By
REUTERS
April 9, 2008
BERLIN
(Reuters) -- The Roman Catholic Church in
Germany exploited nearly 6,000 forced laborers
during the Nazi era, the church said in a report
released Tuesday.
In
2000, the church acknowledged its use of forced
labor under Hitler; it has paid about $2.35
million in compensation to foreign workers. The
report, "Forced Labor and the Catholic Church
1939-1945," is the most thorough look at the
issue.
It
documents the fate of 1,075 prisoners of war and
4,829 civilians who were forced to work for the
Nazis in nearly 800 Catholic institutions
&emdash; including hospitals and monastery
gardens &emdash; to help the war
effort.
The
church, which has financed more than 200
"reconciliation" projects, said final numbers
would never be known.
"It
should not be concealed that the Catholic Church
was blind for too long to the fate and suffering
of men, women and children from the whole of
Europe who were carted off to Germany as forced
laborers," Cardinal Karl Lehmann said at the
presentation of the report.
Catholics
and Protestants were subject to oppression under
the Nazis, but aside from some notable voices of
opposition from each church, they generally went
along with the regime.
The SS
expropriated more than 300 monasteries and
Catholic institutions from 1940 to 1942, and
thousands of Catholics were sent to
concentration camps, said Karl-Joseph Hummel, a
historian and a co-author of the
report.
At a
televised news conference in Mainz, Mr. Hummel
said the term "cooperative antagonism" summed up
the church's strategy at the time. The report
said a large proportion of the workers &emdash;
mostly from Poland, Ukraine and the Soviet Union
&emdash; were forced to help the Nazi war effort
in military hospitals that would not have been
able to keep operating without
them.
The
Nazis shipped millions of people from conquered
territories, especially in Eastern Europe, to
work for the war economy in poor
conditions.
Mr.
Hummel said the conditions for those in forced
labor for the church were not as bad as at some
other organizations.
.
