Clemens Augustinus Emmanuel Joseph Pius Anthonius Hubertus Marie Graf von Galen (16 March 1878 – 22 March 1946), better known as ''Clemens August Graf von Galen'', was a German
count
Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York: ...
,
Bishop of Münster
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
, and
cardinal
Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to:
Animals
* Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds
**''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae
**''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...
of the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Galen led
Catholic protests against Nazi euthanasia and denounced
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
lawlessness and the
persecution of the Church in
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. He was appointed a cardinal by
Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII ( it, Pio XII), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (; 2 March 18769 October 1958), was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death in October 1958. Before his e ...
in 1946, shortly before his death, and was
beatified
Beatification (from Latin ''beatus'', "blessed" and ''facere'', "to make”) is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their nam ...
by
Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereign ...
in 2005.
Born into the German aristocracy, Galen received part of his education in
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
from the
Jesuits
The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
at
Stella Matutina
The Stella Matutina (Morning Star) was an initiatory magical order dedicated to the dissemination of the traditional occult teachings of the earlier Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Originally, the outer order of the Stella Matutina was known a ...
in the town of
Feldkirch Feldkirch may refer to:
Places
* Feldkirch, Vorarlberg, a medieval city and capital of an administrative district in Austria
** Feldkirch (district), an administrative division of Vorarlberg, Austria
* Feldkirch (Hartheim), a village in the munici ...
. After his ordination he worked in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
at St. Matthias. He intensely disliked the liberal values of the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
and opposed individualism, socialism, and democracy. A staunch German nationalist and patriot, he considered the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
unjust and viewed
Bolshevism
Bolshevism (from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, fo ...
as a threat to Germany and the Church. He espoused the
stab-in-the-back theory: that the German military was defeated in 1918 only because it had been undermined by defeatist elements on the home front. He expressed his opposition to
secularism
Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on Secularity, secular, Naturalism (philosophy), naturalistic considerations.
Secularism is most commonly defined as the Separation of church and state, separation of relig ...
in his book ''Die Pest des Laizismus und ihre Erscheinungsformen'' (The Plague of Laicism and its Forms of Expression) (1932).
After serving in Berlin parishes from 1906 to 1929, he became the pastor of
Münster
Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state distr ...
's St. Lamberti Church, where he was noted for his political conservatism before being appointed Bishop of Münster in 1933.
Galen began to criticize
Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...
's movement in 1934. He condemned the Nazi "worship of race" in a pastoral letter on 29 January 1934, and assumed responsibility for the publication of a collection of essays which fiercely criticized Nazi ideologist
Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government. He was the head of ...
and defended the teachings of the Catholic Church. He was an outspoken critic of certain Nazi policies and helped draft
Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI ( it, Pio XI), born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti (; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939), was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 to his death in February 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City fro ...
's 1937 anti-Nazi encyclical ''
Mit brennender Sorge
''Mit brennender Sorge'' ( , in English "With deep anxiety") ''On the Church and the German Reich'' is an encyclical of Pope Pius XI, issued during the Nazi Germany, Nazi era on 10 March 1937 (but bearing a date of Passion Sunday, 14 March)." ...
''. In 1941, von Galen delivered three sermons in which he denounced the arrest of Jesuits, the confiscation of church property, Nazi attacks on the Church, and in the third, fiercely condemned the state-approved
mass killing in the involuntary euthanasia programme of persons with mental or physical defects (''Aktion T4''). The sermons were illegally circulated in print, inspiring some
German Resistance German resistance can refer to:
* Freikorps, German nationalist paramilitary groups resisting German communist uprisings and the Weimar Republic government
* German resistance to Nazism
* Landsturm, German resistance groups fighting against France d ...
groups, including the
White Rose
The White Rose (german: Weiße Rose, ) was a Nonviolence, non-violent, intellectual German resistance to Nazism, resistance group in Nazi Germany which was led by five students (and one professor) at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, ...
.
Following this, in September 1943, another condemnation was read at the order of von Galen and other bishops from all Catholic pulpits in the diocese of Münster and across
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, denouncing the killing of "the innocent and defenceless mentally handicapped and mentally ill, the incurably infirm and fatally wounded, innocent hostages and disarmed prisoners of war and criminal offenders, people of a foreign race or descent".
Early years
Galen belonged to one of the oldest and most distinguished
noble families
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characterist ...
of
Westphalia
Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants.
The territory of the regio ...
.
Until 1890, Clemens August and his brother Franz were tutored at home. At a time when the Jesuits were still not permitted in Münster, he received his main schooling at a Jesuit School,
Stella Matutina
The Stella Matutina (Morning Star) was an initiatory magical order dedicated to the dissemination of the traditional occult teachings of the earlier Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Originally, the outer order of the Stella Matutina was known a ...
in the
Vorarlberg
Vorarlberg ( , ; gsw, label=Vorarlbergisch, Vorarlbearg, , or ) is the westernmost States of Austria, state () of Austria. It has the second-smallest geographical area after Vienna and, although it also has the second-smallest population, it is ...
, Austria, where only
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
was spoken. He was not an easy student to teach, and his Jesuit superior wrote to his parents: "
Infallibility
Infallibility refers to an inability to be wrong. It can be applied within a specific domain, or it can be used as a more general adjective. The term has significance in both epistemology and theology, and its meaning and significance in both fi ...
is the main problem with Clemens, who under no circumstance will admit that he may be wrong. It is always his teachers and educators who are wrong.
