Sermon Against Euthanasia, by Blessed Clemens, 3 August 1941
Sermon Delivered by Bishop Clemens August Count of Galen on August 3, 1941
The Third Sermon, preached in the Church of St. Lambert's on August 3rd, 1941,in which
the Bishop attacks the Nazi practice of euthanasia and condemns the ‘mercy killings’
taking place in his own diocese. Note: Some words were printed in boldface by this website.
My Beloved Brethren,
In today's Gospel we read of an unusual event: Our Saviour weeps. Yes, the Son of God sheds tears. Whoever weeps must be either in physical or mental anguish. At that time Jesus was not yet in bodily pain and yet here were tears. What depth of torment He must have felt in His heart and Soul, if He, the bravest of men, was reduced to tears. Why is He weeping? He is lamenting over Jerusalem, the holy city He loved so tenderly, the capital of His race. He is weeping over her inhabitants, over His own compatriots because they cannot foresee the judgment that is to overtake them, the punishment which His divine prescience and justice have pronounced. ‘Ah, if thou too couldst understand, above all in this day that is granted thee, the ways that can bring thee peace!’ Why did the people of Jerusalem not know it? Jesus had given them the reason a short time before. ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . how often have I been ready to gather thy children together, as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings; and thou didst refuse it! I your God and your King wished it, but you would have none of Me. . . .’ This is the reason for the tears of Jesus, for the tears of God. . . . Tears for the misrule, the injustice and man's willful refusal of Him and the resulting evils, which, in His divine omniscience, He foresees and which in His justice He must decree. . . . It is a fearful thing when man sets his will against the will of God, and it is because of this that Our Lord is lamenting over Jerusalem.
My faithful brethren! In the pastoral letter drawn up by the German Hierarchy on the 26th of June at Fulda and appointed to be read in all the churches of Germany on July 6th, it is expressly stated: ‘According to Catholic doctrine, there are doubtless commandments which are not binding when obedience to them requires too great a sacrifice, but there are sacred obligations of conscience from which no one can release us and which we must fulfil even at the price of death itself. At no time, and under no circumstances whatsoever, may a man, except in war and in lawful defence, take the life of an innocent person.’
When this pastoral was read on July 6th I took the opportunity of adding this exposition:
For the past several months it has been reported that, on instructions from Berlin, patients who have been suffering for a long time from apparently incurable diseases have been forcibly removed from homes and clinics. Their relatives are later informed that the patient has died, that the body has been cremated and that the ashes may be claimed. There is little doubt that these numerous cases of unexpected death in the case of the insane are not natural, but often deliberately caused, and result from the belief that it is lawful to take away life which is unworthy of being lived.
This ghastly doctrine tries to justify the murder of blameless men and would seek to give legal sanction to the forcible killing of invalids, cripples, the incurable and the incapacitated. I have discovered that the practice here in Westphalia is to compile lists of such patients who are to be removed elsewhere as ‘unproductive citizens,’ and after a period of time put to death. This very week, the first group of these patients has been sent from the clinic of Marienthal, near Münster.
Paragraph 21 of the Code of Penal Law is still valid. It states that anyone who deliberately kills a man by a premeditated act will be executed as a murderer. It is in order to protect the murderers of these poor invalids—members of our own families—against this legal punishment, that the patients who are to be killed are transferred from their domicile to some distant institution. Some sort of disease is then given as the cause of death, but as cremation immediately follows it is impossible for either their families or the regular police to ascertain whether death was from natural causes.
I am assured that at the Ministry of the Interior and at the Ministry of Health, no attempt is made to hide the fact that a great number of the insane have already been deliberately killed and that many more will follow.
Article 139 of the Penal Code expressly lays down that anyone who knows from a reliable source of any plot against the life of a man and who does not inform the proper authorities or the intended victim, will be punished. . . .
When I was informed of the intention to remove patients from Marienthal for the purpose of putting them to death I addressed the following registered letter on July 29th to the Public Prosecutor, the Tribunal of Münster, as well as to the Head of the Münster Police:
‘I have been informed this week that a considerable number of patients from the provincial clinic of Marienthal are to be transferred as citizens alleged to be "unproductive" to the institution of Richenberg, there to be executed immediately; and that according to general opinion, this has already been carried out in the case of other patients who have been removed in like manner. Since this sort of procedure is not only contrary to moral law, both divine and natural, but is also punishable by death, according to Article 211 of the Penal Code, it is my bounden obligation in accordance with Article 139 of the same Code to inform the authorities thereof. Therefore I demand at once protection for my fellow countrymen who are threatened in this way, and from those who purpose to transfer and kill them, and I further demand to be informed of your decision.’
I have received no news up till now of any steps taken by these authorities. On July 26th I had already written and dispatched a strongly worded protest to the Provincial Administration of Westphalia which is responsible for the clinics to which these patients have been entrusted for care and treatment. My efforts were of no avail. The first batch of innocent folk have left Marienthal under sentence of death, and I am informed that no less than eight hundred cases from the institution of Waestein have now gone. And so we must await the news that these wretched defenceless patients will sooner or later lose their lives. Why? Not because they have committed crimes worthy of death, not because they have attacked guardians or nurses as to cause the latter to defend themselves with violence which would be both legitimate and even in certain cases necessary, like killing an armed enemy soldier in a righteous war.
