[4] Though some German bishops were unenthusiastic, and the Allies at the end of World War II felt it inappropriate, Pope Pius XII successfully argued to keep the concordat in force.

But even after subsequent feelers were put out between the two parties the negotiations failed, primarily because both the Reichstag and Reichsrat were dominated by non-Catholic majorities who, for a variety of reasons, did not want a formal pact with the Vatican.

[14] In the absence of an agreement relating to particular areas of concern with the Reich, the Holy See concluded more wide-ranging concordats with three German states where Catholics were concentrated: Bavaria (1924), Prussia (1929), and Baden (1932).

However, wrote Hebblethwaite, these concordats did not prove "durable or creditable" and "wholly failed in their aim of safeguarding the institutional rights of the Church" for "Europe was entering a period in which such agreements were regarded as mere scraps of paper".

[17] In October 1929, General Groener pushed the German Foreign Ministry for resolution with the Vatican regarding military chaplains who lacked the ability to administer the sacraments of baptism or matrimony without first obtaining the permission of the local priest or bishop.

[19] The German negotiators continued to discuss solely on the basis of particular points rather than a general concordat during 1931 but even these were felt to be unlikely to be passed by the Reichstag or the Reichsrat, no matter their political or theological leanings.

It had felt threatened by a radical ultranationalist ideology that regarded the papacy as a sinister, alien institution, that opposed denominational separatism in education and culture, and that at times appeared to promote a return to Nordic paganism.

[23] In early 1933, Hitler told Hermann Rauschning that Bismarck had been stupid in starting a Kulturkampf and outlined his own strategy for dealing with the clergy which would be based initially on a policy of toleration: We should trap the priests by their notorious greed and self-indulgence.

[27] Kershaw wrote that, following the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor by President von Hindenberg, the Vatican was anxious to reach agreement with the new government, despite "continuing molestation of Catholic clergy, and other outrages committed by Nazi radicals against the Church and its organisations".

When Vice-Chancellor Papen and Ambassador to the Vatican Diego von Bergen met Pacelli in late June 1933, they found him "visibly influenced" by reports of actions being taken against German Catholic interests.

The Papal Nuncio in Berlin (Cesare Osenigo) is reported to have been jubilant about Hitler's rise to power and thought that the new government would soon be offering the same concessions to the Church that Mussolini had made in Italy.

[40] On the day they set out for Rome to prepare the way for the concordat, the first two anti-Semitic laws (excluding non-Aryans from public office and from the legal profession) were issued in Germany, but this did not impede the discussions.

[41] Papen recorded in his memoirs that on his arrival in Rome, the Pope "greeted me with paternal affection, expressing his pleasure that at the head of the German State was a man like Hitler, on whose banner the uncompromising struggle against Communism and Nihilism was inscribed.

[43] According to historian Michael Phayer, the view "that the Concordat was the result of a deal that delivered the parliamentary vote of the Catholic Center Party to Hitler, thereby giving him dictatorial power (the Enabling Act of March 1933) ... is historically inaccurate".

"[40] Previously, as part of the agreement surrounding the 1929 Lateran Treaty with the Fascist government in Italy, the Vatican had consented to the dissolution of Partito Popolare, which had seen support among the Italian clergy.

The Centre Party dissolved itself on 5 July 1933, as the concordat between the Vatican and the Nazis had dealt it a decisive blow by exchanging a ban on the political activities of priests for the continuation of Catholic education.

"[56] On 4 August 1933, the British Minister reported "in conversations I have had with Cardinal Pacelli and Monsignor Pizzardo, neither gave me the feeling of the slightest regret at the eclipse of the Centre [Party], and its consequent loss of influence in German politics".

[51]In a sermon given in Munich during 1937, Cardinal Faulhaber declared: At a time when the heads of the major nations in the world faced the new Germany with reserve and considerable suspicion, the Catholic Church, the greatest moral power on earth, through the Concordat, expressed its confidence in the new German government.

His Holiness Pope Pius XI has appointed as his plenipotentiary [a diplomat granted full power to represent] His Eminence the Most Revered Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, His Holiness' Secretary of State; and the President of the German Reich [Paul von Hindenburg] has appointed as plenipotentiary the Vice-Chairman of the German Reich, Herr Franz von Papen; who, having exchanged their proper form have agreed to the following articles.

The Additional Protocol provisions make clear this prohibition of clergy from political activism does not mean they can not preach on moral teachings and principles of the Church "as it is their duty to do."

"[51] The provisions of the annexe were inserted at the request of the German Bishops Fulda Conference and the contents were kept so secret that Ernst von Weizsacker, State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry from 1938, did not know of it until informed by the Papal Nuncio Orsenigo in 1939.

"[79] Ex-Chancellor Bruning reported that 300 Protestant pastors who had been on the verge of joining the Catholic Church on account of the stand it had taken against the Nazis abandoned the plan after the signing of the concordat.

[79] On 24 July, the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter commented: The provocative agitation which for years was conducted against the NSDAP because of its alleged hostility to religion has now been refuted by the Church itself.

The majority were not moved to face death or imprisonment for the sake of freedom of worship, being too impressed by Hitler's early foreign policy successes and the restoration of the German economy.

[89] In his history of the German Resistance, Hoffmann writes that, from the beginning:[90] [The Catholic Church] could not silently accept the general persecution, regimentation or oppression, nor in particular the sterilization law of summer 1933.

In March, Pope Pius XI issued the Mit brennender Sorge encyclical – accusing the Nazi Government of violations of the 1933 concordat, and further that it was sowing the "tares of suspicion, discord, hatred, calumny, of secret and open fundamental hostility to Christ and His Church".

Pius XI considered terminating the concordat, but his secretary of state and members of the curia, who feared the impact upon German Catholics, dissuaded him, as they believed it would result in the loss of a protective shield.

Anthony Rhodes regarded Hitler's desire for a concordat with the Vatican as being driven principally by the prestige and respectability it brought to his regime abroad while at the same time eliminating the opposition of the Centre Party.

[113] Rhodes took the view that if the survival of Catholic education and youth organisations was taken to be the principal aim of papal diplomacy during this period then the signing of the concordat to prevent greater evils was justified.

[117] Michael Phayer is of the opinion that a muted response to the attacks on Mosaic Jews was due to the concordat conditioned German bishops to avoid speaking out against anything that was not strictly related to church matters.