Translations and Notes, 1921-1922

1921

Feb. 25, 1921 L'Osservatore Romano, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine” – from our correspondent – dateline Paris, February 20

The new Cabinet Ministry is concerned about the circumstances created in Palestine by the Middle East policy of the Allies and above all about the Zionist movement.

A phrase attributed to Mr. Briand about the moral protectorship of the Holy Places that the Head of the Government mentioned pertain to France, or more precisely that France does not intend to let them go untended, has been regarded in these political circles as indicating a more resolute French activity in matters of the Holy Land.

Apr. 7, 1921 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine” – by our correspondent – dateline Paris, April 1

Governmental and political circles here continue to follow with great interest the Zionist events in Palestine.

While also in England, with the most delicate conditions of the Moslem world, matters of the Holy Land and the continually hostile attitude of the Arabs are arousing concerns that are starting to be manifest also among the public.

Indeed the attitude assumed by Lord Churchill in Palestine has been much commented upon in the English press. It is observed how serious the issues of Palestine are, and it is hoped that the Churchill mission will be able to bring a satisfactory solution; but the early news does not promise any open spirit of optimism.

Two dispatches indeed explain that yesterday Churchill received in the Governor’s palace representatives of the Moslem, Christian and Arab circles. The Arabs were effective and vehement advocates of their aspirations and protests, and they showed themselves openly hostile to the policy of the Zionists. Churchill responded to them in these terms: “I see in your discourse a partisan and unjust sentiment. You are demanding that I reject the Balfour Declaration and suspend all Jewish immigration. That is not within the bounds of my authority, nor is it consistent with my own will. The Jews have an obvious right to have a national center and a national land in which they can gather. And where else would a place be found on earth for this, if not in Palestine where Jews have lived for three thousand years? We believe that to be good for the Jews, good for the world, good for the British Empire, and good also for the Arabs who live in this region; and this is the way we want it to be. The Arabs will not be expelled and will not suffer; rather they will participate in the flowering and progress of the Zionism. I would like to direct your attention to the second part of the Balfour Declaration, which is committed to preserving and protecting your rights; and I am sorry to see you have not accepted that the giving of a national land to the Jews is not intended to lead to the subjection of the Arabs. We could not tolerate that. The present form of government will last for many years; only gradually will be developed a representative […] of government.” To give merit to this program Church, receiving next the Jewish deputation, strongly recommended respect for the Christians and the Arabs: “The Arabs have expressed,” he concluded, “their fears of a Bolshevik nature among some immigrant Jews. Whatever people may think of us, we have the obligation to dispel this fear and to promote peace within this city [Jerusalem]. Your obligation is to be patient and prudent.”

Churchill’s words did not convince the Arabs and encouraged the Jews while making them more cunning. Everyone saw that Zionism soon began to reign in an uncontested manner. And unfortunately among the Arabs a turbulent element became more dominant, seeing that the moderate element had not been able to obtain satisfactory protection from Britain.

In precisely this way the news accounts recapitulated the thinking of the more illuminated part of the English press.

Its reservations are more than justified. That the Arabs have reason to fear, to remain hostile, and to distrust the Balfour Declaration, is confirmed by many of the ideas espoused by Churchill, the events developing in recent times, the character of the Jewish penetration that results in spoliation of the law and undermining of the rights of others; it is confirmed by the necessity itself of the same Lord recommending to the Jews patience and prudence, two virtues that tend in any case to make intense activity more trustworthy, more tenacious and more effective.

The Arabs, with the non-Jewish element, have not asked for anything more than good grace and sagacity toward the immigrants; they have requested a full recognition of their own rights against the usurpation and arrogance that are legitimized now by the theory of three thousand years of Judaism, though for fifteen centuries it would not suffice to declare the prescription. It is noted, in this regard, that with this strange conception, the ethnic and geographic-political map of the world should be subverted in ways that come to mind, for example to reconstruct the Roman Empire or that of the Muslims, and the Allies would be inconsistent in their opposition to Greek aspirations in Asia and Europe, and smiles of contentment would be brought to the faces of the irredentists who flowered in the Great War.

The Jews, Churchill said, should have a national center and a national land: and this should be Palestine; the Palestinians – these being Moslem or Christian – should then lose their own land in the face of a superior nucleus of another race, while tolerating an immigration that will make them a minority. This is an ethnical, juridical, and political absurdity…

The unsustainability of the Zionist thesis is so clear that English public opinion is aware of it and raises its criticism. Zionism begins to look all the more like a preconceived policy, whether good or bad for the British in the Middle East does not matter. Based on the most reliable information that has come here from people who know very well the circumstances of Palestine, claiming that the national Jewish land does not mix, after a thousand and five hundred years, with the Holy Land; and that these immigrants under the economic guide of the Zionist movement there are feeling estranged, it all has the air of being an illusion, and of not being able to plant forever its roots.

And instead the Action Committees, not always with patience and prudence, are insisting on catching the natives who are very well off there.

Apr. 23, 1921 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“Concerning a Masonic Visitor”

Freemasonry, which has always had an urge to imitate Catholicism, could not but look with envy upon the true fatherly solicitude of Holy Father Benedict XV toward the land of the Middle East, revealed in many ways in recent times, including the sending of Apostolic Visitors; thus Masonry too wanted to send its Visitor, in the person of Mr. Wellhof, who passed recently through Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine...

What has been seen in Masonry is a most effective means to fight against the Christian body, and thus exercise its dominion over the Christian masses who are stupidly left disorganized and impoverished; but in what concerns the Jewish body, which so closely resembles the Masonic body, it avoids very well any weakening whatsoever. The Jew remains always a Jew, even when he no longer believes in the religion of his fathers, and always, especially in the Masonic Lodges, thinks of nothing but his own interests intimately linked with those of Judaism. The label of his businesses may vary: here they will be called Zionism, elsewhere Bolshevism; but the goal is always the same, the triumph of the Jews over the Christians, the predominance of Jewish race in the whole world, to be attained by whatever agreement, by whatever means.

We do not know what Mr. Wellhof did in Egypt and Palestine. We’ll bet that he was in rather marvelous agreement with Mr. Samuel and in general with the leaders of the current Zionist movement...

May 1, 1921 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine” – from our correspondent in Paris, April 25 ...

”Difficulties and Obstacles” ...

But the truth is that, despite all these efforts, Zionism as a national movement is not taking root among the Jews in the way its more fanatical promoters would like. And it is not taking root for two reasons: Because Palestine is not able to offer to Jewish activity the advantages that it encounters among flourishing nations and peoples, in rich lands and well advanced markets. Those who are attracted by the promises and subsidies of the Zionist Commission to move to the ancient land – especially from regions devastated by the war or threatened by antisemitic reactions – have realized very quickly that it is far from offering the comforts of the promised land; that is it necessary to build down there what is elsewhere ready at hand without further effort.

In the second place, as noted by the American correspondent, the indigenous Jews have shown little enthusiasm for the immigration of their brethren, which they neither request nor desire; and while waiting for the future to arrive and mature, they must divide and subdivide the current fruit of the land, which is enough for the natives, but insufficient if distributed among all.

May 8, 1921 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine: The Genesis of Serious Disorders”

We have already spoken of the recent visit of Sir Churchill in Palestine. But, for an ever better understanding of the situation and a correct evaluation of it, it is useful to add the following report ...

On April 19th, Sir Herbert Samuel, the British High Commissioner, who had gone to Egypt to meet this prominent guest, re-entered Jerusalem together with the English Minister.

The journey was marked by several significant aspects.

In Gaza, for example, approximately 20,000 demonstrators, having prepared a protest demonstration against the English Declaration, around the institution of the foyer Israelite in Palestine, offered the Minister an eloquent proof of the state of mind of the indignant population.

In Majdal and Battir the demonstration was repeated, and as news arrived that in Jerusalem something similar and perhaps more serious was being prepared, there was time to take rigorous measures to avoid such an explosion of incidents, although that did not diminish the significance and importance of the news.

All the same, as they arrived in Jerusalem, the Governor and the Minister received disturbing news from the provinces.

In Jaffa all the stores and offices were closed in observance of the protest, and dispatches in goodly number reported the exasperated spirit of the citizenry. Even the women of the city manifested in this way their thoughts to Mrs. Churchill, who accompanied her husband on the trip.

In Haifa there were also bloody conflicts with two dead and many injured.

It was after these events that the English Minister received the representatives of the indigenous population, or explained to them, in his opinion, that the Balfour Declaration was misunderstood, because it was not contrary to the interests of the population, whose rights were safeguarded in the interest of the well-being and prosperity of the Country (see Osservatore of May 1st).

Of course this pacifying word encountered some prejudiced minds. The intentions of the English Government, so well presented by Sir Churchill, contrasted with the events that took place during the preceding year or so, under the Zionist invasion, which was not sufficiently restrained and controlled to satisfy the basic terms of the Declaration.

The discontent still remained; and the impression remained that the intentions pursued by the leaders of the opposition to Zionism, during Churchill’s stay, had in reality failed.

As a result there were meetings, protests and demonstrations, in a widespread agitation, which some Bolshevik elements took as the occasion for the most serious rioting and uprisings. This is the genesis of the riots in Jaffa reported on May 2.

In fact, during a Bolshevik demonstration led by Russian Zionists, a real battle broke out between Muslims, Christians and Jews. The police were not able to stop it in time and thereby prevent the bloody aftermath. It was a dreadful day, during which the anger of the population overflowed into the gravest reprisals. Forty dead and many wounded were counted among the population and especially among the Jews.

Also in Jerusalem, similar provocations by Communist Jews erupted in bloody tumults.

The anti-Zionist agitation then culminated in demonstrations that were predictable to most people, but were apparently not expected by the optimistic authorities, who interpreted the growing indigenous opposition as the unjustified and futile working of a few agitators.

But it must be noted that the conflict now assumes an entirely new aspect. First, because the day of bloodshed ended to the disadvantage of the Jews, as it was caused by Semitic immigrants and by Bolshevik fanaticism. It is this poison of violence or rage that gradually, together with the general discontent, produces the most distressing effects.

Indeed, we have already noted that the greater part of the 10,000 Jews who entered Palestine in the past year under the patronage of the Israelite foyer came from Galicia and southern Russia. It is clear that numerous revolutionary elements, emissaries of that Russian Communism which is now identified with Judaism, were thus able to penetrate into the Holy Land, taking advantage of all the benefits of the Zionist organization, under whose umbrella they are preparing the revolution.

Of this preparation there is irrefutable and authoritative proof, in the numerous searches that have been conducted. Hundreds of revolutionary posters have been confiscated, which were designed to appeal to the Arab tribes of Palestine on the occasion of May 1. They were intended to produce a real Communist movement among the population, confirming that the Jewish immigrants were “the fighters of the revolution against the capitalists.”

Whether the population has seen in this a pretext for a Jewish coup to seize power, whether this is a glimpse of another serious facet of the Zionist peril, the fact is that this arose in its turn by taking the Semitic-Bolshevik provocation as an excuse for giving vent to their vendetta.

In the face of these tragic events, it is still not known precisely whether the revolutionary movement came about in agreement with the Zionist leaders, as we have seen Britain itself to suspect, as does the co-religionist of the Zionists himself, Sir Samuel, who is judged to be too cautious and prudent, or whether Zionism, in its mania of invasion, might be the only snake in the grass.

In any event, a more imperious blow could not be given to the Zionist movement, in the face of the domestic situation, as well as in the face of public opinion, world opinion and the program of the English Government.

May 30-31, 1921 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“Concerning a ‘Jewish Policy’ and a ‘Jewish Awakening’” from our correspondent in Paris, April 27

The French press, the exponent of prevalent opinion in our most influential political circles, has for some time been dealing with and denouncing a “Jewish peril” that is not lacking for documentation, not only as to its obvious existence as regards the destiny of the Middle East and Palestine, but also as regards European politics.

The danger here appears so precise and so vast that there is indeed talk of a “Jewish policy” that England would be forming and continuing under pressure from extremely influential Jewish elements...

And here we turn to the famous Protocols of the Elders, which would show the Jewish people the path to follow to become masters of the world, and the publication of which arouses all the anger and protests of Israel.

They were declared a fraud, they were held to be true: that has remained among the unsolved questions of literary history...

June 8, 1921 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“The Bavarian Minister President for the Holy Father and Cardinal Faulhaber” – from our special correspondent in Munich, dateline May.

The President of the Bavarian Ministerial Council, Mr. von Kahr, recently held an official banquet in honor of His Eminence Cardinal Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich-Freising, to celebrate his recent elevation to the Sacred Purple. Present among others were His Excellency Archbishop Pacelli, Apostolic Nuncio; Minister of Education Dr. Matt; His Excellency Baron von Ritter zu Groenesteyn, Bavarian Ambassador to the Holy See; and the Vicar General, Monsignor Buchberger. Mr. von Kahr gave a very important speech that we deem opportune to reproduce in its entirety, as a precious testimony paid by a Head of State to the beneficent work of the Holy Father and to the salutary influence of the Catholic religion in public life.

“The Acknowledgement of the Pope”

“May I be permitted,” said Mr. von Kahr, “first and foremost to remember with the most profound respect His Holiness the Pope and to express to Him most devoted and deeply felt gratitude for the new attestation of paternal benevolence that he recently chose to give the Catholics of Bavaria. Indeed His Eminence, Lord Cardinal von Faulhaber has had the goodness, on repeated occasions, to assure us that the most exalted dignity conferred on him must also be considered as a sign of the affectionate solicitude of the Holy Father for the Catholic population of Bavaria; indeed His Holiness himself has confirmed it to our Ministerial Council and most recently again in a most gracious letter addressed to me.

We all know perfectly well and with utmost gratitude the benevolent interest the Holy Father takes in our dear and now so sorely tried Bavaria, how great is the intelligence with which he judges the special circumstances and particular needs of our country. This is eloquently demonstrated by the fact, which I wanted to point out with particular gratitude, that we have the great joy and privilege to be able today to greet again in our midst His Excellency the revered Nuncio Archbishop Pacelli, who is also so solicitous of Bavarian interests, since the Holy Father, in acknowledgement of our special prayer, has consented that he, before his departure that would be so sorrowful for us, shall bring to a felicitous conclusion, as we trustingly hope, the important matters and difficult negotiations for the Bavarian Concordat.

“The Works of the Pontiff”...

Most Venerated Lord Nuncio, permit me to pray Your Excellency to place at the Feet of the Holy Father, toward Whose August Person we all elevate our gaze with most sincere veneration, our most lively and respectful return of thanks for the benevolence shown so many times and recently again toward Bavaria, and to convey our cordial and respectful wishes for His well-being and for the works He performs that are consecrated to the reconciliation and to the temporal and eternal good of peoples.

“Homage to Cardinal Faulhaber”

And then turning to His Eminence, he continued thus:

Reverend Lords, when the glad tidings spread through this Land that His Holiness the Pope wanted, in His goodness, to deign to elevate to the Sacred Purple the highly meritorious and most venerated Pastor of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, the hearts of all Catholics, not only of the Archdiocese but of all Bavaria, experienced the most vivid and intimate joy.

This joy fills the hearts of all those who were present in spirit at the august ceremony that was carried out in the supremely holy place in the Eternal City, and Your Eminence was able to see the solemn reception with which Munich celebrated your return.

Such joy and care are the effects of that love and veneration, which a people develop in a man, who in the most difficult times proved to be a true Pastor and a strong guide who led them to their goal in safety; they are the effect of the conviction that this highest of ecclesiastical honors could not be confided in a more worthy person.

Today, when we are gathered in this familial conference to honor Your Eminence, I can repeat the guarantee: The Bavarian State Government joins in the most cordial and sincere manner in the jubilation of the Catholic population. We see the Bavarian Episcopate represented anew in the Sacred College by an Eminent Personage not less for his gifts than for his works. As such, the personal honor deriving from the naming of Your Eminence as Cardinal acquires an extraordinary significance equally much for the Catholic population and for the Bavarian Government, which has a taste of being in union with the Authority of the Church in appreciating the high merit of religion and ecclesiastical life for the people and for the State...

June 11, 1921 Open letter from a Jewish citizen to Munich Police Chief Ernst Pöhner, published in the Berliner Tageblatt [Berlin Daily News] on June 11, 1921:

German-Völkisch excesses are, at the moment, the order of the day in Bavaria and especially in Munich ... In recent days, moreover, placards flaunting swastikas were displayed at all the street corners of Munich … Insofar as these placards made a demand for the exclusion of Jews from eligibility to vote, from the universities and from the press, such frills and phantasies may find their pathological motivation in the heat wave that set in unusually early in Bavaria this summer ... We are not unaware that the Bavarian Ministers of Commerce and Finance, in particular, are well informed of the seriousness and extent of this state of affairs, that the Ministerial Cabinet in recent days took up these matters once again, and that the Bavarian State Secretary of the Interior, Herr Dr. Schweyer, condemns to the utmost these excesses of antisemitic agitation at every opportunity that arises within the parliament and outside it. The leader of the Democratic Party, Dr. Dirr, has also just recently given resolute expression in the Landtag to the alarm of his party over the rabble-rousing character of the placards tolerated by the Directorate of the Munich Police. But the real political leaders of the Bavarian People’s Party, Herrs Held, Wohlmuth, Knilling, Giehrl, Stang etc., have until now maintained utter silence in the discussion of these matters, at least in the Landtag.

Source: Reprinted in Hans Lamm, ed., Von Juden in München [From Jews in Munich] (1958), pp. 306-309 (editor’s note states that this letter was written shortly before the assassination of Independent Socialist Gareis; Karl Gareis, the leader of the Independent Socialists in the Bavarian Landtag, was murdered on June 9, 1921).

June 13, 1921 Pope Benedict XV’s allocution to the Consistory of Cardinals:

There are two main reasons why for the second time this year We have called you together: to add illustrious prelates to your Sacred College and to give with full solemnity new Pastors to the widowed churches. But, following old custom, We wish first to speak to you on several important matters connected with the government of the Universal Church. You will certainly remember that in the Secret Consistory of March 10, 1919, We showed Our great anxiety regarding the trend of events following the war in Palestine, land so dear to Us, as to all Christians, because consecrated by the Divine Redeemer Himself in His mortal life. And now, far from diminishing, that anxiety is increasing every day. Indeed, if at that time We lamented the iniquitous activity in Palestine of non-Catholic sects which are pleased to glory in the name of Christian, to-day, too, We must repeat that lament, seeing how they are carrying on that work with even greater activity, themselves possessing abundant means and cleverly profiting by the misery in which the inhabitants of the country were plunged after the war. On Our side We have left nothing undone to assist those afflicted people, giving new impulse or new life to various charitable institutions, and We shall not cease to do so as long as the power remains in Us; but We are unable to give them help adequate to their needs for the special reason that out of the means given Us by Divine Providence We have to meet the cry of suffering that reaches the Apostolic See from every part of the world. Thus, to Our unutterable sorrow, We have to look on at the progressive spiritual ruin of souls beloved by Us, for whose salvation men of Apostolic zeal have worked, first among them the children of the Seraphic Patriarch of Assisi. And further, when by means of the Allied troops the Christians returned in possession of the Holy Places, with all Our heart We joined in the general rejoicing of all good men. But with Our joy was also the fear, expressed in the Consistorial Allocution alluded to above, lest as a consequence of that great and glorious event the Jews might attain a position of preponderance and privilege in Palestine. If We are to judge from the present condition of affairs what We feared has come to pass. It is well known, in fact, that the situation of the Christians in Palestine has not only not improved but has even become worse through new civil ordinances put in force there which tend – if not in the intentions of those responsible for them, certainly, however, in fact – to turn Christianity out of the positions it has occupied up to now and to put Jews in its place. And again We cannot but deplore the intense activity which is being shown by many to take away the sacred character of the Holy Places, transforming them into pleasure resorts with every worldly attraction. That is worthy of reproof everywhere, but above all in places where at every step the holiest memories of religion are encountered. However, inasmuch as the situation in Palestine is not yet definitely regulated, We now raise Our voice that, when the time comes to establish there a permanent condition of things, to the Catholic Church and to all Christians shall be assured the inalienable rights they hold. Certainly We have no desire that any damage shall be done to the rights of the Jewish element; what We mean is that they must in no way be put above the just rights of the Christians. And to this end We warmly urge all the Governments of Christian nations, even if not Catholic, to bring vigilant pressure to bear on the League of Nations which, it is commonly said, is to consider and adjudicate on the English Mandate in Palestine. If We turn Our eyes from Palestine to Europe, there, too, is seen an unhappy spectacle. Recent events, as you know well, Venerable Brethren, have shown all too clearly that disagreements and competitions between the peoples have not ceased, and that if indeed the flame of war has been almost quenched, the iniquitous spirit of it remains, nevertheless. Wherefore, renewing once again Our urgent appeal to all Heads of Governments of good will, We ask that by their counsel and instance they may bring about that the peoples, each and every one, may put aside enmity one to another, and after discussion in the spirit of Christian charity may resolve all such differences as still exist between them, and so may come to troubled Europe the peace which all long for. But, amidst so many great anxieties, the Divine Redeemer has still deigned to grant His Spouse the Church and His Vicar on Earth reasons for some consolation and comfort. You have seen, Venerable Brethren, immediately after the close of the terrible war, almost all the civil nations which had no diplomatic relations with Us hastening to Us of their own free will to put before Us their desire to have them, feeling sure that they would gain much advantage thereby. And We, faithful to the traditions of this Apostolic See and in conformity with Catholic teaching, which seeks agreement between the two powers for the common good of State and Church, willingly agreed to such desire, without, however, compromising any of those principles which are inviolable for Us. Even France, which for over sixteen years had been officially separated from the embrace of the Church, has desired to regain with the Vicar of Christ the position which she occupied for centuries, and her return has brought to Us and to all good men pleasure equal to the sorrow caused by her departure. And so what seemed a short time ago most unlikely, considering the unhappy conditions of the times, is now, thanks to Divine Providence, an accomplished fact: that is to say – where an unhappy condition of things does not exist as an obstacle to the necessary liberty and independence of the Roman Pontiff – nearly all the civil States of the world have diplomatic relations with this Apostolic See, and We pray to God fervently that this mutual co-operation may be in fact, as it should be by right, instrumental of all salutary prosperity for the Church and for the single States.

Source: The Tablet, June 25, 1921, vol. 138, pp. 821-822.

June 16, 1921 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“For the Pacification of Peoples”

Wherever the Holy Father’s allocutions at consistories have been reprinted in full or faithfully summarized, agreement or at least understanding of the elevated and serene thinking that predominates, and of the paternal charity that animates, is universally apparent.

Once again Benedict XV invoked pacification among peoples, in international and political competition as in bloody social conflicts; and for this he summoned the attention of the world – of those above all who have authority and power, to concretize our duties in the face of history and our responsibilities in the face of the greatest civil good – upon the difficult and threatening situation created in Palestine; upon disruptions even now severe and perilous in Europe; and upon diplomatic relations that the Holy See has been strengthening recently with almost all States.

The words of the Supreme Pontiff indeed insisted above all that conditions be created in the Holy Land for Christians, as for all the other indigenous population, not for religious antagonism, a concept so obviously beyond the effective measure and serene objectivity of language, but rather for the reaffirmation of those fundamental rights which, when violated upon any pretext and despite great rectitude of intention, deeply disturb, even more than interests, the soul and conscience of the people, and are a source of political and social disturbances that are too often irreparable.

In Palestine these fundamental rights, moral and religious rights above all, but also ethnic and political rights, exist indisputably yet are threatened with being subverted.

There exists a moral and religious right, to which the places consecrated to the life, preaching, death and resurrection of the Divine Savior are preserved for the grateful and perennial veneration of the Christian world, with every perfect guarantee that its conscience and its faith have claimed, and that no one ever has dared or ever would dare to disturb in favor of other lands, other places dear to other faiths less illustrious, less glorious, less worthy than Christianity, during twenty centuries of history, for humanity. And it is impossible in the new structure, in the new order of a region so great and yet so at hazard, that purportedly Christian Powers can forget the most grandiose event that mankind remembers and admires as the basis of redemption, not only spiritual and eternal, but also moral and social for the new civilization.

There exists an ethnic and political right, still, for Christians and Muslims in Palestine, deriving also for this land from their fathers, and never abandoned for other countries more vast or more rich or more fruitful: it exists for them just as much as for other peoples who have invoked – and not in vain – the ethnic and political principles that are the vaunted boast of the Treaty of Versailles, as the seal of the Great War, and as it were, at the beginning of a new era for just national aspirations, which were recognized elsewhere without trying to make such ancient claims – which would have the capacity, if admitted for all, to revolutionize the political geography of the world – valuable as against the current situations of fact and law.

After the bloody conflicts in the Holy Land that were recently the fatal consequence of unheard protests and unrestrained arrogance, the paternal admonition of the Head of Christianity not only appeared with a perhaps persuasive eloquence, but also corresponded exactly to the solicitous sentiments that pervade the entire Allocution; since peace returns finally to comfort all civilized nations – the old as well as the new...

June 18, 1921 Pacelli to Gasparri:

Re: Trip to Berlin – General Political Situation – Various Special Issues

Most Reverend Eminence,

As I had the honor to make known in my respectful Report No. 20867 of June 12, on Tuesday evening the 14th, in conformity with the authorization imparted to me by Your Most Reverend Eminence, I left Munich for Berlin, where I remained until this past Friday evening, in order to make contact with the new Reich Government. In a particular way, I had occasion to meet with Chancellor Wirth and with Foreign Minister Rosen.

The Chancellor, a native of Baden, a committed and practicing Catholic, is (so it is said) a friend of Erzberger and belongs to the left wing of the Center Party. Though sincerely professing Catholic principles, he is among those who in practice, especially in the field of social reforms, find ways to go as much as possible with the Socialists. Wirth aims thereby to attract to himself the Majority Socialist Democrats and to prevent them from uniting in a single bloc with the Independent Socialists and the Communists. He would indeed have wanted to give the Foreign Office portfolio to Mr. von Bergen, the Ambassador to the Holy See, or to Mr. von Rosenberg, German Ambassador to Vienna, but neither of them are disposed to accept. The current Foreign Minister, Mr. Rosen, whose appointment was supported by Reich President Ebert, has represented Germany until now at the Hague. Born in Jerusalem while his father was there as German Consul, he knows many Middle Eastern languages; his religion is Protestant, but he has a Hebrew wife; politically (as he himself told me) he does not belong to any party, but it is noteworthy that, while at first during the revolution he did not disdain the favors of the Kaiser, with whom he was in good favor, immediately after the advent of the new regime he allied himself closely with the Socialists. Reports that I have been able to gather from various sources concur in painting him as a man of little character, opportunistic and ambitious; with the courteous manners and experience of a career diplomat, he nevertheless does not appear to merit that personal trust that one could have in his predecessor Dr. Simons, who, despite his political and diplomatic deficiencies, was demonstrably and recognizably honest. The Interior Minister, Gradnauer, to whose ministry are also assigned the Concordat issues pertaining to the Reich, is Hebrew and Socialist, two qualities, in truth, little reassuring, and which would not recommend him well personally; nonetheless Mr. Wirth assured me that he is a fine, educated man and that, in his opinion, he will not create much future difficulty in the aforesaid issues.

Also a Hebrew is Reconstruction Minister Rathenau, notable for the discussions he had in recent days at Wiesbaden with French Minister Loucheur; he belongs to the Democratic Party and is said to be a man of value and very rich. Remaining in the Cabinet as Labor Minister is the priest Brauns. The current Government proposes sincerely, as I already reported in my obsequious Report No. 20616 of May 11th, to make every effort to fulfill the enormous commitments accepted by Germany in the ultimatum, be it in what concerns the reparations, or in what concerns disarmament; up to now it has held to its obligations, overcoming extremely serious difficulties, especially in the already initiated disarmament of the Bavarian citizen army*…

In addition to the general political situation, in the conversions I had with the Chancellor, the following points were touched upon:

1. On the issue of the Concordat, I repeated in substance the concepts already outlined in my earlier Report No. 20493 of May 2nd, especially in what concerns its possible repercussions in regard to ecclesiastical administration in the Saar District (this argument which has never failed to produce in the men of State of Germany a strong impression, and which therefore needs to be maintained intact in all its force).

2. Anticipating the instructions imparted by Your Eminence with the obsequious Dispatch No. 21845 of the 15th, which reached me this morning, I deplored the indiscretions occurring recently in the press, noting how damaging this is to Germany itself, which is losing the trust of those Powers possibly disposed to intervene in its favor. Mr. Wirth assured me that he will take the most particular care that such problems do not recur. As to the well-known Commission of Inquest, which would now have to continue examining documents concerning the action of the Holy See for peace in 1917, it has been arranged, thanks above all to the attentions of the excellent Reichstag Deputy, the Most Reverend Mons. Kaas, that it is postponing indefinitely the study of this point...

Finally, I had a discussion with Prussian Education Minister Dr. Becker about the difficult issue of the mutual relationships among the proposed Concordats for Bavaria, for the Reich and for Prussia; but on this I intend to report in its time to Your Eminence in a separate Report.

For now, humbly bowing to kiss the Sacred Purple ...

Source: www.Pacelli-Edition.de, Document No. 3773.

*Note: The Bavarian citizen army, or Einwohnerwehr, violated the Versailles Treaty limitations on German military numerical strength. Strong opposition to its dissolution was expressed privately by Pacelli as early as December 1919 and by Baron Cramer-Klett as early as October 1920.

June 18 to July 8, 1921 L’Osservatore Romano’s five “Zionism and Palestine” articles in a three-week period:

June 18, 1921, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine: New Disturbances” – from our special correspondent in Paris, June 15

It is reported from Cairo that the Egyptian press is publishing news of new disturbances in Palestine, provoked by the state of mind created among the indigenous Christian and Moslem population against Zionism, and exacerbated after the recent events that showed the evident sympathy of the supreme civil authorities for the Jews, combined with the uprising of Bolshevik Jews this past May.

It is noted that the response given by Sir Churchill, when he went through Jerusalem, to Christian and Moslem notables, constituted a serious disappointment for the National Committee ...

June 23, 1921, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine”

To continue the diligent documentation that our newspaper strives to produce, of the most interesting and, in many aspects, the most serious political events of the day involving Zionist activities in the Holy Land, we should not omit the lucid and concise article of Crispolto Crispolti, published in volume VII, issue XXXVI of the Rassegna Italiana, under the title: “The Danger of the ‘Jewish Nation’ in Palestine.”...

June 29, 1921, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine” – from our correspondent in Paris, June 25

The exalted words of the Holy Father on the conditions of Palestine have been able to add to the predominantly political character of the serious Middle Eastern problem, aspects of a religious and moral character that expand and raise the painful question – which is of interest to the whole Christian world.

The Palestine Government … has necessarily had to be convinced that the anti- Zionist conflict could not be regarded in Europe as only the result of religious antagonisms, nor as a simple reaction against the Bolshevik infiltration: and above all that none of them were in fact in Palestine.

In the last piece by our correspondent (see Osservatore of June 23rd) we took notice of the threatening ferment in the entire Land, and the most serious protests set off by new Jewish immigration, which the populations were preparing to prevent, even by force. The repercussions are clear in this article, issued, according to the Alif Ba of Damascus, around May 14th to the Palestinian press, which was brought to the attention of the Government and later to the daily papers in of all countries:

It has been announced to all the inhabitants that His Excellency the High Commissioner is currently in continuous negotiations with the Government of Great Britain in London for the resolution of some questions of import that concern the current social situation of Palestine and its prosperity...

According to La Bourse - a fine Jewish name – of Cairo, for example, the Pope’s mention of the profanation of the Holy Places was welcomed with irony because there is an assurance that...

And further: “the fact is that – if not like Mecca – at least like the Holy City of Rome, Jerusalem is beginning now to have lighted streets and practical, good inns, cafés and even cinemas.”

... on the good soil of the Holy Land, as we ourselves documented (see Osservatore Romano, February 25th) their program.

July 4-5, 1921, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine” – from our correspondent in Paris, July 2

While the Commission of Indigenous Delegates moves toward Europe to express directly to Governments …

To all this is added the ever more serious threat of Bolshevism that the indigenous residents consider an epidemic imported by the Zionist immigrants ...

Moussa Kazaiur Hosalny, President of the Anti-Zionist Executive Committee, has taken the occasion to say in recent days: We have continually warned the governments of the Allies of the fact that the Jewish immigrants are introducing and popularizing in Palestine the principles of Bolshevism ... Therefore we call for the stopping of immigration.

