The question was raised why Catholic Oldenburg did not oppose Herr Hitler .The answer is , it supported him in not condemming him !
Opposing Hitler meant death . There is no way that after this time we can cleanse the Catholic Church from the position taken by the Church and especially Pius XII . While his predecessor Achilles Ratti ,after at first supporting the fascist .(thus anti Communist) movements became aware of the treatment of jews aready in 1937 .he issued an encyclical in 1937 comdemming it .
Shortly thereafter he was found dead in the Vatican and no autopsy was permitted by cardinal; Montini ,who at the time occupied the powerful position of "Secretary of state" and became Pope Pius XII . There is an extraordinary similarity in the way that his successor in that job ,Cardinal Ratzinger ,a one time Hitler Jugend , also succeeded a sitting Pope, The now dead Pope was not a sick man and in apparent good health . Pius XII has much to answer for in his apparent supportive attitude towards Hitler and Mussolini.
I do not for a moment believe that Catholic Oldenburg was anti Hitler . My late uncle Jacques Aalders wrote to the parish priest of Vechta in 1943 enquiring about the marriage of and origin of his and my forefathers Henrich Alers and Anna Voet . The "Pfarst" replied , confirming the marriage and concluded his letter with "Heil Hitler". Not terribly appropriate for a parish priest ...Hardly anti Nazi ...Not very encouraging for a fellow Catholic in a conquered suppressed neighbouring country.
People and yes ,the Catholic Church makes mistakes .If we keep history clean and report how it was , we can all learn from those mistakes .
Henk Aalders
History is not the exception. You may believe what you wish Henk but
reality is not with you. There is no sense in arguing this further.
Fred
Thanks for all the responses! I hesitate to bring it up touchy subjects but they are what they are and I appreciate everyone's thoughts.
My grandparents left Germany in the mid 20s and died before I was interested in genealogy, so don't know what feelings they or their relatives back in Germany had about the events of the 30s and 40s. Most people believe what they're told as they grow up so would not be surprised if folks in that region held viewpoints that today would seem reprehensible. It seems such a homogenous society that I wasn't even sure if there were Jewish families in Oldenburg outside of the larger towns like Cloppenburg. Apparently the sight of a black man was rare enough that my grandfather remembered that at a circus side show tent one paid to go inside to see one.
I did look up some of the links provided by others, read a bit about the crucifix rebellion, and saw that the Catholics and Protestants in Oldenburg-Munsterland voted very differently. I couldn't tell who they were voting for (the table just gave the initials of the parties, and I don't know which party is which).
I'm still curious to what degree the wars had on the daily lives of the citizens there. On the one hand I would guess that those who lived on farms would be relatively well off since they had their own food supply. On the other hand, I remember hearing that my grandparents found it difficult to visit their relatives in Oldenburg in the 1950s in seeing how poor they were, apparently the late effects of the war? They would heat their beds at night with hot bricks. However when I visited the old farm in 2004 the old relatives still there still didn't have electric or running water, but I think its because they preferred the old ways.
Please excuse the ramblings as I try to understand not just the birth and death dates of my ancestors, but something of their day to day lives, beliefs and behaviors, and so on.
Chris
Chris,
I find the stories very interesting. Thanks for presenting the questions and observations.
My grandfather was first generation American. He fought in WW1, lost a brother during that war and had two sons fight in WW2. The family lost their German heritage and I know many did because of times. But it is part of my history, even though I do not know the language, customs, or traditions and I the information.
I went to Oldenburg in the 90s and would like to return with my sons. This time to Minsen, where my great grandfather was born.
Hearing about life in the region is like talking to my ancestors.
Again, thanks
Mr. Merle Siefken
Illinois
Hi Chris,
Thank you for adding another piece to the puzzle by sharing your family
history. My family history is a huge blank, so yours is much appreciated.
These stories are important to understanding the times as well as "our
people".
Most of my forebears immigrated prior to 1900 and it seems to have been
common practice among them to not discuss life in the old country, even for
the few "prosperous" ones who were able to travel back to visit. This makes
me suspect that it was not pleasant. (If it were pleasant, they probably
wouldn't have left, right?) Then, as Fred pointed out, much family
contact/information was lost during wartimes.
For the controversial 30's and 40's, here's a wiki-link with lots of sourced
material that has given me much to think about:
German resistance - Wikipedia .
~Suzanne
Thanks for the comments and link Suzanne.
I like the stories in part because you can build the thread and help understand events of one's early years given family and ethnic temperaments. Speaking for my family, but perhaps also for at least some other Oldenburger-Munsterlanders, in hearing stories of the old days one comes to understand how one's own family is so conservative, Catholic, frugal and hard-working. And perhaps as well quick to anger and slooooowww to forgive and forget. My grandmother sponsored her brother to come over after she was set up in Cincinnati but at one point after didn't speak for 20+ years. The source? They had the old folks mail them some pea seeds from Germany and in splitting them up in Cincinnati they found it was an odd number. What started out as a joke, "Why don't you take the extra one, you were always the favorite" was met with the old "What do you mean by that?!" and next thing you know a couple decades have gone by. I went to family reunion just last summer and told my friend "sooner or later someone's going to get mad about something and have a falling out". It took a few days, but sure enough. Not that all German Catholics are hotheads, but it sure runs in some families. My sense is that a lot of these folks were so close to poverty most of the time that things like "conflict resolution" just didn't enter the picture.
