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"THE ANVIL USUALLY LASTS LONGER THAN
THE HAMMER" — VON GALEN
Become Hard! Remain Firm!
It follows the translation of the full text transcript of
Bishop von Galen's Become Hard! Remain Firm!
sermon, delivered at the Liebfrauen Church in Munster,
Germany — July 20, 1941.
Go here for
the original German
version of this sermon.
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Today the
collection which I ordered for the inhabitants |
of the city of
Münster is held in all the parishes in the
diocese of Münster which have not themselves
suffered war damage. I hope that through the
efforts of the state and municipal authorities
responsible and the brotherly help of the
Catholics of this diocese, whose contributions
will be administered and distributed by the
offices of the Caritas, much need will be
alleviated.
Thanks be to God,
for several days our city has not suffered any
new enemy attacks from without. But I am
distressed to have to inform you that the
attacks by our opponents within the country, of
the beginning of which I spoke last Sunday in
St. Lambert's, that these attacks have
continued, regardless of our protests,
regardless of the anguish this causes to the
victims of the attacks and those connected with
them.
Last Sunday I
lamented, and branded as an injustice crying out
to heaven, the action of the Gestapo in closing
the convent in Wilkinghege and the Jesuit
residences in Münster, confiscating their
property and possessions, putting the occupants
into the street and expelling them from their
home area. The convent of Our Lady of Lourdes in
Frauenstrasse was also seized by the gau
[district]authorities. I did not then know that
on the same day, Sunday, July 13, the Gestapo
had occupied the Kamilluskolleg in Sudmühle and
the Benedictine abbey of Gerleve near Coesfeld
and expelled the fathers and lay brothers. They
were forced to leave Westphalia that very day.
On July 15, the
Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in
Vinnenberg, near Warendorf, were expelled from
their convent and from the province. On July 17,
the Sisters of the Cross were driven out of
their convent, Haus Aspel in Rees, and forced to
leave the district of Rees. Had not Christian
love shown compassion for all these homeless
ones, these men and women would have been
exposed to hunger and the rigors of the weather.
Then, a few hours
ago, I learned the sad news that yesterday, July
19, at the end of this second terrible week in
our region of Münster, the Gestapo occupied,
confiscated, and expropriated the administrative
center of the German province of the Holy Heart
of Jesus, the great missionary house at Hiltrup,
which is well known to you all. The fathers and
lay brothers still living there were given until
8 o'clock yesterday evening to leave their
residence and their possessions. They too are
expelled from Westphalia and the province of
Rhineland.
The fathers and
lay brothers still living there, I do emphasize
these words, for, as I happened to learn
recently, 161 men from the ranks of the Hiltrup
missionaries are serving as German soldiers in
the field, some of them directly in face of the
enemy; 53 fathers are caring for the wounded as
medical orderlies, and 42 theologians and 66 lay
brothers are serving their country as soldiers,
some having been decorated with the Iron Cross
and other distinctions. The same can be said of
the Kamillus fathers of Sudmühle, the Jesuits of
Sentmaring and the Benedictines of Gerleve.
While these German men are fighting for their
country in accordance with their duty and in
loyal comradeship with other German brothers at
the risk of their lives, they are being
deprived, ruthlessly and without any basis in
law, of their home, their parent monastery is
being destroyed. When, as we hope, they return
victorious they will find their monastic family
driven from house and home, and their home
occupied by strangers, by enemies!
How is this going
to end? It is not a question of providing
temporary accommodation for homeless inhabitants
of Münster. The religious orders were very ready
to reduce their own accommodation requirements
to the minimum in order to take in and care
immediately for those made homeless. No, that
was not the reason. I have heard that the
convent of the Immaculate Conception in
Wilkinghege is occupied by the gau film
unit. I am told that a maternity home for
unmarried mothers is installed in the
Benedictine abbey. I have not yet learned what
is happening to Sentmaring, Sudmühle, and
Vinnenberg. And no newspaper has so far carried
any account of the safe victories won by the
Gestapo in recent days over defenseless men and
unprotected women, of the conquests made at home
by the gau authorities of the property of
fellow Germans.
