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Joannes Baptista Sproll (German: [joˈanːəsbapˈtiːstaˈʃpʁɔl] ; 2 October 1870 – 4 March 1949) was a German bishop and prominent opponent of the Nazi regime.
Sproll was born in Schweinhausen, near Biberach, the son of a street mender, Josef Sproll, and his wife, Anna Maria née Freuer. He attended the Latin school in Biberach and the Gymnasium Ehingen. He studied Catholic theology at the University of Tübingen from 1890 to 1894. In 1898, he received his Ph.D. for his work on the history of the law and constitution of the Tübingen monastery of St. George. On 14 June 1927 he became the Bishop of Rottenburg.
During the Nazi era, Sproll often spoke out against the regime, and his abstention from the plebiscite over the Anschluss led to preliminary proceedings and staged demonstrations against him. At the end of August 1938, Sproll was expelled from his diocese and could not return again until 1945. On 1 August 1940 Conrad Gröber, Archbishop of Freiburg, and the Vicar General of the Diocese of Rottenburg (acting for Sproll) protested against the euthanasia programmes in Grafeneck; this was also the year of the protest of the Bishop of Münster, Clemens August Graf von Galen. Sproll died in 1949 in Rottenburg am Neckar.
Sproll initially welcomed the Reichskonkordat between Nazi Germany and the Holy See, but later publicly opposed the Nazis. [1] His demonstrative absence from the Reichstag election on April 10, 1938 (where only a Nazi-dominated unified list was allowed) – which was combined with a referendum on the Anschluss of Austria – led to an investigation and demonstrations orchestrated by the Nazi authorities against him. [2] On July 23, 1938, Sproll was expelled from his diocese, only returning in 1945. On the same day, SA men stormed the Rottenburg Bishop's Palace. During this time, he lived in Krumbad, a district of the town Krumbach (Bavarian Swabia), today Günzburg district in the Diocese of Augsburg, under Gestapo surveillance. Sproll's separation from his diocese, his refusal to resign to the then nuncio in Germany, Cesare Orsenigo, and his early and unwavering opposition to Nazi tyranny earned him the popular title of "Martyr Bishop". He himself summed up this period:
The open persecution of bishops and priests and the difficulties of worship and religious education have brought one good thing: they have opened the eyes of the Catholic people and welded clergy and faithful into a united front. In this unity, they broke the tenacious resistance of the Church's enemies and preserved their sacred faith in God, Christ, and the Church over two difficult decades of hardship.
— [3]
As early as July 5, 1934, during a sermon at the Fulda Bishops' Conference, Sproll, according to Franz X. Schmid, provided inspiration for the drafting of Faulhaber's encyclical Mit brennender Sorge:
Boniface holds the cross in one hand and the gospel book in the other. This is the symbol of an apostolic calling, the symbol of golden fidelity. […] But alongside it, many raise the axe to destroy the Church […] to smash the cross he erected in German lands, to tear the image of the Crucified from the hearts of the Germanic people. […] Christianity will have to endure great storms against this so-called "religion of blood and race." Fearlessly, you must hold fast to the sacred heritage you received from your parents. 'Stand firm in the faith!' the apostle urges.
— Franz X. Schmid (2019). Hidden Inspirer. Lindenberg: Kunstverlag Josef Fink. p. 48. ISBN 978-3-95976-197-0.
On October 4, 1938, amid the Sudeten Crisis, Sproll wrote to his diocesan flock: "A war more terrible than humanity has ever experienced has been averted from us." [3] At a men's pilgrimage on September 19, 1939, Sproll made positive comments about Jews and their religion and negative remarks about the Kristallnacht pogrom. [4] On August 1, 1940, Archbishop Conrad Gröber of Freiburg and the Vicar General of the Diocese of Rottenburg, Max Kottmann, protested in Berlin on behalf of Sproll against the euthanasia program (the murder of the sick) at the NS killing center Grafeneck, one year before Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen of Münster publicly protested. On September 8, 1939, at the beginning of the Second World War, Sproll wrote in a pastoral letter:
"Already, from all our communities, the able-bodied men have rushed to the borders, following the call of the Führer, to protect home and hearth, and we know that they will fulfill their duty, faithful to their military oath, even at the cost of their lives."
