
"In his [Cardinal Bertram] own hand he gave all the parish priests of the archdiocese instructions 'to hold a solemn requiem in memory of the Fuhrer and all those members of the Wehrmacht who have fallen...' Despite all the insults to the church, the threats and the persecutions, he continued to see and respect Hitler as the Catholic state head of the Reich. He did not have to live to realize how wrong he was in this. He died on 6 July 1945.