Because
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
did not recognize the Stella Matutina academy, Clemens returned home in 1894 to attend a public school in
Vechta
Vechta (; Northern Low Saxon: ''Vechte'') is the capital and largest city of the Vechta (district), Vechta district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is home to the University of Vechta.
It is known for the 'Stoppelmarkt' fair, which takes place every ...
and by 1896 both Clemens and Franz had passed the examinations that qualified them to attend a university. Upon graduation, his fellow students wrote in his yearbook: "Clemens doesn't make love or go drinking, he does not like worldly deceit." In 1896 he went to study at the
Catholic University of Freiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...
, which had been established in 1886 by the
Dominicans, where he encountered the writings of
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wi ...
. In 1897 he began to study a variety of topics, including literature, history, and philosophy. One of his teachers was history professor and noted biblical archaeologist
Johann Peter Kirsch
Johann Peter Kirsch (3 November 1861 – 4 February 1941) was a Luxembourgish ecclesiastical historian and biblical archaeologist.
Life
Johann Peter Kirsch was born in Dippach, Luxembourg, the son of Andreas and Katherine Didier Kirsch. At t ...
. Following their first winter semester at Freiburg, Clemens and Franz visited Rome for three months. At the end of the visit he told Franz that he had decided to become a priest though he was unsure whether to become a contemplative
Benedictine
, image = Medalla San Benito.PNG
, caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal
, abbreviation = OSB
, formation =
, motto = (English: 'Pray and Work')
, foun ...
or a
Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
. In 1899 he met
Pope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII ( it, Leone XIII; born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci; 2 March 1810 – 20 July 1903) was the head of the Catholic Church from 20 February 1878 to his death in July 1903. Living until the age of 93, he was the second-old ...
in a private audience. He studied at the Theological Faculty and Convent in
Innsbruck
Innsbruck (; bar, Innschbruck, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian ) is the capital of Tyrol (state), Tyrol and the List of cities and towns in Austria, fifth-largest city in Austria. On the Inn (river), River Inn, at its junction with the ...
, founded in 1669 by the Jesuits, where scholastic philosophy was emphasized, and new concepts and ideas avoided. Galen left Innsbruck in 1903 to enter the
seminary
A seminary, school of theology, theological seminary, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called ''seminarians'') in scripture, theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy, ...
in
Münster
Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state distr ...
and was ordained a priest on 28 May 1904 by Bishop Hermann Dingelstadt.
At first he worked for a family member, the Auxiliary
Bishop of Münster
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
, as Chaplain. Soon he moved to Berlin, where he worked as parish priest at St. Matthias.
Berlin (1906–1929)
Galen arrived in Berlin on 23 April 1906 and stayed until 16 April 1929. Germany's capital contained districts of Protestant elites, a Catholic community composed of primarily working-class people and a Jewish community of both middle-class and poorer immigrants. It was a booming commercial and cultural metropolis at the time he arrived — its population increased from 900,000 in 1871 to slightly less than 4 million by 1920. Religion did not bring the community together — "religion and fears of a loss of religious belief came to be a major source of internal division." For the working class, Catholicism and
Social Democracy
Social democracy is a Political philosophy, political, Social philosophy, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocati ...
competed for allegiance. In this atmosphere, Galen sought to be an energetic and idealistic leader of his parish. He made visits to the sick and poor, became president of the Catholic Young Men's Association, gave religious instruction in the schools, and for his efforts he was named ''Papa Galen'' by the parishioners he served. A commanding presence ( tall) — his rooms were furnished simply, he wore unpretentious clothing, and he spoke plainly — he did not like the theatre, secular music (except for military marches), or literature. His only reported vice, which he refused to give up, was smoking his pipes.
[Griech-Polelle, p. 17]
During the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, Galen volunteered for military service in order to demonstrate his loyalty to the
Kaiser
''Kaiser'' is the German word for "emperor" (female Kaiserin). In general, the German title in principle applies to rulers anywhere in the world above the rank of king (''König''). In English, the (untranslated) word ''Kaiser'' is mainly ap ...
. As parish priest, he encouraged his parishioners to serve their country willingly. In August 1917 he visited the front lines in France and found the optimistic morale of the troops uplifting. "Feelings of German nationalism, apparently, could triumph over concern for the violations of the sanctity of human life in war."
[Griech-Polelle, p. 18.] In 1916 and 1917 he welcomed reports that the German military had a plan to colonize Eastern Europe, stating that German Catholics should be moved into the area, especially
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
, with the goal not of expelling the Lithuanians, but educating them to ''think'' and ''feel'' as Germans.
Following the German surrender in November 1918, Galen, still in Berlin, worked to create soup kitchens, aid societies, and clothing drives to deal with immediate problems of hunger and poverty. He feared the lower classes would embrace radicalism and anarchy. Galen deplored the fall of the monarchy and was suspicious of the new
Weimar democracy, believing that "the revolutionary ideas of 1918 had caused considerable damage to Catholic Christianity." He believed the
stab-in-the-back myth
The stab-in-the-back myth (, , ) was an antisemitic conspiracy theory that was widely believed and promulgated in Germany after 1918. It maintained that the Imperial German Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield, but was instead ...
, which held that the German Army hadn't been defeated in battle but by being undermined by defeatist elements on the home front
and, as did most Germans, considered the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
unjust.
Throughout the Weimar years he remained on the right of German politics. He often criticized the
Centre Party for being too left-wing.
