@Bastethotep #35382
1. “In defence of the Jews, Pope Clement VI issued two papal bulls in 1348 (6 July and 26 September), the latter named Quamvis Perfidiam, which condemned the violence and said those who blamed the plague on the Jews had been "seduced by that liar, the Devil."
Prior to that Pope Calixtus XII in 1120, issued a bull forbidding forced conversion of Jews or harming them. While there was the Spanish Inquisition, that was not considered forced conversion, because Jews were given the option to leave Spain if they did not convert. The inquisition was done due to fears that Jews would try to convert Jews who had converted to Christianity back to Judaism. They were banish from other countries of Europe such as England due to the fact that some of them practiced usury which the Church considered immoral.
While Catholic countries mostly banished Jews, Martin Luther in his treatise “On The Jews and Their Lies” advocated burning Jewish synagogues and homes and confiscating their property which was forbidden by the Popes.
2. I’ll give credit to the Lutheran resistors, but the point is that the Nazis used Luther’s treatise as propaganda against the Jews. You made a good point about the Lutheran Church being easier to control, but that shows that it is better to have a transnational church instead of national churches, because it is easier for despots to be able to control national churches.
3. There was warfare in Europe often due to succession disputes but they followed Saint Augustine’s idea of just war. They often ended in peace treaties. Monarchs, nobles, and knights were affected by it much more than the common folk. The code of chivalry reduced civilian casualties. https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/collegeofhumanities/history/exhistoria/volume6/Protecting_the_non-combatant.pdf
The Hundred Years War became very bloody during its last phase in the 1400s but keep in mind that in the late 1300s, England’s last true monarch King Richard II of England signed a truce with Charles VI of France and was working towards a permanent peace. It was after he was overthrown and illegitimate Lancaster rulers came to power that they decided to continue the war, in order to boost their popularity at home. It was during the reign of the false monarch Henry V of England where there was the greatest number of civilian casualties in the Hundred Years War.
Warfare in Europe became more bloody during the Wars of Religion but that was due to Europe becoming religiously divided by the Reformation. But in 1648, the Peace of Westphalia greatly reduced the religious warfare.
Neither the illegitimate 2nd German Reich nor the 3rd Reich which played big roles in starting the World Wars shared my political ideals. The 2nd German Empire’s constitution was based on the ideals of the 1848 revolution that resulted in new constitutions being established in the German states that later united into the German Empire. And as you admitted, Hitler was driven by racism, aggrieved entitlement, revanchism, an unquenchable thirst for power and the worst Messiah Complex in history not by Catholicism.