlands unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer Rolle bei den Reichskonkordatsverhandlungen (Cologne: Böhlau, 1989)Google Scholar; Messerschmidt, Manfred, ‘Zur Militärseelsorgepolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 1 (1969), 37–85Google Scholar; Messerschmidt, ‘Aspekte der Militärseelsorgepolitik in nationalsozialistischer Zeit’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 1 (1968), 63–105; Missalla, Heinrich, Für Volk und Vaterland: Die kirchliche Kriegshilfe im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Königstein/Ts: Athenäum Verlag, 1978)Google Scholar; Sinderhauf, Monica, ‘Katholische Militärseelsorge im Krieg. Quellen und Forschungen zu Franz Justus Rarkowski und Georg Werthmann’, in Hummel, Karl-Joseph and Kösters, Christoph, eds., Kirchen im Krieg: Europa 1939–1945 (Paderborn, Munich, Vienna and Zürich: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2007)Google Scholar; Zahn, Gordon C., German Catholics and Hitler's Wars: A Study in Social Control (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1962)Google Scholar. There exists only one lengthy biography of Werthmann, found at the KMBA. It remains unpublished because of discrepancies in some of the factual details of the manuscript that were never revised. See Klaus-Bernward Springer, ‘Ein guter und getreuer Knecht’: Georg Werthmann (1898–1980): Generalvikar der Militärseelsorge im Dritten Reich und in der Bundeswehr (Bonn, 1999).

5 There were approximately 17,000 German Catholic priests and seminarians conscripted between 1939 and 1945; between 500 and 600 served as chaplains. Statistics taken from Georg Werthmann, ‘Übersicht’, KMBA SW 1052/IX, dated April 1944, which gives the total number of 17,776.

6 Archbishop von Hauck evidently did this to protect Werthmann from the Gestapo, which had searched Werthmann's apartment ‘because of his attitude towards National Socialism’. Transferring him into the Wehrmacht chaplaincy ‘took him out of the Gestapo's firing line’. Springer, ‘Ein guter und getreuer Knecht”: Georg Werthmann (1898–1980) Generalvikar der Militärseelsorge im Dritten Reich und in der Bundeswehr (Bonn 1999), unpublished manuscript, KMBA, 45–6; Sinderhauf, ‘Katholische Militärseelsorge im Krieg’, 282–3.

7 Werthmann's reports are found at the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv in Freiburg (henceforth: BA-MA), RH 15 Nr. 280, 9 July 1943, 27 March 1944, 5 May 1944 and 25 June 1944 respectively.

8 KMBA SW 1009/VII Nr.1, letter, 29 Jan. 1945.

9 KMBA SW 1009/VII Nr. 1, copy of HQ report, Twenty-Sixth Infantry Division, 1 May 1945.

10 Some of Rarkowski's various sermons and pastoral letters are reprinted in Missalla, Heinrich, Wie der Krieg zur Schule Gottes wurde: Hitlers Feldbischof Rarkowski: eine notwendige Erinnerung (Oberursel: Publik-Forum, 1997), 20–112Google Scholar.

11 See Messerschmidt, ‘Aspekte der Militärseelsorgepolitik in nationalsozialistischer Zeit’, 82, as well as various chaplain-veterans in Katholisches Militärbischofsamt, ed., Mensch, was wollt ihr denen sagen? Katholische Feldseelsorge im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Augsburg: Pattloch Verlag, 1991).

12 According to Zahn, the six executed men were Franz Reinisch, a Pallottine priest; Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian peasant beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in June 2007; Josef Mayr-Nusser, the Catholic Action leader of Austria; and three men associated with the religious community Christkönigsgesellschaft: Max Josef Metzger, Brother Maurus and Brother Michael. See Zahn, German Catholics and Hitler's Wars, 55 n. Heinrich Missalla contests some of these names, pointing to unresolved discrepancies in more recent German-language historiography. Other names of conscientious objectors that Missalla cites include Michael Lerpscher, Josef Ruf, Ernst Volkmann and Richard Reitsamer. On one thing they all seem to agree: Josef Fleischer, from Freiburg, was the only survivor. Missalla, Für Gott, Führer, und Vaterland: Die Verstrickung der katholischen Seelsorge in Hitlers Krieg (Munich: Kösel, 1999), 228, n. 41.

13 Taken from the introduction in Brandt, Hans Jürgen and Häger, Peter, eds., Biographisches Lexikon der Katholischen Militärseelsorge in Deutschlands 1848 bis 1945 (Paderborn: Bonifatius, 2002), xviGoogle Scholar.

