Treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent Nazi Germany
Reichskonkordat
Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich
The signing of the Reichskonkordat on 20 July 1933 in Rome (from left to right: German prelate Ludwig Kaas, German Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, Secretary of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs Giuseppe Pizzardo, Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, Alfredo Ottaviani, and member of Reichsministerium des Inneren [Home Office] Rudolf Buttmann).
Signed
20 July 1933 (1933-07-20)
Effective
10 September 1933 (1933-09-10)
Signatories
Eugenio Pacelli
Franz von Papen
Parties
Holy See
Germany
The Reichskonkordat ("Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich"[1]) is a treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent Nazi Germany. It was signed on 20 July 1933 by Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII, on behalf of Pope Pius XI and Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen on behalf of President Paul von Hindenburg and the German government. It was ratified 10 September 1933 and it has been in force from that date onward. The treaty guarantees the rights of the Catholic Church in Germany. When bishops take office Article 16 states they are required to take an oath of loyalty to the Governor or President of the German Reich established according to the constitution. The treaty also requires all clergy to abstain from working in and for political parties. Nazi breaches of the agreement began almost as soon as it had been signed and intensified afterwards leading to protest from the Church including in the 1937 Mit brennender Sorge encyclical of Pope Pius XI. The Nazis planned to eliminate the Church's influence by restricting its organizations to purely religious activities.[2]
The Reichskonkordat is the most controversial of several concordats that the Vatican negotiated during the pontificate of Pius XI. It is frequently discussed in works that deal with the rise of Hitler in the early 1930s and the Holocaust. The concordat has been described by some as giving moral legitimacy to the Nazi regime soon after Hitler had acquired quasi-dictatorial powers through the Enabling Act of 1933, an Act itself facilitated through the support of the Catholic Centre Party.
The treaty places constraints on the political activity of German clergy of the Catholic Church. With passage of the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, for example, a policy of nonintervention was followed. The majority of the German church hierarchy regarded the treaty as a symbol of peace between church and state.[3] From a Catholic Church perspective it has been argued that the Concordat prevented even greater evils being unleashed against the Church.[4] Though some German bishops were unenthusiastic, and the Allies at the end of World War II felt it inappropriate, Pope Pius XII successfully argued to keep the concordat in force. It is still in force today.
^"Concordati e accordi della Santa Sede". www.vatican.va. Retrieved 3 September 2018.
^Coppa, Frank J. Editor Controversial Concordats, 1999, p. 143, ISBN 081320920X
^Beth Griech-Polelle, Bishop von Galen, Roman Catholicism and Nazi Germany. pp. 51, 53
^Evans, 2008, pp. 245–246; Shirer, 1990, pp. 234–235; Hamm, 1997, p. 136; Gill, 1994, p. 57; Kershaw, 2008, p. 332; Paul Oshea, A Cross Too Heavy, Rosenberg Publishing, pp. 234–235 ISBN 978-1877058714
The Reichskonkordat ("Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich") is a treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent Nazi Germany....
Party during the Weimar Republic. He was instrumental in brokering the Reichskonkordat between the Holy See and the German Reich. Born in Trier, Kaas was...
including the Reichskonkordat treaty with the German Reich. While the Vatican was officially neutral during World War II, the Reichskonkordat and his leadership...
for conditional toleration of Christian denominations and the 1933 Reichskonkordat treaty with the Vatican guaranteed religious freedom for Catholics...
all other non-Nazi political parties ceased to exist by July. The Reichskonkordat (Reich Concordat) treaty with the Vatican was signed in 1933, amid...
Scholder, have maintained that Hitler also promised to negotiate a Reichskonkordat with the Holy See, a treaty that formalized the position of the Catholic...
Catholic Church's beliefs with Nazism. On 20 July 1933, a concordat (Reichskonkordat) was signed between Nazi Germany and the Catholic Church, which in...
assert state control over the churches, on the one hand through the Reichskonkordat with the Roman Catholic Church, and the forced merger of the German...
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called for conditional toleration of Christian denominations and a Reichskonkordat (Reich Concordat) treaty with the Vatican was signed in 1933, purporting...
Jr.'s support for the first eugenics practices; the German-Vatican Reichskonkordat of 1933, which the Nazi-dominated German government exploited as an...
Socialist artwork, films, and literature. In 1933, Hitler signed the Reichskonkordat (Reich Concordat), a treaty with the Vatican that required the regime...
(21 March that year). The encyclical condemned breaches of the 1933 Reichskonkordat agreement signed between the German Reich and the Holy See. It condemned...
Church, Pius XI concluded a record number of concordats, including the Reichskonkordat with Nazi Germany, whose betrayals of which he condemned four years...
On 20 July 1933, the Vatican signed an agreement with Germany, the Reichskonkordat, partly in an effort to stop Nazi persecution of Catholic institutions...
member of the Centre Party, to Rome to offer negotiations about a Reichskonkordat. On behalf of Cardinal Pacelli, his long-time associate Prelate Ludwig...
by severing the Catholic Church from it. This was the origin of the Reichskonkordat that Papen was to negotiate with the Catholic Church later in the spring...
Sect of earlier years and issued an edict expelling missionaries. The Reichskonkordat of 1933 was an agreement between the Holy See and Germany, negotiated...
it sought to assert state supremacy over all sectors of life. The Reichskonkordat neutralized the Catholic Church as a political force. Through the pro-Nazi...
the Vatican to set in train and draft the Holy See's long desired Reichskonkordat with Germany (only possible with the co-operation of the Nazis). Ludwig...
pro quo with the Pope under the anti-communist Pope Pius XI for the Reichskonkordat; and by these manoeuvres Hitler achieved movement of these Catholic...
Church in the Saar was even worse than in the rest of Germany, as the Reichskonkordat did not apply to the territory. Even the part of Catholic clergy that...
Signing of the Reichskonkordat on 20 July 1933. From left to right: German prelate Ludwig Kaas, German Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, representing Germany...
is reflected in the provisions of the Austrian concordat. Like the Reichskonkordat, which Pacelli also negotiated, the Austrian one contains a Secret...
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