[Griech-Polelle, p. 20.] Galen openly supported the Protestant
Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (; abbreviated ; 2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German field marshal and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany fro ...
against the Centre Party's candidate,
Wilhelm Marx
Wilhelm Marx (15 January 1863 – 5 August 1946) was a German lawyer, Catholic politician and a member of the Centre Party. He was the chancellor of Germany twice, from 1923 to 1925 and again from 1926 to 1928, and he also served briefly as the ...
, in the presidential elections of 1925. Galen was known as a fierce anti-Communist (he later supported the battle by the
Axis powers
The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...
on the
Eastern Front against
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
's regime in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
). His views on Communism were largely formed as a consequence of the
Stalinization and
relentless persecution of Christians within the Soviet Union after 1918, during which virtually all Catholic bishops were either killed or forced underground. He also expressed his opposition to modernity in his 1932 publication, ''Die Pest des Laizismus und ihre Erscheinungsformen'' (''The Plague of Laicism and its Forms of Expression'').
Münster
Galen became the pastor of
St Lambert's Church, Münster
St Lambert's Church (German: ''St. Lamberti'') is a Roman Catholic church building in Münster (Westphalia) in Germany, dedicated to Lambert of Maastricht. Its present building is the most significant example of Westphalian late Gothic archite ...
, where he initially upset some parishioners with his political conservatism. At a meeting in Münster of the Association of Catholic Academicians in June 1933, Galen spoke against those scholars who had criticised the Nazi government and called for "a just and objective evaluation of
itler'snew political movement".
In 1933, Galen was elected bishop of Münster, although he was not the popular candidate to succeed the previous bishop,
Johannes Poggenburg, and was selected only after other candidates had declined to be nominated and despite a protest from the Papal Nuncio
Cesare Orsenigo
Cesare Vincenzo Orsenigo (December 13, 1873 – April 1, 1946) was Apostolic Nuncio to Germany from 1930 to 1945, during the rise of Nazi Germany and World War II. Along with the German ambassador to the Vatican, Diego von Bergen and later Ernst v ...
, who reported that Galen was bossy and paternalistic in his public utterances. In October 1933, Galen wrote approvingly of the Nazis' efforts to "eradicate" the "open propaganda for godlessness and immorality".
Galen was named bishop by
Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI ( it, Pio XI), born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti (; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939), was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 to his death in February 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City fro ...
on 5 September 1933. On 28 October, he was consecrated as bishop in Münster's cathedral by Cardinal
Karl Joseph Schulte
Karl Joseph Schulte (14 September 1871 – 11 March 1941), was a German Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Cologne from 1920 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1921.
Biography
Karl Joseph S ...
.
He chose as his motto "Nec laudibus nec timore", a phrase from the liturgy used for a bishop's consecration when the consecrating bishop prays that the new bishop be overcome "neither by flattery nor by fear".
[ As bishop, Galen campaigned against the ]totalitarian
Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regul ...
approach of the Nazi Party in national education, appealing to parents to insist on Catholic teaching in schools. Citing the recently agreed-upon Reichskonkordat
The ''Reichskonkordat'' ("Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich") is a treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent Nazi Germany. It was signed on 20 July 1933 by Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, who later be ...
assurance that the Church had the right to determine its own religious instruction, he successfully forced the Nazis to permit continued Catholic instruction in Catholic schools. It was one of the first instances where the ''Reichskonkordat
The ''Reichskonkordat'' ("Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich") is a treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent Nazi Germany. It was signed on 20 July 1933 by Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, who later be ...
'' was used by the Church against the government, which was one of the intentions of Pope Pius XI.
In 1933, when the Nazi school superintendent of Münster issued a decree that religious instruction be combined with discussion of the "demoralising power" of the "people of Israel", Galen refused, writing that such interference in the school curriculum was a breach of the Concordat and that he feared children would be confused as to their "obligation to act with charity to all men" and as to the historical mission of the people of Israel. Galen often protested against violations of the Concordat to Hitler directly. In 1936, when the Nazis removed crucifixes from schools, Galen's protest led to a public demonstration. Together with Munich's Cardinal Faulhaber and Berlin's Bishop Preysing, Galen helped to draft Pope Pius XI's anti-Nazi encyclical ''Mit brennender Sorge
''Mit brennender Sorge'' ( , in English "With deep anxiety") ''On the Church and the German Reich'' is an encyclical of Pope Pius XI, issued during the Nazi Germany, Nazi era on 10 March 1937 (but bearing a date of Passion Sunday, 14 March)." ...
'' (''With Burning Concern'') of 1937.
In 1934, Bishop Galen began to attack the racial ideology of the Nazi regime, partly poking fun at it, partly critiquing its ideological basis as presented by the Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government. He was the head of ...
. He declared it unacceptable to argue that Jewish authorship of the Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
diminished its authority, or that morality and virtue were in any way derived from the perceived usefulness of a particular race. In January 1934, he criticized Nazi racial policy in a sermon and, in subsequent homilies, equated unquestioning loyalty to the Reich with "slavery". He spoke against Hitler's theory of the purity of German blood.Anton Gill
Anton Gill (born in 1948) is a British writer of historical fiction and nonfiction. He won the H. H. Wingate Award for non-fiction for ''The Journey Back From Hell'', an account of the lives of survivors after their liberation from Nazi concentr ...
