Udział gestapo w eksterminacji duchowieństwa łódzkiego 1939-1945

Abstract

In the Nazi policy towards the Church, political assumptions and goals took precedence over ideological ones; in Poland under German occupation the national factor was foremost. The Kirchenpolitik of the German authorities was determined by the special position of the Roman Catholic Church (and to some extent also of the Evangelical Church of the A ugsburg Confession and of the Reformed Evangelical Church) in Polish society and in Polish history. The extermination of the clergy was to facilitate the lasting destruction of the Polish nation. The most drastic methods of extermination were used against Polish clergy in the Warthegau, an area incorporated into the Reich and governed by Reichstatthalter Arthur Greiser. They were applied by the police apparatus, particularly by the state secret police, the Gestapo. Invested with the greatest of powers, the Gestapo was active in Łódź from 7 November 1939. Religious and church matters lay within the province of Department IV (IV Abteilung Gegner - Erforschung und Bekämpfung), in particular its division 4 with its component unit, the political section (IV B 4 a). Il was headed for a long time by S S-Obersturm führer G. Fuchs. He and his collaborators were responsible for the murder during the war of more than a hundred Catholic priests and several Protestant pastors from Łódź. The victims were arrested for various reasons, then imprisoned, savagely tortured and finally sent to concentration camps, where they suffered martyr's death.