Wolfgang cites at 25 Nov 04 - 10:39 AM his post at 24 Nov 04 - 02:56 PM, with the additional:

" if you look at the actual results from different lands in Germany in the same year (1932) you see easily the pattern: the higher the percentage of Roman Catholics the lower the percentage of votes for the NSDAP."

In the 1932 election, in which the NSDAP (Nazi party) came into power, the principal more or less organized opposition to them in Germany was from "liberal" Catholics. Conservative Catholics, i.e. the Vatican, in what they apparently believed was a "save the faith" move, in 1933 became the first significant foreign power to officially recognize the new NSDAP government in Germany. In exchange for the effective declaration that the Roman Catholic Church was to be the official church of Germany, the Natzi party obtained international validation and recognition.

The establishment of the "Church of Rome" as the official national religion effectively neutralized liberal Catholic opposition to the NSDAP within Germany, and was of major significance in granting the NSDAP a free hand to implement additional policies that might otherwise have been more effectively resisted within Germany.

Additional information on the Vatican treaty with the new NSDAP government can be quite easily found with a Google for the treaty, the "Concordat of 1933." Versions favoring various interpretations can be found, but I believe the above is fully credible if both sides are examined.

The Weimar Constitution, under which the NSDAP came into office (but not immediately into real power) was and is considered a "model consititution," and contained all of the protections for individual rights and freedoms to be expected in any such document applied to a modern and enlightened nation.

A first "principle" of government is that no national government can survive without an enemy. The preceding government(s) had selected "socialists" as their "national enemy." The incoming NSDAP simply declared that the "socialists" were a terrible and immediate threat, and used that threat as the justification for declaring a national emergency. In accord with the "emergency clauses" of the Weimar Constitution, Hitler assumed "emergency powers" that permitted the suspension of (certain) civil liberties, and that gave him broad powers to declare new laws.

Having an enemy gives a nation a certain coherence, since all the people have something in common. Blind allegiance is quite often obtained by implementing the second principle of governement: "Give them permission to hate something."

The NSDAP started slowly, by effectively criminalizing unemployment. (Germany at the time had large numbers of unemployed persons, and the NSDAP apparently realized that those in prisons or in "work camps" weren't "unemployed." Problem solved.) A pretense of attempting to find employment for people was made, but once "refusing any job offered" was made sufficient justification for "rehabilitation" (attitude adjustment) in a work camp, the simple expedient of offering impossible or grossly inappropriate jobs to "undesirables" made it easy to begin getting rid of anyone the Party (or the individual employment office agent) simply didn't like. The "rehabilitation" terms were generally fairly short, and a few returned from work camps after being "rehabilitated." Conditions in the camps were such that a large percentage of those sent to them died there. Reliable figures for how many "ordinary German citizens" were sent, and how many died in the labor camps, are apparently not recorded (at least where I've found them). Guesses usually run in the low to middle hundred thousands dead.

The NSDAP was apparently having some difficulty getting the people to "really hate unemployed persons." After all, the economy was in pretty bad shape, so one of the next steps was to criminalize being a homosexual. (Performing an "abominable act" was not necessary for conviction. Often the accusation alone was enough.) A possibly reliable estimate asserts that "at least 60,000" accused of "being queer" died in labor camps. Only males were prosecuted, because to "Conservative Christians" (of nearly all kinds) females don't count, and "what they do doesn't matter."

The third major step in establishing the NSDAP as the "imperial power" in Germany was to apply the emergency powers assumed by the new government to restrict the jurisdiction of the courts, and to remove "unsympathetic judges" and replace them with those who would do as the party told them. (They were in a hurry and couldn't use normal attrition and replacement.)

The Vatican participation in all this was nominally "for the good of the faith." Numerous sites on the web will give the various explanations, accusations, and equivocations associated with the events. (It does appear, despite their denial of involvement, or of a close relationship with the party, that the Vatican was the only foreign power to send an official delegate to each of Adolphe's birthday parties beginning in 1933 and through, as I recall, about 1938 or '39.)

This was the prelude to the really nasty stuff that followed.

Note that all this is only one interpretation; but it is a composite from my examination of a number of diverse "histories" and for the present it appears credible to me.



But:

Does anyone see any parallels to any current government somewhere in the world?

Worried?

John