July 8, 1921, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine”

In its last issue, Echi e Commenti reported from the Al-Bachir of Beirut on June 14th:

“In a solemn conference that took place on the Mount of Olives, on the occasion of the anniversary of the coronation of King George, the High Commissioner of Palestine made important statements,” of which we call our readers’ attention to the following points:

The establishment of a national Jewish center means only that some Israelites are allowed to immigrate to Palestine, within limits consistent with the interests of the indigenous inhabitants, to give effective impetus to a healthy progress in their activity and with financial means available to them...

July 10, 1921 Pacelli to Pizzardo:

Re: His Eminence Cardinal Faulhaber and my trip to Switzerland of November 1918

His Eminence Signor Cardinal Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich, during his last stay in Rome to attend the Sacred Consistory, had occasion to hear some echoes of rumors, “contrary to truth,” as he expresses it, already circulating about my trip to Switzerland in the wake of November 1918, a trip I carried out in full conformity with the instructions imparted to me by His Eminence my Superior in encrypted cable No. 154 of the 13th of that same month. Returning to Munich, the aforesaid Cardinal Faulhaber, who “saw up close the singular events of that time,” wanted to put down in a written exposition, to be preserved in the Archive of this Nunciature, the truthful account of the selfsame events, of which he was an eyewitness. Of this his Expository Account, to which the greatness of his Authority gives particular importance, he delivered me three copies, all of them signed by him, and I allow myself to send one herewith enclosed to Your Reverend Excellency with the request to please arrange that it be included in the appropriate Files existing in the appropriate Archives of the Secretariat of State.

Eminence Faulhaber begins in the above-mentioned Expository Account by describing “the revolutionary terror, which, in those days of extreme tension and unending agitations, took on an ever more menacing aspect against the Church.” In this situation, he maintained that “the representative of the Holy Father had to not be exposed to the peril of maltreatment and outrages,” and it was therefore that on November 14 (since, in the execution of the order given me by His Eminence my Superior in the above-cited encrypted cable No. 154, I went to him to take counsel) he came back again to exhort me to leave Munich and go to Switzerland, indicating particularly Rorschach (or Menzingen) to me as a suitable place for my temporary stay. But that was not the only reason that led him to give me this counsel. The Hebrew Kurt Eisner, - remembers the same Eminence - “to consolidate his still uncertain position, changed tactics, and on November 20th tried by means of State Councilor von Lössl to enter into diplomatic relations with Archbishop Monsignor Pacelli, thus to give to the eyes of the Catholic population the appearance that the Apostolic Nuncio had recognized his government and legitimized the revolution. ” Cardinal Faulhaber states that “in those days a meeting of the Nuncio with Minister President Eisner could not have taken place without completely upsetting the mind of the people and that as a result “the Nuncio had to go away from Munich, in order to avoid any occasion of encountering Eisner.” Then, when Auditor Schioppa on the following January 18, 1919 asked him (at my instance) whether, in his opinion, the Nuncio could now return to Munich, he replied that “in the current state of things, Minister President Eisner would have sought anew to enter into official relations with Nuncio Pacelli, and the Bavarian Bishops would have seen in that a recognition of the revolutionary Government and a scandal for the entire Land … For the political-religious situation in Bavaria it would also have been fatal to have the simple appearance of official relations between the Foreign Ministry and the Nunciature.”

... Eminence Faulhaber recalls in this regard the aggression by armed force against the Nunciature and my own person on the 29th of the same month of April and adds (if I may be permitted, despite the tenor of his words, to quote them verbatim): “In an energetic and dignified way, the Nuncio protested against this violation of international law and gave proof of his personal intrepidity, of which only those could give an exact impression who personally experienced those days of most brutal abuse and most cruel terror, not indeed in other countries and tranquil times.” And finally, following other similar considerations, he concludes: “The entire Bavarian Episcopate is with me in agreeing that the conduct of our most venerated Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Monsignor Pacelli was solely guided by the highest ecclesiastical viewpoints.”

After this, with sentiments of profound obsequy …

Source: www.Pacelli-Edition.de, Document No. 4417.

Enclosed Declaration of Michael von Faulhaber:

July 7, 1921

A newspaper news item, contrary to the truth, and a casual remark about the matter in Rome, occasion the undersigned Archbishop of Munich to give the following declaration and presentation for the files of the Apostolic Nunciature. Already on November 11, 1918, thus already on the third day of the Revolution, I had asked, during a visit to the Nunciature of the Herr Apostolic Nuncio, His Excellency Archbishop Eugen Pacelli, in consideration of the entirely insecure situation, to go into Switzerland, or at least the Zangberg Cloister. The street terror of the Revolution had taken on an increasingly threatening posture against Church circles, and it was not foreseeable, in those days of unlimited tension and endless agitations, what the next day would bring. The first President of the new republic at that time, the Jew Kurt Eisner, had uttered the expression during the constituting of the new government (Friday, November 8th at 2 in the morning), in the Landtag building: “And now with all severity against the Pfaffen!”* and in the beginning had actually denied permission for communications with Rome in the old form of code. Thus one had to be ready for anything, and if indeed the Archbishop himself had to stay at his place and position, if only because officials were ever and again posing the question whether they are allowed to swear the oath to the new government and generally work with it, still the Representative of the Holy Father should not be exposed to the dangers of smears and abuse. Perhaps it characterizes the situation at the time if I mention that in the chaos of the public situation then prevailing, which almost every day threatened us with storming of rectories and cloisters, I imparted as Bishop a general dispensation from the enclosure, in the event of emergency, for the cloistered women. On November 14, 1918, I advised Herr Apostolic Nuncio anew to leave Munich for Switzerland, and thereby pointed to Menzingen or Rorschach.

A few days later the mood in the Foreign Ministry suddenly changed: Kurt Eisner realized that a position of open warfare against the Nuncio and clergy would inevitably inflame the Catholic people against his own government and now sought, through negotiations with the Apostolic Nunciature, to bolster his shaky government. On November 19th or 20th, he made the effort, through the mediation of State Councilor Lössl, to come into contact personally with Archbishop Pacelli, and thereby awaken in the eyes of the Catholic people the appearance that the Apostolic Nuncio had recognized the Eisner government and thereby legitimized the Revolution. The people's views swung about in those days, as from the 13th to the 14th of November King Ludwig III released officials and soldiers from their oath of allegiance and thereby had himself unintentionally furnished a building block for the solidifying of the new usurper government. Right at that time, on November 19th, the then Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs, Hoffmann, informed me through an intermediary that he awaited my visit. I declared to the intermediary that I wanted nothing to do with Hoffmann, an outspoken Kulturkämpfer** and hater of the Church. And yet much less could a meeting of the Apostolic Nuncio with Minister President Eisner have occurred in those days without completely confusing the minds of the people. In my opinion, Herr Nuncio must then leave Munich, in order to foreclose this opportunity of meeting personally with Eisner and not to confer on the Revolution the aura of the Apostolic See having quickly reconciled with the new circumstances. For whatever pastoral and institutional cases of necessity that might require recourse to the Holy Father, contact with Rome was preserved intact through Msgr. Schioppa, who remained in Munich.

On January 18, 1919, Msgr. Schioppa asked me whether I was of the view that Herr Nuncio could now travel back again from Switzerland to Munich. I had to answer: Under the current circumstances Minister President Eisner would immediately seek again to gain an official connection with Archbishop Pacelli, and the Bavarian Bishops would perceive in that connection a legitimization of the revolutionary government and scandal for the whole State. The Bavarian Bishops had in fact refused to hand over to the new government, without anything further, the previous royal prerogatives under the Concordat (for example in the appointment of pastors), and had therefore broken off negotiations with the government. For the political situation of the Church in Bavaria, it would have become fateful if only the appearance of official relations between the Foreign Ministry and the Nunciature had arisen at the time.

On April 29, 1919, the Nunciature building was invaded by a hoard of heavily armed soldiers, and Mons. Pacelli was ordered with pointed revolver and armed hand grenades to hand over his auto. In an energetic and dignified way, His Excellency protested against this violation of diplomatic law and gave proof of his personal intrepidity, of which one can give an impression only of those days of most brutal abuse and most cruel terror, not indeed in other countries and tranquil times. On May 13th the Nuncio informed me that owing to those incidents in the Nunciature he had twice received orders from his superiors to go into Switzerland. Obedience to this order came to him with great reluctance, and on May 17th he declared to me yet once again that he did not fear death, but that he must protect the authority of the Holy Father from profanation. Just as then, I must also still today in hindsight upon those circumstances, identify Archbishop Pacelli's travel to Switzerland as a diplomatic necessity in the interests of the authority and dignity of the Holy Father himself. I experienced that time, whose individual events can only be judged in the context of the whole situation, from the closest proximity, and the entire Bavarian episcopate is with me in the view that the conduct of our highly esteemed Herr Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Pacelli was guided solely by the highest ecclesiastical point of view.

Munich, July 7, 1921

+Michael Card. Faulhaber

Archbishop of Munich

Source: www.Pacelli-Edition.de, Document No. 7528.

*Note: Pfaffen is a contemptuous term for priests used by earlier German anti-clerical and anti-Catholic movements.

**Note: Kulturkämpfer, literally “culture warrior,” alludes to the time of the Kulturkampf, or “culture battle” in Germany against the Catholic Church in the 1870s, when Otto von Bismarck was Chancellor of the recently united German Reich.

Aug. 21, 1921 Münchener Katholische Kirchenzeitung, no. 34, p.213, on the “Black Shame”:

From World and Church: The “German Emergency League Against the Black Shame” has now published the first issue of its propaganda monthly “The Shame on the Rhine.” In eloquent and impressive words, it is shown therein how Europeans are endangered by the most frightful tropical diseases of all sorts through the occupation of European districts by colored soldiers, how white women and girls are infected with tropical syphilis and other serious venereal diseases, how white children are extremely endangered in their moral upbringing by the quartering of colored soldiers in homes of the citizenry, finally how the occupied districts are being mulatto-ized, and thereby conditions are being created whose consequences for the spiritual, cultural and physical life of the affected white nation are inconceivable. The next issue intends to await the complete officially announced details of the period from the beginning of March to the end of May 1921. – Rise up for the moral battle against the greatest shame for culture [Kulturschmach] of our century and perhaps of all time, brought about by the insane policy of hatred and the phrenetic sadism of the French nation!

Aug. 28, 1921 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“Ex-German Minister Erzberger Assassinated – Representative Dietz Wounded”

Dateline Berlin, August 26 – The Wolff Agency reports from Offenburg on Meno:

Former Finance Minister Erzberger, who was vacationing with his family at a spa in the Black Forest, was found murdered this morning in the forest on a path in Griesbach. The body bore the marks of 12 pistol shots.

The same Agency says that according to the investigation conducted by the police, Ex-Finance Minister Erzberger and Reichstag Representative Dietz were on a leisure walk in the Black Forest mountains when there were attacked by two young men of about 25 years of age.

Dietz was wounded and is currently at the Oppenau hospital. Erzberger was killed; on his body no signs of robbery were found.

On the killing of Erzberger the following details are reported: Erzberger was shot with several pistol shots in the chest and in the head. Investigative authorities went immediately to the scene of the crime; it is believed that robbery was not the motive of the attack.

“How the Crime Occurred” ...

“The Impression” – dateline Berlin, August 27 – In Catholic circles the news of Erzberger’s assassination has produced an enormous impression. Friends of the assassination victim say they believe the misdeed was the result of the violent hate campaign.

One of the Center Party leaders, Representative Fleissener, assured reporters that although in sectors of the Center Party itself Erzberger’s political direction was not completely approved nor shared, the crime today is deplored with all vigor. Opposition newspapers expressed nearly the same sense.

Commentary: We express our complete horror at the repetition of these savage bloody acts, the result of aberrations of political hatred, committed by men without faith and without piety.

The political work of Erzberger, considerable without doubt, has been variously assessed, according to partisan spirit or sympathy toward him as a politician or as a human figure. His activities as a parliamentary politician, as a polemicist, and especially as a writer provided reason for criticism and strong attacks because, even though he pursued noble ends, at times he presented facts and events as realities that were actually the fruit of his own personal judgments.

But his extraordinary activity, sustained by a gifted mind, will always remain in any event, even though he was lacking the thoughtful consideration and prudence necessary in a complete politician; there remain the unconditional attachment of his works and his heart to the fatherland and his fervent sincerity in the Catholic faith.

Aug. 27-28, 1921 Munich Post, page one:

“The Political Murder of Erzberger”

Even if we Social Democrats often stood in sharp opposition to Erzberger’s politics, we must nevertheless acknowledge that he was a political opponent who strictly avoided personal attacks in all disputes about substantive issues. A skillful debater, whose skill developed over the course of the years, he also had at his disposal, as a typical South German, a wealth of humor and wit ...

By authoring the Peace Resolution of July 1917, he brought upon himself the deadly hatred of the war instigators and warmongers ...

After the terrible collapse, Erzberger, who had become State Secretary and Reich Minister without Portfolio, was entrusted with the thankless task of conducting the Armistice negotiations as the representative of Germany. As thanks for his sincere efforts, he was branded as a “Traitor to the Fatherland” in contradiction of all historical truth. When the National Assembly, of which he was a member, formed the Reich Cabinet, Erzberger was appointed Reich Finance Minister...

Aug. 29-30, 1921 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“After the Assassination of Erzberger: Premeditated Assassination”

Dateline Berlin, August 28 – According to news arriving in the afternoon, it appears that the assassination of Erzberger was premeditated for a long time. In the town of Bennren in Württemberg, where Erzberger stayed for some time before going on vacation in Griesbach, a suspicious individual was seen whose features correspond to those of one of the attackers. At that time an assassination attempt was feared and there were also measures taken by the police.

“A Reward of One Hundred Thousand Marks” – dateline Berlin, August 27 – The Reich Government, on the theory that the assassination of Erzberger was a political assassination, has put up the sum of 100,000 Marks for the apprehension of the perpetrators or sponsors.

At the place of the crime, the Berlin police, responding to a request by the Baden State Government, have sent several squads of investigative agents with dogs to sniff and find a trail. It seems, however, that the rain that fell during the night made the dogs’ efforts useless. Various conjectures are being made: some connect the event with the recent release from prison of Ensign Ultwig Wirtelf, who tried to kill Erzberger at Weimar. According to other news reports from Griesbach, some gentlemen recount that in recent days two young men came up to them asking if Representative Erzberger was in the area. They received a response in the negative. Several days later the two were noticed on the paths of the countryside, arousing much attention. Mrs. Erzberger recounted that her husband was stalked by a young blond man. The lady expressed the desire that her husband be buried in the Willelmsdorf cemetery next to their two children who did during the War.

Two young men arrested last night were released, as they were not recognized by Representative Dietz.

Note: Carl Diez, a Center Party delegate and friend of Erzberger, was walking with him and was severely wounded by the assassins; twelve years later Diez was the only Center Party delegate who did not vote for the Enabling Act of 1933 that gave Hitler dictatorial power.

“The German Press Against Political Assassination”

Dateline Berlin, August 28 – The Forward, the newspaper of the majority Socialists, and the Freedom, the newspaper of the independent Socialists, made an appeal to the proletariat for a mass demonstration against political assassination on the occasion of the burial of Erzberger, which will take place on August 31.

The Freedom said these demonstrations will be the first step in building a united front of labor.

The Red Flag, the newspaper of the Communists, called for a mass demonstration today by the Communist Party at Potsdam, where the German Nationalist Party is planning a celebration of the anniversary of the Battle of Tannenberg.

The Potsdam prefect of police has prohibited all outdoor meetings.

“The Funeral” – dateline Oppenau, August 29 – Erzberger’s funeral was celebrated today in the presence of a considerable crowd. After the ceremony, the body was brought back to the Oppenau hospital, from which it will be transported to Biberach in Württemberg, where the burial will take place on Wednesday.

Sept. 9, 1921 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“After the Assassination of Erzberger: Numerous Arrests”

Dateline Berlin, Sept. 1 – The police are following various leads and have already made more than 50 arrests of young persons who are characterized by the misfortune of looking more or less remotely like those who are reportedly killers of Erzberger. In most of the cases they had to release them.

“Have the Assassins Taken Refuge Abroad?”

Dateline Karlsruhe, Sept. 1 – The editors of the Baden Press have received from Gossensass [on the Austria-Italy border at the Brenner Pass] a postcard with the following writing:

“Not wanting to create useless difficulties for the authorities, we are telling you that we have the Brenner Pass behind us. So that Oppenau and Griesbach [near where Erzberger was murdered] can calm down, and so that all those can be set free who have been arrested. You are free to make use of this postcard as you think best.”

The postcard was immediately sent to the Prosecutor to confirm if it truly was from the assassins of Erzberger or was a falsification...

Sept. 12-13, 1921 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine” – dateline Paris, Sept. 9

As opposed to the discussions and votes published from the Zionist Congress, one can contrast the publication by the Damascus Alif Ba of the statements that Kazem Pascia, head of the Arab Delegation of Palestine in Europe, made to the press during his voyage from Alexandria, Egypt.

We were chosen and sent to London to demand in the name of our country the abolition of the Balfour promise and the satisfaction of many other aspirations of a people who are struggling to avoid having our country taken away from us.

During the War Britain enlisted the Arabs in the struggle against the Turks, who were also their co-religionists, and promised King Hussein the establishment of a well-founded Arab kingdom. Afterwards they also made the famous Balfour promise to the Jews. Of these two promises, the first was just, but the second was not at all just, and thus was not realizable.

Palestine is our land; we have received it from our forefathers and we must hand it on to our posterity, and it is not the business of any power to interfere in the affairs of this our hereditary possession through the centuries. And if the Jews had some right over Palestine, they should have asserted it several hundred years ago. Kazem Jascia then said: We have suffered a bitter illusion. We rebelled against Turkey but fell into the hands of Jewish immigrants from Russia, from Poland, and from other countries imbued with the spirit of Bolshevism. They have occupied the most important offices and imposed laws and levies on the people. Indeed new offices have been established with exorbitant stipends and entrusted to Israelites ...

The people have reposed confidence in us and have entrusted us with the mission of making the strongest efforts to revoke the promise of Balfour, abolish the idea of a national Jewish center, and suspend Zionist immigration ...

“The Zionist Congress and the British Government” – dateline Carlsbad [Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia], Sept. 11 –

The British Government has sent the President of the Zionist Congress the following telegram:

We are pleased to transmit to the Zionist Congress the cordial best wishes of the Government ...

“Britain and Ireland” – The Stefani Agency reports from London: The evening newspapers report that according to the latest news from Dublin, it can now be affirmed that the representatives of the Dail Eireann [Irish parliament] are meeting with the British delegates to the conference ...

Note: Sergio Minerbi, in The Vatican and Zionism (1990), pp. 158-159, says the British Government was alarmed by a threat that the Vatican would take action in favor of Irish independence if Britain gave the Jews a monopoly of power in the Holy Land. Minerbi quotes from an Italian newspaper in which the threat appeared from an anonymous Vatican-connected source on Sept. 29, 1921. Minerbi cites documents from the British Foreign Office showing the impact of the threat. The Vatican categorically denied the accuracy of the Italian newspaper article.

Oct. 15, 1921 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine” – from our correspondent in London

His Eminence Cardinal Bourne recently had the occasion to express his authoritative thoughts on the question of Zionism. He indeed set forth in a speech, which is well worth reproducing verbatim, his own ideas about the facts and events that show how wise and to the point have been the counsels and opinions he expressed some time ago.

“I have not had the occasion, during the past year, to speak to a Catholic assembly like this one; permit me therefore to enter into an important argument. Those of you who took part in the great Catholic Congress that was held with marvelous success last year in Liverpool under the presidency of the late Archbishop of that place, of sacred memory, will remember that in one part of my speech I spoke of the question of the Holy Places of Palestine. I took great care to limit my remarks and not speak everything I knew. I tried, and I believe I succeeded, to stick strictly to the established facts; and I mentioned the fears that these facts have aroused, not only in Britain but throughout the Christian world.

“One year later, my thoughts return to that speech, and I believe I have every right to say that what I said then has been perfectly confirmed by what has happened, not indeed because I want to agitate public opinion in any way on this matter; but because I am of the opinion that this question should be constantly and clearly presented to the minds of all Catholics, just as to all Englishmen.

“During the War, at a rather critical time, Mr. Balfour made a promise of which he did not take full account, I believe. For this promise he had the approval of the Cabinet. But I cannot arrive at the belief that the Government had attentively considered this promise, that is as to its consequences – not only possibly – but probably.

“This promise was that the Jewish people, led by those who call themselves Zionists, would possess ‘a’ or ‘the’ land in Palestine.

“This promise could have various meanings; and on this basis the Zionists have continually demanded to have in Palestine their fatherland, in the sense of a Jewish State.

“The import of this promise was rather diminished by Mr. Winston Churchill, who on the occasion of his trip to Jerusalem, gave assurances that everything that had been said had this meaning, that the natives of the Holy Land would have possession of ‘a’ country in Palestine.

“But whether the meaning was to give them their true home in Palestine, or whether it was only to concede them simply a little colony, it is perfectly certain that this promise existed in reality and that, even if restricted in its scope, it will need to be retracted, if there is not to be a bloodbath.

“The other day I received the visit of the Delegation of Palestine (Moslem), which spoke to me extensively in a moderate way, even while they were using plenty strong language when I was in Jerusalem two years ago. You must take into account that of the population of the Holy Land, the portion that is of the Jewish race is much smaller than the Arab population that is majority Moslem and in part Christian.

“I ask all of you to consider very attentively this question; because this could bring incalculable harm to the name of Britain in all the other countries; and because it would require – and on this political question I have no intent to give any personal opinion – the maintenance in Palestine of a British garrison as an enormous imposition upon the taxpayers of this country.

“I do not believe that the British people are disposed to throw away their own money to establish in Palestine a Jewish State...

“For my part, I want to reaffirm now what I said last year. What I knew then – or rather what was then already apparent – has been verified in all its reality. We are encountering terrible difficulties in Palestine, and Britain will have the gravest difficulties with all the Christian countries, if this question is not decided to their common satisfaction.

“It would be a grave insult to the conscience of all of Christianity if the Holy Land, torn out of the hands of the faithful today by the work of British soldiers, were to be placed under the dominion of those who have renounced the name of Christ.

“Everyone knows very well that I have absolutely no antisemitic sentiments: I have never spoken a single word against the Jews as such. In love I have publicly defended them and demanded for them just treatment with equality. But I am certain that if this question of Zionism is not resolved in a just and equitable manner for all the population of Palestine, which in its great majority is not Jewish, we will have terrible disorders as a result.”

His Eminence the Archbishop of Westminster had occasion to repeat these thoughts when speaking to the Palestinian Delegation in London, who had come to defend their own land in the face of the Government and public opinion.

... His Eminence recalled to the Delegation the speech he gave in Liverpool upon returning from the Holy Land in 1919 and expressed his sympathy for the Arabs concerning the current difficulties in Palestine, and expressed his regret that the Commission nominated to investigate the question of the Holy Places had not yet been able to complete its work.

“Respect for the Church in British Legislation” – our correspondent – dateline Ottawa, September

The theme of respect for the House of God by Britain and all States and colonies among its dependencies, was the aim of the legislative provisions that “the buildings of the church, dedicated or consecrated to divine worship, are considered personal property of God, and thus exempted from taxes of all sorts and possess the right to a special reverence.”

And at this point in time, the law turned out to be very opportune, since for several years the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Vancouver has been threatened with being put up for public auction because the Catholic Archbishop refused to pay the taxes that the Victoria authorities had assessed on the cathedral itself.

In recent days a decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the supreme tribunal of the British Empire, prohibited the sale precisely on the grounds of the above-mentioned legislative provision.

Oct. 28, 1921 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine: The Hebrew University” – our correspondent – dateline Paris, October 25

The national Jewish Home, this ambiguous phrase of the now famous Balfour Declaration, which could mean simply a center of propaganda and culture, or – if it succeeds – an Israelite State, has always had among its programmatic cornerstones a higher institute of studies, a University of Jerusalem, owned by Jerusalem, which can become the beacon of thought and wisdom of the more or less direct and legitimate descendants of Solomon.

Also here, nonetheless, also in this initiative Zionism presents itself as highly concerned about the cultural conditions of Palestine, and generously disposed to provide, for the benefit of all the races coexisting without religious prejudice.

But today, three years after the University of Jerusalem took its first steps, one can easily evaluate the new evidence of this altruistic Zionist fairness that adorns, at least at the beginning, all its reforms and all its institutions. We quote the Beyt-ul-Makdes of Jerusalem:

“The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, founded in 1918, will be, with the assistance of American Zionists, at the same level as the great European and American universities, adopting, as it will, more recent methods that contemporary progress has produced. The three faculties of natural science, medicine, and Jewish studies will be the first ones established.

“The university aims especially to be useful to the Palestinian population and in general to give a major contribution to the progress of science and the arts.

“The most illustrious professors of the Zionist world will be called to teach, and lessons will be conducted in the Hebrew language.

“The University, however, will not take on any religious character.”

Nov. 13, 1921 Bonaventura Cerretti, Vatican Nuncio to France, to Cardinal Gasparri:

Re: Separatist Movement in Bavaria

Most Reverend Eminence,

Equipped with a letter of introduction from Baron Cramer-Klett, Professor Fuchs [a/k/a Sachs], a Bavarian, introduced himself to me, accompanied by one of his friends and by a high official of the French administration in the Saar District.

I consider it opportune, first of all, to transcribe the substantial part of the letter itself: “Professor Fuchs, who has gone to Paris at the invitation of the French Government, would like to inform Your Most Reverend Excellency about some Bavarian-German proposals and beseech Your Excellency to forward this most important information to the Holy See. As the ideas presented by him are for the greatest part ideas not only of the Bavarian people, but also of the German people, who fear the destructive and fatal influence of Judaism of Masonic-Bolshevik Berlin, may I allow myself to introduce him to Your Excellency, humbly beseeching you to receive him well, assuring you that his supporters are serious and good people. I personally see in these proposals a matter of indescribable importance for German Catholicism.”

Prof. Fuchs began by saying that Bavaria can no longer tolerate union with Germany, especially with Prussia. All the ills that Bavaria currently suffers are due to this union. Catholicism in particular is gravely threatened by it. A movement is therefore outlined that tends to separate Bavaria from the Reich and to form a powerful new Catholic State that would include Bavaria, the German Tyrol, the Rhineland provinces and perhaps also Austria.

At the head of this movement, latent for now, are men of value and of totally proven patriotism. “We desire,” he concluded, “that all of this be known to the Holy See and that it counsel the Bavarian Episcopate not to hinder this movement.” After Prof. Fuchs, the Frenchman began to speak, whose name I did not understand well when he was introduced. He was compelled to say that he came as a friend of the aforesaid Professor and without any official character. “I accompanied him,” he added, “to assist him in conversation, because he is not very expert in the French language.” Then he developed more fully the concepts expressed by Fuchs, affirming that in his continuing trips in Bavaria he has experienced everywhere this state of mind, that the separation between Protestants and Catholics in Germany is most profound, and that the formation of a Catholic State mentioned above, in the center of Europe, would save Europe itself.

Responding, I first of all made the observation to my two interlocutors that I did not know how to explain why they had turned to me to break this news to the Holy See, that in Munich there is a Nuncio, and they could have turned to him, not to me.

“The Nuncio of Munich,” observed Prof. Fuchs, “is accredited also to the German Reich, and therefore we believed it opportune not to entrust this to him.”

As to the merit, then, of the proposal, and as to any sort of intervention by the Holy See, I said it is my personal opinion that the Holy See would abstain from putting in a word to the Bishops, and from giving them instructions, no matter from what source such requests were made to it. “This is a merely political question,” I added, “which concerns exclusively the interested parties. Therefore I cannot make myself your spokesman to the Holy See.”

In being dismissed, Prof. Fuchs said that very soon Baron Cramer-Klett would be coming to Rome and would expound to the Holy Father what I have reported above. This is also why I have deemed it opportune to bring this to Your Eminence.

Bowing to kiss the Sacred Purple ...

Source: www.Pacelli-Edition.de, Document No. 3298.

Nov. 16, 1921 Pacelli to Gasparri:

November 16, 1921 Pacelli to Gasparri Re: Trip to Berlin – Political situation in Germany – Negotiations for a Concordat with the Reich

The political situation in Germany is currently going through a rather critical period.

The former Wirth Cabinet (as I predicted to Your Reverend Eminence in my respectful encrypted cable no. 397 of October 12th) resigned as a result of the unfavorable decision concerning Upper Silesia. The Chancellor had in fact justified, in the face of public opinion, his so-called “fulfillment policy” toward the burdens imposed by the London ultimatum, by the consideration that in this way Germany would succeed in preserving this important territory. For many deputies this was the only reason they had voted in favor of accepting this ultimatum. “Save Upper Silesia by means of a faithful policy of fulfillment however extreme”: this was the thinking that guided the Chancellor in the development of his policy. The hopes thus aroused in the German people, perhaps not very prudently, were bitterly disappointed by the decision in Geneva, which the English Ambassador to Berlin, Lord Abernon, did not hesitate to characterize, in speaking to me, as an “injustice” to Germany. Chancellor Wirth, who had repeatedly announced that he would resign in case of such an unfavorable outcome, thus had no alternative but to resign.

The Center Party then thought it would be possible to form, in place of the former, a larger coalition, which would thus include also the German People’s Party (Deutsche Volkspartei). The negotiations initiated in that regard were already rather far advanced when an unexpected breach arose because of the insuperable resistance that the leaders of the German People’s Party encountered among their delegation. This party then decided to reject the execution of the Geneva decision; the Democrats and the Bavarian People’s Party took the same position, while the Center Party and the Socialists remained the only ones disposed to consent to the sending of a Commission for negotiations about Upper Silesia. In this way the situation became extremely complicated. A Cabinet of the right was impossible for obvious reasons of foreign policy; the Center Party had announced itself against a coalition with only the Socialists, and these for their part rejected the proposal to form a Cabinet Ministry by themselves. The Reich President, who had threatened to resign if faced with such a situation, which seemed to have no way out and was an all the more critical situation by the fact that there were only two days left before the date set by the Entente for the naming of the aforesaid Commission, ended by turning anew to Wirth, imploring him to form a Cabinet that could at least provisionally see out the completion of business, since it was not possible to form a Government on a larger base. Wirth accepted, and faced with the gravity of the hour, the Center Party delegation did not dare to oppose. Thus was born the new Cabinet Ministry, composed of four members of the Center Party (Wirth as Chancellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs; Hermes as commissary and provisional finance minister; Fr. Brauns for labor; Giesberts for post) and of four Majority Socialists (Bauer as Vice Chancellor and Treasury Minister; Köster = Interior; Schmidt = Economics; Radbruch = Justice). The Democrat Gessler has remained Minister of Defense, even though his party has exited the coalition.

This solution has drawn even more upon the Center Party the opposition of the parties of the right; and Catholics of nationalist tendency and thus against the policy of submission before the Entente followed by Wirth and the Center Party itself, are distancing themselves in ever greater numbers and going to increase the ranks of the German Nationalists and the German People’s Party, in which the Protestant spirit reigns. If things should continue in this way, it would make for a rather dangerous period of a lasting schism among German Catholics, and the strength of the Center Party could collapse with incalculable consequences for the interests of the Church in Germany.

Shortly thereafter crisis came also upon the Prussian Cabinet with the resignation of Minister President Stegerwald, who is a Center Party deputy. At the head of the new Cabinet Ministry, composed of the Socialists, the Center Party, the Democrats and the German People’s Party, is the Socialist Braun. The Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs is Dr. Bölitz, director of the gymnasium in Soest and belonging to the German People’s Party. He has been proudly associated with various Socialist and Democratic organs, which attribute reactionary tendencies to him, and some Center Party newspapers also accuse him of intolerance toward Catholics. Certainly the current Government in Prussia represents, compared to its predecessor, a notable worsening as regards the Church. The former Minister Dr. Becker has returned as State Secretary in the same Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs.

