Resistance of the Catholic Church
Those in Germany who were members of the Catholic Church were torn on which side to take. In 1938, Pope Pius XI condemned the German pogrom against the Jews. It was then that the Bishop of Berlin and church leaders followed suit, doing what they could to protect those of all races and religions in their area. However, they did face opposition from the Nazi regime and from religious figures who did not share their same views.
Cardinal Faulhaber refused to stand by and do nothing. He gave a truck to the rabbi of the Ohel Yaakov synagogue so that he could help rescue sacred objects before the building was torn down as part of the German pogrom. In response, a Nazi mob attacked his palace and smashed the windows. Faulhaber had a reputation for being against the Nazi regime, as he started delivering sermons as early as 1933 that spoke about the Jewish origins of the Christian faith. He spoke in private of his support of the Jews, but he feared that going public with those thoughts would put Catholics in the line of fire as well.
Konrad von Preysing was the Bishop of Berlin from 1935 through the war. He was an outspoken critic of the Nazi regime, but his status as a Bishop protected him from reprisal. He even had an aid unit which secretly helped people who were being targeted by the regime. He attended meetings of the Kreisau Circle German resistance movement.
Other Bishops and Cardinals sought to have a more vocal condemnation of the Nazis. Josef Frings was archbishop of Cologne in 1942 and spoke out against the actions of the Nazi regime. In 1943 he wrote a letter to try and convince the other bishops to confront Hitler directly to try and stop the killing. However, the majority of Bishops at the Fulda Bishops Conferences decided against “heroic action in favor of small successes.”