; An Honourable Defeat; A History of the German Resistance to Hitler; Heinemann; London; 1994; p.59 Bishop Galen also derided the neo-pagan theories of Rosenberg in ''The Myth of the Twentieth Century
''The Myth of the Twentieth Century'' (german: Der Mythus des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts) is a 1930 book by Alfred Rosenberg, one of the principal ideologues of the Nazi Party and editor of the Nazi paper '' Völkischer Beobachter''. The titular ...
'' as perhaps no more than "an occasion for laughter in the educated world", but warned that Rosenberg's "immense importance lies in the acceptance of his basic notions as the authentic philosophy of National Socialism and in his almost unlimited power in the field of German education. Herr Rosenberg must be taken seriously if the German situation is to be understood."
In retaliation, two senior SS officers visited Galen to pressure him into endorsing Rosenberg's doctrines publicly, threatening the confiscation of Church property and an anti-Catholic propaganda campaign. One of them was the future SS General Jürgen Stroop
Jürgen Stroop (born Josef Stroop, 26 September 1895 – 6 March 1952) was a German SS commander during the Nazi era, who served as SS and Police Leader in occupied Poland and Greece. He led the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 194 ...
, who later recalled, "Bishop von Galen was a great gentleman, a true aristocrat, a Renaissance prince of the Church. He welcomed us politely but with reserve."[Kazimierz Moczarski (1981), ''Conversations with an Executioner'', Prentice Hall, p. 56-57.] Galen began by commending Stroop's mother for her devout Catholicism, then categorically refused to accept or praise Rosenberg's doctrines of euthanizing or forcibly sterilizing disabled people. He denounced the Nazis for trying to introduce Germanic neo-paganism into his diocese. He scoffed at marriage ceremonies and funerals conducted before altars dedicated to Wotan
(''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the ''Nibelun ...
, surprising Stroop, who had attended such a ceremony only days before. Galen closed by assuring the officers that the Church would remain loyal to the state in all lawful matters. He expressed his deep love for Germany and reminded them that he had been the first bishop to publicly acknowledge the new regime. In Stroop's view, Galen's German patriotism "was tainted by Papist
The words Popery (adjective Popish) and Papism (adjective Papist, also used to refer to an individual) are mainly historical pejorative words in the English language for Roman Catholicism, once frequently used by Protestants and Eastern Orthodox ...
ideals, which have been harmful to Germany for centuries. Besides, the Archbishop's orders came from outside the Fatherland, a fact which disturbed us. We all know that despite its diverse factions, the Catholic Church is a world community, which sticks together when the chips are down."
In June 1935 he delivered a sermon that connected the heresy of the Anabaptist
Anabaptism (from New Latin language, Neo-Latin , from the Greek language, Greek : 're-' and 'baptism', german: Täufer, earlier also )Since the middle of the 20th century, the German-speaking world no longer uses the term (translation: "Re- ...
s to the "sins of the Jews". He told his audience that "whoever does not listen to the Church is a heathen and officially is a sinner". He described how "the Israelites debased the Savior", and how people who resisted Jesus as the Christ appeared on the "side of the blinded Jews". He equated the rejection of Christianity with rejection of worldly authority, leading to anarchy and chaos. He pointed to the Russians also as among those who had not respected God-given authority. Galen did not protest the antisemitic 1935 Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of th ...
, or the Kristallnacht
() or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from ...
pogrom of 1938. Until his death, he refused to admit that referring to Jews as "degenerate", "rejected", and "lost" or labeling anarchy or liberalism as "Jewish", in any way aided the Nazi regime or and its racist antisemitism.
By late 1935, Galen was urging a joint pastoral letter from the German bishops to protest about an "underground war" against the church.[Theodore S. Hamerow. ''On the Road to the Wolf's Lair'' (1997), p. 139.] By early 1937, the church hierarchy in Germany, which had initially attempted to co-operate with the Nazi government, had become highly disillusioned. In March, Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical ''Mit brennender Sorge
''Mit brennender Sorge'' ( , in English "With deep anxiety") ''On the Church and the German Reich'' is an encyclical of Pope Pius XI, issued during the Nazi Germany, Nazi era on 10 March 1937 (but bearing a date of Passion Sunday, 14 March)." ...
'' (''With Burning Concern''), accusing the Nazi government of violating the 1933 Concordat and of sowing the "tales of suspicion, discord, hatred, calumny, of secret and open fundamental hostility to Christ and His Church". Galen was part of the five-member commission that prepared the papal encyclical. The Nazis responded with an intensification of their campaign against the Catholic Church. There were mass arrests of clergy and church publishing houses were expropriated, followed by widely spread abuse allegations and staged morality trials against members of religious orders and priests.
In 1941 Galen welcomed the German war against the USSR as a positive development as he had rallied also to the cause of Germany when Hitler invaded Poland, offering a patriotic benediction.[Theodore S. Hamerow, ''On the Road to the Wolf's Lair'' (1997), p. 262-263.]
Euthanasia
While the Nazi extermination of Jewish people took place primarily on Polish territory, the murder of people with disabilities (viewed by the Nazi regime as "invalid" individuals) became public knowledge because it took place on German soil and interfered directly in Catholic and Protestant welfare institutions. Church leaders who opposed it – chiefly Bishop Galen and Theophil Wurm
Theophil Heinrich Wurm (7 December 1868, Basel – 28 January 1953, Stuttgart) was the son of a pastor and was a leader in the German Protestant Church in the early twentieth century.
