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About the Reichskonkordat

The Reichskonkordat was signed in Rome as the bells of St. Peter's rang out. Both sides saw themselves as the winners. And both sides were glad to be free of the independent, democratic Catholic Centre Party which had been dissolved during the negotiations. Now the German Catholics were being told it was their Christian duty to support Hitler.

Reichskonkordat (1933): Full text

Here is the complete text: Concordat, Supplementary Protocol and Secret Supplement. Concordat article 27 provides for military chaplains if Germany broke the Versailles Treaty to re-arm, and the Secret Supplement exempted Catholic clergy from military service. The Secret Supplement does not appear in Church-approved translations, as it won't admit to knowing that Hitler was about to start a war. Articles 18 and 33 are "gag clauses" (Knebelartikel) which protect its financial and legal privileges forever (unless a miracle happens and it renounces them).

Hitler�s election posters use the concordat and the papal nuncio

Hitler's 1933 election posters boast of his alliance with the Catholic Church. This refutes the claims of Benedict XVI on his 2010 trip to Britain, that atheism helped the Nazis to power. Actually, it was his own church that filled that role. It appears that already in 1933 Hitler and the pope were conspiring to send the Germans off to war to fight their common enemy, Communism.

“The Concordat was a classical political kickback scheme”

This is an excerpt by Gregory S. Paul on the mutual advantages of the Concordat to the Vatican and the Nazis. It is taken from his article, The Great Scandal: Christianity's Role in the Rise of the Nazis – Part I. See also Part 2 and Part 3

In recognition of this allieance, even as late as 2018 the new Catholic bishop of Würzburg still used the words prescribed in art. 16 when he swore to protect the "interests of the German state".

Von Papen, papal chamberlain and Nazi negotiator

Franz Baron von Papen negotiated the concordat on behalf of Germany, even though he ahd been awarded the honourary title of papal chamberlain by Pius X in 1923. He faithfully served both Hitler and tthe pope, but escaped punishment at Nuremberg because his crimes were political.


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