My Battle Against Hitler Read online

  Copyright © 2014 by Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project

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  Published in the United States by Image, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

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  ISBN 978-0-385-34751-8

  eBook ISBN 978-0-385-34752-5

  Jacket design by Jessie Sayward Bright

  Jacket photographs: (top) Courtesy of the Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project; (bottom) Visual Photo

  v3.1

  If God permits evils such as Bolshevism and National Socialism, then of course, as St. Paul says, it is to test us; it is precisely our struggle against evil that God wills, even when we suffer external defeat.

  DIETRICH VON HILDEBRAND

  That damned Hildebrand is the greatest obstacle for National Socialism in Austria. No one causes more harm.

  FRANZ VON PAPEN

  NAZI AMBASSADOR TO AUSTRIA

  He immunized and protected us from the philosophical waves that swept across Germany in those days. Heidegger’s melodies no longer had the power to seduce us, for our ears had become more discerning. Whoever understood von Hildebrand was saved. Despite the many factors at work, I think one can rightly say that history might have been quite different had there been more professors like him.

  PAUL STÖCKLEIN

  STUDENT OF VON HILDEBRAND AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  A Fateful Decision

  Who Was This Man Who Fought Hitler?

  A Note on the Text

  PART ONE

  THE MEMOIRS

  1921

  1922

  1923

  1932

  1933

  1934

  Photo Insert

  1935

  1936

  1937

  Escape from Vienna

  PART TWO

  WRITINGS AGAINST THE NAZI IDEOLOGY

  Austria and Nationalism

  German Culture and National Socialism

  The Danger of Becoming Morally Blunted

  Against Anti-Semitism

  The Jews and the Christian West

  The Danger of Quietism

  Ceterum Censeo …!

  False Fronts

  The Parting of Ways

  The Struggle for the Person

  The Chaos of Our Times and the Hierarchy of Values

  Authority and Leadership

  Mass and Community

  Individual and Community

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  Photo Insert Credits

  About the Hildebrand Project

  A FATEFUL DECISION

  Better to be a beggar in freedom than to be forced into compromises against my conscience.

  — DIETRICH VON HILDEBRAND

  In the early months of 1933, the world watched as Adolf Hitler came to power. On January 30, as election after election saw the Nazi Party gaining seats in the German parliament, he was appointed chancellor of Germany. On February 27 the Reichstag building, the seat of the German parliament, was destroyed in a fire. Hitler quickly exploited the resulting unrest to secure emergency powers and suspend basic rights. Terror ensued and thousands of political opponents were arrested.

  One German who followed these developments with deepest indignation and sorrow was the philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand. His heart bled at the thought that his beloved country had “fallen into the hands of criminals.” But Hitler’s meteoric rise was more than a source of profound grief for von Hildebrand. It confronted him with a decision. Would he remain in Germany or not? Indeed, could he remain? What did his conscience demand? What was God asking of him?

  These questions had been on von Hildebrand’s mind ever since the Nazi party was born in his hometown of Munich. He was predestined to be an enemy of Nazism, for even before the rise of the movement he had been a vocal opponent of nationalism, militarism, collectivism, and anti-Semitism, the major pillars of the Nazi ideology. Thus the Nazis had already taken note of von Hildebrand in 1921, not because he had attacked them by name, but because he had publicly condemned as an “atrocious crime” the German invasion of neutral Belgium at the start of World War I (1914). His remarks, made at a peace conference in Paris in 1921, created an uproar in the German press. He had violated the nationalist tenet of the Nazi orthodoxy, and for this he was marked for execution and then forced to flee in 1923 when Hitler attempted to seize power in Munich.

  By 1933 von Hildebrand had reason to believe that his death sentence of ten years prior had long been forgotten. His decision, then, was based not just on consideration of the dangers he might face but whether he could even remain in the Third Reich. Could he live in a land where the state would legalize countless injustices and where opposition could only lead to arrest and torture?

