But what had happened, actually? Where were the “thousand sexual crimes” referred to by Goebbels in the Sport Palast and in his attack on Cardinal Mundelein of Chicago? Out of 30,719 Catholic priests and monks in Germany, the Nazis themselves have accused 120, found 68 guilty, and left 52 still awaiting trial. In the Nazis’ own balance, 0.39 per cent of the priests have been accused; and, whether just or unjust, the important fact is that, with tremendous pressure from those in power, and after a scarifying public denunciation, the Nazis were able to accuse only one-third of one per cent of the priesthood, and condemn no more than one-sixth of one per cent.
In Rome, the Church recognizes this war against it. The Vatican knows how undeclared wars can break in all their violence, and an editorial in the Osservatore Romano of September 14, 1937, says: “Proofs of this hidden and open war against the Church and against the rights guaranteed to the Church by the solemn concordat, are the continuous campaigns on the part of the immoderate and, to say the least, indecorous press, and the recent ordinances tending to take religious teachings out of the hands of competent authorities — that is to say, the clergy — or demanding that the clergy reform the catechism in the National Socialist sense, which implies a negation of the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. The Nuremberg Congress, moreover, showed that the penetration of Nordic paganism into the Nazi movement is constantly progressing, and the official representatives of the Nazi Party, far from opposing this penetration, are encouraging: it. Formerly the Holy See received repeated assurances in writing, and orally, that Rosenberg’s works were his private affairs, for which the Reich Government assumed no responsibility. But the official propaganda of Rosenberg’s ideology is assuming even greater proportions. His ideas have become the basis of all courses for teachers depending on the State and the Nazi Party, and have entered the schools, with the result that the German Government’s declarations and assurances have lost their value.”
The fanatic war of National Socialism against the Church is being fought on so large a field that the history of any one battle is a broken epic of victories that are not victories at all, apparent retreats, offers of peace, agreements made to be withdrawn. One thing is clear: the stake of the war is the souls of the children. Both sides are battling for their future.
“If there are still individuals in our generation who believe they cannot change any more, then we shall take their children and educate them to be what is necessary for the German people.” — Adolf Hitler.
SECONDARY EDUCATION
The lessons continue as they began. Arithmetic examples in population develop, as we have seen, into the algebra of bombing planes. History, Geo-politics, German, and Racial Instruction, follow the same line of development. “The epoch of ‘pure reason,’ of ‘objective and free science,’ is at an end,” writes Dr. Ernst Krieck, leader of the Sturmbann and Rector of the University of Heidelberg, surrounding the terms with quotation marks in an effort to prove they never really existed.
At the moment, that epoch is over in Germany. The primary schools do all they can toward shaping the generation; and, as soon as the children are out of the grades, they pass to the outside organizations, Hitler Youth and Jungvolk, German Girls and National Socialist Order Castles. In high school, they encounter complications, or, rather, extensions, of axioms they have learned before — the fabulous axioms of Nazi Germany.
LANGUAGE
“The teaching seemed inefficient,” an English public school pupil, who had spent several weeks in Germany as an exchange student, writes in the Manchester Evening Chronicle. “French lessons consisted merely of translating the Leader’s speeches, as reported in the French papers, back into German. Since most of the pupils knew all the Leader’s speeches by heart, it cannot have been very difficult.”
But this teaching is not “inefficient”; it serves its purpose. The pupils are not learning French; they are being taught the National Socialist language.