No, these are not the reasons why these unfortunate patients are to be put to death. It is simply because that according to some doctor, or because of the decision of some committee, they have no longer a right to live because they are ‘unproductive citizens’. The opinion is that since they can no longer make money, they are obsolete machines, comparable with some old cow that can no longer give milk or some horse that has gone lame. What is the lot of unproductive machines and cattle? They are destroyed. I have no intention of stretching this comparison further. The case here is not one of machines or cattle which exist to serve men and furnish them with plenty. They may be legitimately done away with when they can no longer fulfil their function. Here we are dealing with human beings, with our neighbours, brothers and sisters, the poor and invalids . . . unproductive—perhaps! But have they, therefore, lost the right to live? Have you or I the right to exist only because we are ‘productive’? If the principle is established that unproductive human beings may be killed, then God help all those invalids who, in order to produce wealth, have given their all and sacrificed their strength of body. If all unproductive people may thus be violently eliminated, then woe betide our brave soldiers who return home, wounded, maimed or sick.
Once admit the right to kill unproductive persons . . . then none of us can be sure of his life. We shall be at the mercy of any committee that can put a man on the list of unproductives. There will be no police protection, no court to avenge the murder and inflict punishment upon the murderer. Who can have confidence in any doctor? He has but to certify his patients as unproductive and he receives the command to kill. If this dreadful doctrine is permitted and practised it is impossible to conjure up the degradation to which it will lead. Suspicion and distrust will be sown within the family itself.A curse on men and on the German people if we break the holy commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ which was given us by God on Mount Sinai with thunder and lightning, and which God our Maker imprinted on the human conscience from the beginning of time! Woe to us German people if we not only licence this heinous offence but allow it to be committed with impunity!
I will now give you a concrete example of what is taking place here. A fifty-five-year-old peasant from a country parish near Münster—I could give you his name—has been cared for in the clinic of Marienthal for some years suffering from some mental derangement. He was not hopelessly mad, in fact he could receive visitors and was always pleased to see his family. About a fortnight ago he had a visit from his wife and a soldier son who was home on leave from the front. The latter was devoted to his sick father. Their parting was sad, for they might not see each other again as the lad might fall in battle. As it happens this son will never set eyes on his father again because he is on the list of the ‘unproductives’. A member of the family who was sent to see the father at Marienthal was refused admission and was informed that the patient had been taken away on the orders of the Council of Ministers of National Defence. His whereabouts was unknown. The family would receive official notification in due course. What will this notice contain? Will it be like all the others, namely that the man is dead and that the ashes of his body will be sent on the receipt of so much money to defray expenses? And so the son who is now risking his life at the front for his German compatriots will never again see his father. These are the true facts and the names of all those concerned are available.
‘Thou shalt not kill.’ God engraved this commandment on the souls of men long before any penal code laid down punishment for murder, long before any court prosecuted and avenged homicide. Cain, who killed his brother Abel, was a murderer long before courts or states came into existence, and plagued by his conscience he confessed, ‘Guilt like mine is too great to find forgiveness . . . and I shall wander over the earth, a fugitive; anyone I meet will slay me.’
Because of His love for us God has engraved these commandments in our hearts and has made them manifest to us. They express the need of our nature created by God. They are the unchangeable and fundamental truths of our social life grounded on reason, well pleasing to God, healthful and sacred. God, Our Father, wishes by these precepts to gather us, His children, about Him as a hen shelters her brood under her wings. If we are obedient to His commands, then we are protected and preserved against the destruction with which we are menaced, just as the chicks beneath the wings of the mother. ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . how often have I been ready to gather thy children together, as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings; and thou didst refuse it!’
Does history again repeat itself here in Germany, in our land of Westphalia, in our city of Münster? Where in Germany and where, here, is obedience to the precepts of God? The eighth commandment requires ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour’. How often do we see this commandment publicly and shamelessly broken? In the seventh commandment we read, ‘Thou shalt not steal’. But who can say that property is safe when our brethren, monks and nuns, are forcibly and violently despoiled of their convents, and who now protects property if it is illegally sequestered and not given back?
The sixth commandment tells us, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’. Consider the instructions and assurances laid down on the question of free love and child-bearing outside the marital law in the notorious open letter of Rudolf Hess, who has since vanished, which appeared in the Press. In this respect look at the immorality and indecency everywhere in Münster today. Our young people have little respect for the propriety of dress today. Thus is modesty, the custodian of purity, destroyed, and the way for adultery lies open.
How do we observe the fourth commandment which enjoins obedience and respect to parents and superiors? Parental authority is at a low ebb and is constantly being enfeebled by the demands made upon youth against the wishes of the parents. How can real respect and conscientious obedience to the authority of the State be maintained, to say nothing of the Divine commandments, if one is fighting against the one and only true God and His Faith?
