Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 25. (1972) - Festschrift für Hanns Leo Mikoletzky
HOLLAENDER, Albert E. J.: Offiziere und Prälaten. Zur Fuldaer Bischofskonferenz, August 1945
200 Albert E. J. Hollaender Russe had gone out. However, I had the good fortune to meet Captain Kenny of US Gp. C. C. from Berlin, who as a Catholic had taken the same line as I had. His handling of the situation deserves the highest praise. Together we persuaded the Archbishop of Cologne to ,invite* us to the conference, which he did, but of course we did not attend. Captain Kenny had exchanged courtesies with the Archbishop of Cologne that morning and had explained the question of M. G. representation. He had pointed out that it might be in the interests of the Church to comply at least with the form of the regulation even though he fully realised that the previous conferences had been traditionally secret. If there were no supervision, other organisations would agitate for a like privilege. In reply the Archbishop had argued that supervision could be maintained by an examination of such documents as are issued after the conference: that the Church had always enjoyed this right to conduct its own affairs privately; that it had been secret even during the „Kulturkampf“. Not even the Nazis had interfered, and the tradition had always been to dissolve the conference as soon as the rule was violated. Captain Kenny had acquiesced and concluded his interview with the Archbishop by agreeing to take back to Berlin any documents the Bishops had for the Control Council. The upshot of the whole business ended in a subterfuge. Major Russe was satisfied with the ,invitation* issued to myself and Captain Kenny and never realised until the conference was successfully over that no one had sat in on the sessions! The conference had been in jeopardy, the situation had been saved, and no bones had been broken. The Press. The Archbishop of Cologne had said he would issue no statement for the press at the close of the meeting. The press and ourselves knew what was being discussed: „The devil was dead, the Americans are here, there are problems of education, priests, and so on.“ On the last day of the Conference, I was approached by all the American reporters to „check“ the story they were cabling to New York. I found a lamentable ignorance about Catholic affairs in Germany in all they had written, and persuaded them to scrap what they had invented in the absence of any press release and dictated a forecast of the Bishops’ deliberations. This fortunately proved 95% correct when compared later with documents issued to the Control Council. AUGUST 22nd. CONVERSATIONS between Col. SEDGWICK and the BISHOPS. The following morning Archbishop Frings, as President of the Conference, took me into the Conference room at the end of the morning session and introduced me personally to all the Bishops, many of whom I had met on former occasions in the Vatican and in Germany before the war. I was invited to make a short speech which I did along the lines of Policy Directives. Cardinal Faulhaber proposed a vote of thanks and sought to credit me with saving the conference, but I hastened to point out that any credit was really due to Capt. Kenny and their own good sense in accepting a compromise. His Eminence expressed pleasure in the name of the whole Hierarchy that a British representative from the Control Commission was able to be present. He said that he knew His Majesty’s Government understood their problems, almost all of which depended upon the Concordat. He hoped the Allies would respect all the clauses of the Concordat as far as military exigencies would allow: if this were not possible, then at least it was hoped to revert to the legal personality