Wurm was active in politics. He was a member of the Christia ...
, the Lutheran Bishop of Württemberg – were able to rouse widespread public opposition.[Peter Hoffmann; ''The History of the German Resistance 1933–1945''; 3rd Edn (First English Edn); McDonald & Jane's; London (1977); pg. 24] The regime initiated its euthanasia program in 1939.[Encyclopædia Britannica Online: ''Blessed Clemens August, Graf von Galen''; web April 2013.] It targeted people with dementia, cognitive/mental disabilities, mental illness, epileptic, physical disabilities, children with Down's Syndrome
Down syndrome or Down's syndrome, also known as trisomy 21, is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21. It is usually associated with physical growth delays, mild to moderate intellectual disa ...
and people with similar afflictions.[Anton Gill; ''An Honourable Defeat; A History of the German Resistance to Hitler''; Heinemann; London (1994), pg. 60] The programme systematically murdered more than 70,000 people between September 1939 and August 1941. After 1941 the killing continued unofficially, with the total number of deaths estimated at 200,000.Michael Burleigh
Michael Burleigh (born 3 April 1955) is an English author and historian whose primary focus is on Nazi Germany and related subjects. He has also been active in bringing history to television.
Early life
Michael Burleigh was born on 3 April 1955. ...
(1994),
Death and Deliverance: 'Euthanasia' in Germany, C.1900 to 1945
' CUP Archive;
In 1941, with the ''Wehrmacht'' still marching on Moscow, Galen, despite his long-time nationalist sympathies, denounced the lawlessness of the Gestapo, the confiscations of church properties, and the Nazi euthanasia programme.[Encyclopædia Britannica Online: ''Blessed Clemens August, Graf von Galen''; web Apr 2013.] He attacked the Gestapo for converting church properties to their own purposes – including use as cinemas and brothels.Anton Gill
Anton Gill (born in 1948) is a British writer of historical fiction and nonfiction. He won the H. H. Wingate Award for non-fiction for ''The Journey Back From Hell'', an account of the lives of survivors after their liberation from Nazi concentr ...
; ''An Honourable Defeat; A History of the German Resistance to Hitler''; Heinemann; London (1994); pg. 60 He protested the mistreatment of Catholics in Germany: the arrests and imprisonment without legal process, the suppression of monasteries
The suppression of monasteries refers to various events at different times and places when monastic foundations were abolished and their possessions were appropriated by the state.
Motivations
The monasteries, being landowners who never died a ...
, and the expulsion of religious orders. But his sermons went further than defending the church; he spoke of a moral danger to Germany from the regime's violations of basic human rights: "the right to life, to inviolability, and to freedom is an indispensable part of any moral social order", he said – and any government that punishes without court proceedings "undermines its own authority and respect for its sovereignty within the conscience of its citizens". Galen said that it was the duty of Christians to resist the taking of human life, even if it meant losing their own lives.
Hitler's order for the ''Aktion T4
(German, ) was a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-war trials against doctors who had been involved in the killings. The name T4 is an abbreviation of 4, a street address of ...
'' Euthanasia Programme was dated 1 September 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland. As word of the programme spread, protest grew, until finally, Galen delivered his famous August 1941 sermons denouncing the programme as "murder".[Theodore S. Hamerow, ''On the Road to the Wolf's Lair'' (1997), pp. 289-290.] On 3 August 1941, in one of his series of denunciations, Galen declared:
1941 sermons
Galen's three powerful sermons of July and August 1941 earned him the nickname of the "Lion of Münster". The sermons were printed and distributed illegally. Hitler wanted to have Galen removed as a bishop, but Goebbels told him this would result in the loss of the loyalty of the population of Westphalia
Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants.
The territory of the regio ...
. The sermons protested against Nazi policies such as Gestapo terror, euthanasia
Euthanasia (from el, εὐθανασία 'good death': εὖ, ''eu'' 'well, good' + θάνατος, ''thanatos'' 'death') is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering.
Different countries have different eut ...
, forced sterilization
Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to Involuntary treatment, involuntarily Sterilization (medicine), sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's ca ...
, and concentration camp
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
s.[Allen, John L.]
Cardinal Ratzinger
p. 26, Continuum International Publishingh 2000 His attacks on the Nazis were so severe that Nazi official Walter Tiessler proposed in a letter to Martin Bormann
Martin Ludwig Bormann (17 June 1900 – 2 May 1945) was a German Nazi Party official and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery. He gained immense power by using his position as Adolf Hitler's private secretary to control the flow of information ...
that Galen should be executed.
On 13 July 1941, Galen attacked the regime for its Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
tactics of terror, including disappearances without trial, the closure of Catholic institutions without any stated justifications, and the resultant fear imposed on all Germans. The Gestapo, he argued, reduced even the most decent and loyal citizens to fear of ending up in a cellar prison or a concentration camp. Even though the country was at war, Galen rejected the notion that his speech undermined German solidarity or unity. Quoting Pope Pius XII's ''Opus Justitiae Pax and Justitia fundamentum Regnorum'', Galen noted that "Peace is the work of Justice and Justice, the basis for dominion", then attacked the Third Reich for undermining justice, the belief in justice and for reducing the German people to a state of permanent fear, even cowardice. He concluded: "As a German, as a decent citizen, I demand Justice".
