German Chancellor Brüning meets with Mussolini in Rome and pays a visit to the Vatican, where Cardinal Pacelli insists he form a governing coalition with the Nazis for the sake of attaining a Concordat between the Vatican and the German Reich - Aug. 1931
Source: Timeline
Aug. 1931 German Chancellor Brüning meets with Mussolini in Rome and pays a visit to the Vatican, where Cardinal Pacelli insists he form a governing coalition with the Nazis for the sake of attaining a Concordat between the Vatican and the German Reich.
English translation of excerpts of Brüning’s memoirs
Brüning’s account was disputed by some historians, but a recent work by a German historian argues that Brüning’s account is consistent with other evidence that Pacelli sought for several years to achieve a coalition of the Catholic Center Party with the right (of which the National Socialists were the largest party) in preference to earlier Center Party coalitions with the Social Democratic Party. Cf. Christoph Hübner, Die Rechtskatholiken, die Zentrumspartei und die katholische Kirche in Deutschland bis zum Reichskonkordat von 1933 [The Rightwing Catholics, the Center Party and the Catholic Church in Germany up to the Reich Concordat of 1933] (Münster: Beiträge zur Theologie, Kirche und Gesellschaft, vol. 24, 2014)
Immediately after Brüning’s meeting with Pacelli, Brüning has an audience with Pope Pius XI, who commends the German Bishops for their principled opposition to erroneous doctrines of Nazism.
August 1931 German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning’s memoirs on his audience with Cardinal Pacelli in August 1931:
Pacelli broached the matter of the Reich Concordat... Pacelli thought I should just form a government with the Right with a view toward a Reich Concordat and make it clear in the process that a Concordat was to be concluded immediately. I retorted that he was misperceiving the political situation in Germany and above all the real nature of the Nazis. (p. 358)
Toward the end of a 45-minute contentious meeting, Cardinal Pacelli returned to the subject:
He thought he had to repeat his request that I enter into a coalition with the Nazis. I explained to him that all the attempts to enter a coalition with the Right in a responsible manner for the nation and the people had failed. He misperceived the nature of Nazism. The Social Democrats in Germany were not religious, but they were tolerant, while I was so far convinced that the Nazis were neither religious nor tolerant.
Source: Heinrich Brüning, Memoiren 1918-1934 (1970), pp. 358-359.
Note: Heinrich Brüning remained Reich Chancellor until May 1932, as Germany’s economy went from bad to worse during the Great Depression. In June 1932, President Hindenburg appointed Franz von Papen as Chancellor in place of Brüning.
Brüning on his audience with Pope Pius XI:
The Holy Father spoke almost uninterruptedly, with a wonderful power of recollection, about personal experiences and relationships that bound him to Germany. After the conversation with Pacelli, I could hardly believe my ears when the Pope suddenly congratulated the German Bishops on their clear and intrepid position with respect to the erroneous doctrines of National Socialism.
Source: Heinrich Brüning, Memoiren 1918-1934 (1970), p.360