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"NONE OF US IS SAFE" — VON GALEN
1941
We Demand Justice
It follows the translation of the full text transcript of
Bishop von Galen's We Demand Justice
sermon, delivered at the St. Lamberti Church in Munster,
Germany — July 13, 1941.
Go here for
the original German
version of this sermon.
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My dear Catholics
of St. Lambert's: |
I have longed to
read personally from the pulpit of this church
today my pastoral letter on the events of the
past week and in particular to express to you,
my former parishioners, my deep-felt sympathy.
In some part of the city, the devastation and
loss have been particularly great. I hope that
by the action of the municipal and government
authorities responsible, and above all by your
brotherly love and the collections taken today
for the work of the Caritas Union and the Parish
Caritas, some of the hardship and suffering will
be relieved.
I had in mind also, however, to add
a brief word on the meaning of the divine
visitation: how God thus seeks us in order to
lead us home to Him. God wants to lead Münster
home to Him. How much at home were our
forefathers with God and in God’s Holy Church!
How thoroughly were their lives — their public
life, their family life, and even their
commercial life — supported by faith in God,
directed by the holy fear of God and by the love
of God! Has it always been like that in our own
day? God wants to lead Münster home to Him!
Concerning this I
had meant to put some further reflections before
you. But this I cannot do today, for I find
myself compelled to openly and in public speak
of something else — a shattering event which
came upon us yesterday, at the end of this week
of calamity.
The whole of
Münster is still suffering from the shock of the
horrible devastation inflicted on us by the
enemy from without during the past week. Then
yesterday, at the end of this week — yesterday,
July 12 — the Gestapo [German short for
Geheime Staatspolizei, in English: State Secret Police] confiscated the two residences of the
Society of Jesus in our city, Haus Sentmaring in
the Weseler Strasse and the Ignatius-Haus in
Königstrasse, expelled the occupants from their
property, and forced the fathers and lay brothers
to depart without delay on that very day, not
merely from their residences, not merely from
the city of Münster but from the provinces of
Westphalia and the Rhineland. Yesterday, too,
the same cruel fate was inflicted on the
missionary sisters of the Immaculate Conception
in Steinfurter Strasse, Wilkinghege. Even their
convent was seized and the nuns are being
expelled from Westphalia. They have to leave Münster by 6 o'clock this evening. The premises
and possessions of these religious orders are
confiscated and assigned to the authorities of
the gau [district] of
Northern Westphalia.
Thus the attack on
the religious orders which has long been raging
in Austria, South Germany, and the newly acquired
territories of the Warthegau, Luxembourg,
Lorraine, and other parts of the Reich, has now
stricken Westphalia. We must be prepared that in
the near future such terrifying news will
accumulate — that even here one religious house
after another will be confiscated by the Gestapo
and that its occupants, our brothers and
sisters, children of our families, loyal German
citizens, will be thrown on to the street like
outlawed helots and hunted out of the country,
like vermin.
And this is
happening at a time when we are in utmost fear
and terror of further nightly air-raids which
may kill us all or make us homeless refugees!
Even at such a time innocent and deserving men
and women, who are greatly esteemed by countless
people, are expelled from their humble
possessions; at such a time fellow Germans,
fellow-citizens of Münster, are made homeless
refugees.
Why? They tell me,
"for reasons of state policy." No other reasons
have been given. No occupant of these religious
houses has been accused of any offence or crime.
Not one has been brought before a court, still
less found guilty. If any one of them were
guilty, let him be brought to justice; but is
one also to punish the innocent?
I ask you, under
whose eyes the Jesuit fathers and the sisters of
the Immaculate Conception for many years have
been leading their quiet lives dedicated solely
to the glory of God and the salvation of their
fellow-men, I ask you: who holds these men and
women to be guilty of an offence meriting
punishment? Who dares to level any charge
against them? If any dare, let him prove his
assertion! Not even the Gestapo has made any
such charge, let alone a court or the public
prosecutor.
Here I testify
publicly, as the bishop who is responsible for
the supervision of the religious orders, that I
have the greatest respect for the quiet, humble
missionary sisters of Wilkinghege who are being
expelled today. They have been founded by my
esteemed friend Bishop P. Amandus Bahlmann,
mainly for missionary service in Brazil. There
he worked himself, and his untiring and fruitful
activities — not least in the name of German
culture and civilization — lasted until his
death three years ago.
I testify as a
German and a bishop that I have the greatest
respect and reverence for the Jesuit order,
which I have known from the closest observation
since my early youth for the last fifty years,
that I remain bound in love and gratitude until
my last breath to the Society of Jesus, my
teachers, tutors and friends, and that today I
have all the greater reverence for them, at a
moment when Christ's prophecy to his disciples
is once again fulfilled:
"If they have
persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If
ye were of the world, the world would love his
own: but because ye are not of the world, but I
have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you."
And so from this
place, speaking also in the name of the true
Catholics of the city and diocese of Münster, I
greet with profound love those who have been
chosen by Christ and are hated by the world as
they go into unmerited banishment. May God
reward them for all the good they have done for
us. May God not punish us and our city for the
unjust treatment and banishment which here has
been meted out to His faithful disciples. May
God's omnipotence soon return to us these our
beloved banished brothers an sisters.
