Chaplains in Nazi Germany

[gracepoole]

Like the fighting men, the chaplains were conscripted into military service. They had no choice.

This is such a dangerous assumption that I have to take issue with it. Every adult in Nazi Germany (and every adult in occupied territories), aside from those who were victims, did have legitimate options and ethical choices. The historical record is replete with those who made the difficult choice to resist – even at risk of their own lives. Not wanting to have an ethical choice to make or recognizing the devastating consequences of certain choices isn’t the same as having no choice.

I remember during the first Persian Gulf War Pope John Paul saying that we are not privy to the intelligence and information that the warring governments have so we have to just assume that they are doing the right thing.

This certainly wasn’t the case a few years later, when the Vatican unequivocally spoke out against the Iraq War:

foxnews.com/story/2003/03/12/vatican-strongly-opposes-iraq-war/

And for what it’s worth, I believe JPII *did *speak out against the Persian Gulf War.

 

[KidShellen]

Should all American Catholics be denied the Sacraments if they fought in Iraq, because Bl. JP II saw it as an unjust war?

Good point. Didn’t really think this question thoroughly enough.

 

[KidShellen]

history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/133p/133p04papers/ALewisChaplains046.htm

This.

 

[Holly3278]

The only place that I see the concept of “just/unjust” war discussed is on this forum. Why is that?

I remember during the first Persian Gulf War Pope John Paul saying that we are not privy to the intelligence and information that the warring governments have so we have to just assume that they are doing the right thing.

This fanaticism with labelling wars as “just” or “unjust” only exists here and, as far as I know, has never been a top priority for the Holy See. If one reads enough history, then you may be shocked at the number of “unjust” wars that were supported and encouraged by the popes.

Have you not read this?

www.catholic.com/documents/just-war-doctrine

Or especially this?
Catechism of the Catholic Church:

**2309 **The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

• the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
• all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
• there must be serious prospects of success;
• the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the “just war” doctrine.

The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2309.htm

 

[Timothysis]

Have you not read this?

Why, yes I have. And I still say that CAF is the only place that I see the topic of Just/Unjust War discussed with such vigor.

As someone else here once mentioned, there seems to be over 15,000 self-appointed theologians here on CAF, each one constantly rebutting what the other has said.

In the end, it simply becomes futile.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

An interesting, and apparently well researched, paper on the subject of Catholic chaplains in the German armies:

history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/133p/133p04papers/ALewisChaplains046.htm

 

[Ridgerunner]

This certainly wasn’t the case a few years later, when the Vatican unequivocally spoke out against the Iraq War:

foxnews.com/story/2003/03/12/vatican-strongly-opposes-iraq-war/

And for what it’s worth, I believe JPII *did *speak out against the Persian Gulf War.

Pope JPII did not condemn either war (one war, really, with an interlude) after they started. If one reads what he said, he did not give up on the possibility of UN resolution of the issues. What he did not know, and could not know, was the extent to which the UN was subverted by Saddam’s oil money. That was only known later.

But regardless, it’s wrong to condemn soldiers in those wars because of one’s subjective political beliefs about the justice or injustice of the conflicts, and particularly when one is selective about it based on politics. (Iraq=Bush’s war=unjust. Af/Pak=Obama’s war=okay)

Back to the actual topic. I had occasion to read an autobiographical account written by a former chaplain in the German army during WWII. I think if one read that or a similar account, one would not dispute the propriety of those chaplains’ presence in the army.

First of all, they were not combatants at all. Second, they ministered to soldiers who did not ask to be there. Soldiers were conscripted on pain of death and had no choices in the matter. Some of the chaplains did other things to mitigate some of the evils perpetrated by some of the German forces. The chapain whose account I read, for example, misdirected “higher ups” from some Jews, then being sheltered by the Church. One of the officers, a Catholic, appeared to have been willingly “misdirected” by the chaplain so he could disobey a directive to go after Jews suspected to be in the area of his operations in Italy.

 

[gracepoole]

Pope JPII did not condemn either war (one war, really, with an interlude) after they started. If one reads what he said, he did not give up on the possibility of UN resolution of the issues. What he did not know, and could not know, was the extent to which the UN was subverted by Saddam’s oil money. That was only known later.

But regardless, it’s wrong to condemn soldiers in those wars because of one’s subjective political beliefs about the justice or injustice of the conflicts, and particularly when one is selective about it based on politics. (Iraq=Bush’s war=unjust. Af/Pak=Obama’s war=okay)

Back to the actual topic. I had occasion to read an autobiographical account written by a former chaplain in the German army during WWII. I think if one read that or a similar account, one would not dispute the propriety of those chaplains’ presence in the army.