On Monday, July
14, I called on the President of the Regional
Council and asked for protection for the freedom
and property of innocent German citizens. He
told me that the Gestapo was a completely
independent authority with whose actions he
could not interfere. He promised, however, that
he would at once convey my complaints and my
requests to the Senior President and Gauleiter,
Dr. Meyer. To no avail.
On the same day, I
sent a telegram to the Führer's Chancellery of
the Reich in Berlin, in the following terms:
After a series
of terrible nightly air attacks form July 6
onwards, in which the enemy has sought to
destroy the city of Münster, the Gestapo
began on July 12 to seize religious houses
in the city and surrounding area and to make
them over, along with their contents, to the
gau authorities.
The occupants,
innocent men and women, honorable members of
German families, whose relatives are
fighting for Germany as soldiers, are robbed
of their homes and possessions, thrown into
the street, driven out of the province.
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.
I addressed
similar requests by telegram to the Governor of
Prussia, Marshal Göring, the Minister of the
Interior, the Minister for Ecclesiastical
Affairs, and the Supreme Command of the
Wehrmacht. I hoped that, if not considerations
of justice, at any rate a recognition of the
consequences for the solidarity of the home
front in wartime would move these authorities to
put a stop to the action taken by the Gestapo
against our brothers and sisters, and that
innocent German women would not be refused
chivalrous protection.
It was a vain
hope. The action continued, and the situation
which I had long foreseen and of which I spoke
last Sunday has now come to pass — we are faced
with the ruins of the inner national community
of our people, which in the last few days has
been ruthlessly shattered.
I urgently pointed
out to the President of the Regional Council,
the ministers and the Supreme Command of the
Wehrmacht, that these acts of violence against
blameless German men and this brutal treatment
of defenseless German women, which make a
mockery of all chivalry and can arise only from
deep-seated hatred of the Christian religion and
the Catholic Church, that these machinations are
sabotaging and destroying the national community
of our people. For how can there be any feeling
of community with the men who are driving our
religious, our brothers and sisters, as easy
victims out of the country, without any basis in
law, without any investigations, without any
possibility of defense and without any judgment
by a court?
No, with them and with all those
responsible for these actions I cannot possibly
have any community of thought or feeling. I
shall not hate them; I wish from my heart that
they may gain a new insight and mend their ways.
In this spirit I also at once said a prayer for
the soul of Ministerialdirigent [Assitant
Secretary] Roth, who died suddenly on July 5.
He was a Catholic priest, originally in the
archdiocese of Munich, who worked for years,
without the permission and against the will of
the bishop, as an official in the Ministry of
Ecclesiastical Affairs, composing and signing
many documents which encroached on the Church's
rights and injured the Church's dignity. And now
he has been drowned during a boat trip on the
river Inn. May God have mercy upon his poor
soul!
Thus, in accordance with our
Savior's
command, we will pray for all who persecute us
and slander us. But as long as they do not
change, as long as they continue to rob and
banish and imprison innocent people, so long do
I refuse any community with them.
No, the
community of convictions and aspirations in our
people has been irreparably destroyed, against
our will and regardless of our warnings. I
cannot believe that our long-established
citizenry and farmers, craftsmen, and workers,
that our women, that our fathers and brothers
and sons, who even now are risking their lives
for Germany at the front, can have any community
of convictions with those who have persecuted
and turned out our religious orders.
We shall
obey them in so far as they are entitled to give
us orders as representatives of the lawful
authorities. But it must be impossible for us to
have a community of convictions, a sense of
inner solidarity, with these persecutors of the
Church, these invaders of religious houses, who
expel defenseless women from their convents, the
children of our best families, our sisters, many
of whom have lived there for decades in work and
prayer, doing nothing but good for our people. I
should feel ashamed before God and before you, I
should feel ashamed before our noble German
forefathers, before my own late father, who was
a chivalrous man and brought up, admonished and
taught my brothers and me sternly to show the
most delicate respect to every woman or girl, to
afford chivalrous protection to all the unjustly
oppressed, particularly to women as the images
of our own mothers, and of the beloved Mother of
God herself in heaven, if I had any community
with those who drive innocent and defenseless
women out of house and home and drive them out
of their country without shelter and without
resources!
