How many Catholics were killed in the Holocaust?

Answer 1

The notion that Catholics were killed systematically in the Holocaust simply for being Catholics is a one of those strange myths. Certainly, a large number of Poles were killed and many of them were Catholics, but there were killed as Poles, not as Catholics. Obviously, some Christians felt bound on religious grounds to oppose the Nazi regime or some of its policies and some of these were killed. However, this position of conscience was not a specifically Catholic peculiarity. There were also Lutheran and Eastern Orthodox martyrs, for example.

Although the Catholic Church was persecuted in the Third Reich, Catholics as a group were not officially targeted by the Nazis merely for practicing the Catholic faith. In fact, a substantial minority of the population of the Third Reich was baptized Catholic, including some members of the Nazi elite. The Nazis did try to systematically undermine the Church's influence and teachings through Propaganda and cracked down hard on individual clergymen who dared to criticize the policies of the regime. Members of the clergy who were unwilling to embrace the Nazi state risked arrest for a myriad of violations: refusal to remove religious artifacts from schools; participation in religious processions; political criticism from the pulpit; assistance to public enemies such as Jews; pacifism, etc. Punishment ranged from a few days in jail to internment in a concentration camp to execution. Often, members of the clergy died under ambiguous circumstances while serving a sentence or awaiting trial, with their deaths officially attributed to accident or illness. Catholic laity who were unwilling to submit to Nazi rule faced similar persecution. In the eastern European regions, millions of Poles -- Jews and Catholics alike -- were murdered by the SS and police personnel in the field or in killing centers such as Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka. In the ideology of the Nazis, the Poles were considered an inferior "race." The Germans intended to murder members of the political, cultural and military elite and reduce the remainder of the Polish population to the status of a vast pool of labor for the so-called German master race. It is estimated that between 5 and 5.5 million Polish civilians, including 3 million Polish Jews, died or were killed under Nazi occupation. This figure excludes Polish civilians and military personnel who were killed in military or partisan operations. They number approximately 664,000. SS authorities in the concentration camps did not generally record the religious affiliation of a prisoner, with the exception of the Jehovah's Witnesses. As a result it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to reliably estimate the total number of Catholic victims who were persecuted or killed because of some action or position connected to their Catholic faith. Some data exists regarding the number of Catholic prisoners (especially members of the clergy) in individual camps.

Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

It's hard to ascertain exactly, but of the six million Polish people that died in the Holocaust, 3 million were Jews and 3 million were Catholics. 50 000 Catholic priests and religious also. See Related Links below this answer.

Roman Catholics in Greater Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary and most other countries had absolutely nothing to fear provided they did not offend or resist the Nazis. The notion that Roman Catholics were targeted for their religion in the Holocaust is simply untrue. It is largely a myth based almost entirely on non-Jewish Polish victims of the Nazis. The vast majority of these were targeted for being Polish, not on account of their religion. Obviously, some Christians of practically denominations resisted the Nazis on religious grounds, but that is a very different matter.

I provided a link to a page which explains that most of them were targeted because they were Polish.

Answer 2

One, the killing of the Catholic priests was part of an effort to secularise rather than exterminate (which was the Holocaust).

Answer 3

24died, 23 were unknown ,and the 1 that was known was shaber

Answer 4

Hitler himself probably didn't kill a single one. How many whose deaths can eventually be traced back to a decision taken by Hitler is impossible to say.

Answer 5

2600 is the number of priests that I know of. But if you visit Auchwitz, you'll see pix of lines of Catholic Brothers, and pix of Nuns also. These were religious who would not, as I understand it, swear absolute allegiance, to Herr Hitler.