When Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, he perhaps did not suspect that he would find in a Bishop of the Holy Church one of his fiercest enemies. The ‘Lion of Münster’ became a model of intrepid faith in times of persecution, personifying the ideal of resistance.
Newsdesk (25/03/2023 20:44, Gaudium Press) The eleventh child of Count Ferdinand Heribert von Galen and Elisabeth von Spree, Clemens August von Galen was born on March 16th, 1878 in Oldenburg, Germany. After having completed a good part of his studies with the Jesuits, he was ordained a priest in 1904. Two years later he went to Berlin, where he exercised his ministry throughout the difficult days of the First World War. In 1929 he took over a parish in the city of Münster, until, in 1933, Pope Pius XI elected him Bishop of that diocese.
His entire episcopal life was marked by confrontation with Nazi ideology. And, coincidence or not, Providence seems to have wanted to emphasize this aspect of his mission. Von Galen governed the Diocese of Münster for the same length of time as Hitler’s rule: he was ordained bishop nine months after the Führer came to power and died approximately nine months after his death.
In the episcopal motto of the new prelate his dispositions were summed up: ‘Nec laudibus, nec timore’. ‘Neither praise, nor fear’ would change his rigid stance towards the aberrations perpetrated by the Berlin government.
At the head of the opposition
In fact, he did not delay in taking the lead in Catholic opposition to the regime. Already in 1934 the zealous pastor denounced in his diocese the erroneous theses of Alfred Rosenberg, one of the main ideologists of National Socialism, contained in the book The Myth of the 20th Century. In it were proposed the absolute supremacy of the German race, the exclusion of those who did not belong to it and other theses of the Nazi worldview.
It was in fact “a new and harmful totalitarian ideology which puts race above morality, blood above law […], which repudiates Revelation, which seeks to destroy the foundations of Christianity”. The Bishop’s warning echoed widely among the clergy and the German people, having the salutary effect of opening their eyes to the terrible intentions of National Socialist discourse.
Some months later Rosenberg publicly reviled the prelate during a party congress held in Münster, in an attempt to raise the people against him. But the worthiness of Bishop Clemens had already been demonstrated, and the defamatory words of the German theorist had an unexpected effect… The next day, the faithful took to the streets in support of their bishop, culminating in a procession of almost twenty thousand souls!
In September 1936, von Galen took advantage of the commemoration of the martyr Saint Victor of Xanten to address the limits of the obedience due to the Reich. “How can the Church venerate the soldier, Victor, as a saint? How can it present to us as a model a man who was executed […] for disobedience to the Emperor?”
What did the Bishop of Münster want to affirm? When authority demands what is contrary to right conscience, it loses the right to command and attacks God Himself. The message had been given. And he concluded: “May God give us discernment and heroic strength; may we never through selfishness or vile fear of men consent to sin, tarnishing our conscience in order to gain or preserve the favour of powerful mortals”.
His hardest blow against Hitler’s regime was yet to come. In mid-1941, he delivered three poignant sermons that further spread his fame and earned him the title ‘Lion of Münster’.
A Sunday sermon…
Saturday, July 12th, 1941. Bishop Clemens von Galen was informed about the occupation, by the Gestapo, of the Jesuit houses in Königstrasse and in Haus Sentmaring, and about the invasion of numerous convents of nuns, many of whom had suffered violence and insults.
Such attitudes were very hard blows against the flock that had been entrusted to him. He had to do something. All day long he remained restless and worried. But what should he do? He decided that he would preach the following day, during the Sunday sermon, against the injustices perpetrated by the Nazi regime. He would make his words a sword in defence of the faith and of the German people.
The Münster cathedral was packed with the faithful of the diocese to attend Sunday Mass. Right from the start, he did not hesitate to denounce the infamous actions of Hitler’s police, who unjustly infringed on the rights of honest German citizens. And he recalled: “None of us is sure, even if he were in conscience the most honest and faithful citizen, not to be one day arrested in his own home, deprived of his freedom, locked up in the prisons or concentration camps of the secret police of the State”.
However, as with the first Christians, neither prison nor death, intimidated him: “In the name of the honourable German people, in the name of the majesty of justice, […] I raise my voice, as a German and an honest citizen, as a representative of the Christian Religion, as a Catholic Bishop, and say: ‘We ask for justice!'”
During the sermon, men and women stood up in approval of the words they heard. Many even broke into tears. A Gestapo spy present at the scene reported that the church looked more like a meeting room, so excited and emotional was everyone.