In a second sermon on 20 July 1941, Galen said that all written protests against the Nazi hostilities had proved to be useless. The confiscation of religious institutions continued unabated. Members of religious orders were still being deported or jailed. He asked his listeners to be patient and to endure, and said that the German people were being destroyed not by the Allied bombing from the outside, but from negative forces within.
On 3 August 1941, Galen's third sermon described the continued desecration of Catholic churches, the closing and confiscation of convents and monasteries, and the deportation of mentally ill people to undisclosed destinations, while a notice was sent to family members stating that the person in question had died. This is murder, he exclaimed, unlawful by divine and German law, a rejection of the laws of God. He said he had forwarded his evidence to the State Attorney. "These are people, our brothers and sisters; maybe their life is unproductive, but productivity is not a justification for killing." If that were indeed a justification for execution, he reasoned, everybody would have to be afraid to even go to a doctor for fear of what might be discovered. The social fabric would be affected. Galen then remarked that a regime which can do away with the Fifth Commandment ("Thou shalt not kill.") can destroy the other commandments as well. Galen went on to raise the question of whether permanently injured German soldiers would fall under the programme as well.
Thousands of copies of the sermons were circulated throughout Germany. The resulting local protests in Germany broke the secrecy that had surrounded the euthanasia programme known as ''Aktion T4''. The local Nazi Gauleiter was furious and demanded Galen's immediate arrest. Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
and party pragmatists preferred to wait until the end of hostilities to avoid undermining German morale in a heavily Catholic area. A year later, the euthanasia programme was still active, but the regime was conducting it in greater secrecy.
According to Robert Jay Lifton
Robert Jay Lifton (born May 16, 1926) is an American psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of wars and political violence, and for his theory of thought reform. He was an early proponent of ...
, " is powerful, populist sermon was immediately reproduced and distributed throughout Germany — indeed, it was dropped among German troops by British Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
flyers. Galen's sermon probably had a greater impact than any other one statement in consolidating anti-'euthanasia' sentiment." Howard K. Smith
Howard Kingsbury Smith (May 12, 1914 – February 15, 2002) was an American journalist, radio reporter, television anchorman, political commentator, and film actor. He was one of the original members of the team of war correspondents known as th ...
called Galen "heroic", writing that the movement he represented was so widespread that the Nazi government could not arrest the bishop. Ian Kershaw
Sir Ian Kershaw (born 29 April 1943) is an English historian whose work has chiefly focused on the social history of 20th-century Germany. He is regarded by many as one of the world's leading experts on Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, and is pa ...
called Galen's "open attack" on the government's euthanasia programme in 1941 a "vigorous denunciation of Nazi inhumanity and barbarism". According to Anton Gill
Anton Gill (born in 1948) is a British writer of historical fiction and nonfiction. He won the H. H. Wingate Award for non-fiction for ''The Journey Back From Hell'', an account of the lives of survivors after their liberation from Nazi concentr ...
, "Galen used his condemnation of this appalling policy to draw wider conclusions about the nature of the Nazi state."
The sermons inspired various people in the German Resistance German resistance can refer to:
* Freikorps, German nationalist paramilitary groups resisting German communist uprisings and the Weimar Republic government
* German resistance to Nazism
* Landsturm, German resistance groups fighting against France d ...
. The Lübeck martyrs
The Lübeck Martyrs were three Roman Catholic priests – Johannes Prassek, Eduard Müller and Hermann Lange – and the Evangelical-Lutheran pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink. All four were executed by beheading on 10 November 1943 less than ...
distributed von Galen's sermons.[Eduard Müller](_blank)
German Resistance Memorial Centre, Index of Persons; retrieved 4 September 2013. The sermons influenced the Scholl siblings
Hans and Sophie Scholl, often referred to in German as (the Scholl siblings), were a brother and sister who were members of the White Rose, a student group in Munich that was active in the non-violent resistance movement in Nazi Germany, espe ...
in founding the White Rose
The White Rose (german: Weiße Rose, ) was a Nonviolence, non-violent, intellectual German resistance to Nazism, resistance group in Nazi Germany which was led by five students (and one professor) at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, ...
pacifist student resistance group.[Anton Gill, ''An Honourable Defeat: A History of the German Resistance to Hitler; Heinemann''; London, 1994, p.188] One of von Galen's sermons of 1941 was the group's first pamphlet. Generalmajor Hans Oster
Hans Paul Oster (9 August 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a general in the ''Wehrmacht'' and a leading figure of the anti-Nazi German resistance from 1938 to 1943. As deputy head of the counter-espionage bureau in the ''Abwehr'' (German military inte ...
, a devout Lutheran and a leading member of the German Resistance, once said of Galen:
Galen suffered virtual house arrest from 1941 until the end of the war. Documents suggest the Nazis intended to hang him at the end of the war. In a Table Talk from 1942, Hitler said: "The fact that I remain silent in public over Church affairs is not in the least misunderstood by the sly foxes of the Catholic Church, and I am quite sure that a man like Bishop von Galen knows full well that after the war I shall extract retribution to the last farthing".
Despite Galen's opposition to Nazism and its racial theories, he nonetheless believed Germany was the last bulwark against the spread of atheist Bolshevism
Bolshevism (from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, fo ...
. Parts of a sermon he gave in 1943 are said to have been used by the Nazis to aid in the enlistment of Dutch men to voluntarily join the Waffen SS
The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and unoccupied lands.