The first three commandments have long counted for nothing in the public life of Germany and here also in Münster . . .. The Sabbath is desecrated; Holy Days of Obligation are secularized and no longer observed in the service of God. His name is made fun of, dishonoured and all too frequently blasphemed. As for the first commandment, ‘Thou shalt not have strange gods before me’, instead of the One, True, Eternal God, men have created at the dictates of their whim, their own gods to adore Nature, the State, the Nation or the Race. In the words of St. Paul, for many their god is their belly, their ease, to which all is sacrificed down to conscience and honour for the gratification of the carnal senses, for wealth and ambition. Then we are not surprised that they should claim divine privileges and seek to make themselves overlords of life and death.
‘And as He drew near, and caught sight of the city, He wept over it, and said: "Ah, if thou too couldst understand, above all in this day that is granted thee, the ways that can bring thee peace! As it is, they are hidden from thy sight. The days will come upon thee when thy enemies will fence thee round about, and encircle thee, and press thee hard on every side, and bring down in ruin both thee and thy children that are in thee, not leaving one stone of thee upon another; and all because thou didst not recognize the time of My visiting thee."’
Jesus saw only the walls and towers of the city of Jerusalem with His human eye, but with His divine prescience He saw far beyond and into the inmost heart of the city and its inhabitants. He saw its wicked obstinacy, terrible, sinful and cruel. Man, a transitory creature, was opposing his mean will to the Will of God. That is the reason why Jesus wept for this fearful sin and its inevitable punishment. God is not mocked.
Christians of Münster! Did the Son of God in His omniscience see only Jerusalem and its people? Did He weep only on their behalf? Is God the protector and Father of the Jews only? Is Israel alone in rejecting His divine truth? Are they the only people to throw off the laws of God and plunge headlong to ruin? Did not Jesus, Who sees everything, behold also our German people, our land of Westphalia and the Lower Rhine, and our city of Münster? Has He not also wept for us? For a thousand years He has instructed us and our forbears in the Faith. He has led us by His law. He has nourished us with His grace and has gathered us to Him as the hen does her brood beneath its wings. Has the all-knowing Son of God seen that in our own time He would have to pronounce on us that same dread sentence? ‘Not leaving one stone of thee upon another; and all because thou didst not recognize the time of My visiting thee.’ That would indeed be a terrible sentence.
My dearly Beloved, I trust that it is not too late. It is time that we realized today what alone can bring us peace, what alone can save us and avert the divine wrath. We must openly, and without reserve, admit our Catholicism. We must show by our actions that we will live our lives by obeying God's commandments. Our motto must be: Death rather than sin. By pious prayer and penance we can bring down upon us all, our city and our beloved German land, His grace and forgiveness.
But those who persist in inciting the anger of God, who revile our Faith, who hate His commandments, who associate with those who alienate our young men from their religion, who rob and drive out our monks and nuns, who condemn to death our innocent brothers and sisters, our fellow human beings, we shun absolutely so as to remain undefiled by their blasphemous way of life, which would lay us open to that just punishment which God must and will inflict upon all those who, like the thankless Jerusalem, oppose their wishes to those of God.
O my God, grant to us all now on this very day, before it is too late, a true realization of the things that are for peace. O Sacred Heart of Jesus, oppressed even unto tears by the blindness and sins of men, help us by Thy grace to seek always what is pleasing to Thee and reject what is displeasing, so that we may dwell in Thy Love and find rest in our souls. Amen.
Source: The above is from the book, Cardinal von Galen, by Rev. Heinrich Portmann, translated by R.L. Sedgwick, 1957, pp. 239-246.
Other Links:
Sermon of Bishop Clemens von Galen (July 13, 1941) against the Gestapo.
Clemens von Galen Approved by Pope John Paul II for Beatification (2004).
Return to the Euthanasia Home Page.

Sermon Against the Gestapo, by Blessed Clemens, 13 July 1941
SERMON DELIVERED BY BISHOP CLEMENS AUGUST COUNT OF GALEN ON JULY 13, 1941
AT THE CHURCH OF ST. LAMBERT, MUENSTER
My dear Catholics of St. Lambert:
Today I had intended to speak my personal episcopal message from the pulpit of the town and market church concerning the events of the past week, and especially to express my very deep sympathy to my former congregation. The devastation and losses have been particularly great in certain parts of the parish of St. Lambert's, though also in other parts of the town. I hope that some of the distress will be alleviated by the efforts of the municipal and state authorities and also by your brotherly love and the results of today's collections for the Charitable Fund and the Parish charity.
I had made up my mind to speak a few words about the purpose of these visitations, how God tries by this means to call us back to Himself. God wants to call Munster to him. How truly our forefathers were at home with God and in God's holy Church! How entirely their lives were borne up by faith in God, led by the fear and the love of God, public life as well as family and society life! Has it been thus in our own days? God wants to fetch Munster home to Himself!
I had meant to speak to you on these lines today but I must leave that aside now, for I find it necessary to speak here publicly for another matter, a terrible occurrence which overtook us yesterday at the end of this week of horror.