Aware of the danger he was running, after the ceremony von Galen asked his chaplain to send clothes, in case he went to prison. Since he was in his palace, everyone recommended that he take refuge elsewhere, but he did not consent to that.
One week later…
On July 20th, in the church in Überwasser, the ‘Lion of Münster’ made himself heard again. On this Sunday, the building was also packed, with people coming from far away, as far as Holland, to listen to the indomitable minister.
After condemning again the seizure of various convents and the imprisonment of religious, he continued: “Communion with men who hunt like rabbits our religious, our friars and nuns, without juridical motives, without denunciation, without the possibility of defence? … No, with them and with all those who are responsible one cannot even imagine communion of thought and feeling.”
Perhaps only those who lived through those days knew how to measure the bravery of this pastor. How many people remained silent for fear of being thrown into concentration camps for defying a regime that thought it was omnipotent? If the audacity of his preaching was not enough, von Galen sent copies of his recent discourse to the Reich government demanding justice!
Third sermon: the strongest blow against Nazism
Without doubt the third homily, on August 3rd, 1941, was the most important. Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, later claimed that this sermon was “the strongest frontal attack against Nazism in all the years of its existence”.
The Bishop had learned of the Nazis’ secret plan for the extermination of the disabled, the elderly, the mentally ill and paralysed children, all called “unproductive lives”.
People held their breath as they listened to that huge figure making his voice resound like thunder throughout the cathedral: “Today they are murdered, barbarically murdered, defenceless innocents […]. We are facing a homicidal madness without equal! […] With people like this, with these murderers who trample, proudly, over our lives, there can no longer be a communion of people!”
Before long, the words of the Lion of Münster travelled the world, reaching even the soldiers at the front. Royal Air Force planes poured hundreds of copies out of the Berlin sky! Such was the value of those preachings that their transcription became currency for goods. The Bishop of Münster became a model of intrepid faith in times of persecution, personifying the ideal of resistance.
“The von Galen affair”
As was to be expected, such attitudes earned him the hatred of the party leaders. The “von Galen affair” was widely discussed at the top levels of the Reich in the following months. One of the SS chiefs went so far as to state: “This great traitor, and traitor to the country, this pig is free and still takes the liberty of speaking against the Führer. He must be hanged“.
But that was not the best solution for them. They knew that it would be harmful to make a martyr of von Galen, because his death would provoke the revolt of a large part of the German people, as well as causing dissension with the Vatican.
Thus, the astute Goebbels advised Hitler to leave the case to be settled after the war. The Führer agreed and declared on July 4th, 1942 that he would make him pay every last cent…
The intrepid Bishop, even though he was spied on and suffered constant threats, maintained a calm attitude and continued to proclaim the truth openly.
Last years of the war and of his life
The last period of his life coincided with the Allied advance towards Berlin. One of the cruel consequences of this was the bombing raids that ravaged several German cities, claiming the lives of innocent people. Münster was one of the places that suffered most from the attacks. It seemed as if the devil wanted to impose one last punishment on that great hero of the Faith.
On October 10th, 1943, the sirens sounded in the city. A good part of the population took refuge in the cathedral. They did not know, however, that the target was precisely the sacred precincts. As the American commander of the operation declared, this was the first time that the Allied armies had received orders to attack civilian objectives…
When the alarms went off, Bishop Clemens was in the Episcopal palace, getting dressed to go to the cathedral. He did not have time to hide in the air-raid shelter when the shells began to explode. The bombs destroyed the entire residence, but he was miraculously unharmed, leaning on the only wall that remained standing.
More than two hundred churches and several convents were razed in the diocese. The intrepid pastor did not understand the reason for such destruction. As if the Nazi persecution were not enough, those who at first had come to restore peace ended up inflicting perhaps greater suffering upon him.
After the war, on Christmas Eve 1945, Vatican Radio announced the elevation of Bishop Clemens von Galen to the Cardinalate by Pope Pius XII. It was the explicit crowning of his efforts by the Chair of Peter.
On March 16th, 1946, more than fifty thousand faithful awaited the Cardinal’s return to the Cathedral ruins, where he performed his last public act, addressing the crowd. Less than a week later, on March 22nd, he died at the age of 68 from appendicitis.
Benedict XVI beatified Cardinal Clemens August von Galen on 9 October 2005.
Compiled by Roberta MacEwan