After the colloquy Your Reverend Eminence had with the German Ambassador on the issue of the request to name an Apostolic Administrator in the Saar District (Dispatch No. 27237 of the 8th of this month), a colloquy that did not fail to produce the desired impression, I was made aware that in Berlin there was a desire to speak to me as soon as possible. I therefore left without delay for the Capital, in conformity with the authorization imparted to me by Your Eminence, and on the morning of the 11th I was received by the Chancellor. He described to me first of all the very grave and so to speak somewhat desperate financial situation of Germany and then, after having mentioned the aforesaid issue of the Saar District, expressed to me his desire that there be initiated, without the slightest delay, negotiations for a Concordat with the Reich. This request he renewed the following day and then also by writing a letter dated the 14th of this month, a copy of which I have the honor to enclose herewith for Your Eminence, together with the Italian translation. (Enclosures I and II) Although for multiple reasons already noted to Your Eminence, it would have been preferable that the negotiations be commenced only after concluding the Bavarian Concordat, it seemed to me nonetheless, all things considered, impossible to reject such a request; and thus, by the Note of the following day, the 15th, which I likewise carry out my duty to enclose herewith in German text and Italian translation (Enclosures III and IV), and in which I took care to include, for good effect, the explicit clause “reserving possible future modifications and additions,” I sent Dr. With the points containing the desires of the Holy See in this regard. These points were prepared by me, as You will undoubtedly recall, taking into account the preferences expressed by the Fulda Bishops Conference in March of this year in Rome, where they met with the approbation of the Holy Father and Your Eminence. As a result of discussions I had with competent personages and of some observations put forward by His Eminence Cardinal Bertram, there were some modifications introduced little by little, but only of a secondary order, and, as to what concerns the Theological Faculties and the school question, I substituted for the original edition the new formula adopted for Bavaria (cf. Report No. 17896 of September 11, 1920 and No. 20850 of June 8, 1921, and Dispatches No. 13174 of November 24, 1920 and No. 21860 of June 21, 1921). Finally on the 12th of this month, by the express desire of the Chancellor, the same points were discussed confidentially in my presence in a long session, participating in which were His Excellency Mr. Spahn, Reichstag deputy and former Justice Minister in Prussia; Dr. Porsch, Vice President of the Prussian Landtag and Head of the Center Party delegation in that Landtag; Mr. Marx, Privy Councilor, Head of the Center Party delegation in the Reichstag, President of the pro-Schola organization of the Volksverein; and Rev. Msgr. Kaas, Professor of Canon Law in Trier and a deputy in the Reichstag. Some wise modifications, suggested during the discussion, were added by me into the definitive text, which Your Eminence will find, also translated into Italian, in Enclosures V and VI. It is also noteworthy that the points under discussion represented the complete matter proposed by the Holy See for the negotiations; nevertheless a further examination of them will show which of them can be included in a Reich Concordat, and which instead, under the norms of the German Constitution, will have to be left to eventual later Concordats or particular agreements with individual States.

By the immediate commencement of Concordat negotiations, the Reich Government obviously wanted to remove the feared danger of the naming of an Apostolic Administrator for the Saar. If this Government can indeed be kept under the pressure of current events, it would be disposed at the present moment not unfavorably in regard to concluding a Concordat, whose necessity for imperative political reasons is recognized not only by the Catholic Chancellor Dr. Wirth, but also by the Socialist Interior Minister Dr. Köster, with whom I had occasion to talk. These dispositions of the Reich Government will encounter, however, as can be foreseen, rather strong opposition in many of the individual States, which must give their approval in the Reich Council to this proposal, and above all in Prussia, which, according to what I have already mentioned in my obsequious Report No. 22173 of this October 27th, is opposed in principle to including the school question in the Concordat. For my part, I have not failed to make clearly understood on all occasions that, to the extent this point were to remain excluded, the Holy See would no longer have, if it can be said, any interest in agreeing to such a Concordat and thus it cannot be seen how it could be induced to consent to it; the Government, however, would then naturally have to suffer the inevitable consequences of such a state of affairs, created by its own position.

To complicate still further the already difficult and complicated situation, there is also the question of the relationship between the Bavarian Concordat and that for the Reich. As indeed Your Eminence will undoubtedly recall, in November last year I succeeded without effort in obtaining from then Minister of Foreign Affairs in Berlin, Dr. Simons, a written communication, in which he declared having nothing against the continuing to a conclusion of the negotiations for the Bavarian Concordat, and moreover that this would not concern later laws of the Reich (Report No. 18532 of November 14, 1920). That however aroused the jealousy of the Prussian Government, which (as a further result of the letter sent to me by date of June 21st this year by then Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs Dr. Becker, and that I have the honor also to enclose here with the corresponding Italian translation (Enclosures VII and VIII), repeatedly requested that the Bavarian Concordat also would remain included in the general one for the Reich, adding that, if Bavaria would instead have to have a concordat entirely separate and independent, Prussia would also claim for itself the same right. It is clear, then,, that in the event an entirely separate and independent Concordat were stipulated, then Prussia would claim for itself the same right. It is also clear that in the event a separate Concordat were stipulated also for Prussia, there would only remain little or no hope of concluding a Concordat for the Reich, since in the remainder of the States (in many of which the Socialists and Protestants dominate), it would not be possible to assemble a favorable majority, and thus it would no longer be possible (and this would be a grave misfortune) for the Catholics of the Diaspora to come to help in this way. Despite these non-negligible difficulties, I have always striven up to now to maintain the point of view of a separate Concordat with Bavaria, whether because a renunciation or yielding in this matter would cause (at least so far as I could confirm) strong disappointment among the the Bavarian Catholics and Bishops, or whether above all because such has seemed to me to be the will of the Holy See (for example, in Dispatch No. 20766 of May 20, 1921 it speaks explicitly of a “Concordat that is hoped to be concluded between Germany – excluding Bavaria – and the Holy See”), a desire represented, so to speak, tangibly by the maintenance of the Munich Nunciature. The Berlin Government, which feels discomfort in connection with the aforesaid statement of Dr. Simons, and would long for a Concordat for the Reich including also Bavaria, has not failed to indicate to be in recent days such a desire, moreover emphasizing that the obstacles to the conclusion of the aforesaid Concordat would multiply; but I have avoided giving them reason to hope on this point. The Chancellor has benefited also from the nearly contemporaneous presence in the Capital of the Bavarian Minister President, Count von Lerchenfeld, to discuss the delicate issue, without however coming to a solution; in this way the negotiations for the Concordat with Bavaria, in conformity to the oft-mentioned statement, will continue meanwhile as the most important.

In the meantime, another issue has arisen, which, as has been confirmed to me, worries the German Government no less than that of the Saar District, and can thus represent in the hands of the Holy See a new effective weapon for the concordat negotiations with the Reich: that is to say the ordering of ecclesiastical administration in the eastern territories lost to Germany, and in particular in the Free State of Danzig and in the part of Upper Silesia awarded to Poland. On this last point, Reich President Ebert as well as Chancellor Dr. Wirth have already asked me warmly to interest the Holy See; moreover, the German Embassy, as has been reported to me, will soon present proposals about this to Your Eminence. Now, in the judgment of competent persons, to exert pressure on the Prussian Government and seek to overcome its resistance, especially toward the inclusion of the school question in the Concordat, it would be of great importance if the Holy See – naturally without giving for now a formal promise, which would immediately remove from the weapon all its effectiveness – would nonetheless give in some way the impression of benevolent dispositions in this regard, in the event of a happy result in the concordat negotiations. Allow me therefore, subordinately, to call in this way, upon this rather important point, the superior attention of Your Eminence. After which, humbling bowing ...

Source: www.Pacelli-Edition.de, Dokt 10433

Dec. 9, 1921 Pacelli to Gasparri:

I have received the obsequious Dispatch No. 28059 dated November 25th, the subsequent Personal Letter from Your Reverend Eminence of November 29th, and finally, today, the other also personal one of December 4th, concerning the question of the Relationships between the future Bavarian Concordat and the Concordat for the Reich. In obedience to the orders from Your Eminence and in response to these proposals, I am carrying out my duty of submitting to Your superior judgment the following considerations:

The greater part of the Bavarian population – with the exception, that is, of the Socialists and in some sense also the Democrats – are federalist, which is to say that, while wanting to remain German and continue to be part of the German Reich, they are tenaciously attached to their particular rights. The unitary and centralizing tendencies that have dominated in the Weimar National Assembly and the Government in Berlin, and which have caused for Bavaria the loss of many of its aforesaid rights, have provoked strong discontent in the Bavarian people and have exacerbated their traditional antagonism toward North Germany. The crisis became even more acute, when Bavaria, having emerged from the revolutionary period, decisively oriented herself toward the establishment of a purely bourgeois Cabinet Ministry, presided over by Mr. von Kahr, while the various Reich Cabinets up to the current one have always been more distinctly republican and left-wing. Despite that, the Bavarian population is not currently thinking of separating from the Reich, all the more since such a separation would clash, in the common judgment, against insurmountable political and economic difficulties. In one case, however, such a separation would come to pass, that being if in northern Germany revolutionary and Bolshevik tendencies were to end up taking hold. Such a hypothesis is not entirely improbable in the near future. From various parties it has been recently reported to me, in truth, that serious agitations are expected in Berlin, and, what is more, Chancellor Wirth, who indeed being rather left-wing and until now seeing only the danger of agitation by the reactionary and monarchist elements, revealed to me instead, to my surprise, on the evening of December 1st, his concerns and fears about revolutionary movements of the left. Even in that case, nonetheless, the separation would only be provisional, for as long as a Bolshevik or Bolshevizing Government were to last there. This is undoubtedly the sentiment of the mass of the Bavarian population. In this regard it is also noteworthy that particularist sentiments are rather more pronounced in the south than in the north of Bavaria, and this difference is revealed in the Episcopate itself, in which, for example, the current Archbishop of Bamberg is less disfavorable to Berlin than the Archbishop of Munich. Alongside these varying federalist sentiments, there are then the separatist aspirations, represented more or less covertly by a rather small group composed of elements of the right, and this tendency, which up to now cannot be properly called a “movement,” has become all the more intense in consequence of the forced suppression of the exceptional status of Bavaria and the subsequent resignation of Minister President von Kahr (Report No. 21936 of October 3, 1921). The Most Eminent Archbishop here confided to me one day that the (former hereditary) Prince Rupprecht two times in the past had affirmed to him that Bavaria cannot be separated from the Reich, but at the end of September, after the fall of von Kahr (on whom many were counting for a future restoration of the monarchy), Baron Cramer-Klett presented himself to him one evening to indicate himself, at the charge of the aforementioned Prince, to be at this time in favor of separation. His Eminence maintained a reserved attitude and limited himself to taking notice of the communication.

Given this, it does not seem to me that, at least for now, the separate Concordat for Bavaria would be or appear in Germany as a step and a push toward the aforesaid separation, or that it could thus expose the Church to the consequences justly highlighted and feared by Your Eminence. – In fact, 1st) The Concordat under consideration need not contain provisions contrary to the Reich Constitution, and in this regard, before it is submitted to the Bavarian Landtag, the Central Government in Berlin has the right to examine it (Report No. 18532 of November 14, 1920). This implies a positive recognition that Bavaria is part of the Reich and an explicit negation of the separatist principle. And in fact the Education Minister in Bavaria, Dr. Matt, in a letter of August 26, 1920, by which he commenced his responses to the points for the Bavarian Concordat (Report No. 17896 of September 11, 1920), expressed himself thus: “First of all, allow me to call to mind a principle that I have always emphasized in our repeated discussions. Bavaria is part of the German Reich, and as such wants and is required to respect and apply the current Constitution and legislation of Germany. A new accord between the Holy See and Bavaria must thus remain within the limits set for the Bavarian Republic by the Constitution and legislation of the Reich. Therefore any type of formula or expression that would constitute inadmissible modifications or additions to the legislative provisions of the Reich must be avoided.” 2nd) The separate Concordat is undoubtedly an affirmation of federalism, and is therefore so strongly desired by Bavaria that it sees in it an exercise of its (now rather reduced) state rights; but no one in Germany who I know would interpret this as a step toward separation. Even in Berlin, nothing like that has been said to me up to now. The reasons that the Reich Government would want Bavaria also to be included in a Concordat for all Germany (apart from its own particular Agreement), are, so far as I am aware, both its centralizing tendencies and the reason I will express as follows. – I said however: at least for now; since, if subsequently during the negotiations new unforeseen events were to place the unity of Germany in peril, or (what is unlikely) a serious separatist movement were truly to appear in Bavaria, or if indeed the rash actions of Prof. Sachs came to be publicly known (a person, moreover, so far as I have been able to determine up to now, who is unknown here in Munich in Catholic circles), perhaps the situation could change and the separate Concordat rather probably could take on, especially in the eyes of the Socialists and the Democrats, the appearance of a stimulus in those directions. Then indeed the Holy See could eventually find a necessity to retreat from such an idea.

But there is furthermore, in my humble opinion, a way to make the Church henceforth secure from all suspicion: for the future as well. – In this regard, it is my duty to report to Your Eminence that, after the Reich Concordat negotiations began in Berlin (Report No. 22353 on November 16th), I was asked both by Count von Lerchenfeld, President of the Ministerial Council in Munich, and by some members of the Bavarian People’s Party, if on the part of the Holy See there would be changes concerning the separate Concordat for Bavaria. I stood on the instructions received up to that moment and responded no, and all of that calmed down. In Berlin, on the other hand, my support was sought to be obtained for Bavaria being included in the aforementioned sense in the Reich Concordat, but I, while avoiding leaving any hopeful impression in that regard (cf. cited Report No. 22353), made it known that it was too delicate a matter for me to enter into the debate and I thus preferred to remain apart from it...

Source: www.Pacelli-Edition.de, Document No. 3422.

Dec. 15, 1921 Pacelli to Gasparri:

Pacelli to Gasparri, re: Article in the Frankfurter Zeitung about the proposed Reich Concordat

Most Reverend Eminence,

The Jewish-Democratic newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung has published, in its issue number 917 of the 10th of this month, an article about the proposed Reich Concordat, which I dutifully transmit herewith to your Most Reverend Eminence together with its Italian translation. In it is found reproduced in rather precise form (apart from several inaccuracies) the principal points of the proposal for the future Reich Concordat presented by me to Chancellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Wirth with the Note of this November 15 (cf. Report No. 22353 of the 16th). It is truly deplorable that, while in Bavaria during the past almost two years, nothing of the Holy See’s proposals has leaked out to the public papers, those on the other hand given to the Berlin Government, where all sense of discretion seems to be lost, have appeared in the press, in their most important parts, just twenty-five days after being presented, notwithstanding that the aforesaid Note had explicitly requested, in the very interest of good progress for the negotiations, the observance of the strictest secrecy. I did not fail, therefore, to take action against these inopportune leaks, by remonstrating strongly to the Reich’s representative in Munich, Count von Zech, and I leave it to Your Eminence to judge whether it would be most useful to have a word about this also with the German Ambassador.

As to the substance, the article in question reveals the hostile disposition of the Democratic Party toward a Concordat favorable to the rights of the Church, especially in the schools question, and shows the most serious difficulties that stand in the way of concluding such a Concordat. It is superfluous, then, to point out how false and unjust are the attacks contained in the article itself. It is enough here to note that the proposal in question was presented after insistent requests, oral and written, of the Chancellor (above-cited Report), and how, meanwhile, on the one hand, it was indeed sought to maintain the said points as to the limits of the Reich Constitution, and on the other hand, in the above-mentioned Note there was an express declaration that the Holy See, motivated by a sincere desire to reach agreement, is ready to take under serious and benevolent consideration future proposals for modifications and additions, which could be made by the Reich Government.

In conclusion, humbly bowing to kiss the Sacred Purple, with sentiments of most profound veneration, I have the honor to prove myself

Your Most Reverend Eminence’s

Most Humble, Most Devoted, Most Obliged Servant,

+Eugenio Pacelli, Archbishop of Sardis

Apostolic Nuncio

Source: Historical Archive of the Secretariat of State (Holy See), Section for Relations with States, Vatican Secret Archives, AA.EE.SS., Germania, 1920-1921, pos. 1728, fasc. 906, fol. 32r-33r, reprinted at www.Pacelli-Edition.de, Document No. 1168.

Frankfurter Zeitung, Dec. 10, 1921, page one:

“Concordat Plans”

A South German politician writes us:

For some time, rumors about the Concordat that the Bavarian Government intends to conclude with the Vatican have been making their way into print. The desire is there in both parties; nonetheless the difficult negotiations do not appear as yet to have come to a conclusion; they are being carefully kept secret. For all that, the plan of the Concordat is not hidden from Bavarian politicians. It is probably far less well known that the Curia is making efforts to achieve a Concordat with the German Reich as well. The opportunity to pave the way for this appeared really quite favorable when the Center Party filled the highest governmental positions not only in the Reich, but also in Prussia in the person of Herr Stegerwald. Just as in the Bavarian Concordat, decisive importance is being placed upon the school issue by Papal diplomacy for the Reich Concordat. In the drafts, a proposal has been put forward to make religious instruction a part of the curriculum in all middle schools and high schools, without, however, the governmental right of supervision provided in Art. 149 of the Constitution. The government will indeed appoint the religion teachers, but only those who have been approved by the Bishops, and the teachers are subject to dismissal if the Diocesan authorities are not satisfied with them. Also in elementary schools, religious instruction would have to be regulated in cooperation with ecclesiastical authorities. To the Church would be confided not only the supervision of religious instruction, but also the designation of the textbooks used in it. In places whose Catholic population is few in numbers, Catholic elementary schools would have to be built upon a request by parents. It is a natural consequence of the foregoing, and it is further demanded, that the government shall provide for sufficient numbers of educational institutes to train male and female Catholic teachers, institutes that are for the sole purpose of imparting religious instruction. Members of orders and religious congregations would be subject to the same stipulations as lay persons for admission to teaching positions. Upon these religious corporations would also be conferred the right to establish private schools with the same range of privileges that the government schools have. Finally, for the formation of their own clergy, the Church demands the ability to establish philosophical and theological teaching institutions under its control, while in the Catholic theological faculties of the state universities, the only instructors allowed are those who are and remain in possession of a canonical certification. In Article 138 of the Reich Constitution, it is declared that government obligations to religious societies pursuant to laws, treaties or particular titles of right will be discharged by state legislation in accordance with principles that are established by the Reich. The Vatican would now like to obtain a requirement that an agreement with the Pope must precede the confirming decree pursuant to this Article as to the determinative Reich and state legislation. The costs that grow out of this expansion of religious instruction at all levels obviously have to be borne by the government.

The arrangements about schools do not exhaust the dimensions of the intended Concordat. A proposal to again have the Church ceremony before the civil ceremony for Catholic marriages is being considered. A demand has also been made to institute for Church officials the same status and prerogatives as for public officials, without requiring them to take an official oath to the state. But the main issue remains the schools, and Vatican diplomacy has responded to indications that the school provisions would be very difficult to put through, by answering that the Vatican would rather do without a Concordat than give up on these provisions. Apparently there is self-deception in the Curia about the political implications of the aforesaid demands and the impression that they inevitably make upon the non-Catholic circles of Germany. If these demands were to be pressed with all earnestness, then there would be no hiding that the currently existing governing coalition would be seriously endangered. Finally it must be emphasized that the Curia wishes to hold its ground in concluding a Concordat with Bavaria even after concluding a Concordat with the Reich, of which they indeed assume that in all events it will go even further.

If this information had not come from a personality whom we must regard unconditionally as well-informed, we would not have passed it along, because it would be hardly believable that such far-reaching Concordat plans are a reality.

Not that the Curia does not have such wishes; they are naturally inclined in that direction. But it is really not understandable how the Curia can bring them to fulfillment, even if it only has in mind Catholic schools with Catholic students. In this, as in other areas, the fulfillment of these wishes would require changes to the Constitution that would bring about the fall of the governing coalition, and what the Curia could expect to gain from an ensuing bloc of right-wing parties, whose basic coloration would be Protestant, is hard to imagine.

German original

Dec. 21, 1921 Gasparri to Pacelli:

Dear Monsignore,

First of all, sincerest best wishes for the upcoming holiday and the new year... [discussion of matters of economics and German reparations] ...

I must add that Baron Cramer-Klett told me of a very grave matter, indeed extremely grave if it is true.

He told me that in Bern there is a Jewish-Masonic society that has its long arm in the Berlin Cabinet Ministry; he had information of my idea and, so that it could not be said that Europe's economic situation was tuned by an idea from the Holy See, he arranged that the idea was not mentioned in any German newspaper, then France could raise a cry and finally Germany would not accept it. I add nothing further; if this turns out to be true, Germany would have what it deserves. Affectionate greetings. Pietro Cardinal Gasparri.

Source: www.Pacelli-Edition.de, Document No. 5472.

1922

Feb. 27, 1922 Pacelli to Gasparri:

Re: Church administration in Danzig – Concordat Negotiations

As I already had the honor to make known in my respectful encrypted cables Nos. 402 and 403, as soon as I received the venerated Dispatch No. 159 of February 16th, in which Your Most Reverend Eminence informed me it is the intention of the Holy Father to delay no longer the installation of an Apostolic Administrator for the territory of the free city of Danzig, I went without delay to Berlin, in order to obtain, if possible, opportune concessions in exchange.

I was able to confer there immediately in this regard, both with Reich President Ebert and with new Foreign Minister Dr. Rathenau, for the Central Government (Chancellor Wirth was absent from the Capital by reason of the illness of his mother), and, for the Prussian Government, with Education Minister Dr. Boelitz, together with State Secretary Dr. Becker, Ministerial Director Dr. Fleischer and Governmental Councilor Niermann. In these discussions I endeavored to make known and duly appreciated the sovereign condescension of the August Pontiff, who is disposed to give for the Danzig question without delay an exalted solution to protect in the best way the national interests of Germany, and indeed I allowed them to hope (without, however, giving any assurance) that the future Apostolic Administrator would be of German nationality (cf. Dispatch of Mons. Pro-Secretary of the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs N.B. 30440 of this January 28th).

The above-named gentlemen showed strong satisfaction with this solution, and Dr. Rathenau expressed to me the desire to know beforehand the name of the ecclesiastic whom the Holy See would propose to appoint to this office. After this, I added that His Holiness, in exchange for such signal proof of benevolence, expects that the Government will also show, on its part, promptitude and a spirit of conciliation and accord in the question of the Concordat. The above-mentioned Foreign Minister Rathenau, a man of notable intelligence and ability, though a Hebrew, showed me at great length the desire of the Reich Government to come to a conclusion as soon as possible, notwithstanding the very grave difficulties, of a Concordat satisfactory for both Parties, and promised me to engage, together with the Catholic Chancellor Dr. Wirth, with all solicitude toward that end. A similar promise, though in a rather more reserved and circumspect form, was also expressed to me by the Prussian Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs...

Source: www.Pacelli-Edition.de, Document No. 22.

Apr. 5, 1922 Memo from Bishop Mergel of Eichstätt, Bavaria to Cardinal Faulhaber:

Your Eminence!

Reverend Lord Cardinal and Archbishop!

1. Concerning the issue of the school law ...

2. Concerning the Concordat negotiations, I deplore the continual procrastination (Verschleppung) and lack of straightforwardness of the Government in the North [Berlin]; on the one hand they cite the Weimar Constitution, on the other hand they keep taking away from the Church the freedoms that were guaranteed at Weimar ...

[specific responses to provisions in latest draft of Bavaria-Vatican Concordat] ...

In conclusion, my sincere sympathy and my protest concerning the slander against Your Eminence that is enclosed [from an article in the Bavarian Courier describing an attack by an ex-priest of a religious order against Cardinal Faulhaber at a Freethinkers’ association meeting in Munich]...

/s/ +Leo, Bishop of Eichstätt

Source: L. Volk, ed., Akten Kardinal Michael von Faulhabers, 1917-1945 [Faulhaber Papers] (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 1975), vol. 1, p.245

Apr. 15, 1922 Nuncio Pacelli’s letter of Apr. 15, 1922 to Bavaria’s Ambassador to the Vatican, Baron von Ritter zu Groenesteyn:

...Concerning the Concordat negotiations, the last part of the response from Herr Education Minister Matt (of whose upright intentions I have not the slightest doubt) on Points XII, XIII, XIV and XV was an almost complete rejection, and has consequently also made a painful impression on our much-beloved Lord Cardinal. I have nevertheless not lost heart ...

Source: Bavarian Main State Archive, Nachlass Ritter, folder no. 63.

Apr. 15, 1922 Pacelli to Gasparri, re Concordat negotiations - proposals by the Bavarian Government (with enclosures):

Most Reverend Eminence,

The Education Minister sent me on March 30th a letter (Enclosure I), in which he explained the requests (Enclosure II) that, it appears to him, will be put forward by the Bavarian Government, with a view to concluding the new Concordat. The long-standing close relationship existing between the State and the Catholic Church in Bavaria (explains Dr. Matt), and above all the relationships developed under the Concordat of 1817, have allowed ideas to develop in the mentality of Bavarian Catholics, which require indeed for the future on the part of said State as on the part of the Church, reciprocal regard and mutual assistance...

III

Part 1a - Election of Bishops by the Cathedral Chapters

The Bavarian Bishops have unanimously declared themselves against this request, and they propose that Bishops be appointed by the Supreme Pontiff ...

I must add that several influential deputies of the Bavarian People’s Party have expressed the opinion to me that it is greatly important for the success of the Bavarian Concordat that the Cathedral Chapters be conceded the right to elect the Bishops (Canon Wohlmuth, a deputy, especially insists on this), or at least the right to submit a terna [list of three names] (thus thinks Mr. Held, the head of the party’s delegation in the Landtag)...

Source: www.Pacelli-Edition.de, Document 4148, reprinting from Vatican Secret Archives, S.RR.SS., AA.EE.SS., Baviera, 1922-1928, pos. 72, vol. II, fol. 95r-110v

Enclosure I: Education Minister Franz Matt to Pacelli, March 30, 1922:

Most Reverend Lord Nuncio!

Your Excellency,

I have the honor now, in follow-up to my devoted letter of the 18th of this month, to convey the proposals that, by my assessment, are to be set down by the Bavarian State Government for the concluding of a new Concordat with the Holy See. As to the basis of these proposals, I believe I do not have to add very extensive explanations. The long history of the close bond of the Bavarian State with the Catholic Church in Bavaria, and particularly the relations established under the Concordat of 1817, have created a rooted legacy in the mentality of Bavarian Catholics, of concepts that entail, also for the future, reciprocal considerations and requirements from State and Church. The new Constitution of the German Reich has certainly guaranteed the Church all the more freedom of conducting its affairs within the framework of public law.

... Issue No. 3: With the cessation of the royal right of nominating Archbishops and Bishops, there has been no disappearance of the interest and desire of the Bavarian people that their own popular sentiments and thoughts might find representation in the weighty matter of the appointment of Bishops. This popular desire will undoubtedly also be given emphatic expression by the Bavarian Landtag in its position on the Concordat...

Up until the Concordat of 1817, there existed in Bavaria the common lawful mode of election of Bishops by the Cathedral Chapters. Thus it is natural, after the cessation of the King's special appointment right, to reach back to this mode, which also fully corresponds to the desires and expectations of the Cathedral Chapters themselves and the other clergy. Since Papal confirmation of the Cathedral Chapter’s choice will still remain ever preserved, the interests of the Holy See in this procedure can indeed in no way be endangered. These proposals, based upon an accurate knowledge of the Catholic portion of the people, and directed toward the smooth-operating, successful and blessed activity of the Catholic clergy in Bavaria, seek only to make plain to the Holy See, while showing the willingness of the Bavarian Government to compromise, that the tradition of the Bavarian people from the previous Concordat corresponds with the obligations assumed since then by the Bavarian State toward the Catholic Church, in my view, and so would form the basis for a true commitment by the Catholic people to their Church and for the desired good relationship between the Catholic Church and the Bavarian State.

Source: www.Pacelli-Edition.de, Document 10237

Enclosure with the letter of March 30, 1922 from Matt to Pacelli:

“Proposals by the Bavarian Education Ministry for the new Concordat with the Holy See”

... 3. The filling of Archbishop and Bishop positions will be done through election by the Cathedral Chapter provided that the Investiture is by the Holy See. Before the Investiture, the Holy See will ascertain that there are no objections to the nominee on the part of the Bavarian State Government.

The filling of Canon positions for the Archdiocesan and Diocesan Chapters will occur half through assignment by the Archbishop or Bishop and half through election by the Chapter.

Source: Franz-Willig (1965), p.222.

April 21 to July 4, 1922 L’Osservatore Romano publishes seven articles about Zionism.

Apr. 21, 1922, page one:

In the name of the Italian Zionist Federation, Dr. Dante Lattes wrote us the following, dated “26 Nissan” or April 18, 1922:

We would be most grateful if you would be willing to publish a correction in your newspaper, to the effect that Dr. Weizmann, in the speech he gave at the Roman Collegio, did not speak in any way of a Jewish State in Palestine to which the Jews of the world would be bound by political ties, nor of a dual citizenship, things which he has always been against. As to relations with the Arabs, one cannot speak in any way of expropriation of their lands, a measure which Dr. Weizmann maintained and maintains to be unjust and illegal, and which Zionism has no need to do. All the lands that the Jews have acquired have been purchased on the open market, as all are at liberty to do. With deepest gratitude for your utmost consideration, etc.

And now that we have fulfilled our duty to publish the correction that was sent to us, here are some additional words.

That Dr. Weizmann is and always has been opposed to a Jewish State in Palestine, in the sense of tying all the Jews of the world into a direct relationship as citizens, it can be - because among other things it would be an absurdity of international law – important to confirm that Weizmann declares himself against this on occasions of more than just private character.

May 4, 1922, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine”

[summary]: Quoting the Morning Post of England for the proposition that the Balfour Declaration cannot be carried into effect without “grave injustice to the Palestinian population.”

May 13, 1922, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine: A Conference of the Patriarch of Jerusalem”

[reporting a talk in Rome by the visiting Roman Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem, Luigi Barlassina] “...Zionism intends, in fact, gradually to expel the present inhabitants of Palestine, in order to seize the entire country and to erect on it the Zionist kingdom ... Zionism has caused damage of the gravest sort to Palestine ... they aroused the opposition and animosity of the native inhabitants, mainly the Arabs, and the anger of the Catholics... The constant battle of Zionism, cold and merciless, is waged not only against the Moslems and Christians, but also against the Jews or religious in Palestine against whom means of terror are employed...” (quoted by Minerbi, p. 173-174).

“Zionism at Geneva”

The Israel has published a letter from Geneva dated April 30 in which it is said that Dr. Weizmann ... said:

“Zionism encounters a great loathing on the part of the Vatican, which should not be especially surprising...

“Italian public opinion is somewhat apprehensive toward Zionism for two main reasons (other than what derives from its attachment to the Holy See and its influence on the Italian public) ...”

May 17, 1922, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine”

The Stefani news agency reported on May 16th:

It is announced that the Council of the League of Nations is today taking up the Mandate conferred upon England over Palestine for the purpose of ratifying it.

In a letter sent to Lloyd George and to Churchill, the President of the Arab delegation from Palestine, M. Kazin Hussein, states that his compatriots will not accept the Mandate over Palestine as it exists today and that the delegation has been surprised to learn that the Council of the League of Nations is ready to take up this matter for the purpose of ratification.

In conclusion, the President asked the British Prime Minister to undertake nothing in this matter to the extent that the representatives of the Arab people and those of Great Britain have not examined the question of the future of Palestine.

June 8, 1922, page 2: “Zionism and Palestine” ...

In our turn, not for the first time, we now spell out our thoughts.

We have never taken under consideration the issue of the Mandate for Palestine; it is quite distinct from Zionism. The Mandate does not really concern the point of view from which we always address the Palestinian problem: on the other hand, it is clearly not possible to avoid taking an interest in it.

And about Zionism, we have never discussed whether or not there actually is a Jewish problem and thus the possible need for a solution; we have never entered into the details of the solution itself, and therefore we have not examined and will not examine them, whether it is a matter of an imprecise formula of a national Jewish center to solve a problem that is considered a real and urgent social concern, or from a different perspective, from the standpoint of tolerance and possible initial agreement, as to the radical transformation of Palestine ethnic policy that Zionism has also said it wants.

We have not only proceeded to chronicle all the documents concerning the thought and program of Zionism, which from time to time we have described based on various objective sources. We have also from time to time objected that a Zionism that disturbs the social tranquility of Palestine and the sovereign natural rights of its population is not acceptable – or even favorable for the interests of Jews around the world – or for international law and the principles proclaimed by treaties.

We are most concerned for the supreme interests of peace in the Middle East and the tranquility of the Holy Places, which are certainly compromised by any potential disruption or political or racial conflict in Palestine.

And all of this, exclusively, is in rapport with our Catholic publishing activity which is neither influenced by this nor any other question, nor by any party or prejudice.

July 4, 1922, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine”

Concerning our last note of June 8th, the Israel writes:

“This whole controversy about the “Jewish State” and “Jewish homeland” could be avoided if L’Osservatore Romano would draw its “documentation of the thought and program of Zionism” from truly authoritative sources rather than just from El Pueblo of Buenos Aires.

