Edmond Paris - The Secret History of the Jesuits

"enlightening"—to use a word dear to mystics—when we consider what happened in Europe between 1939 and 1945.

"Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler and most members of the party's "old guard"

were Catholics", wrote M. Frederic Hoffet. "It was not by accident that, because of its chiefs' religion, the National-socialist government was the most Catholic Germany ever had... This kinship between National-socialism and Catholicism is most striking if we study closely the propaganda methods and the interior organisation of the party. On that subject, nothing is more instructive than Joseph Goebbel's works. He had been brought up in a Jesuit college and was a seminarist before devoting himself to literature and politics... Every page, every line of his writings recall the teaching of his masters; so he stresses obedience... the contempt for truth... "Some lies are as useful as bread!" he proclaimed by virtue of a moral relativism extracted from Ignatius of Loyola's writings..."(119) Hitler did not award the palm of Jesuitism to his chief of propaganda, though to the Gestapo's chief, as he told his favourites: "I can see Himmler as our Ignatius of Loyola"(120).

(118) "De stabilitate et progressu dogmatis", first part, art VI 9 I ("Typographia editrix romana, Romae 1908").

(118a) See Sol Ferrer-Francisco Ferrer. Un Martyr au XXe siecle (Fischbacher, Paris). (119)) Frederic Hoffet: "L'lmperialisme protestant" (Flammarion, Paris 1948, pp.172 ss). (120) Adolf Hitler: "Libres propos" (Flammarion, Paris 1952, p.164).

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To speak thus, the Fuhrer must have had some good reasons. First of all, we notice that Kurt Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfuhrer of the SS, Gestapo and German police forces, seemed to be the one most impregnated by clericalism amongst the Catholic members of Hitler's entourage. His father had been director of a Catholic school in Munich, then tutor of Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria. His brother, a Benedictine monk, lived at the monastery of Maria Laach, one of the Pan-German high places. He also had an uncle who had held the important position of Canon at the Court of Bavaria, the Jesuit Himmler.

The German author Walter Hagen gives also this discreet information:

"The Jesuits' general, Count Halke von Ledochowski, was ready to organise, on the common basis of anti-communism, some collaboration between the German Secret Service and the Jesuit Order".(121) As a result, within the SS Central Security Service, an organisation was created, and most of its main posts were held by Catholic priests wearing the black uniform of the SS. The Jesuit Father Himmler was one of its superior officers.

After the Third Reich's capitulation, the Jesuit Father Himmler was arrested and imprisoned at Nuremberg. His hearing by the international tribunal would have apparently been most interesting, but Providence was keeping a watchful eye: Heinrich Himmler's uncle never appeared before that court. One morning, he WAS FOUND DEAD IN HIS CELL, and the public never learned the cause of his death.

We will not insult the memory of this cleric by supposing that he willingly ended his days, against the solemn teaching laws of the Roman Church.

Nevertheless, his death was as sudden and opportune as the one of another Jesuit, sometime before, Father Staempfle, the unrecognised author of 'Mein Kampf'. Strange coincidence indeed...

But let us come back to Kurt Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Gestapo, which meant he held in his hand the essential reins of power of the regime.

Was it his personal merits which earned him such a high position? Did Hitler see in him a superior genius when he compared him to the creator of the Jesuit Order? It is certainly not what the testimonies of those who knew him imply as they saw in him nothing more than mediocrity.

Was that star shining with a borrowed brightness? Was it really Kurt Heinrich Himmler, the ostensible chief, who actually reigned over the Gestapo and the secret services? Who was sending millions of people, deported for political reasons, and Jews to their death? Was it the flat-faced nephew or the uncle, former Canon at the Court of Bavaria, one of von Ledochowski's favourites, a Jesuit Father and superior officer of the SS?

It may seem reckless, and even presumptuous, to take such an indiscreet (121) Walter Hagen, op.cit., p.358.

THE GESTAPO AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS

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l o o k behind the scenes of History. The play is performed on the stage, before the combined lights of the footlights, the stagelights and the arc lights.

This is normal for any show; and the one who wants to see behind the props may well be regarded as troublesome and ill-bred.

However, the spell binding actors on whom the public's gaze is fixed have all come from behind the scenes. This is more than evident when we study these "sacred monsters" and realise that they are far from equal to the individuals they are supposed to represent.

Such seems to have been the case of Himmler. But wouldn't it be right to say the same of the one whom he helped as his right hand man, Hitler?

When we saw Hitler gesticulating on the screens or heard him bawling his hysterical speeches, did we not have the impression of looking at the movements of an automaton ill adjusted, with overstretched springs? Even his most simple and composed movements reminded us of a mechanical puppet.

And what about his dull and globular eyes, flabby nose, bloated physiognomy whose vulgarity could not be disguised by that famous lock of hair and brush moustache which seemed glued under his nostrils.

Was this snarler at public meetings really a chief? the "real" master of Germany, an "authentic" Statesman whose genius was going to turn the world upside-down?

Or was he just a bad substitute for all that? A covering skin cleverly blown up and a phantom for the use of the masses, a rabble rouser?

He himself admitted it when he said: "I am only a clarion". M. Francois-Poncet, then French ambassador to Berlin, confirms that Hitler worked very little, was not a reader and let his collaborators have their own way.

His helpers gave the same impression of emptiness and unreality. The first one, Rudolf Hess, who flew to England in 1941, looked on his own trial at Nuremberg as a total stranger, and we never learned if he was completely insane or just a lunatic. The second one was the grotesque Goering, vain and obese, who wore the most spectacular comic-opera uniforms, a glutton, a great robber of paintings and, to top it all, a morphine drug addict.

The other main personalities of the party bore the same resemblance and, at the trials of Nuremberg, it was one of the journalists greatest surprises to have to report that—apart from their own particular defects— these Nazi heroes lacked in intellect, character, and were more or less insignificant.

The only one who stood above that vulgar mob—because of his astuteness and not his moral worth—was Franz von Papen the chamberlain of His holiness, "the man for every job"... who was bound to be acquitted.

If the Fuhrer comes out as an extraordinary puppet, was the one he modelled himself upon more consistent? Let us recall the ridiculous

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exhibitions of that "Caesar fit for a carnival", rolling his big black eyes that he wanted to flash under that strange hat decorated with curtain tassels! And those photographs meant for propaganda, taken from his feet and depicting only his jaws, jutting out against the sky, the wonder man, as an immovable rock—symbol of a will which knew no obstacles!

What a will! From the confidences of some of his companions, we get the picture of a man constantly undecided; this "formidable man" who was going to "invade everything", with elemental force (to use terms of Cardinal Ratti, future Pius XI), did not resist the advances made to him by the Jesuit Cardinal Gasparri, secretary of State, on behalf of the Vatican.