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THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE JESUITS
with the wishes of Providence. The newspapers printed a facsimile of this declaration to dispel any doubt as to its authenticity. Reproductions were posted up on walls in Vienna and in the other Austrian cities. Cardinal Innitzer.. had, with his own hand, written the following words before his signature: "Und Heil Hitler!" "Three days later, the whole of the Austrian episcopate addressed a pastoral letter to its diocesans; the Italian newspapers published the text of this letter on the 28th of March: it was a straightforward adhesion to the Nazi regime whose virtues were highly extolled".(63) Cardinal Innitzer, highest representative of the Roman Church in Austria, also wrote in his declaration: "I invite the chiefs of Youth organisations to prepare their union to the organisation of the German Reich".(64) So, not only did the cardinal-archbishop of Vienna, followed by his episcopate, throw in his lot with Hitler most enthusiastically, but he handed over also the "Christian" youth to be trained according to nazi methods; these methods had been "officially condemned" in the 'terrible' encyclical letter: "Mit brennender Sorge"! Then, the 'Mercure de France' justifiably observed: "... These bishops have not taken a decision which involves the Church as a whole on their own accord; the Holy See gave them directives which they merely followed".(65) This is obvious. But what other "directives" could be expected from this Holy See which brought to power Mussolini, Hitler, Franco and, in Belgium, created the 'Christus-Rex' of Leon Degrelle? We understand, then, why English authors such as F.A. Ridley, Seeker and Warburg object to the Politics of Pius XI which favoured fascist movements everywhere".(66) As for the Anschluss, M. Francois Charles-Roux tells us why the Church was so much in favour of it: "Eight million Austrian Catholics united to the Catholics of the Reich could make a German Catholic body more able to make its weight felt".(67) Poland was in the same situation as Austria when Hitler, after having invaded it, annexed part of it in the name of the Fatherland. A few more million Catholics to reinforce the German contingent under the Roman (63) Francois Charles-Roux, op.cit., pp.118, 122. (64) Ernest Pezet, former vice-president of the Commission for Foreign Affairs, "L'Autriche et la paix" (Ed. Self, Paris 1945, p. 149). (65) Austria and Hitler ("Mercure de France", 1st of May 1938, p.720). (66) J. Tchernoff: "Les Demagogies contre les democracies" (R. Pichon and Durand-Auzias, Paris 1947, p.80). (67) Francois Charles-Roux, op.cit., p.114.