“In substance, L’Osservatore Romano says that Zionism is unacceptable because it is ‘disturbing the social peace in Palestine and subverting the natural rights of its people.’ Unfortunately we are compelled to challenge once again, this time with even more precision, the documented mindset of L’Osservatore Romano. On what occasions, and with what actions, has the Zionist Organization, in the long years of its civilizing and colonizing work in Palestine, subverted the natural rights of the Palestinian people? Did it ever offend their religious sentiments, whether Christian or Muslim? Did it ever harm an honest Arab worker or peaceful farmer? Or is it not true instead that Zionism, with its settlements, has been the engine of continuous civil progress in Palestine? We know that a concrete answer to these questions will not and cannot be given.”

The Israel gives us credit in advance for acting always on the basis of principle; thus it is admitted that “all this controversy about the Jewish State and Jewish homeland” does not concern us and did not interest us in the past, if not for the integrity of the Catholic rights in Palestine, and the peace of the Holy Land which is closely bound to the respect and the worship of the Holy Places.

We must observe, moreover, that even if El Pueblo of Buenos Aires had not recounted facts and echoes that already appeared in English newspapers, and not just English ones, it was not the only source from which we have been presenting and documenting the news for the past two years. Our readers here can testify to that. So, if there is anything simplistic and naive in our serene and objective debate, it is only the “questionnaire” that the Israel puts to us, while hastily warning that there will be no answer because it is impossible to answer.

We invite them to browse our entire series of articles, in which we have written of “Zionism and Palestine” with accurate citations; we invite them to read and publish the Arab protest memorandum that was presented in 1920 to the British Mandate authorities, which also contains the protest of the indigenous population’s ethical and religious sentiments, the call for protection of the interests of peaceful laborers and honest farmers; just as we have memorialized the events and documents brought to bear by illustrious Catholic personages in public conferences, thus placing them within the realm of European public opinion. And these have certainly not been refuted.

Thus, we repeat, it is no longer possible to equivocate: the Israel now appears to be speaking of a Zionism influenced by Jewish aspirations, placed next to and on a par with the rights and aspirations of the other Palestinian races and religions; we, instead, make reference to that Zionism which is insupportable even among the Jews, that which thinks, or at least thought, of a Jewish hegemony over Palestine. That, we say, is fatal to the peace and prosperity of those populations, and is contrary to the spiritual rights of Christianity in the Holy Land.

Moreover, the diplomatic note of the Holy See to the Council of the League of Nations is the most authoritative and genuine interpretation of the mind of Catholics with respect to this great problem. (N. d. R.)

May 6, 1922 L’Osservatore Romano, page 2:

“Roman Imperialism”

Reporting on a conference at a Catholic university in Italy at which the speakers included two priests and an archbishop, the Vatican newspaper focused on the role of Christianity in creating a new and unexpected greatness of Rome:

“Victorious Rome did not give new life to ancient civilization: this task started with the abolition of slavery and was taken on by Christianity which created the new civilization.

“The final focus of this conference was on the port for the ship after the storm. After the unfolding of so many local, national and imperial wars, while economic inequality and moral decay humiliated ancient Rome in the days of glory and dominion, a synthesis full of civilization and hope commended the long road pursued by Rome and opened up a new path for humanity.

“The speaker profoundly understood the history, which he more experienced than narrated, with tirelessly incisive and encouraging words that transported the listeners among ancient events giving enhanced understanding of this sequence of events that then formed the unexpected greatness of Rome.”

May 20, 1922 Civiltà Cattolica, vol. 2, pp. 299-312:

“Zionism According to the Opinions of the Jews”

Contents: “The old aspirations of the Jews resuscitated by new propaganda. A conference in Rome on Zionism. Reasons, discussions. - I. Precursors of the idea. Political Zionism proposed by Theodor Herzl. - II. Early enthusiasms: Congress of Basel: diplomatic actions. - III. Financial difficulties: internal contradictions. The proposal for Uganda. Death of Herzl. - IV. New colonial location. The war opens new hopes. The declaration of the English government. - V. The British Mandate for Palestine. Immigration: Jewish culture. - VI. Financial assistance: Jewish hopes and visions.”

For nineteen centuries the people of Israel, scattered among the nations of the world, upon the vigil of the feast of Passover - 14 Nisan - have celebrated their traditional rites in all places of the world “standing up as one man at the same time, and taking in their hands the cup of blessing, repeating three times the sacred phrase, Next year in Jerusalem!” - Every day, at the hour of prayer, it is the custom of the sons of Judah to turn towards Zion with yearning, and one of them – a convert and a priest, Rev. Giuseppe Lémann – depicted with fraternal pity the love with which certain of his former co-religionists, too poor and too advanced in years to undertake the sacred pilgrimage to see with their own eyes the Holy City and kiss its walls, instead have sent to them little sachets filled with the earth where their fathers sleep and, at the end of their lives, advise their own sons to bury them with this earth upon their heart. But those who are more fortunate can visit the city and find asylum there, where they gather every Friday toward evening around the ruins of the ancient temple, hugging and kissing convulsively, repeating together, between sobs, the lamentations of Jeremiah, crying: “Have mercy, Lord, and gather the sons of Jerusalem; make haste, O savior of Zion! Act soon to restore the kingdom of David! Comfort those who mourn over Jerusalem.”

But for nineteen centuries, until recently, those sobs and lamentations had no answer but the frightful echo of a curse. “May his blood be upon us and upon our children!” - Today it is said that things are different. A few weeks ago we even heard in Rome a voice that wanted to emulate that of the prophets of this people, publishing the news that from now on the Jew will no longer be forced to wander the earth: the roads of Palestine are reopened and the sons of Israel are going to rush frantically, not as they were once guided by the wonders of the hand of the Lord, but by the simple escort of the Jewish Colonial Association under the guarantee of England. The difference is not a small one. The Jews feel, and the proponents of this Jewish revival are convinced, that under the name of Zionism they would like to restore to Israel its national unity on Palestinian soil: therefore indeed they turned all their powers of negotiation to an endeavor to obtain the assent and cooperation of governments, and today we see the head of the Jewish Zionists, Chaim Weizmann, trying even among the Italians to arouse sympathy for the cause of his political and religious ideals.

If we are not mistaken, the reception of his propaganda in Rome must have encountered the indifference of Italian public opinion, plagued by other problems domestically upon which the salvation of the country turns. And it is also known that, despite the twists and turns of diplomacy, there are more or less open oppositions and clashes against Zionist pretensions from many other nations, as well as from irate followers of the synagogue, among whom the new political movement for Palestine has already been a cause of lengthy quarrels. Our readers will not have forgotten how the Roman Pontiff intervened with his august words to remember the rights of Christians over the places of Palestine which were consecrated by the presence of the divine redeemer: and all Catholics must take to heart the protection of the holy places that has always been for their fathers a tradition of faith and honor.

Zionism, therefore, gives rise to a conflict of political and religious interests: and we want to explicate the events and their various aspects in order to administer to our readers, who have requested this, the necessary arguments to form a dispassionate judgment.

I.

The Zionist idea is not new: It is easy to recall the names of many pseudo prophets who, sustaining here and there the old messianic hope with the name of Jerusalem, attempted to agitate in the depths of the ghetto where the Jews crowded who were despised by all the nations. Also a Huguenot, Isaac La Peyrère, probably of Jewish origin, wrote in the 1600s about the return of the Jews and pleaded with Louis XIII to liberate, like a modern day Cyrus, the tribes of Israel from slavery and rebuild the temple of the Lord. In the past century, when wars of independence of the various peoples of Europe exalted the idea of nationalism in contemporary politics, that idea was also applied in favor of the Jewish people, and in his Nuova Questione d’Oriente [New Question of the Middle East], Ernest Lajaranne, a relative of Napoleon III, proposed the redemption of Palestine from the hands of the Turk, and the establishment of a Jewish government for the territory from Suez to Smyrna, as a guard post for the route to the Indies and a mediator between the East and the West. The same proposal was put forward by Moses Hess, a friend of Karl Marx, published in his Rome and Jerusalem: the same as Moses Montefiore, moreover, who presented Mohammed-Ali, the Viceroy of Egypt, with a program designed to carry into effect the proposal: and from the year 1876 a society was founded to bring Jewish settlers to the banks of the Jordan.

Thus far, however, the movement appeared to be limited for the most part to hypotheses and systems of politicians and party leaders. For these aspirations to become popular, it took a man endowed with the magical power of speech, with that strength of persuasion that irresistibly attracts the multitude. Theodor Herzl, born in Budapest of a “Sephardic” family (footnote: The Jews are divided historically into two main groups: the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim. The latter bear the name of Ashkenaz, a descendant of Japheth; the former bear the name of Sepharad, the Biblical name of a region that is believed to be Spain. The Sephardim are still considered to be an aristocratic caste), with a degree in law at Vienna, then working in journalism and writing with the Neue Freie Presse [New Free Press]; from his youth he had been wounded in his pride to see the inferior condition in which the Jew was held, a fact signaling suspicion and aversion in the midst of the Christian nations. Later, in 1881, the prosecutions for the assassination of Czar Alexander II revealed the portion among the Jewish students affiliated with nihilistic sects: based on that, there followed violent repressions by the police, a more severe political and religious regime, especially through the work of Chief Procurator Pobedonostsev, and a stirring up of popular passions against this unpopular lineage, which here and there signaled bloody reprisals and forced them to escape from the universal hostility and wander in misery along the frontiers of eastern Europe or emigrate to the shores of Palestine. In the same years a movement less brutal but no less ardent in antisemitic hatred spread also among the nations of western Europe, especially in France with the Dreyfus case, and in Austria-Hungary with the founding of the Christian Social Party under Lueger and Wieskirchner against the danger of Jewish interference in the orders of the State.

This intolerable state of affairs moved Dr. Herzl to disdainful and compassionate reflections, which concentrated upon a practical conclusion: the necessity of returning to the children of Israel a free and independent homeland. This was exactly the thesis he put forth in a writing which later became the code of Zionism: The Jewish State: Proposal for a Modern Solution of the Jewish Question (1896). The book begins by positing the existence of a “Jewish question” which it would be futile to deny: “it arises in every country where Jews attain some importance.” What is it worth, he says, to turn to nations that are not persecuting us? Our appearance there will cause persecution. The Jewish question is neither an economic nor religious issue, although it takes on now one appearance, now another: it is a question of nationality: and to resolve it, we must first of all make it a worldwide question and place the matter before the Great Powers. Persecution has increasingly awakened the strong ethnic character of this nation that is distinguished in the midst of all the others and does not assimilate with them. “The Jews are a unique people”: If this people is given sovereignty over a territory proportionate to its legitimate interests, the Jewish question will be resolved. The territory of Palestine would be most suitable, where the memories of the national tradition reside. A society representing the Israelite people would collect the funds necessary to regulate immigration and implement the administration and the laws of the Jewish community under the form of an aristocratic republic, because, in the opinion of Herzl, ancient theocracy no longer corresponds to modern ideas.

“If the Sultan cedes Palestine to us,” he continues, “there would be enough to promise that in short order we would reset the finances of Turkey… We would form a neutral State in continuing contact with a Europe that would guarantee our existence. As for the Holy Places, they would be under a form of extra-territoriality that would accommodate all the interests. We would form the honor guard within the sanctuary and would stand up for our existence with the fulfillment of this duty which would be the pledge of resolving a question that has dragged on for 18 centuries of cruel suffering.”

II.

This little book caused an extraordinary commotion among all, but in the ghettos of Russia, Poland, Finland, Romania, it aroused a real delirium. The “mirage” of Jerusalem, the hope of seeing Zion again and the rebuilding of the temple, gave rise to enthusiasm in those wretched hordes at the mercy of the terrors of the “pogroms” that were spreading destruction and death: it was salvation, liberty, reconquest of the homeland. Theodor Herzl was the idol of those multitudes, who saw him as a prophet, a commander who would take care of oppression and slavery by leading them to the land of their fathers. The power of the impulse with which he gave new life to the Zionism of their ancestors, of the “Friends of Zion,” of the “Children of Zion” and other similar societies, derived from the audacity with which he, instead of a timid action, hidden and disguised behind the veil of private philanthropy, affirmed openly a political program, nationalistic, imposed on the public debate and the competition of public powers. And because of the manifest nationalistic character of his work, his first concern was to convene a worldwide Zionist congress, pan-Judaic, from which his mission and his program would receive authenticity and legitimacy. The venue of the congress was Basel, where for the first time after so many centuries, the people of Israel saw the dispersed tribes meeting, with representatives from all points of the globe. Zionism was no longer just an internal matter of Jewish life, but entered into the ambit of international life. Above the building of the congress, from August 24 to 28, 1897, waved a Zionist flag: on a white background, two bands of turquoise that frame two overlapping triangles forming a six-pointed star. From that time onward, Judah had its assembly every year, its week-long parliament. At the one in 1901 there were 200 delegates, coming from Manchuria, from Siberia, from America, from Lake Chad, from southern Africa, from Egypt, and from all the countries of Europe.

The voice that dominated those congresses was naturally that of Herzl, hailed as the “prince of the exile.” Elected president of the permanent committee for action, he immediately put himself to work on what was entrusted to him by the body, to “create for the Jewish people a protected refuge guaranteed under international law.” And because he knew that in the business world, everything is assessed by its value in cash, the first step he took was the establishment of a Jewish Colonial Bank, which was to be the indispensable financial instrument for Zionist activity. Thus, with the practical intuition that is traditional among his people, he resolved to make his case to the German Kaiser and win him over to the Zionist cause. Kaiser Wilhelm II had recently taken over the reins of the Empire, following the dismissal of Bismarck, and was keenly occupied with solving the problems that were agitating the Empire. He undertook then a trip to the Holy Land (1898): Dr. Herzl found a way to meet with him near the gates of Jerusalem. The residents of the Jewish Quarter had erected a triumphal arch with the legend, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” in German and in Hebrew: two old rabbis, wrapped in ritual cloaks, carried the heavy tablets of the law, and Jewish school children sang hymns to the Emperor about the Messiah. Dr. Herzl, as chairman of the action committee, directed a greeting to the imperial pilgrim, asking him, in the name of the friendship that ran along with the Sultan, of wanting to second with his patronage the actualization of the Zionist idea: and the German gentleman showed his agreement and assented, surely seeing an opportunity to extend German influence in the Middle East.

III.

But the hopes and enthusiasms did not last long. When the Zionist committee turned to Sultan Abdul-Hamid, there were many words and great courtesies, but the price demanded was even greater: 50 million Francs: the Colonial Bank had only collected five, donated by the little people. The rich Jews, the millionaires of Jewish finance, had only given a mite; the bankers Hirsch, Rothschild, had rejected Herzl’s idea as utopian. For the greater part of the merchants and usurers, the restoration of Jewish life, of Talmudic traditions, of the glory of Zion, left them indifferent: they had accepted the country where they had found prosperity, and if they had a concern, it was to conceal the traces of their origin. The Zionist movement could harm the smooth running of business by provoking antisemitism: thus it was annoying. It is indeed a rather curious thing to see Zionism opposed by the first among the masters of Israel, such as the Chief Rabbi of Vienna, Güdemann, and the one in London, Adler: The union of German rabbis deemed it necessary to publish a protest, accusing Zionism of being in opposition to the Messianic promises: the Conference of American Rabbis explained their refusal instead by the ample liberty they enjoyed, which could not be greater even in the purported Jewish State to be created. In essence, the pride of the well-fed rabbinate of the rich centers of European countries rebelled against the fanaticism of a man unknown to the synagogue, who was lifting the crowds of the eastern ghettos. The damage would have been minimal if Theodor Herzl had succeeded in laying a foundation with his diplomatic negotiations: but Wilhelm II, after the initial courtesies, dissuaded perhaps by other councilors, showed no more sign of sympathy. Then, with the Sultan, in addition to the difficulty of the price, there was a greater difficulty of legal guarantees to be established for the possession of territories conceded to the new State. Things took a long time, but it quickly became clear that the Turks did not intend to cede any of their sovereignty: and after a thousand verbal twists and turns, the concessions were reduced to this: that with the payment of two million pounds sterling, the Jews could acquire the right to found colonies distributed in various parts of the empire other than Palestine, but without any legal links among them. It was the reversal of Zionist aspirations.

Herzl’s entire work was in danger of falling apart. He tried to sustain strong support at least for the purpose of an independent State, even outside Palestine: and he was inclined to accept territories in Uganda offered by England. When he made this proposal to the sixth congress (1903), the more ardent Zionists, seeing themselves confined to a savage land on the African continent, after such hopes of a country, indulged in a scene of tragic despair. To restore calm to the agitated assembly, Herzl closed off the discussion by repeating, with raised hand, the solemn formula of the oath: “If I should renounce you, O Jerusalem,” which are the words of Psalm 136 (footnote: Si oblitus fuero tui, Jerusalem, oblivion detur dextera mea, etc., Ps. 136: 5 [“If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill …”]. After the death of Herzl, the question of Uganda was taken up again by Max Nordau, one of the Zionist leaders who succeeded upon his death: but England revoked the offer. Another Zionist, Zangwill, founded the Jewish Territorial Organization with the intent to accept whatever region for the new State: Cyprus was talked about, and Argentina, and Tripoli: the war interrupted all this.) Turning then to seek a way to bring back his co-religionists to Palestine, which alone represented the religious ideal that could sustain a national movement among a proletariat who were tenaciously conservative of their traditions. And to resume diplomatic negotiations, he undertook a trip to Italy, where in Rome, wanting to overcome the distrust he suspected in the opinions of Catholics toward Zionist agitation, he turned to the Vatican, asking to be granted an audience with the Supreme Pontiff, who was then Pius X, having just succeeded Leo XIII. The audience was naturally granted with no other significance than a common act of courtesy to all visitors. He could have greater hopes in the support of Russia, which would have favored Zionism to get rid of those unwanted guests who infested its southern provinces and were the cause of continual troubles: and he negotiated at St. Petersburg with Minister Plehve, requesting support to obtain optimal terms from Turkey, when he died on July 3, 1904.

IV.

It might be thought that with the passing of Herzl the entire machinery that he had architected with great difficulty would be ruined: but this was not the case. The nostalgia for Palestine had by now taken control of the proletarian crowds of the synagogue: but disheartened by the bitter disappointments of Herzl’s political initiatives, which had sought to realize the kingdom of David in international public law, the Zionists, following old advice, returned to the system of private immigration already initiated by Rothschild, adopting a course to succeed silently and securely by the usual artifices of which the traditions of this race have made them masters. Expert emissaries had the means to purchase large properties in the country. Setting foot at a point that was convenient to the ends, waiting for the propitious occasion, for example, a year of drought or bad weather, when the crops failed, so that the Arabs did not have much to pay: they offered a loan then against a mortgage of 200 per cent on the territory of an entire village, which in Palestine is an indivisible property: and at the end of the year the Arabs, insolvent, were obliged to cede all at that price. Entire villages were expropriated in this manner in short order, under the umbrella of the Alliance Israelite, with the support of the “English Palestine Company,” and then again with subsidies from the JCA or Jewish Colonial Association founded by Hirsch, which had a fund, it is said, of 250 million. According to the information of the Bulletin of the Italian Geographic Society, already before the war a third of Palestine was in Jewish hands, especially in the districts of Jaffa, Tiberius, and the area surrounding Jerusalem. Certainly the new immigrants, unable or ill prepared to work the unfamiliar land, did not always receive enough yield to derive sustenance so as not to perish in misery. But they learned from experience. Thus there was a shrewdly expanding economic penetration via these events.

And the events were not slow to occur. When the great war ...

Of these promises the first official document was the letter that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Great Britain sent to Lord Walter Lionel Rothschild, vice president of the Zionist Federation of England. The Allied troops were about to begin a march of invasion of Judea from the south. The British came and joined an Italian contingent. On October 31st they occupied Bir es Seba, the former Beersheba, and prepared to assault Gaza, which they took on 7 Nov. 1917; on the 17th the Allies were in Jaffa: twenty days later they entered Jerusalem. On the eve of these events, the 2nd of November, Balfour wrote these words:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of the object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious’ rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely,

(signed) Arthur James Balfour

V.

France and Italy subscribed to this English declaration. The League of Nations, noted for its Israelite affinity, took haste to confide to Great Britain the mandate over Palestine. Among the articles of this mandate, no. 2 provides: “The mandatory power shall organize in the country a political, administrative and economic government that will make possible the establishment of a national Jewish center (home), and develop for it autonomous governing institutions.” No. 6 provides that: “The administration of Palestine, shall be vigilant to respect the rights of all, shall Jewish immigration … Jewish settlement in the lands of the State and those senza coltura.” As the first commissioner of the British Government in Palestine, a Jewish Englishman, Sir Herbert Samuel, was appointed.

There was no greater occasion for the Israelite world to go wild with joy, seeing their golden dream come true and already sensing the rule of the universe in their grasp. The Univers Israélite had the courtesy to explain, however, that “the universal rule of the Jews will not be oppression or exploitation of the gentiles for the profit of the Israelites: indeed the mission of Israel is that of making humanity happy, and it is for that reason they are given the rule of the world.” A moving mission for which the world should certainly be grateful. But that concerns the future. As for the present, to take advantage of the favorable dispositions of the Powers, there quickly spread among the Jewish proletariat a new ferment for the most active emigration toward Palestine. In Jerusalem up to the 17th century there were barely 100 Jewish families: at the rise of Zionism there were more than 15,000 Jews in the Holy City: in 1900, it already contained 30,000. After the events of the war, they did not cease to rush in, to spread out through the region, to regroup everywhere more strongly. The preparation of housing, the purchases of land, and the provision of subsidies is assured by the Committee. In addition to Jerusalem, where there are today reported numbers of already 60,000, out of 85,000 residents, there is the colony of Safed, north of the Sea of Galilee, which contained already by the outbreak of the war 25,000, of a population of 40,000. Also Tiberius and Jaffa are two centers of great affluence and activity for the Jewish community: in the latter, especially, a school of agriculture was just opened, which is very useful for immigrants, for whom there were already established primary schools and technical instruction. Then the most special care is devoted by the Zionist Committee to the revival of the Hebrew language, abolishing the Yiddish dialect mixing Aramaic and Germanic, which the German influence had introduced: and already before the last war, much favor had been aroused for the strictly Hebrew school established in the settlement of Rehoboth. (footnote: It is noted that at the Peace Conference, a Zionist delegate, Menachem Ussichkine, was admitted and gave a speech in Hebrew. For several years among the Russian Jews, there was an awakening of study of the national language and it seems there were meetings in that language. In France, a Jewish youth admitted to the exams for the Central School a year ago, had permission from the Ministry to present his work in the Hebrew language.)

Of greater importance will be an institute of Hebrew culture, a University for which the first twelve stones were laid in July 1918 on Mt. Scopus, on the north side of Jerusalem, one stone for each of the ancient tribes of Israel, so that from this intellectual center the word that is already master of the world goes out. While the university is going up, however, the Committee decided to expand the smaller schools in the midst of the populations of the new settlements, under the auspices of the diplomatic conventions adopted by the governments of the Entente nations: and that is how we heard Weizmann, at the conference in Rome, affirm in a somewhat Oriental phrase that “already as of now in Jewish Palestine the children know how to cry and how to play in Hebrew.” How marvelous are these little ones! But the Jewish babies are not capable of these things.

VI.

To sustain all this movement, an appeal was made to the whole Zionist community, and their contribution was continually increasing with the hope of the coming national restoration. This we know from Les Archives Israélites, that, while in 1919 the Zionist administration collected the sum of 5,552,000 Francs, in 1920 it received 9,567,000 Francs collected from 45 States, among which the foremost was naturally the United States of America. Italy participated only in the amount of 92,000 Francs; but the Republic of Argentina contributed 918,000 Francs and Mesopotamia 621,000: a tangible indication of the number of Jews to whom the aforesaid propaganda had been communicated in these regions, for whom there was no hope of entering Palestine themselves. A striking peculiarity in the midst of this economic accounting was the announcement made in American newspapers of the founding of a Society in Boston to raise funds for the rebuilding of the temple in the Holy City to become once again the center of worship as the metropolis of the nation. We do not know any other news about the society, and probably the erecting of the temple will have been judged to be somewhat premature, but the problem is unavoidable, and it certainly stirs in secret every Zionist soul, in which the thought of the restoration of the kingdom of David cannot advance separately from the glorious memories of the temple of Solomon. It seems that the threat of evangelical prophecy casts a fearful shadow over those glories, and in spite of this, the Jew does not dare raise his voice against the voice of Christ, nor extend his hand to disturb the ruins fallen under the blow of the divine condemnation. What would the rest of the temple if God does not come down more to live there? What would be served, moreover, by rebuilding the temple if God does not come down to dwell in it?

Instead of the temple, Israel is perhaps content with a hall for parliament: and the vote already promulgated a decade ago by the Jewish World for the constitution of an International Jewish Assembly, appears to be on the way to actualization in the near-term future, since the English High Commissioner of Palestine, as announced by Les Archives Israélites, had already called, in March 1921, a Grand Council of seventy rabbis – the traditional number – and thirty-five laymen, to constitute a Grand Sanhedrin to which would be entrusted the Jewish religious organization in the Holy Land. The Grand Council established, among other things, the institution of an appellate tribunal presided over by two rabbis representing the Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities and composed of eight Jews to handle cases that concern religious law.

Such are the first steps, the first tests, with which the Zionists came to organize the establishment of the Jewish State which should give their people political and national unity. These invasions and these intentions collide with and offend other people and other rights that we will discuss in another edition.

Source: Civiltà Cattolica, May 20, 1922, vol. 2, pp. 299-312.

June 3, 1922 Nuncio Pacelli’s June 3, 1922 letter to Ritter zu Groenesteyn:

... With yearning I await instructions from there [Rome], to which I attribute the greatest importance, because they must serve as my guidelines for everything further [in the Concordat negotiations]. I have also gained the impression from various symptoms that in Rome the difficulties are not sufficiently recognized, though I have not failed always and ever again to direct attention to them. That comes apparently from the well-known good reputation that “Catholic Bavaria” enjoys in Rome. In any event I consider it fortunate that His Eminence [Cardinal Faulhaber] sojourned in the Eternal City precisely in these decisive days and could have an enlightening impact. I am allowing myself, moreover, no illusions about the future: We are not yet at the end, as they appear to believe there. All the more, however, I am working for the great and far-reaching work, which shall also be a model for other German states ...

Source: Bavarian Main State Archive, Nachlass Ritter, folder no. 63.

June 11, 1922 Pacelli to Gasparri, re: Negotiations for the Bavarian Concordat

Most Reverend Eminence,

Yesterday afternoon your venerable Dispatch No. 4443 of June 1st reached me, in which Your Most Reverend Eminence deigned to inform me of the decision taken by the Eminent Fathers of the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs and confirmed by His Holiness, concerning the requests forwarded by Education Minister Dr. Matt.

While heartily thanking Your Eminence for this important communiqué, may I be allowed to request respectfully Your further instructions on the following matters:

(1) As a result of the letter from the aforementioned Minister dated March 30th, transmitted by me in my dutiful Report No. 23740, Dr. Matt now expects that I will transmit a new Concordat proposal in the name of the Holy See, and he has repeated this to me verbally in recent days, adding that it will be necessary for further negotiations to have before his eyes the entire text of this proposal...

(2) If the Government insists on major concessions concerning the provisions for filling Archbishoprics and Bishoprics, would the added proposal already made by the Most Reverend Bishops be acceptable: “after having consulted the local Ordinary”?

... (4)(b) These rights of patronage (and of presentation) are today made purely and simply to cease by the norms of canon law. It is predictable that such an affirmation (indeed, in my humble opinion, in all exactitude) will probably encounter opposition from the Bavarian State, all the more as the opinion of the permanence of these laws is held also by Catholic canonists, such as, for example, Hollweck (cf. Report No. 13509 of April 3, 1919).

The power of the Chapter to “express to the Bishop their proposed votes” is a new matter, in this form. Perhaps the Sacred Congregation wanted to make something of a concession in this manner to the Cathedral Chapters...

Source: Historical Archive of the Secretariat of State (Holy See), Section for Relations with States, Vatican Secret Archives, AA.EE.SS., Baviera, 1922-1928, pos. 72, vol. II, fol. 178r-180r, reprinted in www.pacelli-edition.de/Dokument/4151, Document 4151.

July 10, 1922 Cardinal Faulhaber’s letter to the Bavarian Bishops:

... My recent trip to Rome for the International Eucharistic Congress, at which the German episcopate was notably weakly represented, was occasioned by a particularly urgent invitation at the last hour, and perhaps as it turned out for good reason, because there commenced at the same time (namely Sunday, May 28th) the decisive session of the Roman Cardinals Commission on the draft of the Bavarian Concordat. With every single one of the members of this Commission, I was able to talk before the session and explain to them that even in Bavaria, which they imagined to be a purely Catholic province, the composition of the state parliament and the overall political situation make it impossible to attain a Concordat built solely on the principles of Canon Law without any concessions, so that, to our regret, we cannot hope to put through a Bavarian Concordat that will be a master template for such as Belgium and Poland. In general the recommendations of the Bavarian episcopate, which were already known via the report of the Nunciature, came off as the most practical, while some members of the Commission made no secret that the demands of the cathedral chapters could endanger the whole Concordat...

Source: Munich Archdiocese Archive, Nachlass Faulhaber, no. 4300, reprinted in Volk, Faulhaber Papers, vol.1, p.256.

Emma Fattorini (1992), pp. 226-227, describes a major issue that was central to the “overall political situation” in Bavaria to which Faulhaber alluded in his letter. The Vatican wanted the new Concordat to give the Pope sole power to select new Bavarian Bishops, a principle embodied in the 1917 Code of Canon Law. Traditionally, Catholic Bishops in Bavaria had been selected by Cathedral Chapters, clerical committees at the local level, with the Pope then appointing or “investing” the new Bishop who had been selected by the Chapter.

July 15, 1922 Civiltà Cattolica, vol. 3, pp. 116-132:

“Zionism According to the Opinions of Non-Jews”

Contents: I. Zionism prejudices the rights of the Arab population which has possessed Palestine for so many centuries. - II. England is violating the treaty in which it gave Palestine to the Sheriff of Mecca. - III. The Allies promised the Arabs independence and the option of having their own government. - IV. Zionist abuses and overbearingness against the population in order to found the State of Israel. - V. Arab resentment: appeal to England with adverse results. - VI. Turmoils: protests: threats and dangers for the future. - VII. Union of all the inhabitants of Palestine against Jewish predominance in Palestine. - VIII. A vote in the House of Lords.

We described in our preceding article, concisely, the long history of the tenacious forces, political maneuvers, and public agitation with which the Zionists have accomplished in the midst of the world the opportunity to constitute for a second time in Palestine a national center for the dispersed tribes of Israel. These aspirations have found particular favor, as it is said, in England, to which the League of Nations has confided the extension of the articles of the “Mandate” with which Palestine will be governed. The Zionists could not wish for anything better: and in truth they give no thought to hiding the joy of their victory. Palestine is in their hands: and even if some prudent voices seek to moderate the excesses that could too soon betray the future, the facts of today suffice and then some, to provide the measure for knowing what to do tomorrow. Ab ungue leonem. [Latin: From its claw we understand the lion.]

But in the midst of Zionist joy there are shadows. We closed with succinct details warning how the occupation of Palestine and the proposal to create a Jewish state were a slap in the face to the rights of other peoples, giving rise to a struggle that threatens to disturb the peace of the Orient and to add another to the many causes of distressing unrest in which the early years of this eventful century have been floundering. We want to inform our readers also about those rights and that struggle for the sake of fairness, so that they know the necessary elements for making a judgment according to truth and justice.

I.

The struggle was inevitable. It would be rather naive gullibility of the Jews to believe that they could take over Palestine by just reaching out their hand, as if it was something found abandoned on the street: and the Jews are neither naifs nor fools. But accustomed to seeing everything bend their way in the political world and the stock market, they did not think they would have to take account of some nomadic tribes or savages who might oppose their aspirations. And this was a mistake. Savages or not, these people have rights, and if rights are worth anything in the world, they should not be allowed to be trampled even by Jews without a sense of shame. For many centuries the Arabs were established on Palestinian soil and for a long time they were the sovereign rulers; but what is most important, they continued to live there and still live there today as the majority, as among a population of 800,000 souls, eighty percent, that is 640,000, are Arabs, and the Jews, even with the immigration of recent years, are only about 80,000, same as the Christians of various denominations. Now every land belongs to its inhabitants. When a people, over countless generations, going back to the beginning of its history, lives, works, and develops upon a territory, they certainly have the right to be considered as the legitimate possessor. That is the condition of the Arabs in Syria and in Palestine.