The whole of Munster is still beneath the shadow of the terrible devastation which the outside enemy and opponent in war has caused us during the past week, and yesterday, on July 12, 1941, the secret Police took possession of the two settlements of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuit Order in our town, Haus Sentmaring on the Weselerstrasse, and the Ignatiushaus in the Konigstrasse, drove the inmates out of their property, forced the priests and brothers immediately on the same day to leave not only our town, but also the provinces of Westphalia and Rhineland. And the same hard fate was yesterday imposed also on the Sisters in the Steinfurtherstrasse. Their house too was confiscated and they must leave Westphalia and Munster by 6 this evening. The houses and properties of the Order with inventory were taken over for the "Gauleitung" of Northern Westphalia.
So now the storming of the monasteries, which has already raged long in the Ostmark, in South Germany, in the newly acquired territories, in the Warthegau, in Luxemburg, in Lorraine and in other parts of the country, has broken out here in Westphalia. We must expect such alarming items of news to pile up in the next few days, when one monastery after another is confiscated by the Gestapo, when its inmates, our brothers and sisters, children of our families, faithful German citizens, are thrown into the streets like worthless rascals, chased from the country like criminals, and at that time when all the trembles before new night attacks which kill us all, which can make every one of us homeless refugees; then innocent, highly respected men and women beloved by many are driven out of their modest possessions, and German citizens, fellow townsmen in Munster, are turned into homeless refugees.
Why? I was told: for state-political reasons! No further reasons were given. Not one inhabitant of these monasteries has been accused of any offense, or brought before law or condemned. And if any one were guilty, then let him be brought before the law. But should the innocent also be punished?
I ask you, before those whose eyes the Jesuit brothers and the sisters of the Immaculate have for years led their quiet lives devoted only to the honour of God and the welfare of their fellow human beings: who thinks these men and women guilty of any punishable offense? Who dares to bring an accusation against them? Let him who dares, prove it. Not even the Gestapo has brought such an accusation, let alone a court of justice. I bear witness here publicly as Bishop to whom is entrusted the supervision of the Orders, that I have the greatest respect for the quiet, unassuming Missionary Sisters of Wilkinhege who are today being driven out. They were founded by my very honored episcopal friend and fellow countryman the Bishop Amandus Bahlmann, who started the Order mainly for the Mission in Brazil, in which he, earning the gratitude of Germans in Brazil, worked untiringly up to the time of his death three years ago.
I bear witness as a German man and as bishop that I have the greatest respect and admiration for the Jesuit Order which I have known from my earliest youth and for 50 years from close observation; that I shall be bound to the Society of Jesus, my teachers and friends, in love and gratitude until my last breath, and that I have an even greater admiration for them now in this moment when Christ's prophecy to His disciples is again being fulfilled: "As they have persecuted me, so they will persecute you also. If you were of this world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of this world, but I have chosen you from the world, [sic] therefore the world hates you."
So I greet you with deep love from this place in the name of all faithful Catholics of the town of Munster and the Bishopric of Munster, as those chosen by Christ and hated by the world, as you go out into undeserved banishment.
May God reward them for all the good they have done for us! May God not punish us and our town for the unjust treatment and banishment which has been meted out to his disciples. May almighty God bring back our beloved brothers and sisters.
My dear diocesans! Because of the terrible visitations which have come upon us through enemy attacks, I meant to be silent in public over other recent measures taken by the Gestapo, which call for my public protest. But if the Gestapo takes no consideration for the events which make hundreds of our fellow citizens homeless, if just at this time they continue to throw innocent citizens into the streets and drive them from the country, then I can no longer hesitate to utter my just protest and earnest warning.
Often in recent times we have had the experience that Gestapo robbed innocent and highly respected Germans of their freedom without any sentence, drove them out of their homes and interned them somewhere. Within the last few weeks two of my closest advisors, members of the Chapter of our Cathedral, were suddenly fetched from their homes, taken away from Munster and banished to far away places where they were told to stay permanently. I have had no answer whatsoever to my protests to the Minister of State. But this much could be established by means of telephone inquiries from the Gestapo: there is no suspicion or accusation of any punishable act on the part of either of the members of the Cathedral Chapter. They have been punished by banishment without any guilt on their part, without any accusation or the possibility to defend themselves.
Christians, listen carefully! It has been officially confirmed to us that no accusation of any punishable act is made against the members of the Chapter, Vorwerk and Echelmeyer.. They have done nothing punishable, and yet they are punished with banishment.
And why? Because I have done something which did not please the Government. At the four appointments to the Cathedral Chapter in the last two years the Government informed me in three instances that the nominations were not acceptable. Because according to the Prussian Concordat of 1929 intervention on the part of the Government is specifically excluded, I completed the nominations in two out of the four cases. If it is thought that I have acted against the law, let me be brought before the law. I am certain that no independent German Court will be able to condemn me for my actions in filling the vacancies.
