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German Christians and Germany's Boundaries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
Extract
It was rather as one had supposed. The massive show of solidarity with the CDU in the last election presented by German Catholicism in all its shapes and forms was the last outing before being trundled into the Church History Museum. Much has happened between the General Election last October and the local North-Rhine Westphalian elections in July. Rumour had it that an anonymous article which appeared in the March number of Wort und Wahrheit was written by none other than Bernard Hanssler. Wort und Wahrheit is a periodical that tends to reflect episcopal opinion; Bernard Hanssler is the priest in charge of the Central Committee of German Catholicism; the article was entitled ‘The end of political Catholicism’.
Dr Günther Schreiber has recently suggested that catholic authorities have recognised that some basic re-thinking of the official political attitudes of German Catholicism was necessary. His analysis of the situation raises considerable doubts about the motives behind this reappraisal. It has been much more a defensive reaction to the inevitable break-up of the Adenauer ideology than a genuine attempt to think out for instance, the implications of the Second Vatican Council; much more a withdrawal from a position that was distasteful to democratic opinion, than a realisation of what the church’s presence in a modern society might mean. The North-Rhine Westphalian elections were heralded by a pastoral letter stressing the neutrality of the church towards the political parties.
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- Copyright © 1966 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Blätter für deutsche und Internationale Politik. May 1966. ‘Katholiken und die neuformierte CDU’.
2 New Blackfriars. January 1966. ‘How progressive is the German Church?’.
3 Eine evangelische Denkschrift; Die Lage der Vertriebenen und das Verhältnis des deutschen Volkes zu seinen östlichen Nachbarn.
4 ‘Kirchliches Interesse oder säkulare Diakonie?’—Kontexte. Band 2; 1966.
5 Blatter. December 1965. ‘Zur Kritik an der Denkschrift der EKD’.
6 Rowohlt 1965. This important book collected essays by young members of the universities of Frankfurt, Berlin and Tubingen, who had been working on sociological and political problems under the direction of men like Adorno, Horkheimer, Abendroth, Mitscherlich, and Jens.
7 ‘Die deutsche Frage—rekapituliert’Frankfurter Hefte.
8 ‘Der permanente Selbstbetrug‐Zur Deutschlandpolitik der Bundesregierung’.
9 Das Ostpreussenblatt. 18th December, 1966.
10 ‘Die Denkschrift in der Diskussion’, which appeared in Deutschland and die Östlichen Nachbarn. Kreuz‐verlag. Stuttgart, 1966.
11 Norddeutscher Rundfunk. 1st December, 1965; Kontexte op. cit.
12 Echo der Zeit. 17th October, 1965.
13 Blätter. November, 1965.
14 ‘Linksprotestantismus’. 19th December, 1965.
15 The German equivalent of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
16 Norddeutscher Rundfunk. 8th December, 1965.
17 Everything seems to tell against the German bishops’ claim that the exchange of letters had been under consideration for some time. Caught off‐balance the bishops hurriedly and carelessly came out with a denial of any Denkschrift influence, and now we have the Polish Bishop of Breslau (who is said to have drawn up the Polish letter) in an interview in Stern (24th April, 1966) categorically asserting that the Polish bishops were stimulated by the Denkschrift to initiate the correspondence.
18 9th January, 1966. ‘Die Frucht von Neun Jahren’.
19 The title of the report in Welt am Sonntag.
20 Werkhefte. January, 1966. ‘Evangelische Denkschrift und katholische Bischofsbriefe zum deutsch‐polnischen Verhaltnis’.
21 Blätter. March, 1966. ‘Erschopfung im taktischen Spiel’.
22 The Bishop of Breslau in the Stern interview blames the trouble on the heavy‐handed way the West German press treated their letter.