My Battle Against Hitler Read online

  Yet by then, a great number of awful things had already taken place. Many people had been dragged into the terrible concentration camp in Dachau, among them Gerlich, the noble publisher of Der Gerade Weg (The Straight Path).*26 Having previously been a very nationalistic editor of the Münchner Neuesten Nachrichten, Gerlich had converted through Therese von Konnersreuth.*27 He became an ardent Catholic and a passionate follower of hers. He drew all the consequences of his conversion, completely abandoning his former nationalism and attacking the Nazis from the Catholic standpoint in the most courageous of ways. Der Gerade Weg was excellent. He was mistreated terribly; I think he lost an eye and was then dragged off to Dachau. I cannot express how much it pained me that the Catholic hierarchy did not take a definitive stance against the Antichrist, who raised his head in Nazism.

  I visited Marc Sangnier during my stay in Paris, and we spoke about the appalling developments in Germany. He said to me, “Does it suffice to be in power to be recognized by the Church?” What a disappointment it was for him who had labored so much on behalf of peace and the reconciliation between Germany and France, and who had fought so hard against nationalism. He had believed in a better Germany, and yet now everything had turned so completely in the opposite direction. It was a painful time together, yet we were deeply united in our outlook.

  On the last evening before my return to Florence from Paris I was invited by the friendly attaché at the German embassy, but unfortunately the Provincial of the German Dominicans and the Prior of the Dominican monastery in Berlin were also invited. At the table there arose a very disagreeable discussion. The Provincial began by saying, “But we have no reason at all to reject Hitler when he stresses the idea of authority and the value of the nation. Above all, he keeps speaking about God.” I answered, “Hitler is so stupid that he does not even know what the word, ‘God,’ means; when he uses the word, in no way does it mean that he is professing the true God.”

  The poor attaché looked at me in desperation and made a pleading gesture—I ought not to say such things openly in his presence. He was right, since if this had become known, he would immediately have lost his position. Perhaps he even said, “My dear Professor, please bear in mind that I will immediately be fired when it becomes known that the Führer was described as stupid in my home!”

  The Provincial continued, “We Catholics have to put ourselves in the front ranks of National Socialism and in this way give everything a Catholic turn.” I answered, “National Socialism and Christianity are absolutely incompatible, and besides it is a terrible illusion to think that Catholics would be able to influence this movement by means of compromises.” I mentioned the awful speech of Esser,*28 who had said at a belated Goethe celebration (the hundredth anniversary of Goethe’s death had been in 1932), “I’m glad these festivities are coming to a close, since I prefer every poet of freedom a thousand times over the internationalist Goethe.” The Prior responded, “I also greatly prefer Schiller to Goethe; there is nothing wrong with this opinion.”

  I was beside myself. These two unfortunate friars showed me the entire tragedy of the situation of Catholics in Germany, the terrible temptation of being drawn into compromises, and I saw more than ever before how right it was that I had left Germany. In the attitude of the two friars, I saw so clearly the danger of compromise by German Catholics. After dinner the Prior even began laughingly to sing the Horst Wessel Lied,*29 at which I declared, “I have to go to the train station in twenty minutes, but I will leave here immediately if you continue to sing this song, for I have no intention of listening to it for even a moment.” At that they stopped with their singing.

  The German attaché accompanied me a few steps, probably to my hotel, which was quite close to his residence. He said to me, “You must know that I am one hundred percent in agreement with you, and that I was very unhappy about the behavior of the friars. But I cannot, after all, take a public stance; otherwise I will lose my position tomorrow morning.” The poor fellow apparently still hoped to outlast the regime at his post and did not realize that he would anyway soon be replaced by a Nazi, and that a critical statement on his part would not cost him his position but his freedom. He was a very nice person whose heart was in the right place. I felt tremendous pity for him. I never saw him again and do not know whether he survived the Nazi regime. We parted in great warmth.

  I think he had spoken with Gilson about whether I might be given a professorship at the Sorbonne or at the Collège de France. He hoped that the aspiration for the spiritual unity of Europe, which the celebration in honor of St. Albert was meant to symbolize, would lead to the creation of a chair for a German philosopher in Paris to renew the ancient tradition of the Sorbonne, and he hoped that I would be appointed to this chair.

  But Gilson had clearly said no, and I can easily imagine why. To begin with, it was hardly possible to build this bridge to Germany at a moment when Germany was betraying all of its own great traditions and had fallen not only into the hands of criminals but into the clutches of radical philistinism, ignorance, and kitsch. Second, while I could perhaps act as a representative of an earlier Germany, my appointment would have been anything but a bridge to the Germany of Hitler. Third, Gilson probably did not think too highly of me, for he was first and foremost a scholar and a strict Thomist, for whom phenomenology was a dubious form of philosophy.

  Von Hildebrand returned to Florence, where he saw his brother-in-law Walter Braunfels. This was their first meeting since Braunfels, who was of Jewish descent, had been dismissed as director of the music conservatory in Cologne.

  It was a significant reunion with Walter. He had immediately traveled to Florence upon being dismissed. I was now able to get a firsthand account of the terrible events that had occurred, how he had been let down by those he had especially helped to advance and whose friendship he had counted on. Sadly, it was above all a Catholic who had treated him so badly. But I was happy to see that Walter was in complete agreement with me in the radical rejection of Nazism.

  I received a letter from Gretchen who was in Munich in which she wrote that it had been announced on German radio that a celebration had taken place in Paris for the German thinker St. Albert the Great and that this was intended to honor Germany. The German ambassador had attended the celebration and Dietrich von Hildebrand had spoken as a representative of Germany. This was quite amazing to me. As a mortal enemy of the Nazis who would not have crossed the border at any cost, it was almost comical that they should mention me in this way. It shows how little everything had yet been forcibly coordinated under the Nazi policy of Gleichschaltung. Had not the foreign office also approved of my speech?