The Zionists, trampling on this state of affairs which no one contested until just yesterday, today arrogantly invade the country, which is the home of the Arabs, to plant their home by expelling the peaceful former inhabitants. Their official representative, Chaim Weizmann, made a tour of Europe - and we heard him in Rome - repeating the word of the day: Palestine for the Jews like America for the Americans! But the Americans are in their own home, while the Jews are going into someone else’s home. With what right? They cannot give any other foundation for their strange pretensions than the memory of a past that is buried in the ruins of the centuries. If it is true that God one day gave that land to their people; and it is easy to understand the instinctive passion with which the eyes of Israel are turning from countries of the dispersion to the shores of that land which was once the cradle of their greatness: but the poetry of sentiment in the record of a glorious past does not constitute a present right: and when crowds obsessed by the suggestions of Theodor Herzl and his cronies in the Congresses of Basil raved frantically, calling for the possession of the land of their fathers, those poor people forgot that over the course of more than eighteen centuries their fathers, struck by the divine malediction, or, if that is not pleasing, then subjected to a hand stronger than they, were expelled and scattered over the whole earth. So many events have occurred since then in the history of peoples! Who could ever imagine claiming title of right to a house he owned in former times, without taking account of the facts that have given rise to new rights in the subsequent inhabitants?

A striking response in this regard was given by an Arab (and we have it from one who was there) to one of the Zionist leaders who recently, in a certain village not far from Jerusalem, was calling for the return of Palestine to the Jews who had conquered it and made their civilization flower there. Turning to declaim: “We, let’s say, will give back Palestine to you when they have been made to return Spain to us.” And he spoke well, for Spain still has traces of Arab rule that are far more notable than Palestine has of Jewish rule. The witty reply closed the mouth of the Jew, who turned away.

II.

That the idea of occupying Palestine without any regard to the rights of others or the offense given others arose in the minds of Jews is not surprising, indeed the opposite would be surprising. But that England has embraced such an idea and made it its own, this should not only surprise but stupefy, especially if one considers the circumstances in which such Anglo-Jewish connivance was cemented.

In truth, who obligated Great Britain to assume a commitment to give form to the utopias of the Zionists and to promise them Palestine, which they certainly would never have had without its support? Palestine was perhaps English property? By what right did they possess it? Perhaps by military occupation during the war? But the belligerent forces included Italy and France as well as Great Britain. And then perhaps Palestine was a land of conquest for the Allies? Here is the most serious ground of reproach against that Power. It is proven by documents from these war years that beginning in July 1915 negotiations were opened to break the Arabs away from the Turks: Sheriff Hussein, who was in command at Mecca, insisted on the condition of the recognition of the independence of the Arabs in all the countries, from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf; and in October of the same year the English representative in Egypt, Sir McMahon, replied categorically: “I am authorized to give you, in the name of the government, complete assurance that Great Britain will recognize and support the independence of the Arabs in all territories within the limits indicated by the Sheriff.” With these agreements the alliance was concluded. It is easy to understand how helpful this arrangement of matters was to the victories of the Allies in the Middle East. Even before the opening of armed conflict, the hostility of the population hindered the operations of the Turkish-German army. General Liman von Sanders complained in writing to General Headquarters of “being caught between two fires, the inhabitants of the country and the enemy armies: the whole country is against us.” Thousands of Arab deserters then served the cause of the Allies when in June 1916 the Sheriff declared war and placed his soldiers under the command of his sons, one of whom, Emir Feisal, had escaped from the hands of the Turks to join the Allies.

So already in 1915, that is two years before the Balfour Declaration – November 1917 – England had signed a contract with the head of the Arabs under which he was obligated to make war on the Turks, and it recognized the independence of the Arabs in their entire region, including Palestine. Sheriff Hussein, proclaimed King of Hedjaz, faithfully kept his word. How did England keep its word?

While the Arabs had exposed their land and their goods to the dangers of war, while they had taken up arms and were fighting alongside the Allies in the hope of winning the freedom of their country, here comes news from London that their country is instead given to the Jews who will establish their “national home” there, and this precisely under the protection of Great Britian which had accepted the agreement of October 1915 with the Sheriff of Mecca!

Who can imagine the dismay in the souls of that entire population who felt they were made fools, and in place of their longed-for freedom saw themselves passed from the yoke of the Turk to the despised and odious tyranny of the Jew. It was such an unexpected and greatly stunning blow that many did not want to believe in the possibility of such a traitorous betrayal. But they surely had to believe it when they saw the Zionist Commission arrive and after it began the rush of Jews from all parts of the world to grab a place in a poor Palestine put up for auction. Then began that immigration and that land grabbing of which we spoke last time, by which the Zionists intended in short order to change the proportions of the nationality of the inhabitants and the rules of land ownership, in order to attain a majority in the country and dispose of its fate according to the requirements of the utility and development of the Jewish people. If the Arabs did not like this, big deal: like it or not, repeated Weizmann, Palestine must be Jewish: no human power can prevent that fact. This was said clearly.

III.

Aggravating even worse this state of things was the institution of the “Mandate,” the hypocrisy of new terms to mask the same old solutions to all wars: the annexation of a greater or lesser extent of conquered territories. We do not discuss whether Palestine deserved to be subjected to such treatment. Turkey was conquered, not the Arabs who rather had negotiated with the Allies. Palestine should then have been all the more considered as one of the “little nations” which the code of “Fourteen Points” should bring to freedom and independence. And precisely, as if on purpose, in November 1918, shortly before the Armistice, a solemn proclamation in the name of France was repeated in all the villages of Palestine, proclaiming to the population that “the purpose of the Allies in conducting the war in the Middle East was the full and final liberation of the Arabs, and the establishment of governments founded on the authority and on the free election of the people of the country.” The Allies were “very far from wanting to impose a form of government contrary to the will of the people” and only wanted to “provide security with moral and material assistance for the proper development of those governments and of those forms of administration that will be adapted to the people themselves,” putting an end – this was noticed – to “those internal discords which had so long been exploited by the Turkish government.” Golden words, magnanimous propositions, which however were to go up in smoke, not to say in new lies.

In April 1919 an American commission was sent to Palestine which made diligent inquiries, questioning delegates in each village to ascertain the preferences of the populations. The response was everywhere one and the same: all declared themselves in favor of independence and in favor of the establishment of national government. It seemed the dawn of a happy day and souls were opened to hope: but what was the result? The report of the commission was suppressed and nothing more was heard. The other Arab regions, that is Syria, Mesopotamia, Hedjaz, Iraq, had the autonomy they desired: Palestine, on the other hand, was kept like a pupil incapable of its own government, and confined under the strictest tutelage of England, that is to say, of the Zionists it had taken under its protection. Now who can explain why the Arabs of neighboring Syria and even those of the shores of the Red Sea were judged to have gifts of intelligence and the social habits required by the League of Nations in order to be independent and to stand on their own, and their brothers in Palestine were considered so worthless as to need to be governed by Jews. We give up trying to find the reason why, and perhaps many readers will do the same, since it is too obvious that the reason why the Palestinians were not given freedom like the others is not their imagined inability to know how to govern themselves, but an act of arbitrary despotism by which the Allies sacrificed the weak Arabs in the service of the powerful Jews.

So all the proclamations and all the promises and agreements were just glitter to tease the Palestinians and give time for the Jews to complete their plan. It was a deal already done at the outset of the movement: the Zionists would not have talked so lofty and so loud if they had not had a secure pledge in hand that the power of England would support them in the enterprise of the new kingdom of Judah. The Arabs were condemned to either servitude or exile: and the audacious were not ashamed to shout provocatively from the rooftops. The Zionist Palestine Week of July 30, 1920 printed in the light of day: “The Jewish nation has resolved its own national regeneration in its former fatherland. As for the Arab nation, there are other lands outside Palestine where they can develop their activity.” That newspaper only kept repeating the extremes dictated by the gang leaders, such as Dr. Eder, president of the Zionist Executive Committee, who wrote, in a report on the troubles of last May: “In Palestine there can only be one national center and it must be the Jewish national center … because no equality of treatment can be given between Jews and Arabs. It is necessary that the Jews dominate as soon as they have reached a sufficient number.” Even more cynical language was used by Zangwill, another satrap of Zionism, before a meeting of friends of the party in London. He warned that “all conquests involved the shedding of blood: No empire has ever succeeded without blemishes”: so it was not surprising if there were some bashed heads also in Palestine. If there was a Mandate for Palestine, it was for the advantage of the Jews, and “the High Commissioner should order his power for the sole purpose of establishing the Jewish homeland. The existence of the Arabs was an obstacle: if the Mandate does not order to drive them out, it still does not require help for them to remain in place, as if I was promised a property for building a house and a tribe of gypsies had the right to erect its tents, I could tolerate the tents but I would not be obligated to build their kitchens or teach them hygiene to prolong their lives” and going on in this sardonic tone, which elicited laughter and laughing applause from the Zionists, but will undoubtedly arouse the indignation of all the honest.

In the “Mandate” for Palestine it is repeated abundantly that the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish inhabitants will be “strictly respected.” The reader has seen from what has been said thus far how the Allies – and England, in their name – have practiced respect for those rights, at least on the part of the civil side.

IV.

The Zionists did not lose any time in the midst of realizing their dream of a kingdom and affirming their domination over the country.

We said in our previous article that England designated a Jew as High Commissioner to govern Palestine, a fervent proponent of Zionism, Herbert Samuel. We will let every dispassionate man judge the opportuneness of this choice, which sent, to govern a country in the throes of the most acute irritation against hated invaders, a man who professed to be their partisan: but it seems a rather naïve reflection put forward by Churchill, Secretary for the Colonies, that Samuel “would not be suspected by his co-religionists of having made judgments against them.” And what a statement! But would he not have to judge against them all the time if he wanted to do justice? And what would the Arabs have thought when he judged in favor? Of course, that position, given in relation to the Balfour Declaration, was as good as a full dedication of authority to the mercy of that sect, which expected nothing other than to rack up everything. To the post of legal secretary (which took the place of a minister of justice) a Zionist was appointed: to a Zionist was given the post of Director of Commerce and Industry, to another that of head of immigration, a post of maximum importance, as is easy to understand under the circumstances of the moment.

Everywhere, in all the public offices, the Zionists occupied positions in numbers exceeding their proportion to the indigenous population. The use of the Hebrew language, admitted by governmental disposition as the official language, naturally excludes non-Jews from all those public services that require knowledge of it, and the Arabs found that closed the door for them to each job, for example, in the postal, telegraph and telephone offices. In every way, in every occupation, the competition from the Jewish workers combined with Zionist immigration inevitably removed each post from the indigenous, who, while seeing nearly every day the best ones monopolized and exploited by foreigners, experienced every day also the inflation as to necessities of life as a result of the same immigration, experienced increases in taxes and the state of discomfort following the war which he had hoped would bring prosperity to his nation. And as if this was not enough, he soon saw the Zionists not only supplant him in everything where a profit was to be made, but also damage the fruit of his own work. So last year, for example, the abundant harvest of wheat and millet (footnote: that is common sorgum, whose seed is used for food) would give a fair profit to the farmer, if according to custom it was possible to send it to the market place in good time. But he was truly not to be permitted. The Zionist government, to assure the supply of immigrants, prohibited the exportation of wheat in spite of general protests, and the prohibition was only removed when Sudan’s harvest was already on the market and the prices were so low as to lose all profit. The year before, another event even more serious showed the arrogance with which these sectarians treat the country and its inhabitants. An agreement was obtained from England to provide farmers with loans to restore agriculture ruined during the war. Now the Zionist Commission made every effort because these loans were revoked, and obtained it. Then the financial advisor to the English government, out of loyalty of spirit, went to London to show the harm the revocation had done and to re-establish the order of the loans. But he was forced to return to Palestine “for political reasons.”

So everything had to yield before the arrogance of these nefarious tyrants descended from all the gangs of Europe. The Arab, a proud and reflective spirit, remembered the pacts and promises of a few months earlier and began to take account of what was happening around him. So this was the fulfillment of what he had been told: Palestine for the Jews! A really nice change was done to him by escaping the old and feeble hand of Turkey to come under the iron fist of the Zionists. At least then he was governed by their own deputies to Parliament at Constantinople. Turkey was only represented in the midst of the Arab people by a single official, the Wali or the Mutessarif and he, more often than not was himself Arab, as Arabs also were members of the Council, all elected by the indigenous people. Indigenous persons were likewise the judges and assessors of the tribunals: every Palestinian could aspire to any office in the judiciary. They had schools too for them, for all civil studies, and their diplomas opened the way to all jobs in the country. Today he is in a situation deprived of everything. The country is no longer his. The head of the Palestine government, the representative of Zionism, the High Commissioner put in place by England, is called the “prince of Israel”; the postage stamps of Palestine bear the inscription “Eretz Israel, Land of Israel.” What remains for the Arab?

V.

The Palestinians, treated with such impertinence and despotism, thought they at least had the right to object and appeal, arguing their own case. It was the least they could request: and to give greater weight to their arguments a congress of notables was assembled, the elders of the nation, in other words men of great account, according to the tradition of the country. One such congress – there were three (footnote: The first was held in Jerusalem in 1918: the second was announced but then blocked by the government solely on a partisan pretext. The third was in Haifa in 1920: the fourth next year again in Jerusalem.) – gathered in Haifa, convened with eighty delegates elected from all of Palestine. The result of the discussions was compiled in a memorandum in which, exposing the causes of the disputes, it was concluded:

“For all these reasons we demand in the name of justice and right: 1st, that the principle of a national center for the Jews be discarded; 2nd, that a national government be constituted which is responsive to a parliament elected by the Palestinians who inhabited Palestine before the war; 3rd, that Jewish immigration be suspended until the time when the national government is constituted; 4th, apply the laws and decrees that were in effect before the war and cancel all those issued since the British occupation and do not promulgate new laws until the future national government is constituted; 5th, unite Palestine with its sister, Syria.”

The protest was the word of free men, representatives of a nation, one of those “little nations” whose defense and protection was one of the points for which the war was fought. They knew to turn to England which had agreements with the Arabs, and they believed they had the right to courtesy from its minister. Mr. Churchill instead began by refusing to receive them and sending them back to the Commissioner as the representative of the Crown in the country, whom, as a Zionist partisan, they could not tolerate. When he then granted their request and admitted them to his presence, he protested openly that he “could not and did not want to annul the Balfour Declaration and prevent immigration: it was right that the Jews could come together in a national home in Palestine, to which they were tied by three millennia: this will also be a benefit even for the Arab Palestinians.”

To these statements, so strange for those present who felt only too well the effects of the Jewish invasion, the minister added some phrases that did not ease the harshness, recalling that “the validity of the promises made to the Jews is just as much as the validity of those made to the Arabs... National home does not mean a Jewish government to rule the Arabs. England, which has more Muslims than any country in the world, is well disposed toward the Arabs and esteems them as friends. You should not have fears for the future: England has promised to give the Zionist movement a chance to show its worth, but it will only succeed on its own merits. These words were quite enigmatic since the showing its worth, for the Zionist movement, consisted in oppressing the Arabs. However, Mr. Churchill showed that he did not quite understand the spirit of his audience when he invited them to admire the progress of the new Jewish settlements where, with millions administered by the Anglo-Jewish Bank, electricity and other modern inventions had been introduced. The Arabs could certainly not enjoy progress that was costing them their freedom. Finally, making an allusion to the memorandum they had presented, he added with crude irony: “You speak as if it were you who had brought down the Turkish Empire: but that is not so; many English lives have been sacrificed for Palestine ... You speak as if you miss the Turkish administration ... And if you liked the Turks so much, why did you rebel against them?” The answer was simple and was expressed by the Carmel, an Arab newspaper in Haifa: The Arabs rebelled against the Turks to have independence, and it was precisely the English who urged them to rebel by the promise of liberty which now they do not want to keep. To devalue thus the cooperation of the Arabs after the victory was neither just nor responsible.

VI.

No one will be surprised that the Arabs, seeing how resorting to peaceful ways and legal remonstrations served them nothing, would lose their patience and let themselves be dragged into the path of violence. The discontent eventually became irritation and the brazen Zionist provocations easily became occasions for quarrels, commotions, brawls or worse. At the end of April 1920 Jews and Arabs fought in the streets of Jerusalem and a dozen men from one side or the other remained on the ground. The following year on the occasion of the 1st of May, certain demonstrations were carried out by Bolshevik Jews, quite a number of whom had come from the eastern provinces of Europe, who came to blows with other non-Bolshevik Jews making noise in the city: which outraged numbers of Arabs who happened upon them: scenes of bloodshed followed: the city was put into a state of siege and tumult which lasted several days.

News of these events spread through the countryside and there excited a ferment of rancor against the foreigners who had come to disturb the country. Arabs attacked Jewish settlements on the plain of Sarona: they plundered houses in Kafr Saba and Ain Hai, whence the inhabitants fled. Another day, it was rumored that the Jews of Kedera, a village between Jaffa and Caesarea, had imprisoned some Moslem workers, a group of Arabs rushed to invade the land and tried to force the place where the inhabitants had barricaded themselves in: but an English airplane suddenly appeared nearby and bombed from high up, wounding and killing many, and dispersing the others. When the serious conflicts in Jaffa of the same month of May 1921 occurred, the English government applied a rigorous censorship to the telegraph service and the press, so that the truth of matters would not leak out to the public and everything would be contained within the prescribed limits of “minor incidents.” But will “incidents” always be left smothered in silence? And is silence the appropriate medicine to heal the plague that gnaws at the souls of the people? Meanwhile it is necessary to augment the military contingents in the face of a continual state of alarm in which the hostility of the parties has divided the inhabitants. The Arabs, so submitted to authority until yesterday, no longer contain their opposition to the government: and if they could, they would express their reasons to the same Secretary for the Colonies who since his first landing at the port of Haifa was greeted with an anti-Jewish mutiny and then going through the villages on the way to Jerusalem heard the gathered people hurl the cry in his face: Down with the Jews! While visiting the Holy City he went onto the site chosen for the erection of the Zionist university, of which we spoke in the preceding article, for an official ceremony of planting a tree, and his speech there contained an augury for the foundation. During the night the tree was uprooted and replaced by a pile of filth. From a report published in the Edinburgh Review, we know that the same Sir Herbert Samuel, in a tour he made recently in the northern part of Palestine, was surrounded by a crowd of malcontents which pressed in close to him menacingly, and he could only be saved by starting to give orders for the stopping of Jewish immigration. In sum, Palestine has lost the security and tranquility of order that it formerly enjoyed.

VII.

But Palestine has lost, by the stroke of Zionism, something more serious and precious than material order: that of moral order and honesty of tradition. A great number of the foreigners whom Zionist propaganda has summoned back to the country are far from the flower of humanity: they come especially from the lower levels of the ghettoes teeming within their confines in Russia, Poland, Hungary, Romania: and from there with other pestiferous infections has been brought the insanity of the most extreme Bolshevik Communism. Behind those crowds a filthy tribe of nameless females invaded the city and suburbs, spreading vice and depravity throughout. On the authority of the same High Commissioner, in those districts that had for so many centuries the dear name of the Holy Land, whence the shadow of the Divine Redeemer had until now kept them far from prostitution, it began to have a legal hotel with some restrictions, then, by order of February 3, 1921, with full freedom for anyone to open houses of ill repute, in the face of the Sepulchre of Christ, in Jerusalem, or next to his manger in Bethlehem, or in Jaffa, or in Haifa, or in Gaza or in other townships: and the turpitude immediately swept in so shamelessly that in short order the Holy City alone had five hundred of these miserable creatures. Together with vice, its inevitable contagions spread, and according to information we receive from the localities, there are thousands of victims of these shameful diseases that were previously unknown in this country: not to mention the illegitimate births and other vileness that are wont to accompany the dissoluteness of public morals.

Against all this filth that dishonors Palestine together with the Arabs, and more, there are protests from the Christian population, which suffers the abuses of power and the oppressions with which the Jews arrogantly tyrannize the country, and much more do they complain of the insult done to their faith by converting the consecrated sanctuary of the life of the Man-God into a refuge of vice and a theater of corruption. In other issues we have already reported the conference held here in Rome by His Excellency the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem concerning the damaging upheaval caused by the Zionist invasion and the deplorable influences that the invasion has exerted upon public morality. How much and how far the ugly truth of the facts as to the lying declamations of religious ascendancy that Israel would be established by the return to the land of their fathers! The truth is that the misconduct and political intrigues of the Zionists are condemned by the same Palestinian Jews who are the most faithful followers of the Mosaic traditions, who always lived in peaceful proximity to the Arabs. That is why they are full of wrath against these pseudo-brothers and their work of arrogance and oppression.

Let us think with the reader about what can be expected from such sectarians, by the Catholic portion of the population, with all the works the Church has created and maintained through the centuries in memory of the august mysteries that came to pass on that sacred soil. Until recently, the respect for the ancient rights sanctioned by international treaties was imposed upon that same Turkish government, as well as the universal sympathy surrounding the beneficial activities of the Catholic nations in their institutes of religion, education and charitable works in the holy name of Christ. What will be the fate of those institutes, those activities, those rights, under an empire in which Protestant-Jewish-Bolshevik influence vies, without any guarantees but those inscribed in the Balfour Declaration, of which we know the value? The common danger has already united the Christian and Muslim populations in a defensive league for the rights of their own existence, raising protests in public rallies and, in view of the hostility of Great Britain, taking direct recourse to the Council of the League of Nations, to which the conventions of war have assigned the decisions about the future of this country. (footnote: The Muslims had recourse to the Holy See via Cardinal Giustini when he was in Jerusalem as pontifical legate for the feast of the eight hundredth anniversary of St. Francis of Assisi.) Will the force of law finally have its rightful weight among the rulers of the people, or will it prove true that might always makes right?

VIII.

It is the opinion of many that England has not adequately weighed the consequences that could result from the cruel step into which it has been led by Zionism. Anyone who knows the Arab knows how, along with his frank generosity of character, he is tenacious in his vendettas. The greater the trust he placed in Great Britain when, embracing its cause, he had hoped from it political independence, the deeper will endure in him the rancor over the deception he suffered. The wrong he received in Palestine has repercussions from the Taurus Mountains to the Cape Ras el Hadd among all those tribes linked by bonds of race that line the seas on the way to India. It should stand close to the heart of Great Britain to avoid having enemies along that way: the methods used by them, however, in their conduct toward the inhabitants of Palestine, are not optimal for success. Among the politicians of that nation are those who do not fail to hear: and to seek more effective means for a remedy, a large meeting was held last May in London at the instance of the National Political League, with the involvement of a large number of members of the two chambers of parliament and other personages. At it, after having observed that it is not possible to allow the current form of the government of Palestine to continue without danger to order and peace in the country and without shame to the name of Britain in the Middle East, the assembly chose by unanimous vote to present to the Prime Minister a resolution requesting the abolition of the Zionist Commission, the concession of an autonomous government for the Palestinians and a parliamentary vote whether to approve the Mandate.

This National League wanted to show its favor to the justice of their cause by holding a banquet in honor of the Arab delegation sent to England to present its memorandum to the government and to request an impartial inquest into the state of matters in their country. Also on this occasion Member of Parliament Joynson-Hicks, who presided over the meeting, recognized the rights of the Palestinians, denouncing the Balfour Declaration as a “mystery of modern politics,” and concluded by exclaiming sadly: “The violation of our word of honor in Palestine would bring even worse than in Ireland!” It is certain that the state of more or less open agitation and hostility that has been reigning in the region has forced England up to now to maintain a strong garrison of occupation, to be prepared for any possible eventuality, which is costing it no less than 60 or 70 million per year. Neither is it to be hoped that such a state of agitation will cease, if the current state of violence and oppression does not cease, and if the Arabs are not given the essential guarantees of their freedom and independence. Thus the advantage of the English public Treasury accords fully with the interests of the Palestinian people founded on fidelity to treaties and principles of the strictest justice.

A resolution of the House of Lords came in these days to recognize faithfully the principles of these treaties, approving by 60 votes to 29 a motion by Lord Islington, in which it was stated, “the Mandate for Palestine in the present form is unacceptable, because it is directly in violation of the promise made by the government to the Palestinian people and is opposed to the sentiments and desires of the majority of the English people”: and it proposed that it not be accepted by the Council of the League of Nations unless changes were made in accordance with the contractual obligations of the government.

Finally, with superior authority, intervening in defense of the population that has sought its protection, the Holy See sent a letter on June 28 to the League of Nations protesting against the granting of economic, administrative and political predominance to the Jews over the other nationalities of Palestine and calling for guarantees of security for the Catholic interests that the new Mandate threw into play among warring passions.

July 19, 1922 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“The Jewish Question in Poland”

As soon as one crosses the Polish border, one is immediately struck by the presence of a great number of men who are distinguished from all others by their long black coat, which extends to the feet, by their long hair and large beard, and especially by their repellent filthiness: these are the Jews…

Poland was called the “Paradise of the Jews” because of the great hospitality that these people, dispersed and persecuted in many other countries of southern Europe, have always found from the generous spirit of the Poles ...

But in the last decades of the past century, a new emigration of Jews began into Poland. Hundreds of thousands of Jews, expelled from Russia, found a refuge in Polish territory under the protection of the Russian Government itself, which was interested in dividing the population of Poland in order to rule it more easily, seeking to use every means to embitter the relations between the Jews and the Poles and thus create an insurmountable barrier between the one and the other.

From this period, the nationalistic evolution of the Jews of Poland began. They stopped considering themselves Poles, becoming foreigners instead, assuming an attitude of open and combative hostility toward Poland and desiring to achieve the formation of a State with the State...

Also, socialism and communism count a great number of ardent supporters among the Jews of Poland; these constitute an extremely grave danger to the young nation which is permanently menaced by Bolshevik invasion at its eastern frontier. One need only recall their betrayal during the advance of the Bolsheviks to the gates of Warsaw in the summer of 1920 and their battalions of volunteers alongside the invaders and their collaboration in the establishment of Soviet councils in the cities and lands occupied by the Bolsheviks.

The Zionist Party is well organized in Poland and largely supported and financed by international Zionism. It brings together Jews of all categories and is represented by four deputies in the Parliament... Its program is not only the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine, but the national transformation of Poland into a colony of Palestine...

July 29, 1922 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“Zionism and Palestine”

Achille Loria [a prominent Italian professor of political economy] has published in Echi e Commenti an article in which he purports to distinguish what is true from what is utopian in Zionism.

His writing is so precise and incisive that, even though it contains opinions and comments with which, if we are allowed to penetrate to the heart of a policy question, we must sometimes disagree; but it is nevertheless inspired by such an objectivity that even opposing opinions must squarely cope with it.

And we say this because those who have followed our articles on Palestine and Zionism and our own controversy with the Israel will have noticed how we came to this conclusion: namely, that Zionism has compromised the Jewish question itself, as “firebrands” often do for any cause, however just; thus its adversaries are found not only in other religious circles, but among the more prudent Israelites themselves; at the end of the day Zionism cannot wrap itself in invulnerability, under a hauberk of peaceful Jewish aspirations respectful of the rights and traditions of the other Palestinian races.

In fact Loria, in a short historical summary of these Jewish aspirations, concludes that they are realized in a “Jewish settlement of Palestine” not “meant just for the renaissance of the destination country, but rather also for the peace and serenity of the countries of origin, freeing them of a population that is groaning, restless and subjected to the repugnant spectacle of barbaric persecution.”

This is an endeavor, Loria believes, against which there could be no possible objection whatsoever. “But the trouble,” he continues, “is that the great part of its proponents do not stop a that, and are not satisfied with an economic Zionism, but rather mean to establish a real political Zionism of their own. That is to say, they yearn for the re-establishment of the ancient Kingdom of Israel, formed not only out of the detritus of the European persecution, but also intended to gather, on a later day, all of Israel scattered in the world. Indeed, as these organizers think, when the Jews emigrating from Europe have reached a critical number, they will conceive the legitimate desire to establish themselves as an independent nation and their numbers alone will make it possible to actualize such a program. So it will be possible then to resurrect the ancient Kingdom of Zion, to which all the Jews of the earth will then not fail to rush.

However, this second and more ambitious part of the Zionist program is one that we are not inclined at all to approve, because to us it appears permeated with a double error, political and psychological. First and foremost indeed, this program manifests a belief that nations and states are essentially voluntary creations, which can be established by an arbitrary act, according to the attitude or inclination of a given number of interested parties. Now nothing could be more erroneous. Political aggregations, far from being arbitrary creations, are natural formations that are created independently of human will, by the silent ongoing action of irresistible social factors. There is not a single example of states emerging solely from ideas that become concretized as facts, and those states created by Plato and by Dr. Herzl are not descending from a literary Olympus as concrete realities. So to believe that some fine day the immigrant Jews will be able to erect the new Kingdom of Israel is the most illusory utopia.”

And to the political and psychological errors one can add the obvious practical absurdity.

And in fact, according to Loria, “it is absurd to think that the new Kingdom of Israel might have the power to draw to its bosom the Jews of Western Europe, or of America, or generally of any of the countries not dishonored by persecutions. The Jews of these countries, in fact, feel quite other, citizens of countries where they have been settled for a long time, to the progress of which they have consecrated the flower of their energy and their thoughts, which they have defended at the cost of their blood against foreign aggression and against their co-religionists from among other peoples, toward whom they do not feel a common bond of ideals and sacrifices comparable to what a Catholic in France can feel toward one in Bavaria. Now these Jews, so rooted in their homelands, will refuse to their last breath to be part of the new Zionist State, which therefore will not be able to recruit from the detritus of Eastern Europe. Thus it will always be a rather mutilated Zionism, a kind of Kingdom of Judah, but all events rendered so insignificant that it will not be able to create an element of discomfort to the Israelites of the West, who will often be, however unfairly, implicated in direct or indirect responsibility for conduct of the new state, and for whom their presumed solidarity with the state will erode the confidence and intimacy they had with their own true compatriots.”

Neither can the presence of the Holy Places be overlooked with respect to the difficulty of the Zionist State as a source of conflicts and profound tensions, such that the intervention of interested Nations will not be able to weigh heavily on the person or sovereign of the new political collectivity.

“And besides, what language will be spoken in the new State? The overwhelming majority of Israelites of the West have by now completely forgotten Hebrew, while the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe speak a jargon that is a composite of various linguistic strains. And how does one bring together men of such diverse character and traditions, such as bankers or Parisian lawyers, accustomed to all the refinements of the most exquisite civilization, with the rabble, filth and ignorance of Bucovina [Romania] or the Caucasus? What type of parliament would come from the agglomeration of individuals so dissimilar as to civilization, customs, and ideas, individuals separated by whole centuries, by abysses of history and intellectual development? Could such problems ever be resolved?”

And the conclusion is a warning: “The Zionists,” concludes Loria, “are concentrating all their energy in efforts to expand and ennoble the place of refuge, which they believe is providentially opened to the persecuted Jews of Eastern and Central Europe; to develop, that is, and refine economic Zionism, which has so opportunely begun, and it will be accompanied by the blessing and praise of honest and free spirits of the whole earth. But charity does not extend to the more ambitious aims ...”

“The Problem of the Mandate in Palestine” – dateline Paris, July 27

Viviani, upon his return to Paris, spoke to the Petit Parisien about his work in the Council of the League of Nations, especially concerning the Mandate for Syria and the objections raised by Italy.

He said: “For twenty months we had the Mandate for Syria, precisely since December 20, 1920, and the Italians did not raise any complaint.

So one can imagine how surprised I was when the Imperial Marquis, the representative of Italy, announced that the Italian Government, namely Schanzer, would present observations and make objections.

I protested against the tardiness of this effort, and it was then that England, agreeing with my observations, accepted my proposal, which consisted in uniting, with respect to the solution, the Mandate for Syria with the Mandate for Palestine.

I did understand that there was a common interest, and I asked for a reaffirmation of the solidarity of the nations.

Balfour, with a nobility of insight and spirit that deserves recognition, agreed to combine the two terms, so that the Imperial Marquis was forced to declare himself opposed to both. Thus the Italian crisis suddenly arose, which stopped the endeavors of the Imperial Marquis, thus producing the well-known solution.

Article. 14 concerns a moral issue, on which we request a fuller examination, and therefore its definitive resolution has been postponed.

The articles of the Mandate for Palestine have been approved, as have the articles of the Mandate for Syria.

