November 1938: Cardinal Arthur Hinsley, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, and the Kristallnacht pogrom

<plain_text><page sequence="1">November 1938: Cardinal Arthur Hinsley, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, and the Kristallnacht pogrom1 SUZANNE BROWN-FLEMING In March 1943, in his final public statement, in a speech at the World Jewish Congress in New York, Cardinal Arthur Hinsley, Archbishop of Westminster and as such the spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales (1935-43), said the following: "I denounce with utmost vigour the persecution of the Jews by the Nazi oppressors."2 Even the Holy Father, Pope Pius xii, or Pius xi before him, had never, nor would ever, publicly voiced any objection to persecution of Jews specifically by the Nazis specifically by name. This article captures some of the concerns and preoccupations that shaped the Holy See's muted response to the November 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom. The evidence presented is taken from the records of the Vatican nuncia- tures (diplomatic headquarters) in Munich and Berlin during the 1930s. In February 2003, in an unprecedented break with Vatican Secret Archives3 policy, the Holy See opened the records pertaining to these nunciatures for the period 1922-39. Up to and during these years, Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pius xii (1939-58), served as Nuncio to Bavaria (1917), Nuncio to Germany (1920), and Secretary of State to Pius xi (1930-39). The archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, dc, now i The views expressed here are mine alone and do not necessarily represent those of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum or any other organization. This article is taken from a lecture that was delivered at the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust &amp; Genocide, London, in October 2013. 1 thank Ben Barkow, director of the Wiener Library, for his support, encouragement, and friendship. I also thank Hannah Schachter for her help in procuring the photographs for this article. The translations are my own responsibility. 2 Andrew Chandler, "Catholicism, Dictatorship, and the World at War: The Significance ofCardinal Hinsley", Contemporary Church History Quarterly 19, no. 1 (March 2013): 9. 3 The Vatican Secret Archives (Latin, Archivům Secretum Apostolicum Vaticanum; Italian, Archivio Segreto Vaticano), located in Vatican City, is the central repository for all the acts promulgated by the Roman Catholic Church's Holy See. The archives also contain state papers, correspondence, and other documents that the church has accumulated over the centuries. Jewish Historical Studies, volume 46, 2014 155</page><page sequence="2">156 SUZANNE BROWN-FLEMING hold microfilm and digital copies of this subset of critical primary source material. Discussions about the plight of European Jewry swirled in the offices of the Cardinal Secretary of State in the months before the November po- grom. The cardinal and future pope Eugenio Pacelli and his lieutenants received many, many requests for help. Internal exchanges reveal a certain level of sympathy, tinged still by anti-Jewish sentiment. In February 1938, the Apostolic Inter-Nuncio to the Netherlands, Father Paul Giobbe, wrote to the Under-secretary for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, Domeni- co Tardini, softly to encourage a petition from the president of the Dutch Zionist Committee, H. B. van Leeuwen, asking for the Holy See's support in favour of Jewish emigration to Palestine. "Under the current difficult political and social circumstances, the Jews, declared undesirables in some European countries and in the face of . . . blood and violence that currently dissuade the pursuit of systematic emigration to Palestine, [yet] obstinately imbued . . . with the utopia of the reconstruction of the Jewish Kingdom now want to find territories that are safe and easily accessible . . . the Holy See should at least support them by smoothing the way", he wrote.4 The Apostolic Nuncio to Switzerland, Filippo Bernardini, sent a detailed report concerning the persecution of Austrian Jewry and a proposal for the emigration of 10,000 Viennese Jews to Lebanon in May 1938. 5 The September 1938 Italian racial laws were discussed in great detail in the Secretariat of State before their passage, to the point where the Vatican's emissary to Benito Mussolini, Father Tacci Venturi, brokered a deal between Pius xi and the Duce that the pope would agree to decline any public condemnation of the Italian racial laws as long as the Duce would give his word to stop persecution of the Italian Catholic youth group Catholic Action, and to agree not to subject the Jews to "treatment worse than that which was accorded them for centuries and centuries by the popes who hosted them in the Eternal City and in the lands of their 4 Inter-Nuncio to the Netherlands Archbishop Paolo Giobbe, The Hague, to Secretary of the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, Domenico Tardini, Rome, 25 Feb. 1938, in Posizione (hereafter POS.) 566, Fascicolo (hereafter Fase.) 599 (1938- 1939: Jews), Record Group (here after RG) 76.001M: Selected Records from the Vatican Archives, 1865-1939, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC (hereafter, RG 76, ushmm). 