  The answer—or rather, his answer—was no. No, as a philosopher and a Catholic he could no longer stay in Germany. To remain would require a measure of silence and set him on a course of inevitable if gradual acquiescence. This, von Hildebrand believed, was as much at odds with his vocation as philosopher to seek the truth wherever it led, as it was with his Christian vocation to bear witness to the truth no matter the cost.

  But von Hildebrand also knew that his decision to “abandon everything” was tied to his unique personal vocation—to “my mission,” as he often expressed himself. He knew that not everyone, not even every philosopher, could or should leave Germany. He knew that heroic men like Dietrich Bonhoeffer answered a different call by remaining in Germany and working for the undoing of Nazism from within. He would later support his friends remaining in Germany by encouraging them to nurture a constant “inner rejection” of Nazism and by warning them against the danger of becoming “morally blunted” as a result of living in the midst of an evil regime. But as for himself, he knew that he was called to leave Germany. He knew that he had a particular mission to speak out against Nazism and to help rid Germany and the world of its poison. Where this might lead him he did not know in early March 1933. He abandoned his home, his beloved sisters, his large circle of friends, his rising career at the University of Munich, and his place in the center of a thriving religious and cultural community which gathered for his famous “afternoons” at the family villa on the Maria-Theresia Strasse. In following his conscience and seeking God’s guidance, he believed the next step would be revealed to him.

  Von Hildebrand’s decision was fateful in the deepest sense of the term. It led him to Vienna, where he would establish the premier German-language journal of intellectual resistance to Nazism and Communism. His uncompromising opposition was felt throughout Austria and even deep into Nazi Germany. Hitler repeatedly demanded the Austrian government to suppress von Hildebrand’s journal, and by 1937 he had gained so much attention that the Nazi ambassador in Vienna proposed to Hitler a plan to assassinate von Hildebrand and his collaborators.

  One can understand von Hildebrand only up to a point if one does not grasp how radically he lived out of his faith. Indeed, in abandoning Germany, he threw himself into the arms of God. Even as he confidently challenged Nazism on the firm basis of philosophical arguments, the real source of his strength and his amazing peace and joy in those darkest of hours lay in his ever-deepening life of faith. “I had the consciousness that what I was doing was right before G
od,” he later wrote, “and this gave me such inner freedom that I was not afraid.”

  His story might have been forever lost had it not been for his wife, Alice von Hildebrand. His first wife of forty-five years, Gretchen, died in 1957. She was with him during his struggle against Nazism and supported him unreservedly. In 1959, von Hildebrand married Alice Jourdain, with whom he formed a unique intellectual, spiritual, and cultural partnership. One day she said to him, “Being so much younger”—she was over thirty years his junior—“I deeply regret having missed so much of your life.” “Then I will write it for you,” he answered, and he began already the next day. He produced five-thousand handwritten pages recounting his life in vivid detail, beginning with his childhood, his youth, his life of faith, his education, and finally his battle against Nazism.

  The epic scope of the memoirs can lead one to believe that von Hildebrand was writing for a great unseen audience of future readers. For what he reports, especially from his fight against Nazism, transcends the realm of personal recollections by capturing much of the essence of his time. But the original motive for the memoirs, indeed the original audience, was his wife, Alice. We owe her a deep debt of gratitude, not only for instigating the memoir, but for inspiring so much of its intimate and even confessional character.

  Dietrich von Hildebrand did not publish his memoirs, nor did he seek to reprint any of his essays against Nazism. In later years he never sought to call attention to his witness in Vienna; he never saw himself as a hero or as someone deserving of special praise. It is a sign of his generous spirit that he left to others the publication of his story. But this volume is truly by him. It is a work of autobiography, of self-revelation. In preparing this volume we have sought not to make alterations to his canvas; our aim, rather, was to fashion a well-suited frame, above all in the form of concise historical notes, to enable the reader to relive von Hildebrand’s story with all the relevant information at hand.