These articles are intangible and supportive, and the two Mandates will take effect on the same day, the day when the Italian Government and the French Government notify the Council of the League of Nations of the Franco-Italian agreement. I hope this day is not far off. I maintain, however, there is one thing you need to know, that this means the Italian demands to France do not have any relationship to the Italian demands received by England. These demands are so serious that it is in the interest of France to examine them closely. Now the remaining tasks are up to the government, since my part is finished.

There were rumors circulating in Paris following telegrams from Cairo, that news of the French Mandate for Syria had caused serious unrest. It was stated that French troops had been attacked, and that two officers and 17 French soldiers were taken prisoner, adding that the insurgents had considerable French military materiel, including an airplane and two cannons. However, the latest news that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has received directly, indicates that the riots were exaggerated in their proportions.

Aug. 21, 1922 Chancellor Joseph Wirth’s letter to Cardinal Faulhaber:

Your Eminence will have been informed of the adverse position that is taken precisely by the Catholic circles of Bavaria toward my policy and my person and which, as letters have shown me, reaches deep into the ranks of the clergy… As an indication of the nature of this struggle, I call attention to the “Bayerischer Kurier’s” article in issue no. 315 of July 31st, in which it is stated:

“At a secret meeting of the action committees of the Independent Socialist Party and the Communist Party of Germany in Berlin in February 1922, a representative of the Soviet Government declared that it is essential to disarm the rightwing before the outbreak of fighting. This could only be accomplished with the cooperation of the Government. Thanks to the intervention of Dr. Rathenau, I have become convinced that only the formation of a pure workers’ government can prevent the outbreak of counter-revolution. The precondition for a successful coup d’état is the aforesaid disarming of the counter-revolution, a step the Reich Government has decided to take.” Upon these supposed statements the “Bayerischer Kurier” commented: “The Republic Defense Law [enacted July 21, 1922] is a new, triumphal stage in the advancing world revolution. The plan of February 1922 to break up and dissolve the nationalist formations, to disarm them before the struggle, has nearly been accomplished thanks to this law. Today the entire north of Germany is already the virtually uncontested domain of the advance guard of chaos. Only one blockade has not yet been eroded: Bavaria. The entire months-long systematic incitement conducted against Bavaria has only one purpose, to undermine it, discredit it, and finally draw it into the vortex that has cost Russia far more than 30 million dead.”

Whether the statements placed in the mouth of the Soviet representative ever actually occurred, I do not know. In any event they are so completely inappropriate, like the remarks that the “Bayerischer Kurier” adds to them, whatever the nature may be of the facts. As relates especially to the allegations in the article concerning Dr. Rathenau, I owe it to the memory of my friend and colleague, murdered at the hand of knaves shortly before this appeared in the press, as well as to Your Eminence, to stipulate that they are completely made up out of thin air. The role that the “Bayrischer Kurier” would have Dr. Rathenau playing is the absolute opposite of his mentality and his entire outlook on things. It should certainly be expected of the leading Catholic paper of Bavaria that it would verify all such portentous assertions before publishing them in a form that has to arouse among readers the conviction that they are correct.

As I hear it, Your Eminence considers it advisable that I not take part in the German Catholic Congress this year. I am also of the view that considering the dominant mood in Bavaria I should keep away from the upcoming Congress, - not as if I had concern for my own life, but rather because I consider it my duty to spare our Fatherland the unrest that would be the inevitable consequence of a nonetheless possible attempt on my life. I cannot conceal, however, that it is a deeply distressing feeling for me as a Catholic that the Catholic Chancellor of the German Reich cannot attend the German Catholic Congress, because the mood of the province in which it will be held has been agitated to such an extent.

Of Your Eminence, as Bavaria’s highest bishop, might I venture to request that you take a stand, with whatever means you will and can, against this mood among the Catholic population of your province, which I for the good of our Fatherland must denounce as extremely injurious.

With the fullest high respect, Your Eminence’s devoted,

/s/ Wirth

PS In consideration of the importance I place upon this matter, I have taken the liberty to share copies of this letter with various German Bishops.

Source: L. Volk, Akten Kardinal Michael von Faulhabers, vol. 1, pages 260-261.

Aug. 24, 1922 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“Receptions for Hindenburg in Munich” – dateline Munich, August 22

The nationalist associations and the parties of the governing coalition have enthusiastically received General Hindenburg, who went in full uniform with marshal’s baton to lay a wreath on the tombs of the Wittelsbachs and made visits to Minister President Count Lerchenfeld and to three men who were commanders of the Bavarian army during the war, Prince Rupprecht, Prince Leopold, and General Bothmer. Under orders from the Central Government, the Reichswehr had to remain secluded on the street of the Academy, while the ceremony in honor of Hindenburg was to be held in the gardens of the royal court; but the patriotic associations, the body of senior officials, the students, and the entire crowd moved in a long procession from the gardens and came into position next to the Reichswehr. All around was a forest of flags, white-blue and black-white-red, the colors of Bavaria and of the former German Empire. Prince Rupprecht delivered the welcoming speech addressed to the Field Marshal, thanking him on behalf of the combat veterans, exalting the valor of the “leader who brought his armies victory after victory,” and concluding with the words: “I remain steadfast in loyalty to the Empire.”

Hindenburg responded that he earned his military successes through the heroism of the German soldiers and in particular the Bavarians. It is his firm desire to dedicate the rest of his life to the good of the Fatherland; he hopes that his sacrifices will not have been in vain and that he will live to see, with the help of God, better times.

One incident of the day that may have been significant was provoked by Captain [Hermann] Schützinger, head of the German Republic Union, who attended as a journalist. According to one version he made a very favorable observation [presumably about the Weimar Republic] and people simply walked away. But another version says that he was spat upon in the face and struck in a way that drew blood. The police had to protect his departure.

“Munich and Berlin”

The Bavarian Minister of the Interior and Minister of Justice are returning together today to Munich from Berlin and have revealed the results of discussions with Wirth at the Chancery which took place this evening. We have no reliable news about it. Nevertheless it is stated that, while the protocol signed by Count Lerchenfeld remains in effect, it would be better elucidated by a further exchange of letters.

Aug. 27, 1922 The first words of Cardinal Faulhaber’s address to 100,000 German Catholics at the Katholikentag mass on the Königsplatz:

Brothers, be strong in the Lord! Put on the armor of God on the day of evil!” Ephesians 6: 10, 13.

Catholic Congress day is arming day, arming day of Catholic character and conscience, arming day of Catholic joy in labor and Catholic labor associations, arming day of Catholic unity and Catholic candor with unfurled flags in the open sunshine. Catholic Congress day is arming day! Put on the armor of God on the day of evil!

I greet you from all regions of the German tongue, assembled around your multicolored flags in all the variety of German ethnicity, in the unity of Catholic faith, assembled around the cross and the altar of the Lord! The name Catholic is no mere external label, the name Catholic is the expression of our innermost character, an expression of a racially pure type [Ausdruck reinrassiger Art], a confession of Catholic action. With this mass, the cornerstone of the Catholic Congress shall be laid, and the Bishop of this City shall place a certificate in it and write upon it the fundamental issues of Catholic doctrine, the baselines of the Catholic order of life, the deep sources of Catholic power for action.

To be Catholic means, first of all, to be a believer on the basis of Church doctrine. Two flaming lights stand at the entrance to the Catholic Congress: the word of revelation and the teaching office of the Church. God has spoken in revelation. The fact of revelation lies in the sunlight of history. A sincere seeker of truth gratefully and faithfully accepts the word of God. Christ founded a Church, and only one Church, and instructed the seeker of truth to “hear the Church,” to go into the school of the Church. The sincere seeker of truth says: God’s Church, you are the pillar and foundation of truth. The doctrines of salvation are not at the mercy of the preference and option of the individual or of independent research...

Cardinal Faulhaber’s words to the Catholic Congress about perjury and high treason:

...Compromises are unavoidable in the interplay of oppositions and interests. Superior to all compromises, however, are principles, like the eternal stars, and there comes a limit where we say: Up to here and no further! The Revolution was perjury and high treason and remains in history congenitally tainted and branded with the mark of Cain. Even if the upheaval brought some successes, even if it opened the way for adherents of the Catholic faith to higher offices far more than before, its moral character is not assessed by its results, for a misdeed may not be sanctified on the basis of its results. The Catholic Congress will set Catholic principles as a beacon on high. Give me a hundredfold personalities of strong character around every church tower, a dozen around every association flag, and we will renew the face of the earth. To be Catholic means to be a moral character.

To be Catholic means, third, to be an apostle on the basis of Church teaching about grace. Grace is the helping hand of God, it is being strong in the Lord, it is the putting on of the armor of God. Where God’s grace is, there is the greater power, there is always, at the end of the day, victory...

[concluding paragraph]: That is the ABC of the Catholic Catechism. I have not intended to speak about advanced astronomy, we must begin small and build from the ground up with the ABC of the Catholic Catechism: Be a confessor on the basis of Catholic doctrinal teaching, be of character in the school of Christian moral teaching, be an apostle in the power of Church teaching of grace. In this way I have laid the foundation of the wall. Now may the other speakers of the Catholic Congress build further upon this foundation, and may they inspire us to take care of the schools and the youth, of missions at home and abroad to the heathen, of popular education and morality, of charity, patriotism [Staatsgesinnung] and concern for peace. Now the Apostolic Nuncio will step up to the altar and celebrate the Sunday mass for all of you, and we pray with him the Apostle’s Creed and receive from him the blessing for the Catholic Congress. Then become strong in the Lord, put on the armor of God!

Source: Ansprache des hochwürdigsten Herrn Kardinals Michael v. Faulhaber [Address by His Eminence the Most Reverend Lord Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber], reprinted in: Die Reden gehalten in den öffentlichen und geschlossenen Versammlungen der 62. General-Versammlung der Katholiken Deutschlands zu München 27. bis 30. August 1922 (Würzburg: Fränkische Gesellschafts-Druckerei, 1923)

Aug. 27, 1922 Speech by Nuncio Pacelli at the 1922 German Catholic Congress:

It brings me the greatest joy and honor to be able to take part again in the General Assembly of the Catholics of Germany. I cannot refrain from thanking you sincerely for the warm reception and for the friendly words of greeting that the most honorable Herr President directed my way in your name.

With honest joy and satisfaction I have welcomed the fact that the Bavarian capital has been called this year, by the trust of German Catholics, to carry on the work of the forefathers in the old faithful Catholic spirit.

The special bonds that have attached me to Catholic Munich in the now more than five years of my activity here, the love and the reverence that have been offered here to the representative of the Holy See in such rich measure, make it for me - aside from all else - a joyfully exercised duty to appear today in your midst, in order thereby to proclaim to Catholic Munich and beyond to the entirety of Catholic Germany, with what active interest the Holy Father accompanies this splendid congress, and what importance he attributes to your deliberations and decisions.

In these difficult times of general deprivation, it does the fatherly heart of His Holiness unending happiness when he sees how the Catholics of Germany, despite all distress, work with unbroken courage for the religious-moral rebirth of the people, and how earnestly they are striving with all their strength to contributte to the achievement of the longed-for peace among the nations.

The Holy Father will be especially glad if I can report to him how united and resolute the German Catholics have been at this congress in the advocacy of their holy interests, how they, despite all differences of ethnicity and character, were of one heart and one soul after the model of the first Christians, and how they felt most ardently connected with the visible representative of Christ on earth. In an impressive way this has all been already brought to expression here today.

May the Lord God be close to your deliberations with the support of his supernatural grace. May the holy Mother of God, the “Patroness of Bavaria,” be for you a “Mother of Good Counsel”!

As a pledge of this heavenly support of grace, I impart to all of you in the name and in the particular charge of His Holiness, the gloriously reigning Pope Pius XI, with all my heart, the Apostolic Blessing.

Source: Ansprache des hohen Vertreters Sr. Heiligkeit des Papstes Nuntius Pacelli gehalten am 27. August 1922 gelegentlich des Begrüßungsabends [Address of the High Representative of His Holiness the Pope Nuncio Pacelli delivered on the 27th of August 1922 on the occasion of the greeting-evening], reprinted in: Die Reden gehalten in den öffentlichen und geschlossenen Versammlungen der 62. General-Versammlung der Katholiken Deutschlands zu München 27. bis 30. August 1922 (Würzburg: Fränkische Gesellschafts-Druckerei, 1923), pp. 11-12.

Aug. 28, 1922 Münchner Neueste Nachrichten [Munich Latest News], page 3, on Nuncio Pacelli’s Pontifical Mass and Cardinal Faulhaber’s sermon:

“The Catholic Congress”

The Papal Nuncio then celebrated the Pontifical Mass, and at its conclusion, no fewer than 129,000 voices rose up to the clear blue sky singing the Ambrosian praise song, Great God We Praise You!

A celebration of extraordinary energy was at an end.

“The Catholic Church and the State”

From the sermon of Cardinal von Faulhaber, there are some especially significant passages in which he spoke about Catholic doctrine in relation to the state. He said in that regard:

“Woe to the state that does not build its legal order and legislation on the foundation of God’s commandments, that creates a constitution without the name of God, that does not recognize the rights of parents in its school laws, that does not protect its people from diseased theater and cinema, that passes laws enabling divorce and protecting motherhood outside marriage. Where God’s commandments are not applied, 10,000 state laws will not suffice to maintain order. If the state’s laws are in contradiction of God’s laws, then the saying applies, God’s law trumps the state’s law.

“To be Catholic means to be of strong character on the basis of Christian doctrine, it means to have principles. Compromises are sometimes necessary in the interplay of oppositions, but principles are superior to all. The Revolution was ...”

Source: Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, Aug. 28, 1922, page 3.

Aug. 31, 1922 Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, page 2, on Konrad Adenauer’s response, as President of the Catholic Congress, to Cardinal Faulhaber:

Where there is much light, there will naturally also always be some shadows. Here and there during these events on the occasion of the Catholic Congress, there have been some words used that can be best explained in relation to concerns of a local nature, which the entirety of German Catholics, however, do not make their own without anything further. It is quite obvious that our unity in the evaluation and judgment of many things suffers from the heterogeneity of our judgments about governmental interactions of the present day. In governmental life it is necessary to have sound principles that are calmly considered, but equally necessary are deep and clear recognitions of matters and possibilities. Much appears different after days and years, once you have eventually gained a real remove in time. Until then it is good for all parties to keep peaceful and to place uppermost what is unifying; unity must be above everything else for us. That is necessary in the interest of Catholicism, and is also necessary in the interest of the German people. It has been repeatedly said here, and rightly so, what significance Catholicism has for the German people.

Note: The newspaper reported that Adenauer’s remarks met with some consternation [Befremden], while Cardinal Faulhaber’s remarks met with a jubilant reception [jubelnden Aufnahme]. The Munich Neueste Nachrichten, a secular newspaper with the largest circulation of any in Bavaria, contained no word of criticism or questioning of the Cardinal’s remarks.

Aug. 30, 1922 Völkischer Beobachter, page 2:

“Signs of the Times”

... Cardinal Faulhaber, in his speech at the opening of the Catholic Congress, made the following statement about the Revolution: “The Revolution was perjury and high treason and remains in history congenitally tainted and marked with the sign of Cain.” -- Cardinal Prince-Bishop Bertram said recently to the Brandenburg Catholic Congress, “One must above all else honor the established state order. In that regard it is completely irrelevant how this state of affairs came to be.”

Now who is right? Of the two opinions, only one can be the official Catholic one. Herr Wirth, as a Center Party man and Chancellor of the German Reich, has in any case made the view of Prince-Bishop Bertram his own and sits as a racially pure Catholic with Cohn and company at the table of the German Government.

The same Cardinal Faulhaber, in the first main public gathering of the German Catholic Congress, said the following among other things: “Since Moses delivered the Eighth Commandment: ‘You shall not lie,’ this requirement applies also for the Jewish press in Berlin and its Munich correspondents ... We live in the time of the Protection Laws. So it would be good if we also had Protection Laws for the truth.” (frenetic applause from the gathering.) Are they really that much at a loss? Or if the Lord Cardinal has un-learned something, then it must be assumed that it is the fault of the evil Völkisch Germans.

Völkischer Beobachter, August 30, 1922, page 2:

“Thoughts About the Catholic Congress” by Alfred Rosenberg

Every German surely felt his heart beat faster on Sunday as all the waving flags, all the exemplary earthy men, passed by as they processed from the Königsplatz. Greeted by loud hailing cheers, a slice of the dance-, song-, and drink-cheered Middle Ages went through the streets of Munich. Halbardiers, scythes, sutlers, old-time hats, colorful costumes from all Catholic regions.

And in view of this variegated yet closely related crowd, I must reflect on something else: on the Luther- and Reformation-Congress in northern Germany. In old Lübeck, members of the German Volk also processed through the city in similar celebrations. People from Silesia, Holstein, Frisia, in their splendid costumes. I cannot help asking myself whether it shouldn’t be possible sometime – yet this is really a lark of a dream – to unite these North Germans and South Germans sometime in a combined German Christian celebration. They once stood shoulder to shoulder, year after year in damp trenches; service to the Fatherland brought them together on aircraft and battleships: an idea emerged and became a deed, which could have encompassed both Catholic and Protestant religious life.

Today if you placed a man from Dithmarschen [in northern Germany] alongside a man from Bolzano [in southern Tyrol, a German speaking part of Austria that became part of Italy after WW1], they would sometimes not completely understand each other as a matter of dialect, they would discover marked differences in character, and in the same way their inclinations toward forms of religion would be different. And yet they would feel a unity going beyond that: their German Volk-ness, at the end of the day, their sharing in the same destiny.

In view of many a high level consistorial speech and in view of many a speech at the Catholic Congresses, one sees that only the Völkisch worldview is capable of realizing the goals of the best Germans. It borders on the tragic to see how single-mindedly these hundred thousand recently stood together at the Königsplatz and listened to words that to some extent were worthy and sublime, but to some extent were apt to define the cleft between German and German as permanent, while establishing the connection with non-Germans, insofar as they were Catholics, as heart’s desire and doctrine.

Twice Cardinal Faulhaber summoned “Catholics of pure-racial type” (a remarkable word), but he expressly added, among other things, that this is to be taken in no event as “German-Catholic.”

Fundamentally, the rigid emphasis on denomination is exactly the same as emphasis on class. While Marxism is also a doctrine with sad results, there are unfortunately many thousands of Germans who are attached to it with a directly religious sentiment. They believe themselves to be more closely related to the “oppressed and exploited” among other peoples than to German people of other classes. Their class-consciousness cuts deeply and destructively into the living body of German Volk-ness.

It is exactly the same when church membership is placed before this Volk-ness. Believers among Germans seldom are really clear about how distinctively different a character, from a Völkisch perspective, has been taken on by Catholicism in Italy, Spain and the colonies. Perhaps they really don’t know that their saints are Christian-renamed old-time Germanic gods, that their whole faith at the end of the day is really not dogmatic, but rather Völkisch, if they understand how not to miss the forest for the trees (one compares the Völkisch currents in the Middle Ages). In just this way the Protestant forms are Völkischly determined: here the more artistic, multiform German South is encountered by the more brooding North German. If one does not recognize these sources that cannot be further explained, then the bridges will be stricken that are so completely essential to us, then the opposite recognition of the justification of another sentiment will penetrate more deeply; but then it will also be possible to finally build a wall against the attempts to use one denomination against the part of the Volk that belongs to another denomination.

The signs of the time are unmistakable. Both Christian denominations would have every reason to study them, because they will be carried out whether they want it or not. Previously our lot was often a struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism. Neither Catholics nor Protestants are following this approach any longer today. Whoever pursues denominational power games today must do it under a cloak such as humanity, common Christian love of neighbor, or whatever. New organisms are being formed as a result; in place of the Catholic brother advances the Frenchman; in place of the Protestant – the Swede or Englishman; in place of the Jewish denomination, the foreign Jewish race.

The great task of all the German churches would be this, to meet halfway with this new spiritual turning point. To rely on traditions would never accomplish anything interiorly fruitful and would only summon up catastrophies. The Völkisch worldview, which recognizes that many dialects, many customs, many philosophical and artistically expressed differences of the North and South, together with the shadings of religious sentiment, arise out of one and the same Volk-soul, the Germanic Volk-soul that we all share in common, whether it was as in the time of Wolfram von Eschenbach, predominantly Catholic, or as in the time of Goethe, predominantly Protestant.

The time of class- and denominational-politics is going toward its end. A perspective is arising of joint membership, based on the Völkisch worldview. But the new form arises only through a demarcation ...

That the Völkisch concept will one day be realized is just as certain as the fact that there is a German Volk. That alone will bring the salvation of our future. A.R.

Aug. 30, 1922 L’Osservatore Romano, page one:

“The German Catholic Congress” – dateline Munich, Aug. 28, from our own sources

The most solemn inauguration of the sixty-second National Congress of German Catholics took place yesterday, as we reported telegraphically yesterday.

The City is bedecked with flags and extremely animated: the Bavarian and German flags alternating with the pontifical: and the pontifical flag waving over the Cathedral Church of Our Lady.

The imposing inaugural ceremony took place in front of an immense crowd of delegates at the Royal Residence of Bavaria, including Prince Rupprecht, the Cardinal Archbishop, His Excellency the Apostolic Nuncio, and many Bishops and ecclesiastical and lay personalities from all over Germany. Among the inaugural speeches, the most notable was that of His Eminence Cardinal Faulhaber, who spoke of the prestige and influence of Catholics in the State, with the most eloquent words about the position of the Catholic religion in the new German Constitution. The Cardinal’s words met with a huge ovation from the hundred thousand Congress-goers and listeners.

Before the Nuncio, Mayor Adenauer sang the praises of the union of all German Catholics, and the Minister President of Bavaria gave his greetings to the Congress-goers and extolled the patriotism of Catholics, offering as an example the House of Wittelsbach itself, which made for a spontaneous demonstration of devotion.

Finally amidst an indescribable enthusiasm and incessant “viva” cheers for the Holy Father, Archbishop Pacelli spoke the most noble words, wishing that the works of the Congress succeed abundantly for the cause of Religion and the good of the Country. The Latin message from the Pope prompted a renewal of poignant demonstrations. For the immense crowd, the inaugural ceremonies took place on the King’s Plaza.

Work began today with the general report by Adenauer. Cardinal Faulhaber also took part, and there has been discussion of the need for a Catholic press that defends the truth.

The Congress approved the following resolution at the end of the general report:

“The Assembly profoundly deplores that, during the numerous peace conferences, the Roman question has not yet been resolved in a manner worthy of the representative of Jesus Christ.

“The discussion of this question that continues in the Italian press with dignity and respect towards the Holy See shows that even liberals admit that the situation of the Pope in Rome is unacceptable and that the majority of the Italian Nation desire that a just and rapid solution put an end to this painful and harmful wrong. The Assembly expressed the wish that in the environment of the Italian Nation sentiments of equity and justice would grow ever stronger so that a felicitous solution may be concluded for the Roman question.”

Aug. 31, 1922 , page one:

Republic, what is becoming of you? This question is really appropriate. At the Munich Catholic Congress Herr Archbishop Faulhaber thundered against the makers of the Revolution, branding them with perjury and high treason. Among the makers of the Revolution are the previous Ministers of the Government of the Republic, and according to the Defense Law, a defamation of previous Ministers of the Republic is punishable. The Bavarian Government has obligated itself to implement the Defense Laws; will they proceed against Herr Faulhaber – or does this Herr possess freedom to defame because of his crosier? In the same way the Bishop thundered against the Reich Constitution; this defamation is also punishable. What feelings must have come upon the Center Party Ministers who were present?...

Citation: Ingolstadt Freie Presse, Aug. 31, 1922, page one.

Sept. 2, 1922 Völkischer Beobachter, page one:

“The Catholic Congress and National Socialism”

The Catholic Congress is now over. The warm affirmation of Germanism and the unanimous protest against our undoing by the Entente was, on this occasion, especially significant. Now is the time to undertake a close examination of the general political message.

The Munich police, by their prohibition of our placards on this occasion, gave witness to the influence of Jewish elements. At the Catholic Congress no other words received such frenetic applause as those of Cardinal Faulhaber when he summoned up a true description of the “Berlin Jewish press” (by the way, he could rightly have given the same general description to the “Bayerischer Kurier”). With this remark, Cardinal Faulhaber took the concept of Jewish nationality and made it his own. For the Jewish press of Berlin (“Berlin Daily News,” “Forwards,” “Freedom,” “Red Banner,” “Midday News,” “World on Monday,” “Financial Courier,” etc.) includes religious and non-religious Jews. Until now Churchmen have spoken of Jews only in a religious sense, not in a racial or tribal sense. In this instance, however, the former sense was replaced by the racial sense, on the part of a high authority. (Though in another instance, granted, it was not: concerning the “Black Shame” in the Rhineland, Cardinal Faulhaber spoke of “pagans and Mohammedans” instead of negroes).

In what concerns Bavaria and Berlin, the words “perjury and high treason” of the Revolution dealt a resounding blow to the entire policy of the self-styled Christian and Catholic Center Party, and thereby also to the shady dealings of Dr. Wirth. These words from one of the highest Catholic dignitaries are naturally not a spontaneous temperamental utterance, but rather were the fruit of thorough discussion among leaders. They must have realized that the overwhelmingly predominant number of Center Party followers would turn away from a ramshackle anti-German politics, after they had involuntarily cooperated with it and brought about the “perjury and high treason.” One will have assumed that the elements led by the successor to Matthias von Biberach, already too closely bound to the party of Oscar Cohn, were becoming uncomfortable and that a change in the nationalist camp should be induced. However that may be, the fact is that the ten thousand representatives of Catholicism who were in conflict both with Jew-Berlin (with its Center Party head) and with German Bavaria (unfortunately still with the other Gorgon head) have placed themselves on the side of the latter. Now any Bavarian Government that can halfway understand how to read the soul of the entire German Volk, must renounce its lukewarmness or, if it is incapable of that (which we think we know to be the case), immediately abdicate. But we witnessed the grotesque fact that Count Lerchenfeld [the Minister President of the State of Bavaria] still spoke in high dudgeon at the same Catholic Congress. A mocking-bird could write a magnificent satire about this.

The third politically remarkable fact was Cardinal Faulhaber’s talk about “The Peacemaking Power of the Church.” That was above all a criticism of the League of Nations, which we welcome. This is, according to the Cardinal’s words, “no support for world peace, but rather flammable material and new world war. What contains the seeds of death in it, is that it does not serve the interests of world peace, but rather of world finance, and it is a gambling-hell of big capitalism. It cries out to heaven that the consequences of all the peace conferences and the League of Nations are always this finance-maneuver and the increasing hunger of isolated peoples.”

These words were greeted with great applause. They express what National Socialists have been proclaiming day after day in public meetings, what the “Völkischer Beobachter” is often proclaiming, as the only such newspaper in Munich. The only thing lacking is the recognition that 90% of the directors of the League of Nations are Jews (Hymans, Hamel, Mantoux, Brockmann, Haas, etc.), that moreover these world financial markets are exclusively in the hands of several dozen Jewish bankers. We hope that by next year’s Congress the Völkisch movement will be so strong as to make it possible for Cardinal Faulhaber to speak the whole truth without fear of contradiction.

“Crying out to heaven” is certainly the state of things; but why does the “Christian” press not take the trouble to enlighten their readers? Yes, why not? “Germania” speaks more Jewishly than Oscar Cohn, and the “Bayerischer Kurier” received Herr Rathenau with friendly nods. Why, why?

In any case it is now established that the head of the Church hierarchy has placed himself behind the Völkisch critique. From that also follows, if it is really intended earnestly and not just as the exertion of a small bit of political pressure, a relentless struggle against this international plague of the world finance markets.

And this Völkisch shot against this international conspiracy is one of the most important program points of National Socialism.

Right at that point, however, the Cardinal considered it necessary to direct sharp words against an “exaggerated nationalism,” which promotes “a form of idolatry” among his people. One should have “an open eye for the positive side of other peoples.” We find it not very pertinent to direct these words to us Germans. Slandered, oppressed and wrongfully accused, we have every reason to forge complete Völkisch power and steel ourselves; it is not only no sin, it is our most holy duty to cultivate in our Volk this type of idolatry, for that is what all the blossoms of our culture have sprung from for millennia. To brand this high love as “foreign gods” is anyway just a leftover from the protests of a spirit whose lifespan has ended.

Because we consider the Völkisch in us as something great, therefore we respect it also in other nations. We are gladly prepared to acknowledge the fineness and clarity of ancient French thought, the religious fervor of the simple Russian, the artificial matter-of-course of the Italian. We want to cast off the dross which – thanks to the common materialistic attitude – has sometimes been produced by nationalism, so that we can clarify and strengthen Volk-ness. We want to do this, however, with a solidarity in suffering, and energy, until finally the German Volk has awoken from its current sleep and found itself and its own path. Cardinal Faulhaber should have spoken his words with his face towards Paris, London and – Jerusalem. Then they would have been pertinent.

Regrettably the Cardinal went on to find it necessary, in his peace talk, to stir up anew denominational conflict. His remarks about “a religious society” (no Christian Church! Editor), which lives “by contradiction” and has “no fashionable (!!) ideas,” are directed openly against the majority of the German Volk, which is well known to be Protestant. The Cardinal said further: “It was pleasing in the North when it was said: rather Bolshevism than Catholicism.” If another man tossed such an unattributed quote into a gathering, everyone would label it incitement. But since it was Cardinal Faulhaber who did it, he must still be regarded afterwards as the font of authority, from which the word was spoken, if the Cardinal was rightly informed.

We would just like to remember the year 1919. Then it was men from Württemburg and Prussia who freed Munich and saved Catholic Bavaria from Bolshevism. No one spoke then about denominations. We would like to make the Cardinal aware, however, that a certain Sontheimer [a leader in the April 1919 Munich Soviets-Councils Republic] was going about here and there at that time to arrest then-Archbishop Faulhaber. In Russia almost 3,000 clergy fell victim to the same fate as the hostages.

So, good and pernicious are mixed in the great talks of Munich’s Cardinal. As to the appeal to the “Catholic conscience,” we are not going to speak. It will have exactly as little impact as the appeals of our Marxists to their comrades in the Entente countries. The arch-Catholic Marshal Foch is not, on that account, going to remove a single negro from the Rhineland. This is really one of the final distress cries from an already exploded faith in universally applicable concepts that move all peoples. For us it will bring the success of favorable attention for the Völkisch.

The recent Catholic Congress was a gathering of Catholic Germans. May it also be called that next time; no longer “General Gathering of German Catholics.”

From all classes and from all German denominations, a new worldview is growing up irresistibly, young and joyous. It will one day build a cupola over us, under which – not all races – but certainly all Germanic peoples will stand together and fight for each other. That is the Völkisch concept. And its pioneers today are called – National Socialists.

Sept. 5, 1922 Cardinal Faulhaber’s report to the Bavarian Bishops on the delays in Concordat negotiations and the position of the Vatican:

“Minutes of the Conference of the Bavarian Bishops, September 5-6, 1922”

... II. The new Bavarian Concordat and our overall church-political situation in Bavaria. The reporting Archbishop of Munich presented the reasons why the concluding of a Concordat in the past year was again delayed. The outline from the Roman Cardinals Commission was read aloud verbatim. At the request of the Lord Apostolic Nuncio the Conference took a position especially on Art. 4 § 1 (order of studies for theology and clerical philosophy professors), Art. 5 § 2 (canonical permission for public school teachers), Art. 10 (establishment of stipends for Bishops, Auxiliary Bishops, Cathedral Rectors, Cathedral Vicars and other financial commitments of the State), Art. 12 (circumscription of the faithful), Art. 14 (selection of Bishops). The reporter will assemble these amendment proposals for the Nunciature, and will once again present a petition to the Education and Religion Ministry for financial subsidies for our cathedrals and their personnel according to the concluding passage of Art. IV, and for our seminaries according to Art. V, of the old Concordat. The bill in the Bavarian Landtag for the expansion of deaneries for purposes of their administration and their appropriate compensation (cf. the Landtag sessions of July 27 and 28 and Aug. 1) is supported by the Bishops. Private patronage for Beneficiates, whose endowments do not correspond any longer to current levels of expense, if they are not committed to a foundation, lose their title of right and the exercise of patronage.

Source: Munich Archdiocese Archive, Nachlass Faulhaber, no. 4055, reprinted in Volk, Akten Kardinal Michael von Faulhabers, vol.1, pp. 262-263.

Sept. 14, 1922 Cardinal Faulhaber’s letter to Chancellor Joseph Wirth:

Honorable Herr Reich Chancellor!