5 Nuncio to Switzerland, Filippo Bernardini, Rome, to Secretary of State, Eugenio Pacelli, 19 May 1938, in ibid.</page><page sequence="3">November 1938 157 temporal domain."6 This was, needless to say, a promise Mussolini did not keep. The Reichskristallnacht folder is small, containing only fifteen docu- ments: ten letters from private individuals, some addressed to Pacelli and some to Pius xi and all written in August 1938/ and five pieces of official correspondence. Small in number, letters from private individuals illuminate the atmosphere in Europe and the United States in the months before the November pogrom. On 12 August 1938, Dr. Gotthold Steinführer of Chicago, Illinois, a German American Catholic, wrote a brief and impassioned letter to Pius xi in Rome: "Permit me to make Your Eminence aware of the words of our Lord Jesus Christ regarding the Jewish question, for example in Matthew 8:ii8 and Revelation 2:9." Your Eminence should not defend the Jews, who [belong to] the Synagogue of Satan. Referring to the above words of Christ, those who defend the Jews defend for Satan. The entire Gospel of John shows the fight of the Jews against Christ. The greatest enemies of all Christendom are the Jews, from Paul until today. Yours Faithfully, Dr. Gotthold Steinführer".10 Letters to the Holy See filed in other folios also require systematic examination, as they offer interesting insights into popular Catholic 6 David I. Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe (New York: Random House, 2014), 308. See also "Three Points in the Agreement Successfully Concluded the Evening of August 16, 1938-XVI between His Excellency the Honorable Mussolini and P. Tacchi Venturi, S.J., for the Purpose of Reestablishing the Harmony that had been Disturbed in Recent Weeks between the Holy See and the Italian Government", in POS. 1054, Fase. 730, RG 76.002M: Additional Selected Records from the Vatican Archive Collections, ushmm. 7 Two letters are anonymous and undated: one from Sackingen, Germany, and the other from an anonymous location. The other eight letters are from (in alphabetical order): Max Cacheuse, Rittergut Berkach über Meiningen, Thuringia, Germany (dated 14 Aug. 1938); Curt Goldberg of Trieste (dated 23 Aug. 1938); Magdalena Jankowska of Berlin (undated); Louis Livy of Nancy, France (dated 15 Nov. 1938); the wife of Dr. Med. Georg Marse, temporarily in Rome (dated 16 Aug. 1938); Dr. Med. Dr. Phil. Erich Simons of Dijon, France (dated 15 Aug. 1938); Dr. Gotthold Steinführer of Chicago (dated 12 Aug. 1938); and Max Weiner of Haifa (dated 4 Nov. 1938). 8 "I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their place at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven"; The [Neu; International Version] Study Bible, gen. ed. Kenneth Barker (Grand Rapids, mi: Zondervan Publishing, 1995), 1450. 9 "I know your afflictions and your poverty - yet you are rich! I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan"; ibid., 1927. 10 Dr. Gotthold Steinführer, Chicago, Illinois, to Eternal Reverend Father, Rome, 12 Aug. 1938, POS. 742, Fase. 356 (1938, Reichskristallnacht), RG 76, ushmm.</page><page sequence="4">158 SUZANNE BROWN-FLEMING thinking, such as the one from Maria Theresa Bauer of Paris to Pius xi noting that a gesture of protection from the Holy Father "would make many [Jews] inclined to convert to Catholicism in these painful hours."11 As to those who had done so decades earlier, they, too, wrote to their pope. These were Catholics whose families were affected by the 15 September 1935 Nuremberg Laws (Law to Protect German Blood and Honour and the Reich Citizenship Law) and other Nazi legal restrictions. Mrs. George Marse described herself as "a German Catholic wife to a Jewish German doctor". Their four children, baptized as Catholics and raised in Catholic schools, were now defined by the Nazi state as "half Aryans". Mrs. Marse wrote to Pius xi as a last measure following years of unsuccessful attempts to find financial support for emigration. "I have found no help. The Jewish committees are only responsible for purely Jewish cases! Our family consists of but one Jew and five Catholics! How can my husband expect help from the Jews with his Catholic wife and his [four] Catholic children!?" she wrote in her impassioned letter.12 Another letter, addressed