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Oddly enough, the Pope, & Stalin, each other sworn enemies, both did deals with Hitler,
after he'd impressed them with his doings..
(The Pope by anti-Jewish/Communist measures, & Stalin's purges being inspired by Nazi 'night of the long knives')
Hitler died 'in *good grace' with the RC Church, if not with **Stalin,
- who reckoned that J.Edgar Hoover had done a deal with Hitler, too..
That Stalin sardonically reclaimed the bloody soil of 'Holy Mother Russia' from the Papist Poles,
while ethnic-cleansing the Lutheran Prussians out of their lands to hand to the Poles,
( so long as they were kept in order by his 'Jew-Bolshevist ***Commissars') , is yet another irony.
*Dying 'in good grace' - means that you have a sure place in 'Heaven' - according to RC dogma.
**Stalin did not accept Hitler died in the bunker, & suspected that via the FBI/OSS - he'd escaped with his life,
- just as the US did an even more blatant deal with Hirohito, while still claiming his 'unconditional surrender'..
- to date, no certain proof has contradicted ol' Joe, such as DNA tests of putative Hitler bone samples.
***Who continued to cruelly persecute those returnee Poles who'd fought with the West, as 'enemies of the State'.
Some interesting theories on what the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope did/did not do during WW2.
As far as I know, Hitler died unrepentant and without benefit of last rites, so can't see how he died in the good graces of the Church, though we pray for the souls of all sinners, trusting their souls to the mercy of God.
The Pope's "deal" with Hitler, the Concordat, if that is what you are referring, was an attempt to guarantee the legal status of the Catholic Church in Germany following Hitler's ascension to power. Hitler honored it as well as the Non-aggression Pact with Stalin. Meanwhile, the protestant churches of Germany were nationalized under a Reichsbischof and pretty much toed the Party line, unless you wanted a quick trip to that wonderful spa for clergy, Buchenwald. The Pope was under no illusions about what the Nazis intended for the Catholic Church once they consolidated their grip on Europe. He tried to balance protecting the Church from total destruction by the Nazis and Fascists with defending the souls under the boot of oppression. Thousands of Jews and other enemies of the Nazis, including allied airmen, were smuggled out of occupied Europe through networks run by the Church. His contemporaries thought he did a good job in a tough position, later detractors, egged on by Soviet misinformation, judged against a different standard.
Actually, Stalin's purges had nothing to do with Germany. The Bolsheviks had been actively killing and purging Russians before Hitler ever left Vienna."Stalin's purges being inspired by Nazi 'night of the long knives'"
You post reads as if it was written by the Vatican propaganda dept, rather than via examination of their archives..
The Papal deal with Hitler went far deeper, & that evasion network you note - was also well utilized by ex-Nazis
post-war, many of whom were on widely circulated wanted lists as fugitive war-criminals..
AFAIR, there was a plan by radical SS/SD elements to 'liquidate' the Pope & blame Communists,
during the confusion attending the Italian-Allied armistice in `43, - but Hitler vetoed the deal..
There's several points I'll touch on, in regards to your post.I expect that is where Hitler drew inspiration from, Hitler was a fan of Napoleon,
seeing himself as being able to succeed in establishing a modern 'Pan-Europa',
& even visiting Napoleon's tomb in Paris, in 1940 - but Hitler evidently didn't learn too
much from the 1812 invasion debacle in Russia..
Maybe that's due to the Heer victory over the Czar in WW 1, & the fact that Hitler
spent his war solely on the Western front - albeit unsuccessfully.
So, having whipped Britain out of France 'himself' in 1940, he'd have 'naturally'
figured he could deal to ol' Joe's mob too, esp' after the Finlanders had shown
them to be such hapless buffoons..
Stalin is on the record (AFAIR - I'll try & find the reference) as both approving of,
& being emboldened by - Hitler's purging of his own party apparatus,
- but also 'naturally' - had to take it to the next level, with his awful 'show trial' stunts,
to 'expose the counter-revolutionary elements' - as demanded by Communist doctrine.
The Jews who fought for Hitler: 'We did not help the Germans. We had a common enemy'You are espousing a two-dimensional view of the Nazis ... and Hitler, himself. That's a shame because the most interesting aspect of Nazism and Hitler's personality cult, IMHO, is the hypocrisy of leading Nazis and Hitler around accepting Jews. The hypocrisy is the 3rd dimension ... it's human ... it's reality ... it's the threshold to putting yourself in others' shoes.
Erhard Milch - Wikipedia,
Milch, who preceded Albert Schpeer, was Jewish (non practicing). There were numerous Waffen SS officers who were non-practicing Jews. The Reich had no qualms about offering Iron Crosses to Finnish soldiers who were Jewish ... the Finns declined.
Herman Goering fancied himself as an artiste and liked to circulate with actors and actresses ... some were Jewish.
I'm making this point, swampyankee, because the more I delve into the history and memoirs of the period ... the more clearly I understand how the whole thing took shape, prospered and was accepted. A perfect storm. And within the movement the Leaders practiced what politicians always practice in every regime ... do as I say, not as I do.
The differences between Hitler and Napoleon are legion, not least of which is that Napoleon wasn't in the habit of genocide, and that was a major reason for Hitler's war. Napoleon's Civil Code is the basis for the legal system in most of western Europe; Hitler left nothing in his wake except death camps.
Stalin and Hitler were very much alike: Stalin killed anybody who he thought was a threat, so did Hitler. It's just that Hitler felt that being Jewish or Slavic was sufficient for being a threat, while Stalin thought anybody who somebody said rolled his eyes when Stalin was on the radio was one.
Both Stalin and Hitler would consider the intelligentsia and officer class of Poland to be threats; both would want to kill them, and the simple fact that genocide was a publicly stated, eagerly followed policy of the nazis made it much easier for blame to be placed on the Germans*. Hell, Hitler's war crimes are frequently overlooked, excused, or ignored, albeit only by people on the fringe.