3.2.28 [in pencil], Fi 6/25 1.
Secret State Police
Munich State Police District Office
B. No. 52401/37 11 B.
Munich, 20 January, 1938.
Decree
By virtue of par. 1 of the Reich President's order for the protection of people and state of the 28.2.33 (RGB1. 1 p. 83) the following decree is issued:
The Guild of the Virgin Mary [die Marianische Jungfrauenkongregation] of the Bavarian diocese, including the diocese of Speyer, together with its branches and associations and the Societies of Our Lady [ Jungfrauenvereinen] attached to it, is by police order to be dissolved and forbidden with immediate effect.
The property belonging to the dissolved Guild is to be confiscated by the police. Not only is property in cash to be confiscated, but also any stock on hand and other objects of value. All further activity is forbidden the dissolved Guilds, particularly the foundation of any organization intended as a successor or as a cover. Incorporation as a body into other women's societies is also to be looked on as a forbidden continuation of activity. Infringement against the above prohibition will be punished according to para. 4 of the order of 28.2.1933.
Reasons
In a parish in Nürnberg the Guild of the Virgin Mary, going outside the sphere of the work proper to it, has occupied itself for years, to a most far reaching degree, with arrangements of a worldly and popular sporting character. Furthermore the president of the society has continuously supplied the Guild of the Virgin Mary, from its committee-members down to the women in charge of its groups, with seditious material, which served for seditious discussions. Furthermore the Guild of the Virgin Mary, particularly its leading circles, were trained and mobilized for purely political and seditious tasks. v
The whole behaviour of the Guild of the Virgin Mary had therefore to be objected to from various points of view. It could be repeatedly observed that the Guild engaged in purely worldly affairs, such as community games, and then in the holding of "Social Evenings".
This proves incontestably that the Guild of the Virgin Mary was active to a very great degree in a manner unecclesiastical and therefore worldly. By so doing it has left the sphere of its
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proper religious task and entered a sphere of activity to which it has no statutory right. The organization has therefore to be dissolved and forbidden.
. Signed. Beutel.
certified copy—[signature illegible]
Decree dissolving the Guild of the Virgin Mary and confiscating its property, due to unauthorized activities in Nuremberg
Authors
Beutel (Gestapo officer, Munich (1938))
Beutel
- Additional details not yet available.
Date: 20 January 1938
Literal Title: Decree.
Total Pages: 2
Language of Text: English
Source of Text: Nazi conspiracy and aggression (Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality. Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946.)
Evidence Code: PS-1481
Citation: IMT (page 255)
HLSL Item No.: 450439
Trial Issues
Conspiracy (and Common plan, in IMT) (IMT, NMT 1, 3, 4) IMT count 1: common plan or conspiracy (IMT) Nazi regime (rise, consolidation, economic control, and militarization) (I… Persecution of political, religious, and ethnic ("racial") groups (IMT, NM…
Document Summary
PS-1481: Gestapo Resolution Dissolving Catholic Women's Organizations in Bavaria and Confiscating their Properties
PS-1481: Decision of the chief administrative office of the secret state police in Munich, 20 January 1938, to dissolve and prohibit the congregation of the virgins of our lady of the Bavarian .dioceses and confiscate their property