By this maintenance of a certain amount of pressure against Catholic interests, the hierarchy was reminded of the dangers of not coming to a definite agreement with the Nazi State. The stage was thus set for von Papen’s negotiation of a Concordat with the Vatican.
At the time of these activities, the government of which von Papen was Vice Chancellor had already launched its program to mold the state machinery into the Nazi image. The Enabling Act had become law, and the general outlines of the Nazi State were already manifest. Notwithstanding the doubts created in his mind by Hitler’s insistence upon the Enabling Act, von Papen undertook negotiations with the Vatican. In fact, he since has claimed that these fears gave rise to the negotiation of the Concordat (Interrogation at Nurnberg, 3 Sept. 1945):
“I became alarmed, you remember, somewhere in June when I went to Rome to negotiate a concordat because I certainly feared that the particular powers of the Hitler Party would create difficulties on the religious side. So that with the consent of Hitler I went to Rome to make that concordat.”
It is clear, however, that these alleged fears of the Enabling Act were not fears at all. They were merely an understanding of the threat they carried to all persons and instrumentalities antagonistic to the Nazi system. Von Papen understood the significance of these developments. What he actually feared was that the rest of the world would also understand Nazi methods and would erect barriers to the consummation of the plans of the conspirators. The situation plainly called for a neutralizing of these potential barriers to Nazi plans. One method of achieving this result at that time was the negotiation of solemn agreements whereby other powers would commit themselves to a policy of non-intervention by either armed or moral force.
When von Papen concluded the Concordat with the Vatican, the political objectives of furthering the purposes of the Nazi conspiracy were thus foremost in his mind. Even at that time, in the first half of 1933, von Papen had in mind, in concluding this Concordat, not only the consolidation of Catholicism behind the Nazi regime within Germany, but also the psychological build-up of the Austrians in preparation for Anschluss. Von Papen’s own words eloquently characterize these manoeuvres (monograph entitled “Austria” written at Nurnberg, 1945):
“Although the ‘Heimwehr’ movement [in Austria] had brought these patriotic elements together before this, and had fought with them to free the country from strong Socialistic pressure, yet they were armed only from the standpoint of domestic politics and remained aloof from all ambitions for a greater Germany. The cause lay mostly in the Catholic nature of the country, and in the strong influence of the clergy in political leadership. The Reich was considered a bulwark of Protestantism, despite its twenty million Catholics. The anti-clerical wave, which was dominant in the Reich under the leadership of Prussia, itself led by Socialists, appeared to have verified the fears of the Austrian clergy. For in spite of Catholics at the head of the Reich—Wirth, Marx, Bruening—the Centre Party had always put through its cultural demands by logrolling with the Socialists. There were at least two Socialist officials, university professors or teachers for every Catholic appointee. In contrast to the obviously badly functioning Weimar Constitution, there was an effort in Austria, under clerical leadership and with the strong support of the Vatican, to develop into a corporate state.
“Those were serious obstacles on both sides. When, after the seizure of power of the NSDAP in 1933, as the first remedy against a new ‘Kulturkampf’, I safely concluded the Concordat of the New Reich with the Holy See, my thoughts at the time were not focused only on the Reich. For a peaceful evolution of the German-Austrian question it was of the greatest importance that the doubts of the clergy on the Austrian side be completely eliminated.”
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“It was my first purpose in the diplomatic field to deprive the Austrian problem of its European character, and to develop it gradually into an exclusively internal problem between the Reich and Austria.
“It therefore had to be my primary aim to convince the Vatican that a union could not endanger the Vatican’s interests. A Concordat of the Reich with the Vatican had been my first attempt to prevent religious difficulties arising from Nazism’s revolutionary doctrine; the attempt had obviously failed. Under the growing influence of his Party, Hitler sabotaged the Concordat. Rome was deeply disappointed and in the greatest excitement.”