  What might von Hildebrand have called this volume? We can never know, and given his humility he might have suggested a title that honored his collaborators rather than himself. But he did, unwittingly, provide the title. Searching the pages of his memoirs, we discovered that he had entitled an outline for part of his memoirs “Mein Kampf Gegen Hitler”—“My Battle Against Hitler.” Thus was the present volume christened.

  For all the greatness of von Hildebrand’s story, his witness remains little known today. May this volume forever change that. And may his voice be heard again and his courage finally be honored, as a memory and a reminder, yes, but also as a warning and a hope.

  WHO WAS THIS MAN WHO FOUGHT HITLER?

  Dietrich von Hildebrand left Germany for good on March 12, 1933. He was then forty-three years old, nearly the midpoint of his long life. But he was not unready for the witness he was being called to give. His entire life turns out to have been a preparation for this moment.

  Dietrich was born on October 12, 1889, at San Francesco, his family’s villa in Florence. His father, Adolf von Hildebrand, was by then one of the most renowned sculptors and architects of Germany. His mother, Irene, was a woman of learning and cultivation, even though she received very little formal schooling. Coming after five elder sisters, Dietrich was the youngest member of the von Hildebrand family and Adolf and Irene’s only son. In 1898, Adolf received a commission to create a fountain, the famous Wittelsbacher Brunnen in Munich. Thereafter, the family would spend six months in Florence and six months in Munich, where they lived in a great house built by Adolf in the Maria-Theresia-Strasse.

  Where in von Hildebrand’s early life do we find the first signs of the future “enemy number one” of the Nazis? An anecdote from his memoirs provides a first clue. He was walking with his elder sister, Nini, who was taken aback by his resistance to her claim that all values are relative. When she appealed to their father, himself an ethical relativist, Adolf said, “but Nini, he is just a boy of fourteen.” This greatly upset the young Dietrich who countered, “Your argument is clearly very weak if you have nothing but my age as evidence against me.” In the last years of his life, von Hildebrand returned to this episode in the opening paragraphs of an intellectual autobiography he penned. “This episode was quite characteristic of my philosophical outlook,” he writes. For not only does it express “my innermost conviction that objective truth exists and can be known,” it also shows “my capacity for remaining uninfluenced by my environment and my immunity to ideas that are somehow ‘in the air.’ ”1

  Something that was not in the air at San Francesco was religion, and yet von Hildebrand, already as a child, showed signs of a deeply religious personality.

  Adolf and Irene were nominal Protestants and saw to it that their children were baptized. But their true religion, as it were, was at the altar of beauty. As a result, he grew up living and breathing great art, and especially music, for which he had a great affinity. Religion in the sense of revelation and divine worship was not a part of their world. Churches were expressions of artistic beauty, and religion was a source of aesthetic inspiration.

  But the rich culture of San Francesco—this “spiritual island,” as von Hildebrand calls it—was fertile ground for more than just a discerning eye and refined ear. This “artistic world of my parents and sisters,” he says, was “lofty, noble, and completely free of all triviality, conventionalism, and mediocrity.” And it was reverent, not in the full sense of a supernatural reverence before God, but reverent in the recognition that the world is full of mystery and that great things call for wonder.

  Even as his family’s nominal Christianity all but cut him off from exposure to practice of religion, one can date Dietrich’s faith to the age of five or six, if not earlier. “I don’t know who first spoke to me about Christ,” he writes.

  I do not remember anyone around me who was religious. There was a crucifix in our room, and Vivi [his sister] probably told me about Christ. But the love of Jesus that developed in my soul and my firm belief that Christ is God cannot be traced back to the influence of anyone in my surroundings.

  His family was understandably taken aback when they began to notice signs of his religious orientation. His sister Bertele later recounted his response when she repeated what their mother had said at the table, namely that Christ was only the son of God in the sense that everyone is a child of God. She was eight and a half, Dietrich just five. He stood on his bed, solemnly stretching out his hand, and said, “I swear to you, Christ is God!”