to the pope and received by the Holy See in August 1938, made the same argument: "I am one of the many thousands of my comrades in fate. . . so-called'Half-Jews' [Halbjuden] . . .our coreligionists leave us in the lurch - no one cares about us!! One wants to shout to all the world, Christians, where are you?"13 Such letters reflect the general need for further research on discussions and concrete aid efforts within the Holy See regarding those Catholics who were defined as Jews by the Nazi state. Currently, no monograph treats this important subject. Of greatest interest are two official reports from the Vatican Nuncio in Berlin, Cesare Orsenigo, to Eugenio Pacelli. They are dated 15 and 19 November 1938, respectively. A brief word on Orsenigo is in order. Archbishop Orsenigo, an Italian who was Pacelli's successor as Nuncio to Germany in 1930, 56 years old when he was appointed to Berlin, has thus far not fared well in the historiography for the 1933-45 period. His contemporary, George Shuster, described him as "frankly, jubilant" about Hitler's election to the chancellorship on 30 January 1933.14 Other documents across the Vatican archives demonstrate ii Signora Maria Theresa Bauer, 7 rue de Passy, Paris, to Pope Pius xi, Rome, 11 Nov. 1938, POS. 566, Fase. 600, RG 76, USHMM. 12 Letter from wife of Georg Marse, Dr. Med., Rome, to Pius xi, Vatican, 16 Aug. 1938, POS. 742, Fase. 356 (1938, Reichskristallnacht), RG 76, ushmm. 13 No author, n.d., in ibid. 14 George N. Shuster, Like a Mighty Army: Hitler Versus Established Religion (1935), 188, cited</page><page sequence="5">November 1938 159 Orsenigo's admiration for many aspects of the Nazi regime. This is why the tone of these two reports, decidedly sympathetic to beleaguered Jewry, is surprising. Let us begin with Orsenigo's first report about Reichskristallnacht, dated 15 November 1938. His description of the events themselves openly acknowledged the reality of "anti-Semitic vandalism" (as he titled the report) and the Nazi and German popular role therein: The destructions have been initiated, as if by a single order . . . The blind popular revenge followed one identical method everywhere: in the night, all display windows were shattered and the synagogues were set on fire; the day after, shops that did not have any defence were looted. Doing this, [the looters] destroyed all the goods, even the most expensive ones. Only towards the afternoon of the 10th, when the masses, having vented their wildest feelings, and not being restrained by any policeman, did Minister Goebbels give the order to stop, characterizing what happened as venting by "the German people" ... All of this easily leaves the impression that the order or permission to act came from a higher authority . . . The hour is to follow of ministerial laws and dispositions in order to isolate Jews more and more, prohibiting them every commerce, every [ability to frequent] the public schools, every partaking in places of public diversion (theatres, cinemas, concerts, cultural meetings), with a fine totalling one billion [Reichsmarks] to be paid [by Jews themselves].15 In the remainder of the report, Orsenigo noted the strong temptation of German Jewry to commit suicide in the wake of these terrible events, noted the positive if limited efforts by the embassies of Columbia, Britain, and Holland to document these events and protect the assets of Jewish nationals, and openly criticized Poland, writing, "it was . . . Poland that provoked the violent action of Germany" by refusing to extend the expired passports ofPolish Jews from Germany, prompting Germany to "suddenly sen[d] back to Poland tens of thousands of Jews, and among these [were] also the parents of the young exasperated boy [the Polish Jewish student Herszel Grynszpan], who then assassinated the German ambassador in Guenter Lewy, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2000), 27. 15 Nuncio to Germany, Cesare Orsenigo, Berlin, to Secretary of State Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, 15 Nov. 1938, POS. 742, Fase. 356, 1938, Reichskristallnacht, RG 76, ushmm. This letter was first published in Pierre Blet, Robert A. Graham, Angelo Martini, and Burkhart Schneider, eds., Act es et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la seconde guerre mondiale, vol. 6: Le Saint Siè^e et les victimes de la guerre , mars 1939-de'cembre 1940 (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1972), App. 4, 536-7.