Review of Alexander Lamprecht, Zwischen Seelsorge und Diktatur: Südtirols Kirche in der NS-Zeit
Contemporary Church History Quarterly
Volume 31, Number 1 (Spring 2025)
Review of Alexander Lamprecht, Zwischen Seelsorge und Diktatur: Südtirols Kirche in der NS-Zeit. Bozen (Bolzano): Athesia Verlag, 2019. 299 pp.
By Martin Menke, Rivier University
This volume is a revised version of the author’s Master’s thesis at the Philosophical-Theological University of Brixen (Bressanone), the seminary for the diocese of Brixen-Bozen. The work’s nature and its author’s affiliation, however, do not diminish the study’s value. It is an important work not only because it details the role of bishops and clergy during the period. It also is another well-illustrated example of the dilemmas that Christians living under fascism faced. South Tyroleans were ethnic Germans but had been living in Italy since the Treaty of Saint Germain-en-Laye in 1919 moved the Austro-Italian border to the Brenner Pass. Under the terms of the October 1939 Hitler-Mussolini Agreement, South Tyroleans were forced to opt for German or Italian citizenship. While Italy initially promised South Tyroleans respect for their German language and culture, the Italian fascist regime forcibly eliminated their language from public life. It enhanced the Italian presence in the region by building a large industrial complex in Bozen. As a result, much of South Tyrolean life, including German language instruction, went underground. As Lamprecht shows, most South Tyroleans bore little love for Italy.
Under the terms of the Hitler-Mussolini Agreement, all those South Tyroleans who retained Austrian citizenship after 1919 were now considered citizens of the Reich. They had no choice but to resettle in post-Anschluss Germany. South Tyroleans who had become Italians in 1919 were given a choice. They could opt for Germany and be resettled as German citizens in Germany, or remain and be confirmed in their Italian citizenship. Lamprecht successfully illustrates the painful decisions that South Tyroleans, lay and clergy, had to make. As a result of effective German propaganda and Italian fascist repression, more than eighty percent of South Tyroleans opted for Germany. South Tyrolean laypeople opted for Germany primarily out of resentment of Italian fascism and Italianization policies. The clergy in the parishes, however, found the decision much more difficult. Most sought to remain in their homeland.
Lamprecht explains that, after the border shifts of 1919, the Holy See had rearranged the diocesan boundaries along the new frontier but otherwise left the South Tyrolean dioceses of Brixen and Trent (Trient/Trentino) intact. In 1939, the bishops of the two dioceses responded very differently to the demand to choose between Germany or Italy. Prince Bishop Johannes Geisler of Brixen decided that, no matter the clergy’s personal preferences, the South Tyrolean parishes moving almost intact to Germany required the pastoral care of their clergy. Thus, the clergy must opt for Germany. The clergy, however, vehemently objected. As a result, a deep chasm arose between the bishop and his curia on the one side and the clergy on the other. The clergy pointed to the German government’s animosity towards the Catholic Church as a deterrent from opting for resettlement. Their bishop, however, countered that any clergy remaining in South Tyrol would have to minister in Italian, both from the pulpit as well as in more personal duties. He warned that many clergy, whose Italian was poor, might find themselves without a purpose or an income once the resettlement process was complete. Geisler himself opted for resettlement and took up residence in the Austrian parts of his (non-contiguous) diocese. He felt secure in his choice since the diocese owned forests and other resources that would financially support his position. His priests, however, enjoyed no such security. By the end of the option process, Bishop Geisler no longer enjoyed any credibility or respect among his clergy.
In the southern part of the region, the Prince-Archbishop of Trent, Celestin Endrici, vehemently opposed the option for Germany. In this, he enjoyed the support of almost all his clergy. In May 1940, Endrici sent the Holy See a twenty-eight-page memorandum describing the state of his archdiocese. He explained that his clergy initially were reluctant to involve themselves in the option question. Once they became aware of the anti-Catholic views and practices of the German government, however, they warned their faithful to opt against resettlement. As a result, the German resettlement authorities in South Tyrol intensified their campaign against the clergy, which widened the gap between parishioners, who largely opted for Germany, and their clergy. While the German authorities were pressuring those inclined to remain by pointing to the many South Tyroleans who opted for Germany, Endrici argued that the clergy had to warn their parishioners because South Tyroleans were unfamiliar with the persecution of the Catholic Church that was so prevalent in Germany. Not to warn South Tyroleans of the dangers of National Socialism would be negligent.