The grew from th ...
against the Soviet Union. Galen feared that German Catholics were being relegated to second-class status in Hitler's Germany and believed Hitler was missing the point that the Catholic Church and the state could be aligned against Bolshevism. Although von Galen boldly spoke out against Nazi policies and the euthanasia programme, historian Beth A. Griech-Polelle wrote that Galen remained silent on other issues such as the roundup, deportation and mass murder of Jews. German historian Joachim Kuropka dismissed this allegation as a "misjudgment". Kuropka, referring to Wilhelm Damberg's discovery which in his opinion had not received enough attention so far, pointed out that the diocesan leadership in Münster had instructed all its pastors in June 1938 to recommend a brochure against anti-Semitism titled "The Nathanael Question of Our Days" ("Die Nathanaelfrage unserer Tage") to all faithful to read. Kuropka also emphasized Galen's cordial personal relationship with Münster town rabbi Fritz Steinthal
Fritz originated as a German nickname for Friedrich, or Frederick (''Der Alte Fritz'', and ''Stary Fryc'' were common nicknames for King Frederick II of Prussia and Frederick III, German Emperor) as well as for similar names including Fridolin an ...
.
According to Kuropka, while there was no evidence in church archives for the rabbi's statement made from memory that after the Kristallnacht
() or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from ...
, by order of Galen, prayers for the Jews were said in all the churches of the Diocese of Münster, Kuropka was able to cite confirmatory evidence from Rhineland Gestapo files. Kuropka emphasized the uniqueness of the brochure distribution and the prayer campaign in Galen's diocese of Münster. However, like other bishops, according to Kuropka, Galen missed the right time to "escape into the public eye" on the question of the persecution of the Jews, for which Galen later reportedly blamed himself by his own admission.
Apart from official pronouncements on the subject by the Pope and by German church bodies, Galen himself denounced Nazi racism on multiple occasions, and he was partly responsible for the German bishops' conference condemnation of racial persecution in the 1943 pastoral letter ''Dekalog-Hirtenbrief''. After the war, Münster rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...
Fritz Steinthal recorded Galen's support after Kristallnacht
() or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from ...
, while expressing his firm conviction as rabbi that most Catholics in his city of Münster were horrified by the pogrom and in fact feared that they would be the next victims. During a commemoration in 2012, Jewish Holocaust survivor and witness Hans Kaufmann of Münster reminded of the fact that von Galen had offered a helping hand to Steinthal after the 1938 Kristallnacht, but deplored that other Jewish victims in Münster did not receive much aid from neighbours the day after.
While not as explicit and not as effective as the vocal German episcopate's 1941 protests, in September 1943, von Galen and his fellow bishops in Germany drafted another condemnation of Nazi racial persecution and ordered it to be read from all pulpits in the diocese of Münster and across Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, therein denouncing the killing of ''"the innocent and defenceless mentally handicapped and mentally ill, the incurably infirm and fatally wounded, innocent hostages and disarmed prisoners of war and criminal offenders, people of foreign race or descent"''.
In his history of the German Resistance, Theodore S. Hamerow characterised the resistance approach of Galen as "trying to influence the Third Reich from within". While some clergymen refused ever to feign support for the regime, in the Church's conflict with the State over ecclesiastical autonomy, the Catholic hierarchy adopted a strategy of "seeming acceptance of the Third Reich", by couching their criticisms as motivated merely by a desire to "point out mistakes that some of its overzealous followers committed" in order to strengthen the government.[Theodore S. Hamerow, ''On the Road to the Wolf's Lair'' (1997), p. 198.] Thus when Bishop Galen delivered his famous 1941 denunciations of Nazi euthanasia and the lawlessness of the Gestapo, he also said that the Church had never sought the "overthrow of the Reich government".[Graml, Mommsen, Reichhardt & Wolf; ''The German Resistance to Hitler''; B. T. Batsford Ltd; London (1970); p. 225]
Post-war positions
After the war, Galen protested against the mistreatment of the German population by Allied occupation forces. On 13 April 1945, he raised a protest with American military authorities against the mass rape of German women by Red Army soldiers as well as against the plundering of German homes, factories, research centres, firms and offices by American and British troops.
In a joint interview with British officials, Galen told the international press that "just as I fought against Nazi injustices, I will fight any injustice, no matter where it comes from". He repeated these claims in a sermon on 1 July 1945, which was copied and illegally distributed throughout occupied Germany. The British authorities ordered him to renounce the sermon immediately, but the bishop refused. In the face of his resistance and broad popularity, they allowed him free speech without any censorship. In an interview with Swiss media, Galen demanded punishment for Nazi criminals but humane treatment for the millions of German prisoners of war who had not committed any crimes and who were being denied contact with their relatives by the British. He criticized the British dismissal of Germans from public service without investigation and trial. He forcefully condemned the expulsion of German civilians from former German provinces and territories in the east annexed by communist Poland
The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million nea ...
and the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
.
A paper from the British Foreign Office
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is a department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' ministries of foreign affairs, it was created on 2 September 2020 through the merger of the Foreign ...
called Galen ''"the most outstanding personality among the clergy in the British zone... Statuesque in appearance and uncompromising in discussion, this oak-bottomed old aristocrat... is a German nationalist through and through."''
When SS-General Kurt Meyer
Kurt Meyer (23 December 1910 – 23 December 1961) was an SS commander and convicted war criminal of Nazi Germany. He served in the Waffen-SS (the combat branch of the SS) and participated in the Battle of France, Operation Barbarossa, and ot ...
