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Clemens August von Galen 1878-1946
Von Galen was a German graf,
which means count. He was Roman Catholic and became bishop of
Münster in
1933.
And here is Munster on a Google map. See
the red marker.
MAP LOCATION OF MUNSTER,
GERMANY
Google Map
Von Galen was one of the few
individuals who had the
guts to openly criticize the Nazi government. And he was
one of the even fewer who lived to tell the tale.
In 1941, von Galen launched a series of
sermons that grabbed the Nazis' attention — especially after the
allies got a transcript of the sermons, worked their copy machines
to death, and distributed them widely on enemy territory.
And here you can read the three speeches:
Speech One
July 13, 1941, at the St Lamberti
Church in Muenster
English version:
We Demand Justice
Original German version:
Wir Fordern Gerechtigkeit
In this sermon, von Galen made
noise against the arbitrary actions of the Gestapo, the Nazi
police. And he wasn't shy either. An excerpt:
How many Germans
are now languishing in police custody or in concentration
camps, how many have been driven from home, who have never
been sentenced by a regular court or how numerous are those
who have been freed by the court or released after serving
their sentence and have then been re-arrested and held in
confinement by the Gestapo! [...]
Since none of us
know of any means of achieving impartial control over the
actions and persecutions of the Gestapo, the restrictions
they impose on men's freedom, their banishment and arrest
and their imprisonment of German men and women in
concentration camps, there is by now among our people a
widespread feeling of defenselessness, even of cowardly
apprehension, which does grave harm to the national
community.
Speech Two
July 20, 1941, at the Liebfrauen
Church in Muenster
English version:
Become hard! Remain firm!
Original German version:
Hart werden! Fest bleiben!
In this sermon, von Galen encouraged
fellow Germans to use their only weapon — endurance. He also
kept his flock on their toes by mentioning a telegram he had sent to the Fuhrer's headquarters:
I ask the Führer and
Reichskanzler, in the interest of justice and the solidarity
of the home front, for the protection of the freedom and
property of these honorable German men and women against the
arbitrary actions of the Gestapo.
Speech Three
August 3, 1941, at the St Lamberti Church in Muenster
English version:
The murder of
unproductive persons
Original German version:
Der Mord an
unproduktiven Menschen
In this sermon, von Galen dragged the
Nazi T4 Program into light, the program to eliminate "unworthy"
Germans, also called Nazi euthanasia.
If the principle
that men is entitled to kill his unproductive fellow-man is
established and applied, then woe betide all of us when we
become aged and infirm! [...]
If unproductive
men and women can be disposed of by violent means, woe
betide our brave soldiers who return home with major
disabilities as cripples, as invalids! [...]
Then no man will
be safe. Some committee or other will be able to put him on
the list of "unproductive" persons, who in their judgment
have become "unworthy to live".
Because of his courage, Von Galen was
nicknamed The Lion of Münster,
or Der Löwe von Münster if you speak German.
The Nazis didn't kill him right on the
spot
because that would have possibly outraged and weakened the support
that
Hitler received from
Catholic citizens.
Von Galen was earmarked for a
post-war hanging, to be sure.
Go here for the entry of
Hitler's Euthanasia program in the Timeline of World War II.
Von Galen was made cardinal shortly before his death in 1946.
In 2005, von Galen was beatified. Too
little too late unless you're Catholic.
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