</page><page sequence="6">160 SUZANNE BROWN-FLEMING [Ernst vom Rath, actually third secretary] in Paris."16 In the report as a whole, Orsenigo is critical of the events of Kristallnacht, critical of the Nazi state, and critical of the German population. The second report, dated 19 November 1938, concerned impending legislation that would declare "null and void all marriages already conducted" between "Aryans" and Jews, including those marriages in which the Jewish spouse had converted to Catholicism after the marriage.17 Not surprisingly, Orsenigo objected to the legislation because of its disregard for Canon Law, but he also added critical commentary about the increasingly radical nature of the Nazi state, noting that "serenity and competence" were "more and more lacking in high places of command" and that there existed a "state of mind that greased the anti-Semitic events [, a state of mood that] reveals always more and more turbulence and agitation, and is increasingly less able to be controlled".18 Let us turn to the response of Eugenio Pacelli (the future wartime pope). It is known that he received both of Orsenigo's reports of 15 and 19 November and, hence, received direct and detailed information about the pogrom. While no documentation of Pacelli's response to the two Orsenigo reports has yet been discovered, what is available is Pacelli's response to a request from Cardinal Hinsley that Pius xi make a statement about the pogrom. The story was this: in late November, Cardinal Hinsley sent Pacelli a request from Lord Rothschild, whom Hinsley described as "the most famous and highly esteemed amongst Jews in England."19 On 26 November 1938, Hinsley wrote Pacelli the following: There will be a public gathering in London in order to ask [for] aid and attendance to all those who suffer from persecution [for reasons of] religion or race . . . If [in] principle [it] were possible to have an authentic word of the Holy Father being declared that in Christ discrimination of race does not exist and that the great human family must be joined in peace [by] means of respect of the personality of the individual, such message would [be] sure [to] have in England and America, [and] through the entire world, the [effect of] leading to good will towards the [Catholic] Religion and the Holy See."20 16 Ibid. 17 Nuncio to Germany, Cesare Orsenigo, Berlin, to Secretary of State Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, 19 Nov. 1938, POS. 742, Fase. 356 (1938, Reichskristallnacht), RG 76, ushmm. This letter was first published in Blet et al., Saint Siè^e et les victimes, App. 5, 538. 18 Ibid. 19 Hinsley cited in Blet et al., Saint Siè^e et les victimes, 12-13. 20 Ibid., 539 n. i.</page><page sequence="7">November 1938 I6I Cardinal Hinsley was, as far as I have found, the only head of a bishops' conference to ask Pius xi to protest about Kristallnacht. Perhaps we can attribute this to his particularly British world view. Andrew Chandler of the University of Chichester recounts a conversation between Hinsley and Winston Churchill after the fall of France in 1940: "I'm glad we're alone [in this fight]", he was said to have remarked. When Churchill asked why, Hinsley responded that "Englishmen fight best when they have got their backs to the wall."21 It is worth recounting Pacelli's telegraphed response, dated 3 December 1938, in full: If the matter were of substantially private character, it would be easier. On the other hand, it is necessary to remove the appearance of fearing that which does not need to be feared. Cardinal Hinsley could speak [if] saying he is surely interpreting the thought of the Sovereign Pontiff, saying that the matter finds the Pope in a moment of much worry not only for his health, but also by the amount of matters before him. It is therefore not possible for [the Holy Father] to [respond] personally. He, Cardinal [Hinsley], can say that he is interpreting the thought [of the Holy Father] which views all aid to those who are unhappy and unjustly suffering with a humane and Christian eye.22 Were Pacelli's comments about the health of the pope accurate? David Kertzer's forthcoming book reveals that the pope had a heart attack on 25 November.23 1 shall return to this subject of the pope's health and the impact it had on the ability of Pacelli to manoeuvre. On 10 December, illustrious figures including Cardinal Hinsley, the Archbishop of Canterbury (William Cosmo Gordon Lang), Lord Rothschild, Clement Attlee (the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons), Sir Alan Anderson (a Conservative mp), and 21 Chandler, "Catholicism, Dictatorship, and the World at War", 6-7. 22 Blet et al., Saint Siè^e et les victimes , 539 n. 3. The original Italian reads: "Se la cosa fosse di carattere sostanzialmente privato, sarebbe più facile. D'altra parte, occorre togliere l'apparenza di aver paura di ciò che non si deve temere. Si potrebbe incaricare cardinal Hinsley a parlare dicendosi sicuro di interpretare il pensiero del Sommo Pontefice, dicendo che la cosa coglie in Papa in un momento di tanta preoccupazione non soltanto per la Sua salute, ma anche per la quantità di cose. Non ha visto perciò la possibilità di occuparsi personalmente della cose. Egli, cardinale di S.R.C., può dire di interpretare il pensiero che vede con occhio umano e christiano ogni assistenza a quanti infelici e ingiustamente (indegnamente) sofferenti." I thank Professor Anthony Cardoza of Loyola University of Chicago for his verification of my translation. 