, accused of complicity in the shooting of eighteen Canadian prisoners of war, was sentenced to death, Galen pleaded for his life to be spared: "According to what has been reported to me, General Kurt Meyer was sentenced to death because his subordinates committed crimes he didn't arrange and of which he did not approve. As a proponent of Christian legal opinion, which states that you are only responsible for your own deeds, I support the plea for clemency for General Meyer and pledge for a pardon." On second review, a Canadian general, finding only "a mass of circumstantial evidence", commuted Meyer's death sentence to imprisonment. Meyer served nine years in British and Canadian military prisons.
College of Cardinals
Unexpectedly, at Christmas 1945 it became known that Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII ( it, Pio XII), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (; 2 March 18769 October 1958), was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death in October 1958. Before his e ...
would appoint three new German cardinals: Bishop Clemens August von Galen, Bishop Konrad von Preysing
Johann Konrad Maria Augustin Felix, Graf von Preysing Lichtenegg-Moos (30 August 1880 – 21 December 1950) was a German prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. Considered a significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism, he served as B ...
of Berlin, and Archbishop Josef Frings
Josef Richard Frings (6 February 1887 – 17 December 1978), was a German Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Cologne from 1942 to 1969. Considered a significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism, he was elevated to th ...
of Cologne. Despite numerous British obstacles and denial of air travel, Galen arrived in Rome 5 February 1946. Generous American cardinals financed his Roman stay, as German money was not in demand. He had become famous and popular, so after the pope had placed the red hat on his head with the words: 'God bless you, God bless Germany', Saint Peter's Basilica for minutes thundered in a "triumphant applause" for Galen.
While in Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
, he visited the German POW camps in Taranto
Taranto (, also ; ; nap, label= Tarantino, Tarde; Latin: Tarentum; Old Italian: ''Tarento''; Ancient Greek: Τάρᾱς) is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto, serving as an important com ...
and told the German Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
soldiers that he would take care of their release, and that the Pope himself was working on the release of POWs. He took a large number of comforting personal messages to their worried families.
After receiving the red hat, Galen went to see Madre Pascalina, the faithful servant of the Pope. He told her how the Pope had quoted long passages from Galen's 1941 sermons from memory and how the Pope thanked him for his courage. Galen told the Pope, "Yes, Holy Father, but many of my very best priests died in concentration camps, because they distributed my sermons." Pius replied that he was always aware that thousands of innocent persons would have been sent to certain death if he as pope had protested. They talked about the old days in Berlin, and Galen declared: "for nothing in the world would I want to have missed those two hours, not even for the red hat."
Death and beatification
Following his return from the wearisome travel to Vatican City
Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—'
* german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ')
* pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—'
* pt, Cidade do Vati ...
, the new cardinal was celebrated enthusiastically in his native Westphalia
Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants.
The territory of the regio ...
and in his destroyed city of Münster
Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state distr ...
, which still lay completely in ruins as a result of the air raids. He died a few days after his return from Rome in the St. Franziskus Hospital of Münster due to an appendix infection diagnosed too late. His last words were:[Gottfried Hasenkamp, ''Heimkehr und Heimgang des Kardinals'', a.a.O., S. 13] "Yes, Yes, as God wills it. May God reward you for it. May God protect the dear fatherland. Go on working for Him... oh, you dear Saviour!" He was buried in the family crypt of the Galen family in the destroyed Cathedral of Münster.
The cause for beatification
Beatification (from Latin ''beatus'', "blessed" and ''facere'', "to make”) is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their nam ...
was requested by his successor, Bishop Michael Keller of Münster and began under Pope Pius XII in 1956. It was concluded positively in November 2004 under Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
. Clemens August Graf von Galen was beatified on 9 October 2005 outside St. Peter's Basilica
The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican ( it, Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano), or simply Saint Peter's Basilica ( la, Basilica Sancti Petri), is a church built in the Renaissance style located in Vatican City, the papal en ...
by Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereign ...
, the 47th anniversary of the death of Pope Pius (1958).
Terminology note
* ''Graf
(feminine: ) is a historical title of the German nobility, usually translated as "count". Considered to be intermediate among noble ranks, the title is often treated as equivalent to the British title of "earl" (whose female version is "coun ...
'' is a German title rendered as Count
Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York: ...
in English, not a first or middle name. The use of ''von'' before the family name ''Galen'' is indicative of this status. The noble particle (or preposition) ''von'' is traditionally dropped in prose when using the family name without the given name or the title ''Graf''. – If ''Graf'' is recognized as a title of non-reigning nobility (and not as a mere part of the name as officially the case after 1919 in Germany), then it is surpassed by the title of Cardinal and thus not used together with it.
References
External links
Four Sermons of Bishop von Galen from 1941
"Bishop Von Galen describes the NAZI crimes against the law of God" declassified CIA report "copied January 27, 1942"
*
Rudolf Morsey: Online-Biografie of Clemens August von Galen on the web-portal Westfälische-Geschichte.de
Münsterski lav i Pio XII.
Documents published in Croatian Catholic weekly newspaper Glas Koncila
''Glas Koncila'' is a Croatian, Roman Catholic, weekly newspaper published in Zagreb and distributed throughout the country, as well as among Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatian diaspora.
Publishing history
The newspaper (whose title ...
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Galen, Clemens August Graf von
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Anti-Masonry
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Catholic saints and blesseds of the Nazi era
Counts of Germany
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