BERLIN, AUGUST 29 (ZENIT.org)

    Bishop Karl Lehmann, president of the German Episcopal Conference, said that the Catholic Church in his country will allocate $2.5 million for the direct indemnization of forced laborers allocated by the Nazi regime to build ecclesial structures.

    During a press conference in Mainz, Bishop Lehmann said that an additional amount will be allocated to ecclesiastical reconciliation endeavors. However, the Catholic Church will not contribute in the compensation fund established by the German State and industry, which amounts to $5 billion.

    The Permanent Council of the German Episcopal Conference analyzed the way persons can be compensated, who worked for charities and Church institutions during the Nazi period and who, according to Bishop Lehmann, included less than one in a thousand of the total of forced laborers.

    While the Catholic Church has opted for this type of aid, the Lutheran Church announced some time ago that it will contribute 10 million marks to the compensation fund created by the State and industry. The Lutheran decision was made by religious authorities after investigations into the past revealed that Lutheran hospitals and charities went to regional employment offices, counting on forced labor, especially during the last years of the war.

    The issue of "forced laborers" has brought to the fore the help the Catholic Church gave to Nazi victims. Several Gestapo reports list the names of Catholic priests who dared to protest openly against the conditions of life of forced laborers.

    Historian Christoph Koster said "Many of them ended up in prison and even in concentration camps." In addition, the SS archives contain very harsh letters against the Archdiocese of Berlin, because of its protests against the conditions of forced laborers.

    Koster said that from all sources available, "more than a 'beneficiary,' of forced laborers, the Catholic Church appears as an institution that tried to defend them." ZE00082904

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