23 Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini, 384.</page><page sequence="8">162 SUZANNE BROWN-FLEMING Plate i Dignitaries attending a Mansion House meeting in London on io December 1938 (from left to right): Clement Attlee, Lord Nathaniel Rothschild, Sir Frank Bowater, Cardinal Arthur Hinsley, and unidentified. Photograph: United States Holocaust Museum, courtesy of the Wiener Library for the study of the Holocaust &amp; Genocide, London General Evangeline Booth, representing the Salvation Army, gathered at the invitation of Sir Frank Bowater, Lord Mayor of London, at his official residence, the Mansion House (plate 1). A resolution "offering whole-hearted support" for the Lord Baldwin Fund for Refugees was "unanimously adopted".24 This refugee fund for victims of religious and racial persecution, first announced by the former Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, ist Earl of Baldwin, during a radio address on the evening of 8 December, was expressly meant to provide financial aid to both Jews and "non-Aryan Christians": "Tonight, I plead for the victims who turn to England for help, the first time in their long and troubled history that they have asked us in this way for financial aid . . . the number of these so-called non-Aryan Christians, who, according to German law, are regarded as Jews, certainly exceeds 100,000; in addition there are some half a million 24 See "Help for the Refugees - Ready Response to Appeal - Children's Gifts - Mansion House Meeting", The Times, 10 Dec. 1938, p. 12.</page><page sequence="9">November 1938 163 professing Jews, and no words can describe the pitiable plight of these 600,000 human souls. What can be done to help?"25 A brief article in the New York Times, entitled, it is interesting to note, "Pope Backs Britons on Aid to Refugees", also appeared on 10 December. According to the article, "one of Pope Pius's rare messages to an interdisciplinary body was read at a meeting representing all faiths and political parties, called by the Lord Mayor of London, at the Mansion House today to support the Earl Baldwin Fund for the victims of religious and racial persecution."26 It was Lord Rothschild who read the Vatican telegram to the assembled company. Before reading it, he remarked that "Cardinal Hinsley had written to Rome on his behalf' and that "everyone respected the Pope for his courage and unswerving adherence to the principles which the whole civilized world knew must be maintained if civilization was to persist."27 The Vatican telegram, as reproduced in The Times (London), read: "The Holy Father Pius xi's thoughts and feelings will be correctly interpreted by declaring that he looks with humane and Christian approval on every effort to show charity and to give effective assistance to all those who are innocent victims in these sad times of distress. [Signed] Cardinal Pacelli, Secretary of State to His Holiness."28 Cardinal Hinsley's presence at the Mansion House meeting made headlines (plate 2), as did the fact that Pacelli's message was read at a high-level public meeting with the specific purpose of support for Jews - recall that Baldwin's 8 December radio appeal was clear as to the need for funds for approximately 500,000 Jews and 100,000 "non-Aryan Christians".29 Yet here is an unambiguous example that Pacelli, despite being informed about the horrendous details of the pogrom in Germany, was not encouraging a public statement by the Holy See condemning Nazi 25 "The Refugees - Appeal By Lord Baldwin - Case for German Cooperation - New Fund Opened", ibid., 9 Dec. 1938, p. 16. Baldwin's appeal raised approximately £500,000. About half the proceeds were allocated to Jewish organizations and spent on helping child refugees; Louise London, Whitehall and thejews, 1933-1938: British Immigration Policy, Jewish Refugees and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 122. See also A. J. Sherman, Island Refuge : Britain and Refugees from the Third Reich, 1933-1939 (Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1973), 184-5. 26 Neu; York Times, 10 Dec. 1938, p. 6; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851-2003), http://incat.ushmm.0rg/search/catal0g/bib87081 (accessed 26 Nov. 2014). 27 "Plight of the Refugees - Mansion House Meeting - Lord Rothschild's Appeal", The Times, 10 Dec. 1938, p. 14. 28 Ibid. 29 "The Refugees - Appeal By Lord Baldwin", The Times, 9 Dec. 1938.