First of all, they were not combatants at all. Second, they ministered to soldiers who did not ask to be there. Soldiers were conscripted on pain of death and had no choices in the matter. Some of the chaplains did other things to mitigate some of the evils perpetrated by some of the German forces. The chapain whose account I read, for example, misdirected “higher ups” from some Jews, then being sheltered by the Church. One of the officers, a Catholic, appeared to have been willingly “misdirected” by the chaplain so he could disobey a directive to go after Jews suspected to be in the area of his operations in Italy.

vatican.va/roman_curia/secretariat_state/2003/documents/rc_seg-st_20030219_migliore-security-council_en.html

The Holy See is convinced that in the efforts to draw strength from the wealth of peaceful tools provided by the international law, to resort to force would not be a just one. To the grave consequences for a civilian population that has already been tested long enough, are added the dark prospects of tensions and conflicts between peoples and cultures and the deprecated reintroduction of war as a way to resolve untenable situations.

 

[djames99]

This is such a dangerous assumption that I have to take issue with it. Every adult in Nazi Germany (and every adult in occupied territories), aside from those who were victims, did have legitimate options and ethical choices. The historical record is replete with those who made the difficult choice to resist – even at risk of their own lives. Not wanting to have an ethical choice to make or recognizing the devastating consequences of certain choices isn’t the same as having no choice.

This certainly wasn’t the case a few years later, when the Vatican unequivocally spoke out against the Iraq War:

foxnews.com/story/2003/03/12/vatican-strongly-opposes-iraq-war/

And for what it’s worth, I believe JPII *did *speak out against the Persian Gulf War.

conscientious objection

 

[didymus]

Armies often have chaplains to cater to the religious needs of troops

We all know what just and unjust wars are right?

Nazi Germany was clearly fighting an unjust war

There are many Catholic Germans so obviously Catholic chaplains were needed to serve the German army.

But the Church is obviously against unjust wars, so weren’t the Catholic chaplains in the German army participating and supporting an unjust war by aiding German troops?

Sorry if this question seems stupid and unclear. It’s kind of a late hour right now as I’m typing this

From the Catholic Encyclopedia on Just War:

The possessor of the right of war

The right of war lies solely with the sovereign authority of the State. As it flows from the efficacious character of other rights in peril, the coercive right must belong to the possessor, or to the natural guardian, of those rights. The rights in question may be directly corporate rights of the State, or which, of course, the State is itself the possessor, and of which there is no natural guardian but the sovereign authority of the State; or directly the rights of subordinate parts of the State or even of its individual citizens, and of these the sovereign authority is the natural guardian against foreign aggression. The sovereign authority is the guardian, because there is no higher power on earth to which appeal may be made; and, moreover, in the case of the individual citizen, the protection of his rights against foreign aggression will ordinarily become indirectly a matter of the good of the Commonwealth. It is clear that the right of war cannot become a prerogative of any subordinate power in the state, or of a section, a city, or an individual [snip]

This is only the section about who has the right to make war. Notice there is nothing about conscientious objection. I’m sure newer versions of the Encyclopedia have, um, refined matters but at the time good citizens were expected to march off to war when they were told to.

That being so, how terrible it would be for priests to refuse serve as chaplains to troops going into combat? Perhaps *especially *when their souls would be in peril not just from the usual brutalities of war but the added atrocities of an unjust war?

 

[Skadi]

Armies often have chaplains to cater to the religious needs of troops

We all know what just and unjust wars are right?

Nazi Germany was clearly fighting an unjust war

There are many Catholic Germans so obviously Catholic chaplains were needed to serve the German army.

But the Church is obviously against unjust wars, so weren’t the Catholic chaplains in the German army participating and supporting an unjust war by aiding German troops?

Sorry if this question seems stupid and unclear. It’s kind of a late hour right now as I’m typing this

I had many reletive a on the German side of he war. Mostly Catholics from Bavaria and Wurttenburg. You must remember, while the segregation of Jews was public knowledge, the death camps of the regime were very well kept secrets. There are several accounts of US and British troops showing the camps to local villagers who were totaly shocked. One local Mayor and his wife went home and hung themselves.

To the average German, while they may not have agreed with the war it was their duty to fight, or else. They new nothing of the death camps and in fact their struggle with the soviets was seen as a sort of Crusaid against athieism by some. They made belt buckles that read “Gott Mit Uns” and at various times the regular German army interacted very well with local religious groups. Hinz Guderian (The man most credited for “Blitzkrieg”) helped smuggle a polish bishop to safety with the bishop of Konigsburg. Likewise, although American propoganda said otherwise, the Germans did not occupy the famous monastery of Monte Casino untill after the Americans leveled it and the monks left.

The atrocities of the Nazi regime were horrific, but the average person didn’t know, and did their duty for thier country just as their ancestors had for centuries. We tend to think of WWII as a sort of Crusaid, but to the Europeans it was just another war between the great powers.