Re: Adolf Hitler

WildWater wrote: »

Yes but Time magazine Person of the Year is not necessarily given to a person for the good that they have done. I don't know the exact wording but it is given for being influential for better or worse. In the cases of Hitler and Stalin I would think it was the latter.

Exactly, Hitler nearly got Person of the Century. Bin Laden was close to the top of the poll one year as well. TIME thing of the year just means most influential person or for that matter group. At the moment ISIL are probably on their shortlist. It does not mean the editors of Time are Islamist terrorists.

This is from an interview of Rabbi Dalin who wrote a book about how Pope Pius XII saved many Jews.

Woods: Faced with the fact that many Roman Jews were in fact saved by Catholics during World War II, many critics of Pius XII fall back on the argument that those Jews were saved by individual priests, bishops, religious, and laity rather than in response to a papal directive. What do you make of this claim?




Dalin: As I discuss in much detail in my book, this claim is historically false: There is much firsthand evidence testifying to Pius’s explicit instructions to save Jews, including that of Monsignor John Patrick Carroll-Abbing. Carroll-Abbing was the founder of Boys Towns of Italy and a confidant of Pius XII. He also, on explicit instructions from the pope, fed and sheltered Jews during the Nazi occupation of Rome. In his two memoirs, A Chance to Live and But for the Grace of God, published in 1952 and 1965, respectively, he provides extensive details about Pius XII’s rescue efforts on behalf of the Jews — efforts with which he was directly involved.
In a remarkable interview given to Inside the Vatican (August/September 2001), Carroll-Abbing recounted how the pope had directly ordered him to save the Jews. He stressed that the claim of papal critics that he, and other Catholic rescuers like him, acted in spite of the pope’s silence, “is a blatant lie! I spoke to Pope Pius XII many times during the war, in person, face to face, and he told me not once but many times to assist the Jews…. I can personally testify that the pope gave me direct, face-to-face, verbal orders to rescue Jews.”
During the Nazi occupation of Rome, three thousand Jews found refuge at one time at the pope’s summer residence at Castel Gandolfo. Amazingly, Castel Gandolfo is never mentioned or discussed in the anti-papal writings of many of the pope’s critics. Yet at no other site in Nazi-occupied Europe were as many Jews saved and sheltered for as long a period as at Castel Gandolfo during the Nazi occupation of Rome. Kosher food was provided for the Jews hidden there, where, as George Weigel has noted, Jewish children were born in the private apartments of Pius XII, which became a temporary obstetrical ward.
Pius’s critics who do mention Castel Gandolfo argue — ludicrously — that the Jews were sheltered at the pope’s summer residence without direct papal knowledge or involvement. But the fact is that Castel Gandolfo is under the official jurisdiction of the pope and no one but he has the authority to open its doors. According to several eyewitnesses, including Monsignor Carroll-Abbing, that is precisely what Pius XII did.
The firsthand testimony of Italian Cardinal Pietro Palazzini also refutes the fallacious claims of papal critics that those Italian Catholics who rescued Jews did not do so in response to papal directives. In 1985, Cardinal Palazzini was honored by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial, as a “righteous gentile,” who “had endangered his life” and gone “above and beyond the call of duty to save [Italian] Jews during the Holocaust.” When he was honored by Yad Vashem as a “righteous gentile,” Palazzini testified that Pius XII had personally ordered him to save and shelter Jews.

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In Hungary the Church issued 80,000 baptismal certs to Jews so they could pretend they were Catholic and not Jewish.


This from a Jewish site:

It is now established that the Pope supervised a rescue network which saved 860,000 Jewish lives - more than all the international agencies put together.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/piusdef.htmlOn the first page of this thread there are some very ignorant comments towards the Catholic church.

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

i have not forgiven him for monument men yet....that was sh*te


but I'll take jude law and do the iceland one with bill murry playing the american commander who takes over the occupation after the british invaded (before I might add america formally entered the war)

Right, so we've got Jude Law (once you hire him a nanny he's on board), I'm in touch with Bill Murray's pizza delivery guy and Bill's up for it once we provide mermaids. Bruno Ganz has expressed interest in the Hitler role so we'll have to do a Hitler does Iceland segment - I'm thinking Bill on acid here.
Yes, we have people. George is being evasive about WW2 things but I'll convince the lawyer chick to toss the bum for a month or so. 5 star in Reykjavik will swing his vote. We are a go.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Definitely needs Zombies in there somewhere.

....they're arriving by UFO in the third act.