</page><page sequence="10">164 SUZANNE BROWN-FLEMING Germany specifically, or the November pogrom specifically, or singling out suffering Jews specifically by name - even when asked to do so by a prince of his own church. He was comfortable only with a statement broad enough to apply to all "innocent victims". Let us return to the issue of the pope's health and one major implication of it: Pacelli's personal response could dictate the Holy See's official institutional response in the months before Pius xi's death on 10 February 1939. On 6 December, four days before the Mansion House gathering, Pacelli received the Italian ambassador to the Holy See, Count Bonifacio Pignatti, who implored him, on behalf of Mussolini, "to instruct all of Italy's bishops not to criticize the anti-Semitic campaign." Of that meeting, Pignatti wrote, "Cardinal [Pacelli] observed that it would be very easy to give the advice I was suggesting orally, but that having to put it in writing would be more difficult." In the end, Pacelli agreed to do so in the case of the diocese ofRome and to "study the best way to take care ofltaly's other dioceses."30 In this context, it comes as no surprise that Pacelli was not willing to condemn aggressively and specifically the 9-10 November Nazi pogrom against Jews. Pacelli was only willing to authorize (on behalf of the pope) a reminder of the church's broad commandment and mission to aid the suffering and the persecuted. It is an understatement to say that in these troubled times such a response was not enough. The Vatican archives also offer glimpses into the broader popular response to the plight of European Jewry. On 7 December 1938, a Berlin Protestant, Gerda Erdmann, took it upon herself to write to Pius xi. "Please permit me, as a non-Catholic Christian, to address you regarding a matter that has gained much attention: the question of the Jews [Es handelt sich um die Juden frage] . With this letter, I want to make a suggestion which seems to me could be a solution to this [and one] coming from Christianity", she wrote, satisfaction and eagerness dripping from her pen. "It is basically God's hand that weighs so heavily on the Jews; God's judgement has reached them as has already occurred several times before, during history since the time of Christ. Since that time, God's message through his son is: Jews are guilty." Erdmann took many more lines to explain why, in her perception, "Jews [were] guilty". Her solution: "huge empty territories are available (for instance in South America . . . )" where, "if the Jewish immigrants were baptized in their new homeland . . . the local population would in 30 Pignatti cited in Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini, 385.</page><page sequence="11">November 1938 165 Plate 2 Cardinal Arthur Hinsley speaking in London at a Mansion House meeting on 10 December 1938, on behalf of Lord Baldwin's appeal for Jewish refugees; Chief Rabbi Dr Joseph Hertz sits on the right. Photograph: United States Holocaust Museum, courtesy of the Wiener Library for the study of the Holocaust &amp; Genocide, London every way show their acceptance and open their doors. There would be no closed gates. The children of the baptized would be raised from childhood in the Christian faith; they would grow up within the church and the nation, end up in mixed marriages and create a new population. Among the colourful racial mixture overseas, the entire European Jewish people would be absorbed without danger. The refreshing influence of European intelligence could be a gain in many places." Erdmann understood herself as a faithful Christian and understood her solution as a Christian one: "What a great and beautiful task opens up for world Christianity! What a bright future! United, Christianity can achieve a colossal purpose of love for their fellow men ... A task achieved, which will go down in history as a shining example of selfless Christian love performed for the Honor and Glory of God", she concluded.31 All 31 Gerda Erdmann, Berlin-Dahlem, to Pope Pius xi, Rome, 7 Dec. 1938, POS. 566, Fase. 600 (1938-1939; Jews), RG 76, USHMM.</page><page sequence="12">166 SUZANNE BROWN-FLEMING told, document after document show diplomacy and self-interest and even antisemitism chosen over the basic value of charity and love of neighbour. A tiny handful of Catholics - unfortunately, neither Popes Pius xi nor xii among them - did see the light. With regard to Nazi and Axis crimes against Jews, Cardinal Hinsley is one of them. "Words are weak and cold; deeds and speedy deeds are needed to put a stop to this brutal campaign for the extermination of a whole race", Hinsley told his audience at the World Jewish Congress.32 His words were not weak and his heart was not cold and, in this, he demonstrated the road not taken by most Catholics in the face ofNazism. 32 Hinsley cited in Chandler, "Catholicism, Dictatorship, and the World at War", 9.</page></plain_text>