GHDI logo

Excerpt from the Minutes of a Conference of Ministers (July 14, 1933)

page 2 of 2    print version    return to list previous document      next document


The Reich Chancellor saw three great advantages in the conclusion of the Reich Concordat:

1. that the Vatican had negotiated at all, while they operated, especially in Austria, on the assumption that National Socialism was un-Christian and inimical to the Church;

2. that the Vatican could be persuaded to bring about a good relationship with this purely national German State. He, the Reich Chancellor, would not have considered it possible even a short time ago that the Church would be willing to obligate the bishops to this State. The fact that this had now been done was certainly an unreserved recognition of the present regime;

3. that with the Concordat, the Church withdrew from activity in associations and parties, e.g., also abandoned the Christian labor unions. This, too, he, the Reich Chancellor, would not have considered possible even a few months ago. Even the dissolution of the Center could be termed final only with the conclusion of the Concordat, now that the Vatican had ordered the permanent exclusion of the priests from party politics.

That the objective which he, the Reich Chancellor, had always been striving for, namely an agreement with the Curia, had been attained so much faster than he had imagined even on January 30; this was such an indescribable success that all critical misgivings had to be withdrawn in the face of it.

[ . . . ]



Source of English translation: Excerpt from the Minutes of the Conference of Ministers on July 14, 1933. In United States Department of State, Documents on German Foreign Policy: From the Archives of the German Foreign Ministry. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1957-1964. Series C (1933-1937), The Third Reich: First Phase, Volume 1: January 30 – October 24, 1933. Document Number 362, pp. 651-53. (English translation attributed to the U.S. Department of State Division of Language Services.)

Source of original German text: Auszug as der Niederschrift über die Sitzung des Reichministeriums am 14. Juli 1933. In German Foreign Ministry, Akten zur Deutschen Auswärtigen Politik, 1918-1945. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1971. Series C: 1933-1937. Das Dritte Reich: Die Ersten Jahre. Volume I, 2: 16. Mai bis 14. Oktober 1933. Document number 362, pp. 644-46.

first page < previous   |   next > last page