My dear diocesans,
because of the heavy visitation brought on us by
enemy air-raids I originally resolved to keep
silent in public about certain recent acts of
the Gestapo which simply called for some public
protest on my part. But when the Gestapo pay no
heed to the events which have made hundreds of
our fellow-citizens homeless, when they at this
very moment continue to throw innocent
fellow-citizens on to the street and to expel
them from the country, then I must no longer
hesitate to give public expression to my
justified protest and my solemn warning.
Many times, and
again quite recently, we have seen the Gestapo
arresting blameless and highly respected German
men and women without the judgment of any court
or any opportunity for defense, depriving them
of their freedom, taking them away from their
homes interning them somewhere. In recent weeks
even two members of my closest council, the
chapter of our Cathedral, have been suddenly
seized from their homes by the Gestapo, removed
from Münster and banished to distant places.
Since then I have received no reply whatever to
the protests which I addressed to the Minister
for Ecclesiastical Affairs. But it has at any
rate been established by telephone enquiries to
the Gestapo that neither of the canons has been
accused, or is suspected, of any punishable
offence. Without any guilt on their part, they
have incurred the penalty of banishment, without
any charge against them and without any
opportunity to defend themselves.
My Christians,
hear what I say! It has been officially
confirmed that Canons Vorwerk and Echelmeyer are
accused of no crime. They have done nothing
meriting punishment. And yet they have been
punished with banishment.
And why? Because I
did something that did not please the
government. Of the four appointments of canons
made in the past two years the government
informed me that they objected to three. Since
the Prussian Concordat of 1929 expressly
excludes any right of objection by the
government, I confirmed the appointment in two
of the cases. In doing so I committed no wrong,
but merely exercised my established right, as I
can prove at any time. Let them bring me to
court if they think that I have acted contrary
to law. I am sure that no independent German
court could condemn me for my actions in the
appointment of these canons. Was it because of
this that the matter was handled not by a court
but by the Gestapo, whose actions in the German
Reich are unfortunately not subject to any
judicial review? Against the superior physical
power of the Gestapo every German citizen is
entirely without protection or defense. Entirely
without protection or defense!
In recent years
many Germans have experienced this in their own
person, like our beloved teacher of religion
Friedrichs, who is held prisoner without any
legal process or sentence, like the two canons
who are now living in banishment. And again it
is experienced by those religious orders who
yesterday and today have been suddenly expelled
from their property, their city and their
province.
None of us is safe, and may he know that he is the most loyal and
conscientious of citizens and may he be
conscious of his complete innocence, he cannot
be sure that he will not some day be deported
from his home, deprived of his freedom and
locked up in the cellars and concentration camps
of the Gestapo.
I am aware of the
fact that this can happen also to me, today or some
other day. And because then I shall not be able
to speak in public any longer, I will speak
publicly today. Publicly I will warn against the
continuance in a course which I am firmly
convinced will bring down God's judgment on men
and must lead to disaster and ruin for our
people and our country. When I protest against
these actions and these punishments by the
Gestapo, when I call publicly for an end to this
state of affairs and for the judicial review or
reversal of all actions by the Gestapo, I do no
more than Governor-General and Reichsminister
Dr. Hans Frank has done, writing in January of
this year in the Journal of the Academy of
German Law (2,1941, p.25):
We desire to
achieve a well-balanced system of internal order
in which penal law does not degenerate into the
absolute authority of the prosecution over an
accused person who is condemned in advance and
deprived of any means of defense. [...] The law
must offer the individual the legal opportunity
of defending himself, of establishing the facts
and thus securing himself against arbitrariness
and injustice. [...] Otherwise we had better speak
not of penal law but of penal authority. [...]
It
is impossible to reconcile the fabric of law
with a sentence pronounced without any defense.
[...] It is our task to proclaim, no less loudly
and with no less emphasis than others defend
authority in every form, that we have
courageously to assert the authority of the law
as an essential element in any enduring power.
These are the
words of Reichsminister Dr. Hans Frank. I am
conscious that as a bishop, a promulgator and
defender of the legal and moral order willed by
God and granting to each individual rights and
freedoms to which, by God's will, all human
claims must give way, I am called upon, no less
than Reichsminister Frank, courageously to
assert the authority of the law and to denounce
the condemnation of innocent men, who are
without any defense, as an injustice crying out
to heaven.
My Christians! The
imprisonment of many blameless persons without
any opportunity for defense or any judgment of a
court, the deprivation of the liberty of the two
canons, the closing of religious houses and the
eviction of guiltless religious, our brothers
and sisters, compel me today to publicly recall
an old and unshakeable truth, Justitia est
fundamentum regnorum — Justice is the only solid
foundation of any state.
The right to life,
to inviolability, to freedom is an indispensable
part of any moral order of society. It is true
that the state is entitled to restrict these
rights as a penal measure against its citizens,
but the state is only entitled to do so against
those who have broken the law and whose guilt
has been established in an impartial judicial
process. A state which transgresses this
boundary laid down by God and permits or causes
innocent persons to be punished is undermining
its own authority and the respect for its
sovereignty in the conscience of its citizens.