14 KMBA SW 811/III, Akte Martin Seitz, Seelsorgebericht, 1 Oct., 1941.

15 Bergen, Doris L., ‘Between God and Hitler: German Military Chaplains and the Crimes of the Third Reich’, in Bartov, Omer and Mack, Phyllis, eds., In God's Name: Genocide and Religion in the Twentieth Century (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2001), 134Google Scholar; see also Spicer, Kevin P., Hitler's Priests: Catholic Clergy and National Socialism (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

16 KMBA SW 1006/VI, ‘Merkblatt über die Feldseelsorge’, 21 Aug. 1939. All the following direct quotes are taken from here.

17 Messerschmidt, ‘Zur Militärseelsorgepolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg’, 51–2.

18 May, Georg, Interkonfessionalismus in der deutschen Militärseelsorge von 1939 bis 1945 (Amsterdam: Verlag B. R. Grüner, 1978), 274Google Scholar.

19 National Archives and Records Administration, Captured German and Related Records (henceforth NARA), T312 roll 118 fr. 7648807, report dated 25 Oct. 1940; NARA T312 roll 142 fr. 7679814, report dated 31 March 1941; NARA T312 roll 419 fr. 7995362–63, report dated 12 April 1942; NARA T312 roll 177 fr. 7715692, report dated 9 Oct. 1942.

20 KMBA SW 1019/VII 3c, ‘Der Amtsgruppenchef’. Contains copies of letters that Werthmann wrote on behalf of Edelmann during the latter's denazification trial as well as personal correspondence between the two, December 1945–1971 (the year of Edelmann's death).

21 BA-MA RH 15/282, ‘Wesen und Aufgabe der Feldseelsorge’, signed by Edelmann, undated (likely written sometime in mid–1941, given the date references within the text and the lack of any direct mention of or allusion to the war in the east, with the Soviet Union).

22 KMBA SW 1006/VI, ‘Richtlinien für die Durchführung der Feldseelsorge’, OKW decree, 24 May 1942. All the following direct quotations are taken from here. Werthmann states unequivocally that this decree came from the Party via the OKW; its identifying abbreviation is OKW Az v AWA/J (Ia) Nr 4100/42, revealing that it originated in Amtsgruppe Inland (AWA/J), or the Interior Group, an armed forces liaison body that operated between the OKW and civilian agencies – the Party – in Germany, whose orders Werthmann consistently categorised as coming from the Party.

23 For Werthmann's reflections, see KMBA SW 1006/VI, Werthmann's personal notes entitled ‘Die Geschichte der Feldseelsorge’ (History of pastoral care, henceforth referred to in endnotes as GeschFSS), 1 June, 28 June, and 17 July 1945. Werthmann made the bulk of these notes during his three-month internment period, intending to write a history of pastoral care under the Third Reich. The project was never realised, but the notes survive.

24 KMBA SW 1006/VI, GeschFSS, 1 June 1945.

25 Ibid., 17 July 1945.

26 KMBA SW 1006/VI, copy of OKH report, 13 Feb. 1940.

27 See above, n. 5.

28 KMBA 1052/IX, ‘Übersicht’ notes, April 1944. There is a discrepancy of ten if one checks the numbers, a mistake in the original breakdown. Although there is a category in the breakdown of how many chaplains were serving in the chaplaincy, no number is given. The total number of civilian priests is listed at 34,000, broken into diocesan priests (27,000) and order priests (7,000).

29 KMBA SW 84/I 14, GeschFSS, 22 April 1952. Werthmann noted that there had been 307 chaplains active with the armed forces in February 1939. See May, Interkonfessionalismus, 79. May estimated that according to research up to 1964, a total of 673 Catholic priests had served in the chaplaincy between 1935 and 1945, with a lower total of 428 Protestant chaplains. Ibid., 495. He does not offer an explanation for the difference.

30 KMBA SW 1052/IX, ‘Stellungnahme zu der Frage der Militärpflicht der Kleriker’, Heidelberg, 19 Jan. 1952.

31 KMBA SW 148/III (Nr. 5), GeschFSS, 19 Jan. 1952.

32 KMBA SW 1052/IX, GeschFSS, no date given, although likely written in the 1950s, using notes he made during his internment. Werthmann gives the precise number of 17,776 priests and seminarians who had been conscripted up to early 1944, including those conscripted from Austria and the Sudetenland. See KMBA SW 1052/IX, April 1944.