Today for the first time, after handling the many official matters brought upon me by the Catholic Congress and especially the Conference of the Bavarian Bishops in the following week, I am now getting around to answer unofficial correspondence. Actually I expressed the desire in my earliest confidential conversation at the Munich Catholic Congress that the attempt in Frankfurt to influence public opinion in an anti-Bavarian political direction, via the Augustinian Association, might not be repeated in Munich. That my remark was brought back to Berlin was an indiscretion, but after what we have experienced in Bavaria in this connection, I have reckoned with it from the beginning and cannot regret it today. If Your Excellency remarks in your letter of August 21 that it is a painful feeling that the Catholic Chancellor of the German Reich could not attend the Catholic Congress, then allow me to respond that for us Catholic Bavarians, it was an even more painful feeling last year to hear of the speech by Your Excellency at the Catholic Congress in Frankfurt and of the indignation of the attendees of the Catholic Congress returning home from there. Since a Catholic Congress is not a political party congress, it is not in my opinion absolutely necessary that the entirety of Catholic cabinet ministers participate; given the religious character of the Catholic Congress it would be far more appropriate to have a stronger representation of the Bishops. The fear of Your Excellency that there could be an attempt on the life of the Reich Chancellor in Munich is unfounded, I am convinced. Neither the criminal murder of Erzberger nor that of Rathenau occurred in Bavaria, and there is currently more incitement toward an attempt on the Archbishop of Munich than toward an attempt on the Reich Chancellor.

The attitude in Bavaria against Reich policy is in all events, so far as I can assess, very deeply engrained. But the reason for that is not, as Your Excellency writes, to be attributed to a domestic Bavarian incitement of the Bavarian people, but rather to be sought in events outside Bavaria. I must personally reject any responsibility for the article in the ‘Bayerischer Kurier’ to which Your Excellency calls attention, since I must allow this newspaper freedom in political questions and can no more prevent such articles than Your Excellency could prevent rabble-rousing articles printed in Berlin and shameless defamations and provocations against the Munich Archbishop on account of his New Year’s sermon or Catholic Congress speech.

In order to form a complete assessment, one must be much better acquainted with the deeper driving forces of politics than is possible by means of fragmentary and partisan spun reports in the newspapers. Personally, however, I have made the deeply painful observation that the foreign Cardinals who were speaking with me in February before the Conclave in Rome with still the greatest confidence for the future of Germany, by May of this year, on the occasion of the International Eucharistic Congress, regarded Germany as the forerunner and ally of Bolshevism, and after the passage of a few months had become openly and deeply alienated from us.

At the Catholic Congress in Munich, I tried to put the spotlight on faithfulness to Catholic principles. After the glorious theme of “People’s Sense of Community,” so apologetically significant for the Frankfurt atmosphere, had been laid in Frankfurt as the foundation of the Catholic Congress there, I thought for the Catholic Congress in Munich that I could once again take up the foundational theme of faithfulness to Catholic principles. My catechizing about faithfulness to Catholic principles was not directed against the German Constitution: a constitution can lawfully come into existence even though the Revolution that preceded the constitution remains, according to the Fourth Commandment, a wrong. If speakers and newspapers are now maintaining that with the condemnation of the Revolution the later constitution was also condemned, that just shows anew how thoughtless it is to call the Germans the people of thinkers. If a Catholic Bishop may no longer preach about the Ten Commandments of God and condemn the Revolution and assess historical events according to the standard of the eternal Decalogue rather than according to the Revolution’s fortuitous day-to-day consequences and other inessential appendages, then who in all the world should distinguish light from darkness!

The Munich Catholic Congress was also not directed against the Center Party. Compromises are also in my view not avoidable on the basis of realities, but superior to all compromises, principles must be preserved. Whoever speaks about faithfulness to Catholic principles will naturally be attacked today from all sides. That some Center Party newspapers, especially in Baden, have the gall to write in such tones against the preacher of faithfulness to Catholic principles is deeply deplorable, even if on the other hand it is to be welcomed if the spirits have revealed themselves. In my view it is unity enough if a Catholic Congress is united on Catholic questions, even if it preserves the freedom of citizens in political questions. In any event the Catholic Congress had an impact domestically and internationally, as innumerable letters attest to me. Since Your Excellency’s letter with the severe accusations in its postscript was shared with various lords of the German episcopate, I will allow myself to send this response also to various lords of the German episcopate.

With the expression of my outstanding high esteem!

Source: Munich Archdiocese Archive, Nachlass Faulhaber, no. 3503, reprinted in Volk, Akten Kardinal Michael von Faulhabers, vol.1, pp. 275-276.

Sept. 18, 1922 Hitler’s words to crowd of 7,000 in Munich:

... Settling of accounts with the November Criminals of 1918 (minutes-long roaring applause). It cannot be that two million Germans fell in vain and yet later they sit down amicably at the table with traitors. No, we do not forgive, rather we demand – retaliation!

The dishonoring of our nation has to come to an end. Traitors to the Fatherland and collaborators belong on the gallows. Our streets and plazas should once again bear the names of our heroes and not be named for Jews. The issue of guilt must be pronounced according to the truth...

Sept. 19, 1922 Cardinal Faulhaber’s letter to Archbishop Giuseppe Pizzardo, Sostituto, Vatican Secretariat of State:

Most Reverend Lord!

Your Excellency has written to the Apostolic Nunciature in Munich that our beloved Holy Father is pleased with my speech to the Catholic Congress in Munich. For me that was a great joy and a great comfort. I lay down reverential thanks at the feet of His Holiness.

In connection with that, allow me to explain my intentions and impressions from the recent Catholic Congress. My intention was to give the foundational theme for the Catholic Congress in Munich: faithfulness to Catholic principles, return to the principles of the Catholic order of life and society. The Catholic Congress the previous year in Frankfurt had the foundational theme: People’s Sense of Community. In Bavaria and Munich, with a far higher percentage of Catholic inhabitants than in Frankfurt, there needed to be once again a principled explication not only of the German-ness, but rather also the Catholic-ness of German Catholics. And really clear and concrete, not in diplomatic speech, so that the people understand the principles: We are not merely German citizens, we are by grace children of the supranational world Church. Most Reverend Lord Apostolic Nuncio Pacelli, by his glorious, powerfully expressed speech in flawless German, contributed essentially to the success of the Catholic Congress and aroused great enthusiasm for the Holy Father. My guests from neighboring countries, Bishop Rieder of Salzburg and Bishop Schmid-Grüneck, stood faithfully by my side in the battle over principles.

I did not anathematize the current republican form of government, nor demand the violent overthrow of the current Weimar Constitution. I did, however, declare the Revolution to be a sin against the Fourth Commandment of God and pointed out the other ways the current German Constitution and legislation contradict the Commandments of God. A constitution can come into existence lawfully, while the preceding Revolution remains a wrong. In Germany they want to sanctify the Revolution on account of some good consequences and play with new revolutions, thus this principle had to be expressed.

The Center Party, allied as a political party in the government with the Social Democrats, offers no unified picture of principled clarity. Compromises are the order of the day and yet the principles of Catholic ethics of government may not be forgotten. In the Center Party there are many men of character faithful to the Church, but there are also representatives, especially from industrial areas, who base their judgments on electoral tactics and opportunistic points of view rather than on eternal principles. To these men and women representatives it had to be said that, in addition to the fabric of governmental laws, there is yet a teaching office of the Church, and that public life must also be ordered according to the Commandments of God. Without speaking of politics, I wanted to give a warning, so that the entry gate to the German people would not be opened to Bolshevism by way of endless compromises and alliances with the Social Democrats. Moreover I wanted to awaken consciences, because now with deliberations over the School Law and Concordat it must be proven whether or not principles stand higher than mandates and cabinet minister positions.

A gratifying event from the quiet negotiations at the Catholic Congress is not yet known publicly. Some Center Party gentlemen, especially ex-cabinet minister Brauns – a priest! – wanted to attract more Protestants into the Center Party and thus allow the denominational character of the Center Party to erode even more. In the Augustinian Association, that is in the association of Catholic journalists, this proposal was rejected by nearly all (nine-tenths) of the journalists present. At a time when we are struggling over the rights and the freedom of the Church and over the denominational schools, we cannot encourage the Catholic people to give their votes to non-Catholic representatives. Beginning in October the Socialists of all types will form a common left-wing bloc with 180 votes in the Reichstag. Since this left-wing bloc is still 40 votes short of an absolute majority and the Center Party only has 67 votes, they want to form a right-wing bloc. I believe, however, that the Center Party will only begin to have great impact if it becomes an anvil once again and does not form a common bloc with the old enemies of the Church.

A Catholic Congress with the theme “faithfulness to Catholic principles” naturally encounters contradiction from left and right. The Socialists hate our principles as the devil hates holy water. The nationalists were angry that I spoke of a heretically exaggerated nationalism. It was the same for me as for the Holy Father in Poland [in 1920 when Achille Ratti as Nuncio to Poland was criticized from both the German side and the Polish side], the straight path of neutrality is criticized from right and from left, especially whenever the political atmosphere is so highly strained as in these days. The President of the Catholic Congress, Mayor Dr. Adenauer of Cologne, ventured suddenly in his concluding speech into the purely political realm and wanted to defend the policy of the Center Party. He maintained the Revolution came about “organically,” the overthrown royal houses (spoken thus even of pious King Ludwig III of Bavaria, who wanted to make good again for the sins of his Wittelsbach predecessors) had become shriveled trees, “German Catholicism” (!) was cast upon the German Fatherland. Also Herr Reich Chancellor Wirth, likewise a Catholic, declared he will soon take a public position against the Munich Catholic Congress. I therefore ask Your Excellency that no Papal pronouncement might ensue that could be interpreted by Catholics as agreement with the policy of the Center Party and with its coalition with Social Democracy. President Adenauer cannot receive the Papal order that was customary previously for Presidents. I also ask Your Excellency to make no response to this confidential letter. I wanted and had to write, as the Catholic Congress brought me a great deal of joy and comfort, but also some anxiety.

The Journal des Débats in Paris wrote on September 7, 1922 that I had spoken of “victorious imperialism,” that during the war I held a mass in Wambrechies without permission from the Bishop of Lille, that I terribly mistreated a French pastor there, that I was previously Bishop of Trier. Every phrase is an untruth. In my 23 speeches and talks to the Catholic Congress I have never once used the word imperialism, I have never held a mass in Wambrechies, never said an unfriendly word to a French priest, never been Bishop of Trier. I have indirectly, via the Foreign Ministry, requested a retraction from the Journal des Débats.

Please forgive, Your Excellency, that this letter has become so long. In sincerest and greatest respect I remain Your Excellency’s devoted, etc.

Source: Munich Archdiocese Archive, Nachlass Faulhaber, no. 1200, reprinted in Volk, Akten Kardinal Michael von Faulhabers, vol.1, pp. 278-280.

Sept. 19, 1922 Cardinal Faulhaber’s letter to the Bavarian Ambassador to the Vatican, Baron von Ritter zu Groenestyn:

Honorable Herr Baron!

Since I have the opportunity to hurry a letter to Rome via the Mother Superior of the Via Nomentana, I am taking the liberty of sending Your Excellency a confidential report about some details of the Catholic Congress. Attendance was extraordinarily strong, and from other countries, especially on account of Oberammergau [Passion Play in 1922], was much stronger than before. The weather was splendid in these four days of August 27-30 ...

From the beginning onward I sought to give the Catholic Congress a foundational theme: faithfulness to Catholic principles, return to the principles of the Catholic order of life and society. The previous year’s Catholic Congress in Frankfurt had the foundational theme: People’s Spirit of Community – a beautiful and empowering theme for Frankfurt’s environment; the Munich Catholic Congress in a more Catholic atmosphere could dare to take up the far more difficult theme: Faithfulness to Catholic principles. To the extent that it occasioned a little examination of conscience for Center Party and other politicians, it could not hurt, and if outsiders learned thereby that a policy which opens the back doors to Germany for Bolshevism no longer is compatible with the principles of a Catholic statesman, then this insight could only be an advantage. And if consciences were awoken somewhat to the recognition that for the upcoming School Law and Concordat, a policy of compromise must also for once have a limit, then again that could not hurt. I expressly said that compromises may be unavoidable based on reality, but superior to all compromises there must be firm principles.

Sunday [August 27th], as the first day, and for foreign attendees the only day, made an indescribably deep impression on everyone. Early on the Königsplatz, at 10 o’clock under a white-blue heaven, a hundred thousand people gathered around the altar, a group from the Tyrol lugged the big cross from the Bergisel [in Austria] in procession, and the students marching in brought many to tears. On Sunday afternoon the separate gatherings for the innumerable foreign guests took place, and Sunday evening the first public greeting assembly. On this occasion Lord Apostolic Nuncio Pacelli spoke in the great hall of the court of the Residenz in flawless German that was easily understandable, and carried along everyone to enthusiastic homage to the Holy Father. Count Lerchenfeld also put before the whole world a resolute confession with the theme, ‘Bavarian culture is Catholic in its roots,’ and left a deep impression by the distinguished bearing and poetry of his lecture. The President of the Catholic Congress, Mayor Adenauer of Cologne, indeed at that point really introduced a little noticed tactlessness with the remark that Bavarians are only half as bad as they say of them in the Rhineland.

Monarchical statements were carefully avoided by us. When Count Lerchenfeld unintentionally made one passing reference to the hereditary royal house, a storm of applause and standing ovation let loose, which could hardly be restrained. It was an easy thing to unleash storms of applause with a mere mention of the royal family. Crown Prince Rupprecht, after the mass on the Königsplatz, was accompanied to his car by loud cries, but intentionally stayed away from all other ceremonies and also did not come to the students’ evening festivities, which he had already turned down, in order not to occasion on his part a monarchistic ovation. On this occasion Catholics from the North and from the South saw how much more deeply rooted the Bavarian royal family is with the people than the House of Hohenzollern is with the Prussians. It is really quite a difference, when a bridge or a museum is named after the Hohenzollerns, or when the hereditary castle of the Wittelsbachs is turned into a Benedictine monastery and a Wittelsbach gives the people a new Feast of the Patroness of Bavaria [in 1916 by recommendation of King Ludwig III to the Vatican], just as another Wittelsbach had already done 300 years before [in 1623 during the Thirty Years War when the Elector of Bavaria, Maximilian I, placed Bavaria under the patronage of Mary Mother of God].

The concluding assembly on Wednesday, after everything had transpired in beautiful accord, brought a sad dénouement. In his concluding speech President Adenauer ventured into the purely political realm and sought to justify the republican standpoint of the Center Party. The Revolution, he said, had grown organically, like everything in the world, the hereditary trees of the princely houses, uprooted in the storm, had become shriveled up, and German Catholicism – just this expression shows his unclear thinking – was now cast upon the German Fatherland. Then he announced for another day the preaching of a religious order priest from Cologne, without knowing that preaching in Munich must receive the prior approval of the local Bishop. Another day he had some explanations given to me which somewhat alleviated the misimpression, but did not completely remove it.

Concerning my sermon on the Königsplatz about catechism of Catholic doctrine, and concerning my speech at the last public assembly about the Church as the great power of peace, many misinterpretations have been published. I branded the Revolution as a wrong against the Fourth Commandment of God and also demanded that governmental legislation be measured by the Commandments of God. I did not thereby condemn the Weimar Constitution and the republican form of government in themselves; for a constitution can lawfully come into existence, without the preceding Revolution being legitimized. A child born out of wedlock can be legitimized without single motherhood thereby receiving justification for itself. I had to attribute this moral characteristic to the Revolution, because on the one hand, the left wants to sanctify the Revolution of 1918, and on the other hand, the right wants to play with revolutionary ideas yet today. Now the Independent Socialists and the Communists have presented a motion to have the government initiate proceedings under the new Protection Law against my slandering of the republican form of government and to have them establish the precise words of my speech (to be sure, this last should have been demanded in the first place).

The Reich Chancellor has also announced that he will soon take a public position against the Catholic Congress in Munich. With the Reich Chancellor, anyway, I recently had a debate by letter, because we in Munich did not want his participation, considering that at the previous Catholic Congress in Frankfurt he threw a political hand grenade into the assembly and took the field in an unheard of manner against Bavaria at the Augustinian Association. It is deeply deplorable how far removed Reich Chancellor Wirth is from the basic conduct of a statesman standing above the parties. Thus, a few days ago he took an article from the Ingolstadt newspaper, which apparently the diocesan Bishop had not even read there, and copied it in the Reich Chancery and had it sent to all the German Bishops to show how they are inciting against him in Bavaria. Since it is possible that they would try to involve the Holy Father in this dispute, today I wrote His Excellency Pizzardo a lengthy report about this undercurrent and the after-echoes of the Catholic Congress. I was all the more occasioned to do this after Archbishop Pizzardo, at the instance of the Holy Father, expressed through the Lord Nuncio in highest words the acknowledgement of his satisfaction and agreement with my speech. The explanation that I delivered to the Bavarian Bishops Conference in Freising about the Catholic Congress met there also with the full agreement of Lord Cardinal Schulte of Cologne, who took part this year, in place of Cardinal Bertram, in our Freising deliberations. Moreover I received emphatically from all sides, even from Protestants, enthusiastic agreement.

The Concordat negotiations are unfortunately still not yet concluded; however, they have entered into their final phase, especially since the recent statements from the Rome Cardinals’ Commission. The overall situation in Bavaria is not unfavorable for these negotiations. The situation in the Reich is, to be sure, highly strained. Beginning in October the entirety of the left-wing parties will form a left-wing bloc with 180 votes in the Reichstag, against which there are only 67 Center Party votes...

Source: Munich Archdiocese Archive, Nachlass Faulhaber, no. 1352, reprinted in Volk, Akten Kardinal Michael von Faulhabers, vol. 1, pp. 281-284.

On October 19, 1922, Cardinal Faulhaber wrote the following letter to Nuncio Pacelli explaining once again his position, in similar terms, but more concisely:

Your Excellency, Most Reverend Lord Apostolic Nuncio!

The phrase in question from my Catholic Congress speech, whose meaning the “Correis de Manha” of September 14 distorts, did not intend to give a moral commentary on the republican form of government but only on the German Revolution. The phrase went: “The Revolution of 1918 was perjury and high treason and remains for all time branded with the mark of Cain.” The context of this was my speech about the Ten Commandments of God (of the precepts of the Church I was not speaking on this occasion) as the necessary foundation not merely of the private order of life, but also for the public ordering of society, and as an example of the Fourth Commandment of God the above-mentioned phrase was spoken. Of republic or monarchy or other form of government, no word was spoken. A constitution or republic can, despite the preceding bad revolution, be good and lawful, if it came into existence for the common good and as the will of the people – to speak about that was in line with my topic – but the Revolution of 1918 is and remains a crime against the Fourth Commandment. Thus it was only the instigators of the German Revolution whom I branded as perjurers, not those who stand today in good faith on the ground of the republican form of government. L’Osservatore Romano gave the accurate text.

With regret that Your Excellency must trouble himself with this matter alongside your many other official labors, and with the expression of most reverential sentiment and deepest respect,

Your Excellency’s most devoted servant,

M. Cardinal Faulhaber

Archbishop of Munich

Source: Munich Archdiocese Archive, Nachlass Faulhaber, no. 3503, reprinted in Volk, Akten Kardinal Michael von Faulhabers, vol.1, pp. 289-290.

Sept. 23, 1922 Hitler’s appeal in the Völkischer Beobachter includes, along with repeated attacks on the “Jewish press,” the following:

If the Jew believes he can conquer, then we want to show that the Germanic skull is harder than his, and that a Volk for whose existence two million died on the field of battle, can yet summon up the means to avenge those who were cheated of their lives abroad and whose deaths were made futile for our Fatherland by deceivers and criminals...

The National Socialist movement shall represent the combat troops for the liberation of our German Volk from the fetters of its international world-enslavement. Its intellectual sword shall be its press. Its material weapons the self-sacrificial willingness of its adherents...

Arise for battle for our deeply beloved German Volk and Fatherland!

Reprinted in Jäckel and Kuhn, p. 690-695.

Sept. 23, 1922 Völkischer Beobachter, page 5:

“Rome and Jewry”

We have briefly reproduced the remarks of Munich’s Cardinal-Archbishop von Faulhaber in which he said: “Since Moses delivered the Eighth Commandment, ‘You shall not lie,’ this requirement applies also for the Jewish press in Berlin and its Munich correspondents.” We have elsewhere added the observation about this, that the Prince of the Church of Munich does not stand alone in this regard. Also the current Bishop of Rottenburg, Paul Wilhelm von Keppler, has seen through the impulses of the Jews outside Palestine. In his book “Travels in the East,” he writes concerning the sad state (the Zionist millions will probably change this picture) of the Middle Eastern Jews: “One can scarcely believe that these are a part of the same people who, outside Palestine, are like a thorn in the side to Christian peoples, suck their blood, enslave them with chains of golden millions, and with reed scepters of poison-soaked pens, poison the public fonts of culture and morals by interjecting disgusting, putrid material.”

Further, an expansion upon the position of Munich’s Archbishop on the Revolution and the position of Prince-Bishop Bertram of Breslau: In the opinion of Cardinal Faulhaber, the Revolution was perjury and high treason; in the opinion of Cardinal Bertram, this political system that arose from perjury and high treason must “be honored in all things. It is thereby totally irrelevant how it came into existence.” As we now learn from the “Trier Province Newspaper,” the late Trier Bishop Korum is to be placed in the same knuckleheaded category as Cardinal Bertram, for he remarked: “What shall we think of the Center Party? The Center Party rebuilt a roof over our heads after the Revolution. If the house still isn’t completely finished and much of it still doesn’t please us, that is not surprising. The plasterwork comes later.”

But we must add yet another expansion upon our observations about the German Catholic Congress. We have written that the Munich Cardinal’s demand upon the “Jewish” press for truthful reporting could be directed with the same justification to papers like the “Bayerischer Kurier.” That we have not just pulled this opinion out of thin air, is shown by the fact that at last year’s German Catholic Congress in Frankfurt, the Hungarian Bishop Ottokar von Prohaszka gave a fervent speech against Jewry, but the major pertinent points of the speech were cut out of the official report of the Catholic Congress. In order to learn whether this time, once again, the Commandment of Moses in relation to Cardinal Faulhaber’s demand, will be circumvented by the official reporting and especially by the Center Party press, we would be grateful to our readers if they would send us clippings of such reports.

Oct. 1, 1922 L’Osservatore Romano, page one, top center lead:

“The Journal des Débats and His Eminence Cardinal Faulhaber”

Our illustrious confrère the Journal des Débats [Journal of Debates] evidently must have been surprised by his good faith when it wrote, in its issue of September 7th, that His Eminence Cardinal Faulhaber, the Archbishop of Munich, in the recent Congress of German Catholics held in that city, spoke in a tone of “triumphant imperialism.” Now, those who have known about the talks of His Eminence, while not indeed hearing the word “imperialistic,” did see how passionately the Cardinal scourged “the heresy of exaggerated nationalism,” an expression that earned him the attacks, not the praise, of the Prussian imperialists.

But there is more: in fact the same newspaper has dug up, from where it is not known, that His Eminence Faulhaber, during the war, had celebrated mass in the church of Wambréchies without the permission of the Bishop of Lille. In this we congratulate our confrère for its familiarity with canon law; but we can assure it that Cardinal Faulhaber has never celebrated mass in Wambréchies.

Then it stated that His Eminence, on that occasion, cruelly mistreated a French priest, which no one would ever believe who knows Cardinal Faulhaber’s noble and mild character; the journal was certainly misinformed in this matter, as when it writes that the same Cardinal was once Bishop of Trier…

The French, who have now been in Trier for the past four years, should know that the same Bishop was there for forty years, namely Bishop Korum, who died just last year. Perhaps our confrère confused Trier with Speyer [where Faulhaber was Bishop before becoming Archbishop of Munich].

We do not doubt that the Journal des Débats will take note of these corrections, which are available to it starting now. Its assertions do not fall into the category of political attacks against a man or a political activity, which are usually resolved in the course of public debate; these are serious allegations without any foundation whatsoever, against a Minister of God and a Prince of the Church, who also spoke, at the Munich Congress, with the heart and mind of a priest.

Oct. 5, 1922 Cardinal Faulhaber’s letter to the Catholic Bishops of Bavaria:

... The laicistic attacks by Center Party papers in Baden, and by the executive secretary of the workers’ association based in Gladbach, against my speech at the Munich Catholic Congress, are still going on and on, and were taken to a caustic extreme last Sunday by Center Party parliament member Joos in Essen. I regard these developments with great calmness as to myself personally, but with great concern as to our political representatives. The Holy Father, who knows the entire content of my speech, has expressed to me his full agreement. In order not to play upon the authorities, and not to bring foreign derision yet again on the German disposition toward clear principles, I will not make public this acknowledgement by the Holy Father unless there is a pressing necessity. This morning I received information from Rome that the splendid rebuff that L’Osservatore Romano rendered on October 1st to the attacks of French newspapers on my Catholic Congress speech stemmed from official Church circles.

I ask your reverend lords, not for personal reasons, but in the interest of the Catholic name in Germany, to share a Memento with your priests about this matter.

Source: Munich Archdiocese Archive, Nachlass Faulhaber, no. 4300, reprinted in Volk, Akten Kardinal Michael von Faulhabers, vol.1, p.287.

Oct. 21, 1922 Civiltà Cattolica, vol. 4, pp. 111-121:

“World Revolution and the Jews”

The world is sick. Are we not to say: today it is repeated also by second-rate moralists: today even the most carefree people, frightened by the chaotic whirlwind into which every social order is precipitated ... Where are we headed?

This is the frightful question that is heard repeated on all sides: and alongside this, another question is murmuring in the subconscious: Who is directing? Because the multitudes are herds that do not know where they are going unless they obey someone who guides or drives them along. Who drives this mess of parties, laws, lodges, who guides this movement of world revolution that upends human society from one end of the world to the other?

Sinister voices arise on many sides to accuse the synagogue. A wolf remains always a wolf: they attribute the old blame to new suspects and reopen a wound covered over but never healed. A profane hand has also brought to light secrets that bear the mark of the ghetto. Evidence or falsifications? It will be difficult, as always, to dispel the darkness in which Israel is jealously enveloped. The veil of the temple that Jehovah ripped, the sons of Judah have sewn back together with double thread; but that which they want to cover up is not as great as the holy ark of the Lord: it is the stronghold of their usury and of their egotism. In any event, to their tenacity in covering up, we oppose the right to search about and bring into the sunlight that which concerns us, which touches upon the public good of the Christian people, which the Talmudists are commanded to harm by the laws and tenets of their religion. To tell the truth, these Jewish mysteries have already been discussed and written about in Italy and abroad for a long time, and more outside Italy than within Italy, because this race dominates more there than here. We have been silent thus far on purpose, so that no one accuses us – as at other times – of being partisan instigators of antisemitism. Today, given where matters stand, we believe it to be part of our duty to put our readers on notice of the facts involved in our inquiry.

We start with those facts that stand out from all the others in light of the magnitude of the movement and the importance of its consequences.

Today Russia is the field of battle where the world empire of tomorrow is being decided. However dense the darkness in which that unhappy country is artfully enveloped by the arrogance of tyrants who want to seize power, they cannot entirely hide the faint glow of fire, nor choke the cry of the agonized victims shot and murdered upon a mere whim, nor stifle the desperate struggle of a people put to sword, fire and blood, for the delight of the Communist government. Four years ago a foolish or enervated Europe stood spectator to that systematic destruction in cold blood by robbers transformed into heads of state, surrounded by assassins fully worthy of the telling title of “Red Guards,” ministers of murder and terror. Europe had to witness the residences of ambassadors, its representatives, sanctuaries protected by the most elementary law of nations, attacked and plundered, abused, wounded, its envoys taken prisoner, its flags and banners dishonored: the political cowardice, sectarian connivance dissimulated or buried in silence the dark mysteries of Bolshevik terror. Meanwhile most of the industry of the country was destroyed, commerce was killed: looting and squandering sent all wealth to rack and ruin. In four years Russia, such a vast and fertile region, with such abundance in all things, was reduced to the extreme torture of starvation. There have been reports of millions of children, innocent lives harvested in full flower by this implacable scourge: reports of millions of other lives so unfortunate that starvation will end up consuming them, if a helping hand of the Christian nations will not be ready to give them a piece of bread that saves them from death. It is just and humane that the Vicar of Christ himself gave the example, but just as a deep sense of compassion inclines us to rescue an innocent crowd to save it from so terrible a fate, so an equally profound impulse of profound indignation brings forth a cry of malediction against the scoundrels who have swept this people into a bottomless abyss. Let the unfortunates be rescued, but let the intriguers be put in chains and taken directly to the court of justice, those ringleaders who in order to implement their crazy utopia betray the country and assassinate the nation. Who are they?

The reader does not expect an answer from us. For too long they have been sadly famous even here across the Alps, the kabbalistic names of the rabble-rousers who hold themselves out as founders of the Communist International in Moscow, which they vaunt as the paradise of future human society. But if passing beyond the names, we look at them directly in the face to recognize who they are, it turns out to be a very strange fact that the greatest number, according to what is said, of the members of the governing body of the Communist Republic in Russia are not indigenous Russians, but Jewish intruders, who almost always take measures, however, to conceal their original name under the guise of a Slavic type name. In a booklet published in 1920 by the Society “Unity of Russia,” we find a long list naming all the members of the Council, of the Commissions and delegations, of the Committees, Commissars, Central Offices, of which the organism of the State is constituted in the establishment of the Communist government. This list has been disseminated in every language, in every country, without contradiction: its information presents matters of value such that, in addition to its first origin, its peaceful notoriety accredits at least its substantial veracity. Now in that list of more than 545 names of the holders of the governing offices of the State, citizens of Russian ethnicity are not more than 30: those of the Jewish race are a striking 447; the rest are scattered among Latvians, Finns, Germans, Armenians, Poles and other peoples that made up the Russian Empire. On the other hand, the total population of the Russian republic certainly does not number less than 90 million Russian nationals vis-à-vis four million Jews who until yesterday were swarming in the trash of the ghetto, made into a sign of common contempt. Yet today this tiny minority has invaded every avenue of power and imposes its dictatorship on the nation. And what a dictatorship! ...

Now let us pause to observe. We have a list of the members of this council of commissars, which can be compared to the councils of ministers in other European governments; it contains twenty-two names that make us aware of the men in whose hands lies the destiny of the nation. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, known by the name of Lenin; he is a true Russian and belongs to the hereditary nobility. Born in 1870 in Simbirsk, he studied law and political economy at the Universities of Kazan and Petersburg. It is said by some that his mother was Jewish; it is certain that she was brought up in the Orthodox religion. Caught up in revolution, he was imprisoned as a socialist, exiled to Siberia, released in 1900, became an expatriate, and went back most ardently to socialist propaganda. A brother of his was executed in 1887 for having taken part in a terrorist conspiracy. He himself has a coldly cruel mind, with an iron will, audacious, resolute, dominated by intelligence and by disinterest in those around him. Another Russian is the commissar for foreign affairs, Cicerin, also of a noble family, from which he inherited a considerable fortune which he abandoned to keep faith with his profession of socialism. These examples can be seen in other countries. The third is the commissar for education (known there as the Ministry of Public Instruction), Lunacharsky, son of a State Councilor, Orthodox, and a propagator of Communism among the lower clergy. To these Russians can be added the commissar for agriculture, Protian, and the commissar for matters of nationality, Djongachvili [translator’s note: Josef Stalin], who are of Armenian origin. – The other seventeen are all sons of Israel. Among them we find the one who after Lenin holds the first office in the republic and was the real commander of the “Red Army,” Bronstein, called Trotsky, Commissar of War and of the Navy. Born in 1877 of a Jew who had an apothecary shop in the province of Kherson, even as a boy he was a rebel and got himself expelled from school for having horribly profaned an icon. Arrested several times, sentenced to Siberia, he escaped, wandered around Europe, writing books and newspapers for the revolution. When it broke out, he remained uncertain which party to clutch onto, not knowing which would prevail, and appearing to lean toward the “Mensheviks” or moderates; today he is a crazed and bloody Bolshevik. His worthy companion in ferocious cruelty is the Commissar for the Interior, Ovsei Gershon Apfelbaum, called Zinoviev, a Jew from the Ukraine, born in 1883. Tied by a childhood friendship with Lenin, he was with him in Switzerland, where until 1917 they published the newspaper Social Democrat, and with him represented the Russian socialists at the famous conferences of Zimmerwald, Bern and Kienthal. Returning to Russia with the revolution, when the Bolshevik government moved from Petersburg to Moscow in 1918, Zinoviev remained in Petersburg as president of that community; the acts of savage barbarism in that unfortunate city are to be attributed to him...

