The Bonds That Shame: Reconsidering the Foreign Exchange Trials of 1935–36 Against the Catholic Church in Nazi Germany

Abstract

This article reassesses the foreign exchange trials and concurrent propaganda campaign in 1935–36 against the Catholic Church in Nazi Germany. Scholars have had difficulties situating the foreign exchange trials within the church struggle because most have viewed the proceedings as legitimate and the impact on the church and the laity as negligible. The argument of an untainted justice system under National Socialism can of course no longer be sustained, and the Nazis routinely used specific crimes to persecute their enemies. The violation of Germany’s complex foreign exchange laws became a signature crime favoured by the Security Service in the persecution of Jews. In 1935, the regime attempted to use accusations of foreign exchange violations in pursuit of the church. New evidence from the Vatican Archives reveals that the foreign exchange trials against the church were anything but legitimate proceedings on the margins of the church struggle. Instead, the regime pursued immediate and specific political goals with the trials at a crucial point in the conflict. In particular, the regime attempted to force the church to publicly capitulate on unresolved issues over Catholic lay associations. Hitler routinely interfered in the proceedings and lower-ranking officials soon joined in and used the trials to discipline bishops and religious orders within their respective spheres of influence. The bishops’ often ill-considered response to the trials only escalated the crisis within the church, and evidence indicates that the regime delayed settlements for as long as possible to press church leaders to make further concessions to the regime.