33 KMBA SW 750/III, Akte Egon Schmitt, Tätigkeitsbericht, 17 March 1941.

34 KMBA SW 447/III, Akte Dietrich von Hülsen, Tätigkeitsbericht covering the period 1 Jan.–31 March 1944, undated.

35 KMBA SW 632, 633/III, Akten Peifer, ms., 105–6. This was later published as Den Menschen ein Angebot: Erinnerungen eines Seelsorgers (Cologne: Styria, 1993). All subsequent quotes will reference the manuscript contained in the Nachlass.

36 Hans Jürgen Brandt and the KMBA, eds., Priester in Uniform: Seelsorger, Theologen und Ordensleute als Soldaten im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Augsburg: Pattloch, 1994), 80, 82.

37 Ibid., including, for example, A. Allroggen, 37; F. G. Cremer, 59; J. Rosenberger, 170.

38 The literature on Catholic and Vatican antisemitism is extensive. The most important studies utilised in my work are Kertzer, David I., The Popes against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001)Google Scholar; Phayer, Michael, The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; and Kevin P. Spicer, ed., Antisemitism, Christian Ambivalence, and the Holocaust (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2007).

39 KMBA SW 152/III (8), Frontlehrgänge in Charkow, 16–17 April 1942, and Deutsch-Brod (now Havlickuv, Czech Republic), 22 Sept. 1944.

40 KMBA SW 150/III Nr. 7, GeschFSS. The bulk of excerpts written at the end of June and during July 1945 make either explicit mention of Bolshevism or allude to it using language that is clearly spiritual but could also be confused with Nazi rhetoric: ‘The experience of war has made you [soldiers] mature. The mild, benevolent maturity of a fruitful harvest is in you in spite of the fact that your heart beats still young and strong . . . Your maturity is not the decay of the smug, super-saturated, disappointed, broken man, not the fatigue of the exhausted. A firm calm stands behind your countenance. The stability of a knowing and complete man is within you, which is certain and secure, which possesses eternity’ (dated 27 June 1945).

41 Erzbistumsarchiv München-Freising, Faulhaberarchiv – Cardinal von Faulhaber collection (henceforth EAM-FA), Priesterseminar Freising, Box I: Hans Anneser, 4 Jan. 1944.

42 Ibid., Box I: Georg Gratz, Strassröd, 28 July 1941.

43 Ibid., Box IV: Leo Sutor, Melitopol, 7 Feb. 1942.

44 EAM-FA 6796/3, letter (copy) from Franz Kurz, 3 March 1942. Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber was one of the most outspoken anti-Nazi members of the German episcopate.

45 EAM-FA, Priesterseminar Freising, Box III: Hans Reiter, Soviet Russia, 5 July 1941.

46 Ibid., Box II: Jakob Mürbock, 23 July 1941.

47 EAM-FA 6796/3, letter (copy), 15 April 1942.

48 EAM-FA, Priesterseminar Freising, Box II: Werner Miller, 2 July 1944.

49 EAM 6796/3, letter (copy) from Lechner to Cardinal von Faulhaber, 17 Jan. 1942.

50 KMBA SW 152/III.8, Frontlehrgang für katholische Kriegspfarrer im Bereich AOK 6 (6. Armee), Charkow (now Kharkiv, Ukraine), 16–17 April 1942.

51 Herzog, Dagmar, ‘Theology of Betrayal’, Tikkun 16, 3 (2001), 69–73Google Scholar.

52 See Herf, Jeffrey, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust (Cambridge, MA, and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 92–137, quotes from 100. Herf's excellent volume concentrates primarily on the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, run by Joseph Goebbels, and on Reich press chief Otto Dietrich, both of whom operated on the home front. Their relations with the army, and the army's own methods of propaganda, are not addressed.

53 This diary, no doubt meticulous, was destroyed on his death in 1980, according to his own wishes.

54 KMBA SW 997/VI, GeschFSS, 15 May 1945.

55 Ibid., 31 May 1945.

56 Ibid., 30 June 1945.

57 These include the Bavarian Jesuit priest Rupert Mayer, an outspoken Nazi critic, the well-known Protestant theologians Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer), also with known anti-Nazi proclivities, and one Austrian priest, Franz Reinisch, who refused to take the army oath of loyalty. Messerschmidt's articles in Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, cited above, detail well the ways in which individual Party members, in particular Bormann and Goebbels, were hostile to the Church as an institution, and Guenter Lewy's groundbreaking study is also still useful on this count: Lewy, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965). Saul Friedländer's recent authoritative volumes on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust complement these perspectives, detailing the extent to which Church leaders accommodated the regime, even in the face of its hostility. Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1933–1939 (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), and The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945 (New York: HarperCollins, 2007).