Unfortunately,
however, we have repeatedly seen in recent years
how penalties of greater or lesser severity,
usually involving terms of imprisonment, have
been imposed and carried out without the
victim's guilt having been proved in a regular
court of law and without giving him any
opportunity of asserting his right to prove his
innocence. 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! How many have been
expelled from their home town and the town where
they worked!
Here again I remind you of the
venerable bishop of Rottenburg, Johann Baptist
Sproll, an old man of 70, who not long ago had
to celebrate his 25th jubilee as a bishop far
away from his diocese, from which the Gestapo
had banned him three years ago.
I mention again
the names of our two canons, Vorwerk and
Echelmeyer. And I commemorate our venerable
teacher of religion Friedrichs, now in a
concentration camp.
I will forbear to
mention any other names today. The name of a
Protestant minister who served Germany in the
First World War as a German officer and
submarine commander, who later worked as a
Protestant clergyman in Münster and for some
years now has been deprived of his liberty, is
well known to you, and we all have the greatest
respect for this noble German's courage and
steadfastness in professing his faith.
From this example
you will see, my Christians, that I am not
talking about a matter of purely Catholic
concern but about a matter of Christian
concern, indeed of general human and national
concern.
"Justice is the foundation of all
states!"
We lament, we observe with the greatest
anxiety that this foundation is nowadays shaken,
that justice — the natural and Christian virtue
which is indispensable for the ordered existence
of any human community — is not maintained and
held in honor in a for everybody unequivocally
recognizable way. It is not only for the sake of
the Church's rights but also out of love for our
people and in grave concern for our country that
we beg, we appeal, we demand: Justice! Who must
not fear for the existence of a house when he
sees that its foundations are being undermined?
"Justice is the foundation of all states!"
The state can take
action with honesty and any prospect of enduring
success, against the misuse of power by those
whom chance has made stronger, against the
oppression of the weak and their debasement to
the mean employments of a slave, only if those
who hold the powers of the state submit in
reverence to the royal majesty of Justice and
wield the sword of punishment in the service of
Justice alone.
No holder of
authority can expect to command the loyalty and
willing service of honorable men unless his
actions and penal decisions prove in an
impartial judgment to be free from any element
of arbitrariness and weighed on the
incorruptible scales of Justice.
Accordingly, the
practice of condemning and punishing men who are
given no chance of defense and without any
judicial sentence — in Reichsminister Dr.
Frank's words, "the prosecution of an accused
person who is condemned in advance and deprived
of any means of defense" — engenders a feeling of
legal defenselessness and an attitude of
apprehensive timidity and subservient cowardice,
which must in the long run deprave the national
character and destroy the national community.
That is the
conviction and anxiety of all honest Germans. It
was given open and courageous expression by a
high legal officer in the National
Administration Paper in 1937:
The greater the
power of a public authority, the more necessary
is a guarantee of the impeccable use of that
power; for the more deeply felt are the mistakes
that are made, and the greater is the danger of
arbitrariness and abuse of power.
If there is no
possibility of redress by an administrative
tribunal there must be in each case some regular
means of providing a form of control which is as
impartial as possible, so as to leave no room
for the feeling of legal defenselessness, which
in the course of time must gravely jeopardize
the national community.
(Herbert Schelcher,
President of the Supreme Administrative Court of
Saxony, Dresden: Reichsverwaltungsblatt [National
Administration Paper], 1937, p. 572)
The orders and
penal decisions of the Gestapo are not open to
redress by any administrative tribunal. 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.
The duty imposed on me by my Episcopal office to
speak up for the moral order, by the oath which
I swore before God and the representative of the
government to "ward off," to the best of my
ability, "any harm which might threaten the
German people," this duty compels me, in the
face of the Gestapo's actions, to state this
fact and pronounce this public warning.
My Christians! It
will perhaps be held against me that by this
frank statement I am weakening the home front of
the German people during this war.
I, on the
contrary, say this: It is not I who am
responsible for a possible weakening of the home
front, but those who regardless of the war,
regardless of this fearful week of terrible
air-raids, impose heavy punishments on innocent
people without the judgment of a court or any
possibility of defense, who evict our religious
orders, our brothers and sisters, from their
property, throw them on to the street, drive
them out of their own country. They destroy
men's security under the law, they undermine
trust in law, they destroy men's confidence in
our government. And therefore I raise my voice
in the name of the upright German people, in the
name of the majesty of Justice, in the interests
of peace and the solidarity of the home front.
Therefore as a German, an honorable citizen, a
representative of the Christian religion, a
Catholic bishop, I exclaim: we demand justice!
If this call remains unheard and unanswered, if
the reign of Justice is not restored, then our
German people and our country — in spite of the
heroism of our soldiers and the glorious
victories they have won — will perish through an
inner rottenness and decay.
Let us pray for
all who are in trouble, particularly for our
banished religious orders, for our city of
Münster, that God may preserve us from further
trials; for our German people and fatherland and
for its leader.
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