German Cardinal Karl Lehmann says the Catholic Church must face up to its past after a newly published history revealed the Church in Germany used 1,000 prisoners of war and nearly 5,000 civilians as slave labourers in hospitals and monasteries during World War II. "For too long the Catholic Church turned a blind eye to the fate and suffering of men, women and children from across Europe who were sent to Germany as slave labourers," Cardinal Lehmann said, according to a Euronews report.
In 2000, the Church acknowledged its use of forced labour under Hitler, and has paid 1.5 millions euros in compensation to foreign workers, but the report Forced Labour and the Catholic Church 1939-1945 is the most thorough look at the issue so far, according to a report in The Australian.
Most slave labourers came from Poland and the then-Soviet Union, and their work was vital for Hitler's regime.
By the end of the war, forced labour made up more than a quarter of the workforce as Germany collapsed. This is latest in a series of reports from firms including Volkswagen, Siemens and Deutsche Bank, acknowledging their past.
The 703 page official report documents the fate of 1,075 prisoners of war and 4,829 civilians who were forced to work for the Nazis in nearly 800 Catholic institutions, mainly hospitals, homes and monastery gardens to boost the war effort.
The Earthtimes quotes the main historian behind the report, Karl-Joseph Hummel, as saying only a limited number of Catholic facilities had used forced labour. It had not been typical, Hummel said. At the same time the Nazis had been persecuting the Church.
Most labourers did not work in churches, but typically in Catholic hospitals and cemeteries, on farms run by monasteries or in domestic service. Most hailed from Poland, Ukraine and the Soviet Union, according to the study.
In a radio interview, Hummel said the Church had failed by not speaking out forthrightly against Naziism. "It should have clearly said how its interpretation of loyalty, honour and the fatherland was not the same as the Nazis' view," he said.
The German Catholic Bishops' Conference said it had also spent 2.71 million euros on 200 reconciliation projects in eastern Europe.
Cardinal Lehmann of Mainz said the report was not aimed at achieving closure. More reconciliation efforts were planned."It's a burden of history that our Church will keep facing up to in the future," he said.
"It should not be concealed that the Catholic Church was blind for too long to the fate and suffering of men, women and children from the whole of Europe who were carted off to Germany as forced labourers," Cardinal Lehmann said at the book's presentation.He told a televised news conference in the western city of Mainz the term "cooperative antagonism" summed up the Church's strategy at the time.
Catholics and Protestants were subject to oppression under the Nazis but aside from some notable figures from both churches who voiced opposition, they broadly went along with the regime.
Hitler's feared SS expropriated more than 300 monasteries and Catholic institutions between 1940 and 1942 and thousands of Catholics were sent to concentration camps, Hummel added. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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