Is it for this reason that not a court of justice but the Gestapo, whose activities in Germany are unfortunately not subject to any legal examination, have been used? Every German citizen is entirely unprotected and defenceless in face of the physical superiority of the Gestapo- entirely defenceless and unprotected. That is a thing that my fellow Germans have discovered in recent years, as for instance our beloved teacher of religion, Friedrichs, who is held captive without trial and without sentence. Thus the two gentlemen of the Chapter who are in exile and thus also the members of our Orders, who yesterday and today have suddenly been driven out of their property and out of town and country.
No one of us is sure, however faithful and conscientious a citizen he may be and however convinced he may be of his own innocence, that he will not one day be fetched from his home, deprived of his liberty and locked up in the cellars and concentration camps of the Gestapo.
I am quite clear about that, it may happen to me, today, any day. Because I shall then no longer be able to speak publicly, I want today to give a public warning against continuing on this path which, according to my firm conviction, will bring God's judgment on humanity and will lead to misery and destruction for our people and our country.
If I protest against these measures and punishments by the Gestapo, if I publicly demand an end to these conditions and a juridical examination or the withdrawal of these Gestapo measures, then I am only doing what the Governor General, Minister of State Dr. Frank, did when he wrote in February of this year in the publication of the Academy for German Justice-- "We want that dependable balance of internal order which will not allow the penal code to be debased to absolute authoritarianism of the power to prosecute against the accused who is already condemned from the beginning and deprived of every means of defence. The law must give the individual the legal possibility of defence, of explaining the circumstances of the deed and thereby of security against arbitrariness and injustice... otherwise it is better not to speak of a penal code, but of penal force. It is impossible to combine the idea of the Building of Justice with that of condemnation without any manner of defence... It is our task, like others, to represent authority in every form, and to give expression to the fact that we have to defend courageously the authority of justice as an important part of a lasting power." Thus wrote the Minister of State, Dr. Hans Frank.
I am fully aware that I, as bishop and as exponent and defender of divinely appointed justice and moral order, which gives to each individual those original rights and that liberty before which it is God's will that all human opposition must cease; that I, like Minister Frank, am called to defend courageously the authority of justice and to condemn the undefended condemnation of innocent people as an injustice that cries out to Heaven.
Christians! The imprisonment of many innocent people without the opportunity of defence and without a court sentence; the case of two members of the Cathedral Chapter who have been deprived of their liberty; the dissolution of the monasteries and the banishment of the innocent members of their orders, our brothers and sisters; all these things cause me today to recall publicly the old truth: "Justitia est fundeamentum regnorum", justice is the only secure foundation of every form of government.
The right to live, to be unmolested, the right to liberty is an indispensable part of every ordered community life. Certainly the State is justified in limiting this right of its citizens by way of punishment; but this authority the State only has vis-à-vis offenders against the law whose guilt can be proved by means of impartial legal proceedings. The state which oversteps this divinely willed limit and allows or causes the punishment of innocent people, undermines its own authority and every regard for its sovereignty in the minds of the citizens.
Unfortunately during the last few years we have repeatedly had to observe that more or less heavy penalties, mostly in the form of deprivation of liberty, were imposed without any crime having been proved against the victims by a regular legal procedure, and without their being given the opportunity to defend their rights or to prove their innocence.
How many Germans are languishing in police detention or concentration camps, who were ejected from their homes, who were never condemned by a public court or who, after being acquitted by a court or after serving the sentence imposed by the court, have again been taken into custody by the Gestapo and held captive. How many have been driven out of their home and out of the place where they work! I recall again the Reverend Bishop of Rottenburg, Johannes Baptista Sproll, an old man of 70 years, who recently had to celebrate his 25-years jubilee as bishop far from his diocese, because three years ago the Gestapo turned him out of his bishopric. I mention once more the two members of our Cathedral Chapter, the Reverend Gentlemen Vorwerk mad Echelmeyer. I recall our most honoured teacher of religion, Friedrichs, who is languishing in a concentration camp. I will refrain from mentioning any further names today. The name of an evangelical man, who risked his life for Germany as a German officer and submarine commander during the World War, and who has for years been deprived of his liberty, is well known to all of you, and we have the greatest regard for the bravery and religious courage of this noble German. (Pastor Niemoller is meant-remark of the copier.)
From this example you can see, my Christians, that it is not merely a Catholic concern about which I speak to you publicly today, but a Christian, yes a human and national, a religious matter.
"Justice is the foundation of States"! We observe with great sorrow today how the foundation is being shaken, how justice, how natural and Christian virtue, indispensable for the ordered existence of every human community, is not being preserved and held up unmistakably recognizable for all. Not only because of the rights of the church, not only for the right of human personality, but also for love of our nation and in deep concern for our country, we ask, we demand: "Justice"! Who would not fear for the existence of a house when he sees the foundations being undermined?
"Justice is the foundation of states"! Only when the possessors of state power bow in reverence before the royal majesty of Justice and use the sword of retribution only in the service of Justice; only then can the power of the State stand with sincerity and the chance of lasting success before the illegal use of force by those who are accidentally the stronger, before the suppression of the weaker and their debasement to unworthy servitude.
