Holocaust and Catholic Conscience, The: Cardinal Aloisius Muench and the Guilt Question in Germany

American-born Cardinal Aloisius Muench (1889-1962) was a key figure in German and German-American Catholic responses to the Holocaust, Jews, and Judaism between 1946 and 1959. He was arguably the most powerful American Catholic figure and an influential Vatican representative in occupied Germany and in West Germany after the war. In this carefully researched book, which draws on Muenchs collected papers, Suzanne Brown-Fleming offers the first assessment of Muenchs legacy and provides a rare glimpse into his commentary on Nazism, the Holocaust, and surviving Jews. She argues that Muench legitimized the Catholic Churchs failure during this period to confront the nature of its own complicity in Nazisms anti-Jewish ideology. The archival evidence demonstrates that Muench viewed Jews as harmful in a number of very specific ways. He regarded German Jews who had immigrated to the United States as "aliens," he believed Jews to be "in control" of American policy-making in Germany, he feared Jews as "avengers" who wished to harm "victimized" Germans, and he believed Jews to be excessively involved in leftist activities. Muenchs standing and influence in the United States, Germany, and the Vatican hierarchies gave sanction to the idea that German Catholics needed no examination of conscience in regard to the Church's actions (or inactions) during the 1940s and 1950s. This fascinating story of Muenchs role in German Catholic considerationand ultimate rejectionof guilt and responsibility for Nazism in general and the persecution of European Jews in particular will be an important addition to scholarship on the Holocaust and to church history.

"In this revealing study, Suzanne Brown-Fleming takes us back to a post–World War II Catholic world that had yet to come to terms with either Nazism or the Holocaust. One of the leading Catholic clerics in postwar Europe, Cardinal Aloisius Muench both reflected and helped promote German Catholic failures in this regard. Anchored in Cardinal Muench's private papers, this book conducts a fair-minded, but rigorous and morally animated assessment of a Catholic conscience that was later transformed by Vatican II. I recommend it highly." —Michael R. Marrus, Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust Studies, University of Toronto

 

"This is an excellent book that will be of great interest to all historians in the fields of church history, Christian-Jewish relations, and American Catholicism." —Susannah Heschel, Dartmouth College

 

"This clearly written book deals with the problems nations face in dealing with their past—in this case, the Holocaust. Germany has faced this dilemma—to accept or shrug off shame—for many generations, but the immediate postwar years tormented them more than any, and more than any other nation has had to face. To a great extent Bishop Muench provided the salve for the Germans' scorched consciences. But Muench, a first-generation German-American, carried his own antisemitic baggage, and answered to a pope who responded weakly to the Holocaust and who afterwards absolved German Catholics as a body from guilt. The reader will feel the anguish of history in these pages." —Michael Phayer, Marquette University

 

American-born Cardinal Aloisius Muench (1889–1962) was a key figure in German and German-American Catholic responses to the Holocaust, Jews, and Judaism between 1946 and 1959. He was arguably the most powerful American Catholic figure and an influential Vatican representative in occupied Germany and in West Germany after the war. In this carefully researched book, which draws on Muench’s collected papers, Suzanne Brown-Fleming offers the first assessment of Muench’s legacy and provides a rare glimpse into his commentary on Nazism, the Holocaust, and surviving Jews. She argues that Muench helped legitimize the Catholic Church’s failure during the 1940s and 1950s to confront the nature of its own complicity in Nazism’s anti-Jewish ideology. This fascinating story of Muench’s role in German Catholic consideration—and ultimate rejection—of guilt and responsibility for Nazism in general, and the persecution of European Jews in particular, is an important addition to scholarship on the Holocaust and to church history.

Argues that Bishop (from 1959, Cardinal) Muench (1889-1962), the most powerful American Catholic figure and the representative of the Holy See in Germany between 1946-59, was a key figure in internal German Catholic discussion and reflection about Jews, antisemitism, and the Holocaust. The tens of thousands of letters to Cardinal Muench from German and American prelates, clerics, and lay Catholics, available in the Aloisius Muench Collection of the archives of the Catholic University of America (Washington, DC), demonstrate significant anti-guilt and sometimes anti-Jewish overtones. Personal letters to and by Muench, bolstered by conversations recorded in his diary, demonstrate that Muench, as well as his American correspondents, viewed German Jews in America as "alien" or "recent" Americans, incapable of true loyalty to the United States; believed them to be "in control" of American policy-making in Germany; feared them as "avengers" who wished to harm "victimized" Germans; and believed Jews to be excessively involved in leftist activities. Muench actively participated in the Vatican-supported postwar clemency campaign on behalf of German war criminals. Muench, the German-American bishop of the diocese of Fargo, North Dakota (1935-46), held five key positions in Germany between 1946-59. He was liaison representative to the U.S. Army (1946-49), Pope Pius XII's apostolic visitor to Germany (1946-47), the Holy See's relief officer in Kronberg, near Frankfurt-am-Main (1947-49), the Holy See's regent to Germany, stationed in Kronberg (1949-51), and the Holy See's nuncio to Germany (1951-59). Muench's reputation among German Catholics as a sympathetic, pro-German figure began with the dissemination of his pastoral letter "One World in Charity" (1946). The candid nature of letters to and by Muench make this archival collection critical to the study of German "selective memory" regarding the Nazi past Introduction : Aloisius Muench and the question of guilt and responsibility The life and career of Aloisius Muench Excusing the Holocaust : the sensation of one world in charity Comfort and consensus : Aloisius Muench and the German Catholic hierarchy, clergy, and laity Granting absolution : Muench and the Catholic clemency campaign The longest hatred Conclusion : the Holocaust and Catholic conscience. Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction Chapter 1: The Life and Career of Aloisius Muench Chapter 2: Excusing the Holocaust Chapter 3: Comfort and Consensus Chapter 4: Granting Absolution Chapter 5: The Longest Hatred Conclusion Appendix A Appendix B Appendix C Appendix D Notes Bibliography Index And the Catholic Church's failure during this period to confront its own complicity in Nazism's anti-Jewish ideology. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism)