On 23 July 1938 the Reich Minister for Church Affairs, Kerrl, sent a letter to the Minister of State and Chief of the Präsidium Chancellery, Berlin, stating that Bishop Sproll had angered the population by abstaining from the plebiscite of 10 April. I now offer in evidence Document 849-PS, Exhibit Number USA-354. In this letter Kerrl stated that the Gauleiter and Governor of Württemberg had decided that in the interest of preserving the State’s authority and in the interest of quiet and order, Bishop Sproll could no longer remain in office. I quote from the third paragraph of the first page of the Document 849-PS:
“The Reich Governor had explained to the Ecclesiastical Authority that he would no longer regard Bishop Sproll as head of the Diocese of Rottenburg on account of his refraining from the election in the office and that he desired Bishop Sproll to leave the Gau Württemberg-Hohenzollern because he could assume no guarantee for his personal safety; that in the case of the return of the Bishop of Rottenburg he would see to it that all personal and official intercourse with him on the part of State offices as well as the Party offices and the Armed Forces would be denied.”
Kerrl further states in the above letter that his deputy had moved the Foreign Office, through the German Embassy at the Vatican, to urge the Holy See to persuade Bishop Sproll to resign his Bishopric. Kerrl concludes by stating that should the effort to procure the Bishop’s resignation prove unsuccessful, “the Bishop would have to be exiled from the land or there would have to be a complete boycott of the Bishop by the authorities.”
On 14 July 1939 the Defendant Bormann in his capacity as Deputy of the Führer issued a Party regulation which provided that Party members entering the clergy or undertaking the study of theology would have to leave the Party. I now offer in evidence Document 840-PS, Exhibit Number USA-355; and this is a copy of a regulation by Bormann, relating to the admission of the clergy and students of theology into the Party. I quote from the last paragraph of the English translation, which reads—I quote. “I decree that in the future Party members who enter the clergy or who turn to the study of theology have to leave the Party.”
In this directive Bormann also refers to an earlier decree, dated 9 February 1939, in which he had ruled that the admission of members of the clergy into the Party was to be avoided. In this decree, also, Bormann refers with approval to a regulation of the Reich Treasurer of the Party, dated 10 May 1939, providing that “clergymen as well as other fellow Germans who are also closely connected with the Church cannot be admitted into the Party.”
I now offer in evidence Document 3268-PS, Exhibit Number USA-356, which contains excerpts from the Allocution of His Holiness Pope Pius XII to the Sacred College, June 2d, 1945. In this address His Holiness, after declaring that he had acquired an appreciation of the great qualities of the German people in the course of 12 years of residence in their midst, expressed the hope that Germany could “rise to new dignity and a new life once it has laid the satanic specter raised by National Socialism and the guilty have expiated the crimes they have committed.” After referring to repeated violations by the German Government of the Concordat concluded in 1933, His Holiness declared; and I quote from the last paragraph of Page 1 of the English translation of Document 3268-PS:
“The struggle against the Church did, in fact, become ever more bitter; there was the dissolution of Catholic organizations; the gradual suppression of the flourishing Catholic schools, both public and private; the enforced weaning of youth from family and Church; the pressure brought to bear on the conscience of citizens, and especially of civil servants; the systematic defamation, by means of a clever, closely-organized propaganda, of the Church, the clergy, the faithful, the Church’s institutions, teachings, and history; the closing, dissolution, confiscation of religious houses and other ecclesiastical institutions; the complete suppression of the Catholic press and publishing houses . . . .
“In the meantime the Holy See itself multiplied its representations and protests to governing authorities in Germany, reminding them, in clear and energetic language, of their duty to respect and fulfill the obligations of the natural law itself that were confirmed by the Concordat. In these critical years, joining the alert vigilance of a pastor to the long-suffering patience of a father, our great predecessor, Pius XI, fulfilled his mission as Supreme Pontiff with intrepid courage.