Endrici openly opposed the neutrality that his colleague Geisler in Brixen had imposed on his clergy. Endrici demanded that his clergy fight against resettlement everywhere except from the pulpit. He did not want his clergy accused of preaching outright propaganda, but he wanted it to oppose the pro-German option. In underground meetings, in family visits, during youth catechesis, the priests were to urge South Tyroleans to remain. Lamprecht argues that those lay people in the Archdiocese of Trent who opted to remain did so because of the decisive influence of the clergy. In Brixen, Bishop Geisler had explicitly forbidden the clergy from discussing the option.
Lamprecht carefully differentiates his argumentation. For example, he notes that Giuseppe Mastromattei, the Italian prefect of Bozen, was worried about the double loss (and subsequent economic impact) of too many qualified workers as well as thousands of residents moving to the Reich. He wanted to encourage dissatisfied and disloyal South Tyroleans to leave, but he also wanted the majority to assimilate into Italian culture and remain. He went so far as to argue that anti-Nazi clergy would not be welcome in Germany and might better find refuge in a seminary or monastery, but in ethnically Italian provinces instead of in South Tyrol. The prefect feared for the economic stability of his province and thus sought to assuage the fears of South Tyroleans. His efforts led to German protests, so in 1940, the Italian government transferred him to another post. Also, implicitly, Lamprecht demonstrates that, until the German military occupation in 1943, Italian authorities jealously safeguarded their autonomy from German officials who were promoting and organizing the option registrations and the resettlement in Germany. Lamprecht’s explanation of the motives of different priests to decide one way or the other is also very well differentiated. Some wanted to remain as representatives of German culture in South Tyrol. Others feared for their economic security should they leave. Lamprecht, however, does not discuss the influence of the priests’ local ties on their decisions.
Less convincing is Lamprecht’s claim of an active Catholic resistance against Italian and German authorities. Lamprecht claims Catholic Action was the most effective measure against National Socialist youth workers, who were making inroads among the youth of South Tyrol. While Catholic Action worked discretely and in the shadows, it is not clear that encouraging young people to remain loyal to their faith constituted resistance. The leader of Catholic Action, Father Josef Ferrari, secretly recruited for the Andreas-Hofer-Bund, an underground organization committed to informing the faithful about the truth of National Socialism. While the German authorities sought a warrant for Father Ferrari, the Italian authorities merely admonished him to be more discrete. More explanation is needed for a convincing argument that the Andreas-Hofer-Bund was a resistance organization rather than an informal network of like-minded South-Tyroleans. Lamprecht argues that most South Tyroleans did not support the Bund and the most effective means of resistance remained Catholic Action.
The remainder of the work gives the impression of a list of topical odds and ends. For example, Lamprecht mentions that male clergy of German ethnicity and citizenship had to leave Italian territory or head into purely ethnic Italian areas, where their ability to function would be limited by a lack of Italian language skills. Female consecrated women, however, did not have to move as long as they applied for Italian citizenship. Also, given the organization of the work into separate discussions of Brixen and Trent, the author ends up repeating discussions and analyses. The author ends the work by listing questions requiring further research, such as the Church’s role in both the postwar negotiations about autonomy as well as in South Tyrol during the war more generally, which is ironic given the work’s title.
Despite these criticisms, the work is a valuable contribution to the field. Not only does it document the effect of the option program for South Tyroleans on the Catholic faithful, priests, and bishops, but it also contributes to the more extensive discussion of the Church’s role under fascism and National Socialism. Catholic leaders had to weigh the evils of Italian fascism against those of German National Socialism. They had to consider the need to provide pastoral care with the desire to oppose oppression. One can compare the dilemma of South Tyrolean clergy with the much more drastic fate of the French worker priests sent by their bishops to accompany those pressed into forced labor in the Reich to their German work sites, disguised as simple workers in the Service du Travail Obligatoire. South Tyrolean priests seemed more reluctant to follow their flocks in this manner.
This study, grounded in scholarly literature and extensive archival research, provides another example of the profound conflicts of conscience that many suffered under the mid-twentieth-century dictatorships. Lamprecht successfully illustrates not only institutional challenges but also the personal dilemma faced by bishops, priests, and laypeople in confronting the evils of fascism.