  Most children would still be heavily under the influence of their parents, but not Dietrich. Speaking of his mother, he writes:

  She probably prayed the Our Father with us, but as she was not herself a believing Christian, she never spoke to us about the divinity of Christ. But my faith in Christ’s divinity was such that I was in no way unsettled by the fact that my beloved mother did not believe in it.

  But this lack of faith in his mother was not a skeptical agnosticism. In fact, it would be truer to say that faith could take root in Dietrich’s soul, not so much despite his parents’ unbelief, but rather because of the climate of reverence and wonder in which they raised their children. Dietrich captures this in another episode that also hightlights his mother’s natural religiosity.

  When I was alone [about age five], I sometimes prostrated myself on the ground before a copy of Donatello’s Head of Christ and would remain in adoration of Christ for perhaps ten minutes. This prayer brought me joy. I remember once how my mother opened the door. Seeing me, she quietly withdrew with tears in her eyes. Though she was not herself a committed Christian, she possessed a deep reverence for all religion. Besides, both my parents had the greatest respect for any impulses in the souls of their children.

  Dietrich would not allow his burgeoning religious nature to be stifled. When his elder sister Lisl took an eight-year-old Dietrich to the cathedral in Milan—as an artistic, not a religious outing—he began genuflecting at all the side altars and would not stop thinking that there was something wron
g with visiting the church in a merely aesthetic attitude.

  A milestone in Dietrich’s religious development was reading a book of bible stories. He was six and the experience was overwhelming, for it expanded his sense of the supernatural. “An indescribable joy filled my heart as the world of revelation disclosed itself to me. Even though I did not understand every word, I somehow felt the solemnity of God’s world as it enveloped me.”

  Striking in a different and perhaps subtler way are the signs of a deep ethical sensibility in the young Dietrich. When he was a teenager, his father wanted to show him a nude model. Adolf’s reasons were not prurient; he wanted his son to witness the rare instance of a perfectly proportioned body. The boy refused, not out of puritanical shame, but because he already intuited the mysterious self-revelation of the naked body. He said to his father, “I want to save this experience until I have the privilege of seeing my wife in her nudity.”

  One cannot fail to be struck by von Hildebrand’s remarkable independence from his milieu. This is all the more impressive when we remember that he was just a boy of five and six in the earliest instances recounted. In each case, whether intellectual, ethical, or religious, his independence was tied to an uncommon perceptive power. On the occasion with the nude model, for example, it was not just shyness or shame that held him back; rather he intuited a certain mystery of human love connected with the naked human body.

  This independence would grow over the course of his intellectual and religious development. Indeed, we will see it again in his immunity to the pervasive anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria and in many other settings as well. Above all, this independence granted him a freedom to see the essence of Nazism and so to recognize that it was beyond redemption, when many of his contemporaries still labored under hopes of shaping Nazism in a Christian direction.

  In 1906, von Hildebrand began to study philosophy at the University of Munich. Most of the foundational ideas in his critique of National Socialism were absorbed and articulated during his university years. In Munich, he first came into contact with the philosophical work of Edmund Husserl, who was then teaching in Göttingen. For von Hildebrand and many of Husserl’s early students, the extraordinary appeal of “phenomenology”—as Husserl’s approach was called—was its radical opposition to empiricism and its restoration of philosophical “realism.” This realism attracted von Hildebrand to Göttingen, where he spent several semesters studying with Husserl, under whose direction he would write a dissertation analyzing moral action. From Husserl, von Hildebrand learned to avoid “reductionism” of all kinds, that is, the “nothing but” philosophy expressed, for example, in the idea that morality is nothing but tribal taboo or in the claim that consciousness is nothing but brain function. This commitment to the objectivity of truth made him a particularly keen critic of the Nazi way of reducing the truth of a statement to its agreement with what they believed to be the “Nordic mentality.”