That holder of office will be able to count on an honest following and the free service of honorable men, whose measures and Judgments prove themselves in the light of unbiased opinion to be far from all arbitrariness and weighed by the incorruptible scales of Justice. Therefore the practice of condemnation and punishment without the chance of defence, without sentence, "the undefended damnation of those who are already condemned beforehand", as Minister of State Frank called it, creates a feeling of being without rights, and a mental attitude of fearfulness and servile cowardice, which in the long run must ruin the character of a nation and tear up its feeling of unity.
This is the conviction and the sorrow of all right-minded German men and women. This was openly and courageously expressed by a high official of the law in the year 1937 in the "Reichsverwaltungsblatt". He wrote: - "The greater the absolute power of an authority, the greater is the need for a guarantee of unimpeachable dealings; because errors are felt more heavily, and the danger of arbitrariness and wrong use is greater. If recourse to administrative Justice is excluded, there must in every case be a regular way for unbiased control, so that there can be no feeling of lack of rights, which in any case would be bound in the long run to harm the feeling of national unity.
This recourse to administrative Justice is excluded in the penal measures of the Gestapo. As none of us know of any means for the unbiased control of the measures taken by the Gestapo, of their limitations of liberty, their prohibitions of residence, their arrests and their imprisonment of German citizens in concentration camps, therefore in the furthest parts of the German nation a feeling of lack of rights, yes, of cowardly fear, has already taken hold, which is causing great harm to German national unity.
The obligations of my episcopal office to protect moral order, and the obligation of the oath which I took before God and the representative of the Reich Government in which I promised to prevent with all my power any harm which might threaten the German State, force me in face of the deeds of the Gestapo to pronounce this fact in a public warning.
My Christians: It may be said against me that by this frank speech I am weakening the internal Front of the German people now in this time of war. In reply I state: It is not I who am the cause of any weakening of the internal front, but those who, regardless of war, regardless of external tribulation, here in Munster at the end of a terrible week of grim enemy attacks, impose heavy punishment on innocent citizens without sentence and without the chance to defend themselves, robbing our fellow-countrymen, our brothers and sisters, of their property, throwing them into the street and hunting them from the country! They destroy the security of right, they undermine the consciousness of right, they destroy faith in the government of our State! I therefore, in the name of the upright German people, in the name of the Majesty of Justice, in the interests of peace and the unity of the internal front, raise my voice; therefore I call aloud as a German man, as an honourable citizen, as representative of the Christian religion, as a Catholic bishop:
We demand Justice!
If this call remains unheard, then the reign of Queen Justice will not be restored, then our German nation and country will go to pieces through inner putrefaction and rotting, in spite of the heroism of our soldiers and their glorious victories!
Let us pray for all who are in need, especially for the exiled members of our Religious Orders, for our town of Munster, that God may withhold further trials from us, for our German nation and country and for its Leader-
Our Father . . . . . . .

"Senza rispetto del diritto non ci sarà mai pace", 80 anni fa la morte del beato von Galen
"Senza rispetto del diritto non ci sarà mai …
Il 22 marzo 1946 moriva il Leone di Münster, "l'oppositore più ostinato del nazismo" come l’aveva definito nel ’42 il New York Times, che denunciò i bombardamenti alleati che rasero al suolo le città tedesche. Molti spunti attuali nella sua corrispondenza con Pio XII che lo creò cardinale
di Stefania Falasca*
«Bombe dirompenti e incendiare vennero sganciate su Münster: centrarono il Duomo e distrussero la residenza del nostro vescovo. Mentre gli aerei volavano ancora sulla città, vidi il reverendissimo monsignore su in alto, sotto il cielo aperto tra le rovine in fumo… era rimasto aggrappato all’unica parete rimasta in piedi… miracolosamente vivo. Più tardi lo informai della morte del vicario, dei sacerdoti e dei fedeli, di tutte le suore di clausura, dell’orrore delle pile di corpi mezzi inceneriti, dilaniati, ammonticchiati sopra le macerie della Marienplatz, di Groitgasse… e di chi scavando tra quelle macerie, cercando ancora di separare i morti dai vivi, si ritrovò lo spettacolo agghiacciante dei grovigli di cadaveri di donne e bambini soffocati, bolliti nei rifugi».