Despite these "disconcerting" words, the cleric and church historian Franz X. Schmid attests that Sproll was never a "war supporter or glorifier," but, as a "member of the Peace Association of German Catholics, an avowed pacifist." [3]
In 1941, a papal envoy asked Sproll to resign. He refused, which Franz X. Schmid sees as the reason why Sproll was never properly honored by the Church after 1946. Sproll had become a "persona non grata." [5]
Aktion T4 was a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-war trials against doctors who had been involved in the killings. The name T4 is an abbreviation of Tiergartenstraße 4, a street address of the Chancellery department set up in early 1940, in the Berlin borough of Tiergarten, which recruited and paid personnel associated with Aktion T4. Certain German physicians were authorised to select patients "deemed incurably sick, after most critical medical examination" and then administer to them a "mercy death". In October 1939, Adolf Hitler signed a "euthanasia note", backdated to 1 September 1939, which authorised his physician Karl Brandt and Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler to begin the killing.
The Reichskonkordat is a treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent Nazi Germany. It was signed on 20 July 1933 by Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII, on behalf of Pope Pius XI and Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen on behalf of President Paul von Hindenburg and the German government. It was ratified 10 September 1933 and it remains in force to this day. The treaty guarantees the rights of the Catholic Church in Germany. When bishops take office, Article 16 states they are required to take an oath of loyalty to the Governor or President of the German Reich established according to the constitution. The treaty also requires all clergy to abstain from working in and for political parties. Nazi breaches of the agreement began almost as soon as it had been signed and intensified afterwards, leading to protest from the Church, including in the 1937 Mit brennender Sorge encyclical of Pope Pius XI. The Nazis planned to eliminate the Church's influence by restricting its organizations to purely religious activities.
Bernhard Lichtenberg was a German Catholic priest who became known for repeatedly speaking out, after the rise of Adolf Hitler and during the Holocaust, against the persecution and deportation of the Jews. After serving a jail sentence, he died in the custody of the Gestapo on his way to Dachau concentration camp. Raul Hilberg wrote: "Thus a solitary figure had made his singular gesture. In the buzz of rumormongers and sensation seekers, Bernhard Lichtenberg fought almost alone."
Theodor Innitzer was Archbishop of Vienna and a cardinal of the Catholic Church.
Clemens Augustinus Emmanuel Joseph Pius Anthonius Hubertus Marie Graf von Galen, better known as Clemens August Graf von Galen, was a German count, Bishop of Münster, and cardinal of the Catholic Church. During World War II, Galen led Catholic protests against Nazi euthanasia and denounced Gestapo lawlessness and the persecution of the Church in Nazi Germany. He was appointed a cardinal by Pope Pius XII in 1946, shortly before his death, and was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.
Rottenburg am Neckar is a medium-sized town in the administrative district (Landkreis) of Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It lies about 50 kilometres southwest of the provincial capital Stuttgart and about 12 km (7 mi) southwest of the district town Tübingen. Rottenburg is the second-largest town of the district after Tübingen and makes up a secondary centre for the surrounding community. Since 1 May 1972, Rottenburg am Neckar has been a district town. Rottenburg agreed to an administrative collective with the municipalities of Hirrlingen, Neustetten and Starzach.
The Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in Germany. It is a suffragan in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Freiburg in Baden-Württemberg, Bundesland. It covers the same territory of the former Kingdom of Wurttemberg.
Conrad Gröber was a Catholic priest and archbishop of the Archdiocese of Freiburg.
Albert Stohr was Bishop of Mainz from 17 July 1935 until his death.
The Grafeneck Euthanasia Centre housed in Grafeneck Castle was one of Nazi Germany's killing centres as part of their forced euthanasia programme. Today, it is a memorial site dedicated to the victims of the state-authorised programme also referred to since as Action T4. At least 10,500 mentally and physically disabled people, predominantly from Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, were systematically killed during 1940. It was one of the first places in Nazi Germany where people were killed in large numbers in a gas chamber using carbon monoxide. This was the beginning of the Euthanasia Programme. Grafeneck was also the central office of the "Charitable Ambulance Transport GmbH" (Gekrat), which was headed by Reinhold Vorberg and responsible for the transport of T4.
