User:LakesideMiners/StuffIAmFixing/NPOTCCIP
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
During the German Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), the Catholic Church in Poland was brutally suppressed by the Nazis. The suppression of the Church was most severe in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany. Thousands of churches and monasteries were systematically closed, seized or destroyed. As a result, many works of religious art and objects were permanently lost.
Church leaders were especially targeted as part of an overall effort to destroy Polish culture. At least 1811 members of the Polish clergy died in Nazi concentration camps. Overall, an estimated 3000 members of the clergy were killed. Hitler's plans for the Germanization of the East did not allow Catholicism.[1]
The acts done against Polish Catholicism were part of Generalplan Ost. If carried out, this plan would have eventually eradicated the existence of the Poles entirely. Adolf Hitler himself remarked in August 1939 that he wanted his Death's Head forces "to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language."[2]