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I'm confused, yes the USSR (with a bit of help from mother nature) finally put an end to hitlers shenanigans, but what the fúck did the catholic church do? Another mass?

Mainly good in terms of sheltering Jews and facilitating the Allies. They had to pay lip service to Mussolini giving where the Vatican is situated. Rogue elements were involved in running ratlines out of Europe after the war.
In terms of the overall course of the war, they were background actors. It was not a religious war.
There are plenty of reasons to criticise the RCC. WW2 behaviour is way down the list. Their behaviour would be comparable to that of Ireland - neutral but an Allied shade of neutral.

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Whaaaaaat?

Himmler saw himself as a vanguard to overcome Christianity and replace it with a non-judo centric Germanic way of living. Himmler saw the
Christian principle of mercy as dangerous to his plans.

Reinhard Heydrich left the Catholic church with his wife in 1936, stating it was a dangerous institution to the State.

Hoess turned against religion in his teens after a priest broke the seal of confession, he renounced his religion and joined the Nazi party, but never officially left the church.

Fair enough some of them left or stop practicising, but were any of them excommunicated ?
They were at one stage catholics and were reared as such.

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Goebbels renounced his religion while in University, later refering to Christianity as a "Symptom of decay" due to his Jewish origins. Goebbels led the persecution of clergy and created charges of immorality or currency smuggling. All Christian presses were closed under his watch.

Then again wasn't Goebbels one of those who subscribed to the idea that Christ was an Aryan like all the apostles bar Judas and that they could not possibly be Jewish.

The Diabolical Monocle wrote: »

Start/mid-war might not have been the best time to condemn the guy with the mechanized infantry brigades and the one way train tickets.

They could have stood against them in the early 30s, but they didn't.
In fact in 1933 they legitimised them in government.

The Diabolical Monocle wrote: »

Im pretty sure 100% of those Austrian Catholics, in the nazi party upon being faced with the fuhrers message to kill shortly after Sunday mass where they were told not to kill had a moment where they thought 'yeah but'.

The thing is have the Austrians ever really admitted their part rather than seeing themselves as victims.
Hell some of them really play up how much they suffered under the Soviets, but neglect to mention what they contributed to the German war machine.
Remember how one kurt waldheim got elected president of Austria even though his Balkan war record suddenly came to light.

The_Valeyard wrote: »

The ones I mentioned are the ones that jmayo mentioned. That's why I jumped into the thread, big historical inaccuracies.

How is it a big historical inaccurracy.
They WERE catholics, granted they may not have been practicising and some may have left by the time they did their worse.
But the ones who never officially left were never excommunicated by the church afaik.

And before someone has go I don't think that any of the leading nazis who did the worse were actually atheists.
boorman, mengele, speer, goering were all protestants.

The influence of the Catholic Church on WW2 was minimal. They did play a larger role than lets say Buddhists. HQ located in Rome....not a lot of choice. As for the Church of England, you show me one Nazi catholic priest, I'll throw you a C of E vicar with Mosley connections.
Neither your priest nor my vicar mattered in the outcome of events. Stalin was an atheist. Hitler was an atheist. Churchill expressed a wish to believe in something else but ultimately yes....a realist. Roosevelt did what all US prez's do .. show up in a church and daydream.
This is the one war in history that you can definitely say religion was not involved.
For fun, check out what the future John XXIII (the guy gets the gig on the condition he dies soon...whoops!!) was getting up to in Turkey at the time. Spy rings, some junior nitwit called Philby interfering - the wee genial man was on the side of the angels with the bite of a wolf. And probably the dumbest diplomat in history as German ambassador.
If anybody is seriously interested there is a strong chance that Pope Frank is going to open the Vatican files on everything WW2 related. Everybody from drunks like me to Max Hastings is watching that closely.

Joseph Goebbels wrote: »

In fairness someone could have read Mein Kampf.

yes, but i’d say let’s just wait for adolf to post and commment on it all himself…won’t be long now that you have shown up around here…

Thats actually touching on a serious issue. Most people didn't bother reading Mein Kampf. Getting past page 4 or 5 is a struggle. Just like Ulysses (and here the similarities end) it is a book many people claimed to have read but never did. Goering had no fear of books and even he didn't make it all the way through. I believe him on that - he had better stuff to lie about.
The book was written about 1924 by some upstart who had started a riot in a beerhall. It's "importance" has only become evident due to what said upstart became. It definitely should have been compulsory reading in the British Foriegn Office after 1933.

FloatingVoter wrote: »

If it's about the 6 counties, they're welcome to them.

Hahahahahahahahahagagava #coughinglaughing