Moreover, as I showed last Sunday in
St Lambert's church and as I must repeat today
with great solemnity, in a warning inspired by
love for my people and my country, that these
punitive actions by the Gestapo against innocent
people, without any judgment by a court or
judicial proceedings or opportunity for defense
— the "prosecution of accused persons who are
condemned in advance and deprived of any means
of defense", in Reichsminister Dr Frank's words
— destroy men's security under the law,
undermine faith in law and destroy confidence in
the government of our country.
We Christians, of
course, are not aiming at revolution. We shall
continue loyally to do our duty in obedience to
God and in love of our people and fatherland.
Our soldiers will fight and die for Germany, but
not for those men who by their cruel actions
against our religious, against their brothers
and sisters, wound our hearts and shame the
German name before God and men. We shall
continue to fight against the external enemy;
but against the enemy within, who strikes us and
torments us, we cannot fight with arms. Against
him we have only one weapon: endurance - strong,
tough, hard endurance.
Become hard! Remain firm!
We see and experience clearly what lies behind
the new doctrines which have for years been
forced on us, for the sake of which religion has
been banned from the schools, our organizations
have been suppressed and now Catholic
kindergartens are about to be abolished. There
is a deep-seated hatred of Christianity, which
they are determined to destroy. If I am
correctly informed, the Schulungsleiter [head of indoctrination], Herr Schmidt, before an
audience which had been invited by force and
which included schoolboys and schoolgirls,
expressed this quite frankly. And district leader Mieling applauded him enthusiastically,
expressing his intention to exert himself for
the execution of such plans.
Become hard! Remain
firm!
At this moment we are the anvil rather
than the hammer. Other men, mostly strangers and
renegades, are hammering us, seeking by violent
means to bend our nation, ourselves and our
young people aside from their straight
relationship with God. We are the anvil and not
the hammer. But ask the blacksmith and hear what
he says: the object which is forged on the anvil
receives its form not alone from the hammer but
also from the anvil.
The anvil cannot and need
not strike back. It must only be firm, only
hard! If it is sufficiently tough and firm and
hard the anvil usually lasts longer than the
hammer. However hard the hammer strikes, the
anvil stands quietly and firmly in place and
will long continue to shape the objects forged
upon it. The anvil represents those who are
unjustly imprisoned, those who are driven out
and banished for no fault of their own. God will
support them, that they may not lose the form
and attitude of Christian firmness, when the
hammer of persecution strikes its harsh blows
and inflicts unmerited wounds on them.
It is our
religious, the fathers, lay brothers, and the
sisters, who are now forged on the anvil. The
day before yesterday, I was able to visit some of
those who had been driven out in their temporary
accommodation and to speak with them. I was
greatly edified and encouraged by the valiant
bearing of the good men and the weak and
defenseless women, who had been so ruthlessly
torn from their convent, from the chapel, from
the vicinity of the tabernacle, and who are now
going into unjust banishment with their heads
held high, in the consciousness of their
innocence, trusting in Him who feeds the birds
of the air and clothes the lilies of the field
and even joyous in the joy which the Savior
enjoins on His disciples:
Blessed are ye, when
men shall revile you, and persecute you, for my
sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great
is your reward in heaven.
Verily, these men and
women are masterpieces of God's forging.
What is
being forged in these days between the hammer
and the anvil are our young people — the new
generation, which is still unformed, still
capable of being shaped, still malleable. We
cannot shield them from the hammer blows of
unbelief, of hostility to Christianity, of false
doctrines and ethics. What is instilled into
them at the meetings of those youth
organizations, which we are told they joined
voluntarily and with the agreement of their
parents? What do they hear in the schools which
the children are compelled to attend without
regard to the wishes of their parents? What do
they read in the new schoolbooks?
Christian
parents, ask your children to show you these
books, particularly the history books used in
the secondary schools. You will be appalled to
see how these books, in complete disregard of
historical truth, seek to fill inexperienced
children with mistrust of Christianity and the
Church, indeed with hatred of the Christian
faith. In the favored state educational
establishments, the Hitler schools, the new
teachers' training schools, all Christian
influence and even all religious activity are
excluded as a matter of principle. And what is
happening to the children who were sent last
spring to remote parts of the country to escape
the air raids? What religious instruction are
they getting? How far can they practice their
religion? Christian parents, you must concern
yourselves with all this. If you do not, you are
neglecting your sacred duties. If you do not,
you cannot face your own conscience, nor Him who
entrusted the children to you that you might
lead them on the way to heaven.