Another bittersweet type story, if you don't mind the rambling, touches on the lack of contact between the Cincinnatians and the old folks back home. My grandfather in Cincy hadn't heard from his family near Visbek for years because of the war. His first letter arrived in maybe 1946, telling him that his mother had died the previous year. My father vividly remembered his father crying for the first time ever at the post office in reading the letter. What makes the story kind of funny is that my father was then a kid riding in his father's motorcycle sidecar. On the way home my grandfather was crying hard enough as to not see the road clearly, so my father kept getting knocked around by bushes on the side of the road because of the swerving. Generally though, my dad and uncles said the same thing, their folks never talked about the old country. I guess it was a combination of missing them, having grudges, and it just having "sucked" to live over there in the 20s until they left. My grandfather told me that the inflation was so bad after WWI that he would load up a wheelbarrow with German marks to go to buy bread from the bakery.
It seems such a homogenous society that I wasn't even sure if there
were Jewish families in Oldenburg outside of the larger towns like
Cloppenburg. Apparently the sight of a black man was rare enough that
my grandfather remembered that at a circus side show tent one paid to
go inside to see one.
I've said it before but let me repeat. Oldenburg as we know it was a
Protestant Grand Duchy except for the southern part which was annexed
in 1803 via the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss which mediatized church
owned countries and gave them to larger principalities who had enough
clout to claim these lands for whatever reasons they came up with.
This southern part is where most Oldenburger emigrants came from. To
this day it is called the Oldenburger Münsterland. The Münster part is
from the Prince Arch-Bishopric of Münster in Westphalia which had
authority there until the above act stripped it and other such
Bishoprics of secular power.
To this day the O-M belongs to the Archdiocese of Münster via the
Offizilat of Vechta: http://www.offizialatsbezirk-oldenburg.de/ on
religious grounds.
Point to all this is that there were practically no Protestants in the
O-M before the early 20th century. They only came to reside there in
relatively few numbers because people were assigned to work the
railroad or other governmental agencies.
This dicotomy of Protestants running the country but having a solidly
and very strict Catholic south created its own problems and kept the
population very much in suspicion of outsiders who were not of their
faith. It also created the rebellion against the new regime installed
in 1933. No way were these new storm troopers going to affect the life
style and customs of the Catholic south. Resistance was not armed, it
could not be except for pitchforks, but it was there under ground to
every new rule coming from the outside.
As we know, the north of Germany is/was pretty much Protestant (now
everything is mixed up) but here was this little section which became
a diaspora in a sea of heathen Protestants. And believe me, they did
see them as unbelievers or heathens. My father's natural parents were
not permitted to marry as he was one of those heathens. I could quote
many examples of this prejudice.
I did look up some of the links provided by others, read a bit about the crucifix rebellion, and saw that the Catholics and Protestants in Oldenburg-Munsterland voted very differently. I couldn't tell who they were voting for (the table just gave the initials of the parties, and I don't know which party is which).
Again, do not confuse Oldenburg in general with a part of that country
which was joined to it in 1803. The Protestants were somewhat more at
ease with the Nazi regime even though they too had their anti-Nazi
elements but it was more in the nature of Democracy rather then from
religious grounds.
Fred
Fred, 'Mediatization' - only a word a genuine historian could/would
retain! 
Thank you for this link, and for your generosity sharing your
knowledge with us. I find myself rereading your missives because they are so
packed with juicy, well-presented information. As we say in California,
"Dude, you are awesome!"
~Suzanne
Ooops.....Mediatisation.
My grandparents were German Catholics. They immigrated to the US in 1927
and 1934. They both traveled back to their birth homes (Visbek and
Kholgrund) several times and communicated a lot through letters. My
grandmother talked about things back in Germany all the time. I guess she
just had a different outlook. My dad told me they came over to the U.S.
because it was 'the land of opportunity'. My grandmother sponsored friends
and family 4 times to come over permanently. We had the German relatives
visit many times. My grandfather was a quiet man, but when I joined them on
one of their trips to Germany, he was a laughing, jibbering fool he was so
happy!
On the discussion of the wars. I only have a small mention, and I have
posted this before: My grandmother's sister was a Catholic nun in Germany.
My grandmother said she often sent her sister tobacco through the mail to
bribe the Nazis to leave them alone.
My great-grandpa came over around 1870 and died in the mid 1920s. My dad
said his grandpa never looked back. The couple of photos I have show a
very happy man. In contrast, I have a couple of letters from the 1920s
from family back in Oldenburg. The people back in Germany were definitely
not prosperous, what with the aftermath of the war, the inflation thing,
and crop failures. There's no bitterness or complaining, just a report on
the sorry state of things there at the time.
Marilyn