Hitler's Private Library by Timothy W. Ryback

Author:Timothy W. Ryback
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307270498
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2008-10-21T04:00:00+00:00

THAT SAME WEEK in October, the first copies of Hudal’s book came off the press. Sitting at his desk on November 3, 1936, Hudal, with a series of elegant flourishes, inscribed the first copy to “the Führer of the German resurrection” and “the Siegfried of German hope and greatness,” then forwarded it to Papen for presentation to Hitler. On Saturday, November 14, Papen met with Hitler, along with Goebbels and Martin Bormann, in the Reich Chancellery to press for a final decision on the Hudal book. Papen handed Hitler the handsome brown volume with its gold embossing and personal dedication. Hitler took the book and told Papen he would be certain to read it.

Hudal’s Foundations, Papen said, had arrived at a time when both the Church and the government were ready for peace between them. He urged Hitler to allow the widest possible distribution of the book in Germany. It offered a chance to bridge the divide that had opened between Germany’s National Socialists and Roman Catholics, to heal the public wounds caused by the trials against priests and the debates over Myth. Hudal’s book embraced the common values of Nazis and German Catholics alike—it recognized the preeminent role of Germany on the Continent, the inherent dangers of Bolshevism, and, though admittedly in moderated form, the centuries-old threat of the Jews. Coming from a senior prelate in the Vatican, Foundations also bore a credibility that few other ideological treatises could have. The Hudal book represented a singular opportunity to forge a lasting and meaningful bond between Nazis and Catholics.

Goebbels and Bormann both disagreed with this vehemently. By injecting Roman Catholicism into National Socialist ideology, they argued, Hudal diluted the essence of National Socialism, its grounding in scientific racism. Papen argued that at the very least, a public debate about the book would provide an opportunity to explore the potential for common ground. Goebbels and Bormann said that Hudal’s book would be divisive, dangerous, subversive. The debate went on for several tense hours. Each time Papen seemed to have Hitler convinced, Bormann would intervene and pull him back. Ultimately, the party “radicals” prevailed. “In the end, I succeeded in securing the import for two thousand copies with the understanding that these would be distributed to leading circles in the party,” Papen later recalled. “The attempt for a serious discussion was ultimately sabotaged.” “Hudal’s book shot down again,” Goebbels wrote in his diary.

When Hudal learned of the result, he was devastated. For all the ambition he had for his book, it had been relegated to a circle of individuals who were unlikely to read, let alone understand, it. Foundations had become a footnote.

At roughly the same time, the Vatican distanced itself from Hudal’s book in an official statement: “As the author himself has said to an Austrian agency, and based on various solicited remarks, it is declared: namely that in writing his book, he was inspired by no one else and received no official assignment to do so.” As the rector of

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