Kirchenkampf is a German term which pertains to the situation of the Christian churches in Germany during the Nazi period (1933–1945). Sometimes used ambiguously, the term may refer to one or more of the following different "church struggles":
Franz Quirin von Kober was a German Roman Catholic priest, known as a canon lawyer and pedagogist.
Catholic bishops in Nazi Germany differed in their responses to the rise of Nazi Germany, World War II, and the Holocaust during the years 1933–1945. In the 1930s, the Episcopate of the Catholic Church of Germany comprised 6 Archbishops and 19 bishops while German Catholics comprised around one third of the population of Germany served by 20,000 priests. In the lead up to the 1933 Nazi takeover, German Catholic leaders were outspoken in their criticism of Nazism. Following the Nazi takeover, the Catholic Church sought an accord with the Government, was pressured to conform, and faced persecution. The regime had flagrant disregard for the Reich concordat with the Holy See, and the episcopate had various disagreements with the Nazi government, but it never declared an official sanction of the various attempts to overthrow the Hitler regime. Ian Kershaw wrote that the churches "engaged in a bitter war of attrition with the regime, receiving the demonstrative backing of millions of churchgoers. Applause for Church leaders whenever they appeared in public, swollen attendances at events such as Corpus Christi Day processions, and packed church services were outward signs of the struggle of ... especially of the Catholic Church - against Nazi oppression". While the Church ultimately failed to protect its youth organisations and schools, it did have some successes in mobilizing public opinion to alter government policies.
Popes Pius XI (1922–1939) and Pius XII (1939–1958) led the Catholic Church during the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. Around a third of Germans were Catholic in the 1930s, most of them lived in Southern Germany; Protestants dominated the north. The Catholic Church in Germany opposed the Nazi Party, and in the 1933 elections, the proportion of Catholics who voted for the Nazi Party was lower than the national average. Nevertheless, the Catholic-aligned Centre Party voted for the Enabling Act of 1933, which gave Adolf Hitler additional domestic powers to suppress political opponents as Chancellor of Germany. President Paul Von Hindenburg continued to serve as Commander and Chief and he also continued to be responsible for the negotiation of international treaties until his death on 2 August 1934.
Catholic resistance to Nazi Germany was a component of German resistance to Nazism and of Resistance during World War II. The role of the Catholic Church during the Nazi years remains a matter of much contention. From the outset of Nazi rule in 1933, issues emerged which brought the church into conflict with the regime and persecution of the church led Pope Pius XI to denounce the policies of the Nazi Government in the 1937 papal encyclical Mit brennender Sorge. His successor Pius XII faced the war years and provided intelligence to the Allies. Catholics fought on both sides in World War II and neither the Catholic nor Protestant churches as institutions were prepared to openly oppose the Nazi State.
During the Second World War, the Roman Catholic Church protested against Aktion T4, the Nazi involuntary euthanasia programme under which 300,000 disabled people were murdered. The protests formed one of the most significant public acts of Catholic resistance to Nazism undertaken within Germany. The "euthanasia" programme began in 1939, and ultimately resulted in the murder of more than 70,000 people who were deemed senile, mentally handicapped, mentally ill, epileptics, cripples, children with Down's Syndrome, or people with similar afflictions. The murders involved interference in Church welfare institutions, and awareness of the murderous programme became widespread. Church leaders who opposed it – chiefly the Catholic Bishop Clemens August von Galen of Münster and Protestant Bishop Theophil Wurm – were therefore able to rouse widespread public opposition.
Antonius Hilfrich was a German priest and Roman Catholic Bishop of Limburg, Germany.
The Roman Catholic Church suffered persecution in Nazi Germany. The Nazis claimed jurisdiction over all collective and social activity. Clergy were watched closely, and frequently denounced, arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. Welfare institutions were interfered with or transferred to state control. Catholic schools, press, trade unions, political parties and youth leagues were eradicated. Anti-Catholic propaganda and "morality" trials were staged. Monasteries and convents were targeted for expropriation. Prominent Catholic lay leaders were murdered, and thousands of Catholic activists were arrested.
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