... Jews are also the ministers of justice and of public works. Other institutions of the republic in Jewish hands are the commissariat for “State lands,” that for “reconstruction,” that for “economics,” that for “the return of refugees,” that above all for “elections,” held by Moise, made famous by the entirely Jewish fraud and election-rigging with which he conducted the great constituent elections of the republic. A final commissariat, sign of the times and the methods, is that of the “press,” which is naturally under complete Jewish domination. Tied to this is a journalism office to which are attached 42 writers, of whom only one is a Russian, Maxim Gorki, the others are all Jews, such as Moch, Kuhn, Eliasson, Katz, Efron, Davidson, and 30 others. These are the prophets who give the word to the proletarian mob and direct public opinion via the columns of Pravda, Izvestia, Znamia Trouda, etc. The anti-Bolshevik newspapers have been suppressed. At the Foreign Ministry a special section engages many foreigners to translate into all languages the revolutionary propaganda pamphlets that are spread throughout the world.

IV. Such is the composition of the first council of commissars of the people according to the constitution of the “Russian Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.” From this demonstration one can judge the whole. Just like this, the other State councils are all under the predominance of the synagogue. In fact, at the Foreign Ministry, of 17 officials, 13 are Jews; in that of the Interior, of 64, 45; the Ministry of War numbers 34 Jews out of 43 officials, and among them not one is a Russian; that of Finance numbers 26 out of 30; that of Public Education 44 out of 53...

Without lingering over all the other officials and committees that sprang up under a hundred names in the pride and vanity of democracy, we will cite the additional fact that of the two Central Executive Committees that arose from the 4th and 5th “Soviet Congresses” of workers-soldiers-peasants-cossacks from all of Russia, according to records that have come to light, the first was composed of 34 members, and of these 33 were Jews, only one was a Russian; its presiding officer was Jacob Mosseivitch Sverdlov, son of a Jewish pharmacist from Nizhni-Novgorod. The other Central Executive Committee contained 62 members, of which 43 were circumcised, the others Russians, Latvians, Armenians, Georgians, Czechs, Germans, etc. Thus from all this information one fact is clear and manifest: this breed which until yesterday lay in blind alleys, at the lowest levels of Russian life, all of a sudden is transformed and in possession of the throne; yesterday they were nothing; today they are everything and everywhere, following the instincts of this decayed race hurrying to vent the rage of their triumph in the fear that it will not last long. How to explain this strange reversal of things, this calculated eruption, sages who take over unfailingly all the organs and machinery of society, so that one can say that in Russia – a unique example – the yoke of another nation, the Jews, has been imposed on the Slavs?

Source: Civiltà Cattolica, Oct. 21, 1922, vol. 4, pp.111-121.

Note: This article is cited in Frank Coppa, The Papacy, the Jews, and the Holocaust (2006), p.144, and in Ruggero Taradel and Barbara Raggi, La Segregazione Amichevole: “La Civiltà Cattolica” e la Questione Ebraica 1850-1945 [Amicable Segregation: “Civiltà Cattolica” and the Jewish Question 1850-1945] (2000), p.51.

Oct. 22, 1922 Nazi Party planning document, dated October 22, 1922, confiscated in 1924 by Munich police from the Nazi Party headquarters, reprinted in Jäckel and Kuhn, pp. 702-708:

...The recognition of a life and death struggle is totally lacking here, and it will first arrive exactly as it did in Russia as machine gun bullets bleed to death the intellectual leadership of the country, when it is too late.

The Bolshevizing of Germany means the complete annihilation of the entire Christian-Western culture.

The goal of [the Nazi Party] is, in just a word: Annihilation and rooting out of the Marxist worldview...

Its suitability for this role has already been proven wherever the battle for real power has flared up between Marxism and the National Socialist German Workers Party...

Like the Fascist movement in Italy, this young movement has already understood how to reduce to submission the Jewish-Marxist terror on its own, with its numerical minority, by a ruthless will to fight...

If the movement is to defend Volk, State and thereby also the economy in the coming battles, then its organization must be built up with the utmost expedition in the two directions outlined above. Thus: Completion and expansion of the propaganda organization and second, the utmost strengthening of those means of power which, where propaganda falls short, alone are in a position to reduce to submission the coming terror and to keep the national economy going...

The most effect means of combat of this type is a daily newspaper...

The expansion of the Völkischer Beobachter, which currently appears twice a week, into a daily newspaper, is one of the most essential tasks of the moment...

The accomplishment of this mission can only occur if the following are considered:

1) The creation of a daily newspaper is not only bound up with greater capital expenditure to and for it, but also with the current economic developments it is not profitable. Additional subsidies are thus continually necessary.

The expansion of the practical power means of the movement [SA stormtroops]:

... 26.1 million German Marks [for buildings, transport, weapons, gasoline, uniforms, depot, etc.]

The parliaments once could not prevent the catastrophe of November 9, 1918, but 300 determined men in each city would really have sufficed to turn the specter of Revolution into a trifle.

The three hundred were lacking then.

The organization of these hundreds and ten thousands is formed today.

It will be able to accomplish its mission in the coming months ever more thoroughly, the deeper is the recognition of the looming danger and the larger is the scale of the expansion of the organization to combat that danger.

If the coming time will demand ten thousand men who consecrate their lives to the existence of the Fatherland and to the preservation of its national existence, then they have the holy right to demand at least of the other ten thousand that they do not hold back their gold from this cause.

For more precious yet than all money, at the end of the day, is really the blood.

Note: We have not found a historian who discusses the character of this document as a fund-raising pitch to build a powerful daily propaganda organ, and to build the SA into a paramilitary force strong enough to contemplate overthrowing the Weimar Republic. As events turned out, both of these developments occurred in the subsequent months. Major elements in the document appear directed to persons concerned about economic and business affairs.

Ian Kershaw, Hubris, p.245, discusses Hitler’s thinking with reference to his June 22, 1922 speech as well as the October 22, 1922 Nazi document:

What he visualized, he had stated in June 1922, was a fight to the death between two competing ideologies, the idealistic and the materialistic. The mission of the German people was to destroy Bolshevism, and with it “our mortal enemy: the Jew.” By October the same year he was writing of a life and death struggle of two opposed “world-views,” incapable of existing alongside one another ... It meant a war of extermination… “The Bolshevization of Germany ... means the complete annihilation of the entire Christian-western culture.”

Oct. 23, 1922 Robert Murphy’s political situation report of Oct. 23, 1922, from the American Consulate in Munich:

The “Muenchner Post” in commenting upon the prominence accorded by the bourgeois press to the recent communistic disturbance at Berlin remarks that notwithstanding the criticism of the press of the Berlin occurrence, no fault is found in the reported collision at Coburg on October 17, 1922, between the delegation of the “Nationalsocialistische Arbeiterpartei,” a radical nationalist group who were journeying to Coburg to celebrate a so-called “Deutscher Tag” and representatives of labor organizations, unsympathetic with the meeting. The parties are reported as having indulged in a general fight in the railroad station with blackjacks and clubs much in evidence.

Several persons were injured. The police apparently did little to prevent the encounter.

Requiem for King Louis.

Another occasion for an exhibition of the cordiality existing between the members of the Wittelsbach House and the present coalition government was afforded by a requiem mass sung in the Frauenkirche at Munich on October 17, 1922. On this as on other similar occurrences, such as the Hindenburg reception covered in my report of August 24, 1922, the Minister President and such other government members as may be present are content to occupy places ordinarily accorded to those of subordinate rank...

Source: Report of R.D. Murphy, U.S. Vice Consul in Munich, to U.S. Secretary of State, Oct. 23, 1922, U.S. National Archives Records Administration (NARA), M336, Roll 18, pp. 176-177.

Oct. 27, 1922 Pacelli to Gasparri, re Negotiations for the Bavarian Concordat:

Most Reverend Eminence,

Last Monday, October 23rd, I went to make a visit to the Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs, in order to accelerate the concluding of the Concordat negotiations and to learn confidentially his views about the new proposal presented by me, as I had the honor to report in my respectful Report No. 25205, on the 26th day of this past month of September.

From the conversation with Mr. Matt, I immediately realized how serious a problem lies in Article X regarding the State’s financial obligations. Nonetheless, considering the note on page 7 of the printed proposal [from the Vatican in August 1923] transmitted by Your Eminence with venerated Dispatch No. 6380, I was able to calm down the Minister sufficiently on this issue.

I recounted, in truth, that the first schema proposed by the Holy See contained only general principles, but the Minister himself did not accept that edition and requested that, instead of referring back with a general formula to the old Concordat of 1817, which in its implementation had given rise to many doubts and controversies, the new Convention should indicate exactly and clearly each individual obligation of the State. Dr. Matt admitted that fully, confirming that is what he desires. I then added that the new proposal includes that to which the Church has a right in virtue of the above-mentioned Concordat; where, however, that would result in an impossibility of the State fulfilling one or another of these obligations, I had reason to believe that the Holy See would not be opposed to according the necessary waivers, especially in view of the current economic situation. That (I also made known) will also facilitate the Minister’s defense of the Concordat in the Landtag, since it will show how the Holy See, while it has affirmed its rights in principle, as was certainly natural, has still not refused to condescend generously to those diminutions that were required by the sad condition of the Land. Unfortunately, the point that seems to run up against insurmountable obstacles in the matter of finances is that regarding the Seminaries, upon which the Holy See for good reason has particularly insisted in the note on page 9 of the above-cited printed proposal, especially so that the Most Reverend Bishops establish complete courses in philosophy and theology. In fact it appears extremely difficult for the Bavarian State, which for more than a century under the monarchical regime, due to a false interpretation of Article V of the Concordat of 1817, did not carry out its obligations in this regard, to begin to do so after the revolution under the democratic-republican regime, at a time so economically unfavorable, and to introduce for this purpose relevant increases in the public budget. The Most Eminent Cardinal Archbishop of Munich and Freising, and the Most Reverend Archbishop of Bamberg, questioned by me in this regard in compliance with the instructions contained in the above-mentioned note on page 7, deem that it would actually be a most notable benefit if the Government would effectively assure the entire payment of the expenses for the final year, called the Alumnatsjahr or Seminary Practicum, and would guarantee the preservation of the present-day Lyceums for the study of philosophy and theology, nor do they believe it possible to attain more than that. It is sad to think that in this way, rationales of an economic character will still persist for an indefinite time, in opposition to introducing the full two-year requirement under the Code of Canon Law for the philosophy curriculum, and that the Diocese of Speyer will likewise most probably remain with only a Seminario Pratico, as I had occasion to point out in the obsequious Report No. 23649 of April 5th of this year. And that is why it is necessary for me, in a matter so grave and important, to implore further instructions from Your Eminence.

Mr. Minister observed moreover that, while the State must assume a long series of many obligations, the concessions by the Holy See appear instead rather limited; in other words, that while the obligations of the old Concordat continue to weigh upon the State, on the other hand almost all the rights recognized for the former King of Bavaria are removed, “seeking to implement that what remains in the Concordat is what pertains to matters of the Church and religion” (art. IX). This will make it, as it seems to him, extremely difficult to have these proposals accepted by the Parliament; indeed I must add that the two above-named Archbishops, while so jealous for the freedom of the Church, consider some further concessions to be nearly inevitable, if shipwrecks of the entire Concordat are to be avoided. In particular, Dr. Matt noted: 1st) that in Article XIV § 1 the words “before the publication of the Bull” will create fears that the notification of the name of the candidate will be made at the last minute, so that perhaps the Government will not have the possibility to make known its eventual objections. I therefore ask Your Eminence to indicate to me if the proposed edition could be modified to this end, putting in, for example, “before the appointment.” 2nd) that it would be somewhat desirable if at least concerning the presentation of benefices some concession were to be made to the Government. Therefore I submit to Your Eminence’s superior judgment , if it is not perhaps possible, in an extreme case, to admit a similar right for those benefices which, after the concluding of the Concordat of 1817 and up to the promulgation of the Code of Canon Law [in 1917] were actually founded by donations not from the Crown but from the State; however, a) with an exception for limitations included in the Act of foundation, in virtue of which, for example, the presentation by the Government takes place only after the Bishop’s free collation; b) with the obligation of that Government to choose the candidate from among a list of three freely designated by the Bishop from among the candidates for the benefice; c) with an exception for honors that are held as patronage under Canon 1469; and finally d) on the condition of abandoning the unacceptable terminology used up to now by the Bavarian Government, according to which the “presentation” is called the “collation” of the benefice. It is true, in fact, that, according to the doctrine recently espoused in Civiltà Cattolica (71st year, 1920, vol. 2, page 319 and vol. 3 page 123), the right of presentation does not pass to Governments arising through revolutions, even though they may become legitimate later through the passage of time; nonetheless it seems difficult, along these lines, to manage to have the Bavarian Government continue to perform the aforesaid honors, without them being newly recognized, even if the corresponding rights of presentation are restricted within the limits described above. It is also useful to note that the benefices in question, founded with donations from the State in the aforesaid period, constitute (so far as I have been assured) a relatively small part of those as to which the Bavarian Government has exercised up to now the right of presentation, while there would remain all the others, rather more numerous, for which that right formerly belonged to the King of Bavaria in virtue of the apostolic indult conferred by the Concordat (art. XI).

As to the clause of Article XII in the new proposal, “if the political-territorial situation of Bavaria does not undergo changes,” Dr. Matt spontaneously informed me that he does not see serious objections in this regard, it being clear that, for example, in case the Saar District were to be lost to Germany, a change in the diocesan administration would become difficult to avoid; the Government is interested primarily in having a guarantee that the current status will not be affected before the plebiscite and the definitive decision about this district. This clause is also justified, moreover, by the German Constitution, which in Article 18 provides for the possibility of changes in the territories of the individual States (as has already been verified for Bavaria with the admission of Saxony-Coburg), changes that could bring with them corresponding modifications in the diocesan boundaries. This consideration will also be able to serve to render less difficult and painful to national sentiment the acceptance of the clause in question.

Mr. Minister further recognized that in regard to other points (schools, theological faculties, etc.) the new edition took large account of his observations.

Finally, he let me know that the proposal is now, as to what concerns the economic part, being studied by the competent Cabinet Ministries, and I instantly asked to have it accomplished in the shortest possible time, avoiding procrastinations and delays, which were to be lamented in the past. I made the same strong recommendation to Finance Minister Dr. Krausneck and to various deputies of the Bavarian People’s Party.

In conclusion, in expectation of the venerated instructions from Your Eminence, I humbly bow to kiss the Sacred Purple ...

Source: www.Pacelli-Edition.de, Document No. 4154.

Nov. 4, 1922 Vice Consul Murphy’s report, Nov. 4, 1922, describing the fall of Count Lerchenfeld as Prime Minister (Minister President) of Bavaria, and rumors of an impending coup d’état by monarchist forces:

Re resignation of Count Lerchenfeld: (p.2)

His prestige as a leader was severely damaged when he permitted a second deputation headed by Minister of Justice Gürtney (Middle Party) to proceed to Berlin and complete the negotiations commenced by his looking to a compromise of the states’ rights question arisen between the Federal Government and Bavaria. His position as leader of his party and of the coalition was weakened thereby and his control at an end. His transmission of the memorandum suggesting economic reform in the Empire to the Federal Government prior to its submission to the Bavarian Cabinet met with emphatic disapproval.

There is also a fueling current that Lerchenfeld’s elimination is intended to clear the way for the commencement of a counter revolution, rumored to take place on November 11, 1922, or during the latter part of the month, is the dissatisfaction of the Bavarian peasants, aristocrats, ex-officers, etc. with the policy of performance of the Wirth Cabinet and the internal economic chaos waxes ... the apprehension in the ranks of the socialist ... of a coup d’etat proportionately increases. The answer to this question depends greatly upon who will be Prime Minister. As yet it is impossible to name the new leader. The leaders of the Volkspartei, Mittelpartei and Bauernbund meet today to decide upon the nomination. Violent acts ... on the part of the monarchists are not expected at least in the immediate future.

Several days ago it was generally accepted that the successor to Count Lerchenfeld would be Dr. Meyer, at present Staatsrat of the Ministry of Justice. It was he who framed the recent Bavarian Emergency Ordinance in opposition to the federal laws for the protection of the Republic.

Source: U.S. NARA, M336, Roll 18, pp. 228-231.

Nov. 10, 1922 Vice Consul Murphy’s political situation report of Nov. 10, 1922, mentioning Hitler as the self-styled “Bavarian Mussolini”:

After quoting an official announcement of the Bavarian Government rejecting rumors of an imminent counter-revolutionary putsch as “fairy tales,” and “stupid gossip or unfounded suspicion of the police and the Bavarian government,” Murphy writes:

The effect, however, that the success of Mussolini and the Fascisti have had in Italy is reflected in certain of the Bavarian groups, particularly the National Socialists. Representatives of the latter organization participated in a large meeting on November 3rd and listened to a number of radical speeches, the gist of which was that in Italy a small handful of national spirited men had been successful in establishing order. Bavaria, too, should have its Mussolini if order is not established otherwise.

The leader of the National Socialists is Hitler, who is regarded by his followers as the Bavarian Mussolini. The socialist and bourgeois press speak of him only as the leader of the National Socialist ‘blackjack’ squad. The sentiment at the above mentioned meeting was to the effect that a national dictatorship would be better than life in the present republic. The speakers were not reticent in scathing remarks concerning the weakness of the Wirth Cabinet. Hitler and his followers did not hesitate to say that Wirth regards himself as a latter day saint and is at the same time a misguided fool and a menace to the German people. It is on this point that Hitler and his followers have scored their largest gain in popularity. Hitler is a naturalized German, originally a Czech, and formerly a painter by profession. For the past two or three years he has played the role of an agitator. Like Kurt Eisner his start was modest, but he has shown steady progress. While Eisner at the time of his advent to power, it is said, could only depend upon thirty men, Hitler is credited with a following of 4,000 faithful, eager to do his bidding. Hitler is a typical agitator who understands local prejudices and is keen enough to take advantage of the present discontent to further his own aims. He is bitterly opposed to the Wirth Cabinet and the policy of performance; he is strongly anti-semitic; he has visions of a change in the domestic order of things which would somehow result in the casting off of the burden of reparations.

The reports, however, appearing in certain American newspapers and also in the French press to the effect that Hitler is working hand in glove with such monarchists as Ludendorff, Tirpitz, Luttwitz, Erhardt and the like under a united plan for a royalist coup d’etat in Bavaria do not appear to me to be made of whole cloth. That part of such reports which says that such a counter-revolution will take place on November 11, or shortly thereafter, appears to me unsupported by facts.

A coup d’etat by the right would be at present not only inopportune but unnecessary as far as Bavaria itself is concerned. All that can be expected at this time can be accomplished by the administration constitutionally. The Bavarian people, no matter how royalist and how discontented with the present order, still retain sufficient sense of reason to ask – what will violent measures gain. The secret treaty supposed to exist between France and Czecho-Slovakia whereby in case of a counter-revolution France would take the Ruhr and Czecho-Slovakia a portion of Bavaria does not go for increased sentiment for revolt. Bavaria is German and its people have no sympathy with French separatist schemes no matter what the temptation. Undoubtedly the French are working to that end. I am confidentially informed that the French Minister at Munich has even approached Auer – Socialist leader – with a view to obtaining Socialist support of the plan. There is no indication, however, of progress made. On the contrary, Minister Dard’s activities have made him extremely unpopular here.

Another much discussed political possibility is that of a State President, who is to have a certain tenure of four to seven years and who will exercise a stabilizing influence on the government. The weakness of the present system was forcibly illustrated during the recent . . . When the Premier was forced to withdraw, there was no central figure who could call upon someone to form a new cabinet and take over the reins of policy. Instead there was a long inter-party squabble resulting in the selection of a man well thought of and respected, but not a strong man. The strong men of the Volkspartei – Heim, Held and Speck, did not wish for the office, as they selected another man who has not even the privilege of choosing his own cabinet, to occupy the chair while they continue on in charge of party affairs and policy.

That a Wittelsbacher – probably Rupprecht – may be the State President should one be elected, is not considered as impossible.

Source: U.S. NARA, M336, Roll 18, pp. 206-216.

Nov. 10, 1922 Pacelli to Gasparri:

Re: Resignation of Count von Lerchenfeld – Appointment of Dr. von Knilling as President of the Ministerial Council of Bavaria – Concordat Negotiations

Most Reverend Eminence,

As I have already had the honor to present to Your Most Reverend Eminence in my respectful coded communiqué no. 415 of October 30th, Mr. Minister President, Count von Lerchenfeld, found it necessary to submit his resignation. The opposition, which was mobilized against him from the beginning by the nationalist groups – from the Mittelpartei [Middle Party] to the so-called national-socialists (Nationalsozialisten), a sort of Fascists led by Hitler – became ever more acute in these recent months, especially during the occasion of the conflict of Bavaria with the Reich on account of the Law for the Defense of the Republic. Count Lerchenfeld’s adversaries were indeed not inclined to make use of a purely personal affair, concerning his wife, in a political struggle. The accusation, which was beginning to be discussed secretly since last April or May, was spread little by little, as allusions were made to it in the press, then clear hints in public assemblies, until a paper entitled Deutsche Wohlfahrt, which was widely distributed (Enclosure I), spoke openly of the matter, indicating the names and citing the files of the legal proceeding.

After the resignation of Count von Lerchenfeld was definitively decided, the Bavarian People’s Party turned to State Councillor Mr. Meyer in the Ministry of Justice, as the successor, but he did not want to accept the position. Then, after much discussion, the choice fell to Dr. Eugene von Knilling, who, as I was obliged to emphasize in the next coded communiqué no. 416, was elected by the Bavarian Landtag in the afternoon of the day before yesterday, the 8th, by a vote of 86 (from the three parties of the current coalition – Bavarian People’s Party, Middle Party and Farmers League) out of 143.

The new President of the Ministerial Council, born in Munich in 1865, pursued, after finishing his studies in law, his career as a State functionary, until he was named Education Minister in 1912, an office he retained up to the fall of the Monarchy in November 1918.

Catholic by birth, he was not fervid, however, in the practice of religion and followed somewhat liberal principles; but after the revolution he changed his leanings and joined the Bavarian People’s Party. In February-March 1920, indeed, he published in the Catholic periodical Allgemeine Rundschau three notable articles about the relations between Church and State in Bavaria, and the future Concordat, in which he combatted the ideas espoused by the then Minister President, Mr. Hoffmann, and in a programmatic speech delivered yesterday in the Landtag, he said: “The maintenance of close and good relations with the Holy See corresponds with a Bavarian tradition. This will be doubly close to my heart at the current moment, in which I hope that we are close to concluding the Concordat negotiations.” (Enclosure II).

In the official visit Mr. von Knilling paid me this morning, I did not fail to represent how profound the desire of the Holy Father and Your Eminence would be to see a good turn of events bringing these negotiations to a conclusion; and he, in beseeching me humbly to bring his devoted homage to the August Pontiff, assured me that everything will be done so far as he is concerned to attain this goal.

Then he pointed out all the severe difficulties that the Government will encounter during the upcoming winter on account of the devaluation of the German mark and the enormous increases in prices, which could easily cause riots and upheavals, especially in northern and central Germany. He also spoke of the rumors that are circulating these days of a coming coup d’état, especially by the National Socialists, in Bavaria, and, though admitting there exists some danger in this regard, he showed trust in the force at the Government’s disposal to cope with all eventualities.

Humbly bowing to kiss the Sacred Purple, with sentiments of the most profound veneration, I have the honor to prove myself

Your Most Reverend Eminence’s

Most Humble, Most Devoted, Most Obliged Servant,

+Eugenio Pacelli, Archbishop of Sardis

Apostolic Nuncio

Source: Historical Archive of the Secretariat of State (Holy See), Section for Relations with States, AA.EE.SS., Baviera, 1922-1925, pos. 152, fasc. 3, fol. 41r-42v, reprinted in www.pacelli-edition.de, Document No. 1094.

Nov. 25, 1922 Robert Murphy’s political situation report of Nov. 25, 1922, from the American Consulate in Munich:

... The third inquiry made by the Socialists, probably of the greatest current interest, deals with the attitude of the Government toward the activities and breaches of the public peace caused by the national Socialists [sic] Workmen’s party. This interpolation was based on the claim of the United Socialists that armed bands of the national Socialists organization were terrorizing the Government; that the police sympathized with the activities of the organization and offered no resistance to it; that Hitler’s strength had been greatly fortified by Mussolini’s success which Hitler is attempting to imitate in Bavaria with the sympathy of the Government or at least without its active opposition. The Socialists claimed that action should be taken against Hitler’s organization under the special laws for the protection of the Republic.

The Government through its Minister of Justice in its reply characterized the National Socialist movement as a natural effect of the burdens imposed upon Germany during the past four years, and a natural reaction against the view of the United Socialists that the German people were justly bound to perform the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles. He stated that the Government was, however, holding the movement under control and within reasonable bounds; the movement had a constitutional right to exist; the rumors of counter revolution founded upon the activities of Hitler’s organization were not supported by acts of violence on the part of the organization; the responsibility for such disorders as had occurred could be attributed just as well to misdemeanors on the part of United Socialist workingmen as to members of the Hitler group.

My observation leads me to the conclusion that the so-called Bavarian Mussolini – Hitler, concerning whose activities the Department was advised in my report No. 221 of November 10, is countenanced by the government because he through his organization provides vent for the inevitable outcroppings of public discontent which lie so near the surface of things in Bavaria during this period of economic disorder. He is an opportunist quick to appeal to popular prejudice, as is demonstrated in his campaign against the Jews, but it does not seem that he has developed sufficiently to play the larger role of dictator which is his avowed ultimate aim. He is content to progress slowly and submit to the control of the present government, and the government seems likewise content to have a useful tool which provides an exhaust for the element which craves attendance at the usual beer-hall assemblies to listen to denunciation of the Jews, the Entente in general and France in particular, to the condemnation of the Treaty of Versailles, and such ‘Schlagwörter’ [catchwords] as the “Berliner Judische Räterrepublik” [Berlin Jewish Soviets-Councils Republic] and a vivid portrayal of its economic woes.

Interview with the Bavarian Prime Minister.

Premier von Knilling yesterday granted me a thirty-minute interview in which he expressed himself somewhat as follows: Serious social disorders due to oppressive economic conditions during the coming winter months are possible but he has full confidence in the strength of the government and the police to cope with and suppress excesses. Anti-Jewish sentiment is strong and increasing. He himself is anti-semitic. While Hitler’s organization is growing in numbers, the Premier does not feel that Hitler is of large enough caliber to advance beyond the point of a popular agitator. He does not partake of the qualities of a Mussolini, nor will he even attain the measure of success of Kurt Eisner. He has not the mental ability and furthermore the government is now on guard as was not the case in 1918. To the question of where Hitler’s organization obtained its funds, he said there were many rumors. He of course denied that the present government is supplying funds or assistance in any way. (From a high government source I learn that it is strongly rumored that Henry Ford’s organization is furnishing Hitler with funds to assist him in his campaign against the Jews). Many of the more respectable element which has recently been attracted to Hitler had contributed, but his financial resources were far from unlimited.

The Premier gives the impression of capability and good judgment. He is unquestionably reactionary and a royalist.

Source: US NARA M336, R18, pp. 256-258.

Nov. 29, 1922 Letter from the Bishop of Passau, Baron von Ow-Felldorf, to Cardinal Faulhaber:

Your Eminence!

Reverend Herr Cardinal and Archbishop!

The past Reich Chancellor Herr Dr. Wirth somehow felt the need to unburden his heart to us bishops ...

... I could not deny myself the opportunity to convey to Your Eminence my most sincere thanks and interior joy for bringing to expression such a frank and weighty intervention for right and truth. Standing in support of your highest Church position is the entire episcopate and certainly likewise the entire part that matters (Latin: Pars sanior) of the clergy and people of Bavaria.

May God will that, with Dr. Wirth no more and the system embodied by him – to the extent his behavior had anything to do with the term “system” – gone from the face of the earth, the helm of the ship of state may finally one day pass over into hands that are equal to the increasingly urgent and assertive demands of a portentous juncture!

With the most distinguished respect ...

Your Eminence’s most deferential and devoted,

/s/ +Sigismund Felix

Bishop of Passau

Source: L. Volk, Akten Kardinal Michael von Faulhabers, vol. 1, pp. 295-296.

Dec. 11, 1922 Pope Pius XI’s words about Palestine to the Consistory of Dec. 11, 1922:

To mention some of the most serious - great sorrow is still caused Us by the trend of affairs in Palestine, that Holy Land, cradle of our faith, bathed with the sweat and the Blood of the Divine Redeemer. You know well, Venerable Brethren, all that was done in defence of the rights of the Holy Places by Our revered Predecessor Benedict XV, one of the gravest records of whose Pontificate remains in the memorable Allocution pronounced in the Consistory of June 13 of last year. Now, inasmuch as it seems that the representatives of the Powers at the League of Nations are soon going to consider the Question of Palestine again, We make Our own both the protest and the purpose of our Predecessor - “That when time comes to establish there a permanent condition of things, to the Catholic Church and to all Christians shall be assured the inalienable rights they hold.”

Source: The Tablet, Dec. 23, 1922, reprinted in Minerbi, pp. 194-195.

Dec. 20, 1922 Völkischer Beobachter, Dec. 20, 1922, page 2. The first piece reads as follows in translation:

“Signs of the Time”

... Herr Pastor Dr. Braun said briefly in a gathering in Nuremberg “that we (namely the Catholic part of the German Volk and its priesthood) will not stand so very far from the National Socialists, if the time comes.” Obviously the Bavarian People’s Newspaper [Bayerische Volkszeitung] disavowed these words when it declared “that the Catholic Church stands and will stand very far from this movement (Nazi Party), if the time comes.” Regardless that Herr Pastor Braun was speaking of the Catholic people, not of the Catholic Church, we believe that Herr Pastor Braun knows his parishioners better than the scribe of the “Bavarian People’s Newspaper.”

The second piece reads as follows:

“Cross, Swastika and Cardinal Faulhaber”

On December 18th Cardinal Faulhaber spoke about “The press in service of popular education.” He alluded to the importance of the press in current day life, to the need to open up the profiteering paper industry and then sharply criticized the “tyranny of phrases and lies” in the realm of the newspaper sector. As for examples, the Cardinal furnished as good as none, much less did he identify – as he had already done at the Catholic Congress – the Jewish lies and deception of our Volk. Then he came to speak of anti-Christian voices, briefly named the Berliner Zeitung [Berlin Newspaper] and then went into a criticism of the – “Völkischer Beobachter.” He said literally: “In a Munich newspaper, in the ‘Völkischer Beobachter,’ the Christian cross was mocked that Sunday in a manner that must make every Christian red in the face. To be sure, the cross was not often depicted in the catacombs, because the first Christians really had to keep everything hidden from their persecutors ...” Then Cardinal Faulhaber referred to the anchor symbol and the mock-crucifix [Spottkruzifix].

The issue of the “Völkischer Beobachter” in question (no. 98) is thoroughly concerned with the Volk-traitorous [Volksverräterischen] politics of the Center Party, and we had thought that every Christian must have, above all else, become red in the face over the supposedly Christian Center Party marching in step all year with atheistic Marxism and giving it a mandate in the Reichstag. The Cardinal appears to be of a different opinion. Now in what concerns the “mockery” of the Christian cross, there is the following in our essay in regard to attacks by the Bavarian People’s Party: “Pagan, old-Germanic is our swastika; the Christian cross has exactly the same origin (just as the symbol of the sun, later re-interpreted into the gibbet of the cross; yet not extant in any of the Roman catacombs).” Thus a purely factual determination. In that case we have the following to say:

It is not understandable that a historical indication that a particular symbol was one taken over, can be taken as mockery. Then the dome of St. Peter’s in Rome would have to be considered a mockery, because its architecture was taken from Hellenistic, that is “pagan” forms.

That the cross as such represents an ancient symbol of salvation and symbol of the sun, there is not the least doubt today. Primitive man, from his everyday experience, identified the sun as a wheel. The ring with spokes became the symbol of the sun; later just the spokes (that is the +), in order to represent the movement of the sun, i.e., rays of sunlight, also identified as the original form of the hooks, i.e., spikes. The anchor arose as a Christian symbol before the cross as a special symbol and has remained such up to today. The simple cross appeared in ancient times related to the swastika. We do not know whether Cardinal Faulhaber knows the work of Theophile Roller, “The Catacombs of Rome.” There he will find a range of such images...

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