Così agli atti del processo canonico del beato Clemens August von Galen, il vescovo di Münster – di cui ricorrono ottant’anni dalla sua morte, avvenuta il 22 marzo 1946 – è descritto il bombardamento compiuto dagli Alleati nel ’43 sopra la città tedesca della Westafalia. Proprio quella città che era stata l’epicentro di quell’altra Germania – che con il vescovo Clemens August von Galen, sostenuto e incoraggiato da Pio XII – aveva apertamente opposto resistenza a Hitler e al culto del sangue e della razza. Non era infatti da quel Duomo che il vescovo aveva alzato la sua voce smascherando e condannando gli aberranti crimini e le barbarie del nazismo? Che sfidò a viso aperto le violazioni dei diritti dichiarando di non volere «comunanza di popolo con chi calpesta la dignità umana»? Che nelle sue famose prediche, che gli valsero l’appellativo di Leone di Münster, smascherò e denunciò con forza il progetto T4 nazista per l’eliminazione delle vite inutili? Tanto che per il suo ardito e indomito coraggio, pubblicamente riconosciuto, appena un anno prima, si era guadagnato le pagine del New York Times come «il più accanito oppositore del regime nazionalsocialista» e le sue famose prediche – per le quali furente d’odio, Hitler giurò che avrebbe fatto «i conti con lui fino all’ultimo centesimo» – vennero persino lanciate nel cielo sopra Berlino dalla Royal Air Force inglese. Prediche per le quali ricevette il riconoscimento dalla comunità ebraiche e nel corso del Terzo Reich furono incoraggiate e apprezzate dallo stesso Pio XII che – come documenta la corrispondenza tra il vescovo tedesco e papa Pacelli, rinvenuta e ricostruita integralmente nell’indagine archivistica compiuta nel corso del processo di canonizzazione di von Galen – rivela il sostegno del Papa all’azione e il comune intento contro la follia nazista.
Un ritratto del "Leone di Münster"
Anche il 4 novembre 1943 il vescovo von Galen aveva scritto a Pio XII, ma questa volta comunicandogli le catastrofiche condizioni in cui versava la città di Münster e il dolore per le vittime del bombardamento alleato. «Insieme alla sofferenza della popolazione, anche le distruzioni delle duecento chiese della diocesi lo addoloravano profondamente e, più di tutte, quella del Duomo, tanto che non arrivò mai a capire perché gli alleati deliberatamente lo avessero fatto», dichiara al processo il sacerdote Theodor Holling.
Quello che Hitler non era riuscito a compiere lo fece il moral bombing, così Churchill aveva tradotto il concetto di strategia della «giusta guerra dell’aria» destinata a «redimere la morale attraverso l’abbattimento sistematico della resistenza morale dei tedeschi». Nel corso del ’43 Münster venne “redenta” da 49 incursioni, alle quali se ne sarebbero aggiunte altre 53 prima della fine della guerra: le più pesanti furono quelle del 30 settembre e del 22 ottobre del ’44. Scaricarono in totale 5000 bombe dirompenti e 200mila bombe incendiarie su una città di 66mila abitanti. Un destino che la unì a tante altre città tedesche, in quel deliberato “accanimento terapeutico” nell’agonia di fuoco che portò alla cancellazione il Paese. Münster tuttavia non rientrò nel novero di quelle città privilegiate dal Bomber Command alleato, sulle quali si misero a punto le sofisticate tecniche del Maximum use of fire, con gli effetti speciali delle “Tempeste di fuoco” che ne provocarono la desertificazione: città come Potsdam, Lubecca, Amburgo, Dresda... i fiori all’occhiello di Arthur Harris, il genio indiscusso del moral bombing, che aveva battezzato con il nome Operazione Gomorra i successi di «pulizia» e annientamento raggiunti.
Quando si intensificò «l’impiego strategico» dei bombardamenti a tappeto in Germania, il vescovo inglese di Chichester, George Bell, davanti alla Camera dei Lord, aveva dichiarato: «Gli alleati non possono comportarsi come divinità che fulminano i nemici dal cielo! La parola cruciale scritta sulle nostre bandiere è diritto. Noi dobbiamo mettere la nostra forza al servizio del diritto. E il diritto è contrario al bombardamento delle città nemiche, specialmente il bombardamento a tappeto!». E aveva continuato: «Mettere sullo stesso piano gli assassini nazisti e il popolo tedesco, su cui essi hanno compiuto ogni tipo di malefatta, significa diffondere la barbarie». Erano, queste, le stesse lucide e coraggiose constatazioni che, dall’altra parte, nella Germania devastata dal moral bombing, il vescovo von Galen osò pronunciare davanti alle Forze Alleate. Proprio a Münster, nell’ottobre del ’45, von Galen e il vescovo anglicano di Chichester si incontrarono nella sede del governo militare in presenza del generale di brigata Chadwick. Il vescovo Bell, che si trovava in Germania come rappresentante della Chiesa anglicana, espresse la sua stima e la sua piena sintonia con il vescovo tedesco che «con ardente amore pastorale si era prodigato nel proteggere il gregge affidatogli» e non aveva avuto timore «di dire bianco al bianco e nero al nero in difesa dei diritti di Dio e della dignità umana calpestata, anche adesso che il caos e la barbarie imperversano a causa dei soprusi, dei saccheggi, delle violenze seguite all’entrata delle truppe alleate».
