Hitler and Roman Catholicism
July 2021
by William P. Meyers

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notes on John Toland's Adolf Hitler

John Toland's detailed biography, Adolf Hitler, published in 1976, provided a wealth of detail on Hitler's life, much of it previously unknown to American readers. It has many points about Hitler's Catholicism and relationships to the Roman church that were previously unknown to me. These notes, for my own use but shared with the public, focus on what I did not previously recognize. Therefore they are not general notes on the book, nor do they cover every mention Roman Catholicism in it.

In 1923, another early Nazi leader heard Hitler compare himself to Jesus Christ throwing the money changers our of the temple. [p. 143]

When completing the first volume of Mein Kampf "he also sought editorial advice from Father Bernhard Stempfle, the former editor of an anti-Semetic newspaper." [Other sources say Hitler dictated Mein Kampf in prison to Stempfle, but Toland believes is was dictated in prison to others, then typed by Adolf himself.][211-212]

"examplary conduct was rewarded by support of the Center Party for Goring as president of the Reichstag." [273] That would be the German Centre Party, which was a Roman Catholic party in Bavaria.

In 1933 "under the Law Against Overcrowding of German Schools, the number Jews in higher institutions was reduced. hitler defended his action in a talk with Bishop Berning and Monsignor Steinmann. After reminding the priests that the Church had banished Jews into ghettos and forbidden Christians to work with them. . . He was only going to do more effectively what the Church of Rome had been attempting for so many centuries." [311]

1933. "The princes of the Church were more eager to curry his favor. "Hitler knows how to guide the ship," announced Monsignor Ludwig Kass, leader of the recently outlawed Catholic Party after an audience with the Pope. . . "I met him frequently and was greatly impressed by his clear thinking, by his way of facing realities while upholding his ideals, which are noble." ... Pius XI subscribe to the same principles, as was proved on July 20 when a concordat between the Vatican and Hitler was signed." " [more praise of Hitler by the Pope on this page] [p 315]

"more than 90% of the Saar electorate (at the urging of the Catholic Church) voted for union with Germany." [366)

In 1938 Hitler "proclaimed the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor, legalizing a number of repressive measures which were promptly justified by the official Catholic Klervsblatt as "indisputable safeguards for the qualitative make-up of the German people." [502]

"on his fiftieth anniversary. Special votive masses were celebrated in every German church ... The Pope did not fail to send his congratulations." [528]

"The Pope's attitude was not at all vague. While taking no definite stand on the German invastion, he made it clear that he backed the Nazi fight against Bolshevism, decribing it as 'high-minded gallantry in the defense of the foundations of Christian culture." [674-676]

"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so."—Adolf Hitler, at the time of making the Final Solution [holocaust] decision. [703] [footnote: per General Gerhard Engel]