We are the
anvil, not the hammer. Unfortunately you cannot
shield your children, the noble but still untempered crude metal, from the
hammer blows of
hostility to the faith and hostility to the
Church. But the anvil also plays a part in
forging. Let your family home, your parental
love and devotion, your exemplary Christian life
be the strong, tough, firm, and unbreakable anvil
which absorbs the force of the hostile blows,
which continually strengthens and fortifies the
still weak powers of the young in the sacred
resolve not to let themselves be diverted from
the direction that leads to God.
It is we,
almost without exception, who are forged in this
present time. How many people are dependent — on
an occupational pension, on a state pension, on
children's allowances and so on. Who nowadays is
still independent, unrestricted master in his
own property or business? It may be that,
particularly in time of war, strict control and
guidance, even the concentration and compulsory
direction of products, of production and
consumption, is necessary, and who will not
readily bear this out of love for his people and
his country? But through this follows dependence
on many persons and authorities, who not only
restrict freedom of action but also bring free
independence of sentiments and convictions into
grave danger and temptation, as soon as, at the
same time, these persons and authorities
represent an ideology hostile to Christianity,
which they seek to impose on those who are
dependent on them. Dependence of this kind is
most evident in officials; and what courage,
what heroic courage is required of those
officials who in spite of all pressure maintain
and publicly confess their faith as Christians,
as true Catholics.
At this present time we are
the anvil, not the hammer. Remain steadfast and
firm like the anvil receiving all the blows that
rain down on us, in loyal service to our people
and country, but also ready at any time to act,
in the spirit of supreme sacrifice, in
accordance with the precept: "Men must obey God
more than men." Through a conscience formed by
faith God speaks to each one of us. Obey always
without any doubt the voice of conscience.
Take
as your model the old Prussian minister of
justice, I have spoken of him before, who was
ordered by King Frederick the Great to overturn
and alter in accordance with the monarch's
wishes a judgment which he had pronounced in
accordance with the law. Then this true
nobleman, a certain Herr von Münchhausen, gave
his king this magnificent answer: "My head is at
your majesty's disposal, but not my conscience."
Thus he wanted to say: I am ready to die for my
king; indeed I am obedient to him and shall even
accept death at the hands of the hangman. My
life belongs to the king, not my conscience,
that belongs to God!
Is the race of such
noblemen, who have this attitude and act in
accordance with it, are Prussian officials of
this stamp now extinct? Are there no longer any
citizens or country people, craftsmen or workers
of similar mind? Of similar conscientiousness
and nobility of mind? That I cannot and will not
believe. And so I say once again: become hard,
remain firm, remain steadfast! Like the anvil
under the blows of the hammer. It may be that
obedience to our God and faithfulness to our
conscience may cost me or any of you life,
freedom, or home. But: "Better to die than to
sin!" May the grace of God, without which we can
do nothing, grant this unshakeable firmness to
you and to me and keep us in it.
My dear
Catholics of Münster, after a bomb had crashed
through the aisle of the Cathedral during the
night of July 7-8, another bomb hit the
outer wall and destroyed St Ludger's Fountain,
the monument to the return from banishment of
Bishop Johann Bernhard in 1884. The statues of
Bishops Suitger and Erpho flanking the monument
were badly damaged, but the figure of St. Ludger,
apostle of the Münster region and first Bishop
of Münster, remained almost unscathed. The
undamaged right hand is raised in blessing and
pointing to heaven, as if to convey to us
through the almost miraculous preservation of
the statue this admonition: Whatever may befall,
hold firm to the Catholic faith that was
revealed by God and handed down by our
forefathers.
In all the destruction of the works
of man, in all trouble and sorrow I address to
you the words which the first Pope addressed to
the oppressed Christians of his day:
Humble
yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of
God, that He may exalt you in due time: Casting
all your care upon Him; for He careth for you.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary,
the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about
[...] whom resist steadfast in the faith
[...] the
God of all grace, who hath called us unto His
eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye
have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To Him be
glory and dominion for ever and ever.
(1 Peter
5,6-11)
Let us pray for the banished religious
orders, for all who must suffer unjustly, for
all in trouble, for our soldiers, for Münster
and its inhabitants, for our people and country
and for its leader.
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