Clemens August von Galen (VATICAN MEDIA Divisione Foto)
In occasione del primo pellegrinaggio dopo la guerra che la popolazione di Münster compì il 1° luglio 1945 al santuario mariano di Telgte, von Galen aveva infatti sollevato pubblicamente una dura protesta per il comportamento del governo militare alleato che non faceva rispettare i diritti del popolo tedesco. «I fedeli» testimonia il suo segretario Heinrich Portmann «che ritrovarono nell’occasione il loro grande avvocato in mezzo alle tribolazioni e alle sofferenze, furono tanto beneficamente confortati, ma non così avvenne per i capi delle truppe d’occupazione, tant’è che il vescovo venne chiamato a dare un rendiconto dal comandante militare di Warendorf». L’incontro è documentato dalla deposizione del sacerdote Federico Sühling nel processo di canonizzazione di von Galen: «Il comandante Jackson chiese al vescovo chiarimenti riguardo alle parole dette. Egli rispose fermamente: “Come forze occupanti avete anche dei doveri e se non li adempite agirò proprio come ho agito contro le ingiustizie e la barbarie del nazionalsocialismo”. Menzionò poi alcuni punti che gli stavano particolarmente a cuore: gli atti di aggressione e le violenze contro i civili, in particolare gli stupri verso le donne, usate dalle truppe di occupazione. Riferendosi soprattutto ai casi di violenza il vescovo si irritò fortemente, batté col pugno sul tavolo e disse all’interprete: “Traduca alla lettera ciò che ho detto” e non revocò neppure uno iota della sua predica».
Il 20 agosto 1945 von Galen aveva scritto a Papa Pacelli: «Persino i nuovi giornali tedeschi diretti dalle forze d’occupazione debbono pubblicare di continuo dichiarazioni che vogliono imputare all’intero popolo tedesco, anche a quelli che mai hanno reso omaggio alle erronee dottrine del nazionalsocialismo, e che anzi secondo le proprie possibilità vi hanno opposto resistenza, una colpa collettiva e la responsabilità per tutti i crimini commessi dai precedenti detentori del potere». Con amarezza aveva poi constatato: «Sembra che questa disposizione d’animo sia il fondamento per l’ammissione di campagne di rapina e di saccheggio [...] e per la spietata deportazione della popolazione tedesca dalla sua patria».
E non risparmiò di affermare con lucida forza: «È veramente terrificante che il nazionalismo esasperato culminante nel culto della razza proprio del nazionalsocialismo domini oggi anche tra i vincitori, a tal punto che a Potsdam si è deciso di espellere l’intera popolazione tedesca dai territori assegnati alla Polonia e alla Cecoslovacchia e di ammassarli nei territori occidentali».
Nella successiva lettera del 25 settembre 1945, descrivendo in dettaglio ancora a Pio XII «le terribili condizioni dei territori occupati», lo aveva supplicato di intervenire con «un aiuto diretto per mezzo di rimostranze verso le potenze vincitrici».
Alla vigilia di Natale del 1945 Radio Vaticana comunicò la notizia che Pio XII aveva nominato cardinale il vescovo Clemens August von Galen.
Benedetto XVI durante la celebrazione a San Pietro per la beatificazione di van Galen, il 9 ottobre 2005 (VATICAN MEDIA Divisione Foto)
A Roma l’arrivo del Leone di Münster era stato trionfale. Gli studenti della Pontificia Università Gregoriana lo avevano accolto al grido di «vox populi vox Dei». Pio XII, in San Pietro, gli conferì la dignità cardinalizia insieme ad altri due vescovi tedeschi che si erano distinti nel fronteggiare la follia nazista: l’arcivescovo di Colonia Joseph Frings e il vescovo di Berlino Konrad von Preysing. Per l’episcopato e il popolo tedesco quelle nomine erano la dimostrazione che Pio XII non era disposto a partecipare alle voci di coloro che in quei tempi erano «incline a considerare tutti i tedeschi un gruppo di delinquenti» e al tempo stesso erano «il segno di un giusto premio per la resistenza coraggiosa al nazismo che uomini come questi avevano fatto, e tra di essi, il primo posto spettava al vescovo von Galen». La stampa, dunque, riportava ciò che era a tutti evidente: von Galen aveva osato attaccare pubblicamente e frontalmente il regime: egli era il simbolo di quell’altra Germania che aveva resistito a Hitler. E nel conferimento della dignità cardinalizia ad personam da parte di Pio XII vedeva sia «il rifiuto della colpa collettiva» sia «la riconoscenza per il virile difensore della verità cristiana e dei diritti inalienabili dell’uomo che nello Stato totalitario dovevano essere estirpati».
Il 6 gennaio del ’46 il vescovo von Galen scrive l’ultima lettera a Pio XII prima di giungere a Roma per ricevere la berretta cardinalizia. Quel giorno volle celebrare l’Epifania nelle rovine del santuario di Telgte. Con queste parole chiuse la sua ultima omelia al santuario: «Sotto il nazismo dissi pubblicamente, e lo scrissi direttamente anche a Hitler nel ’39, quando nessuna potenza intervenì allora per ostacolare le sue mire espansionistiche: “La giustizia è il fondamento dello Stato; se la giustizia non viene ristabilita, allora il nostro popolo morirà per putrefazione interna”. Oggi devo dire: se tra i popoli non viene rispettato il diritto, allora non verrà mai la pace e la concordia tra i popoli».
* Postulatore della Causa