"To Avoid a New Kulturkampf": The Catholic Workers' Associations and National Socialism in Weimar-era Bavaria

Abstract

In 1921, the Federation of South German Catholic Workers' As sociations (Verband Suddeutscher katholischer Arbeitervereine, or VSkA), headquartered in Munich and dominated by Bavarian associa tions, published a report concerning the newly formed National Social ist German Workers' Party. After attending a beer-hall meeting in Munich, the author of the article in the federation newspaper, Der Ar beiter (The Workingman), compared the party to the Socialists in terms of exercising their mouths, criticized party speakers for their anti Catholic attacks, and declared that National Socialism could not be supported by those of the political center (i.e., Catholics who tradition ally voted for the Center Party or the Bavarian People's Party). Yet he was impressed by their organizational and agitational abilities, their pomp, and their ability to raise money, qualities that the Catholic Workers' Associations in Bavaria lacked throughout the 1920s. As for their antisemitism, the author stated: I am no friend of the Jews, espe cially the modern Jews. The struggle against the Jews will, in my opin ion, be the first that the National Socialists pursue, because at this time it appears to be the most profitable.1