  During a stay in Rome, von Hildebrand and his wife met two of his colleagues from the University of Munich. One reported on the situation the Nazis had created there.

  In particular, they told us about the dismissal of all professors who were “non-Aryan”—according to the official definition of Aryan. A person was considered non-Aryan if he was fully or even half Jewish. Having a Jewish grandmother or grandfather sufficed to make one non-Aryan, unless the grandparent had been baptized as a child and raised as a non-Jew.

  I no longer remember whether it was already before my trip to Rome that I received the questionnaire about Aryan status, which was sent to all the professors and instructors at the University. Most likely, it arrived only after I returned to Florence. In any case, I decided to identify myself as non-Aryan. There was, of course, a certain basis for this as my father’s mother’s, whose maiden name was Guttentag, was Jewish, though as a child she had been baptized as a Protestant. But the questionnaire stated that whoever declared themselves “Aryan” had to give proof of this under oath, while those who designated themselves as “non-Aryan” were not required to do so. I was fundamentally opposed to the very question itself, and in any case I had resolved never again to return to Germany. I could have written “Aryan,” according to the official definition. Yet I was loath even to recognize the distinc
tion and to join the ranks of the non-persecuted “Aryans.” Moreover, I absolutely did not want to supply evidence why, in spite of my Jewish grandmother, I could call myself “Aryan.” For in this, I already saw myself as “dealing” with the Nazis, which I wanted to avoid at all costs. Finally, it was perhaps less dangerous for my sisters if I were dismissed for being non-Aryan rather than leaving the University of my own accord for reasons of fundamental philosophical opposition. Thus I submitted the questionnaire marking myself as “non-Aryan.” I was proud at this moment to belong to the non-Aryans.

  This open act of solidarity with the persecuted Jews was a radical act of defiance. In response, the Nazis dismissed von Hildebrand from the University of Munich on June 27, 1933. He had taught philosophy there for fourteen years. Back in Florence, he began work on a book about epistemology—a “grand and beautiful task”—he had long wanted to write. His only source of regular income for the time being was the advance of 100 marks a month from the publisher Otto Müller for the Ethics he would be writing.

  In the meantime, many unfortunate things had again come to pass. Monsignor Kaas,*30 who played a leading role in the German Center Party, sent a telegram to Hitler in April offering best wishes on his birthday and speaking of the good he had done. What a disastrous and undignified way to ingratiate himself with Hitler, and besides, this gesture was in no way expected of him. While there is no moral justification whatsoever for a priest to congratulate an Antichrist and to speak of his good deeds, not even in the hope of securing something of decisive importance, such an ignominious compromise was in any case completely senseless. There was no reason to hope that a congratulatory telegram would alter Hitler’s stance toward the Church or secure greater freedom for Catholics, or that one could somehow convince him not to encroach on the life of the Church, on Catholic schools, etc., let alone to gain for the Church an exemption from the Nazi policy of Gleichschaltung.

  I saw with horror the path that some leading Catholics were taking, and I saw how terribly the soon-to-be concluded Concordat with Hitler was bound to affect the spirit of Catholics, how their inner resistance would be paralyzed by it. Hitler had given an address in the Reichstag in which he uttered many expressions about peace and his love for peace. The duplicity and dishonesty of these phrases were as clear as day to me. But unfortunately, not for many other Catholics in Germany, who were eager to shelter themselves in an illusion. Münch saw this speech as a hopeful sign that Hitler is really much better than one had thought. He even influenced Nini*31 for a moment, so that she also took this speech as a good omen and thought that I was too peremptory in my rejection of Hitler. All this saddened me deeply and I realized ever more clearly how great the danger was for German Catholics to fall into “wishful thinking,” to allow themselves to fall for illusions, and thus to falter in their inner resistance.

  For my part, I threw myself completely into the writing of my new book, laboring uninterruptedly and with greatest intensity from dawn till dusk. Rarely in my life have I worked with such philosophical intensity as I did then. Of course, I had experienced such consuming work in the past, as in completing In Defense of Purity, when the intense rhythm spanned three to four days, though well into the night. Now, by comparison, the work rhythm stretched over two and a half or three months. Certainly, the twenty-three days during which I wrote Liturgy and Personality1 were in their own way a pinnacle of intense work. Yet then it had been more like harvesting ripe fruit, while this time I was engaged in arduous philosophical work in which I was not just deepening and developing previously acquired ideas but conquering new territory. Hamburger worked with me a great deal and his help was crucial.

  One afternoon Carlo Placci*32 invited me to tea. I went mainly for the chance to see my old friend Placci again. It is quite remarkable how preoccupation with personal concerns can cut one off from one’s surroundings and from present events. I was oppressed by the tragedy of Germany falling into the hands of criminals and by the fact that my life in Munich had been irretrievably lost. I was full of indignation at all the injustice daily taking place in Germany, and so I felt very alien in Florence, surrounded as I was by people who saw the things happening in Germany more in the light of a historic event that did not concern them personally in an immediate way. For Placci and many others, the Maggio Musicale*33 was more important at the moment. For Lisl it was also not a matter that concerned her daily. Other concrete things of the present moment stood in the foreground. With Hamburger it was of course different—he shared my concerns and my pain, but he was not as preoccupied by them as I was.

  But above all I had the feeling when I met other people or came into a room that I was present there as a stranger, not because they did not greet me in a friendly and interested way, but because I was completely preoccupied by something that did not directly and personally touch them and so was cut off from them. This is a very particular phenomenon, which I have experienced in various situations in life. It brings out another dimension of Ovid’s words, Donec eris felix multos numerabis amicos; tempora si fuerunt nubila solus eris (“As long as you are lucky, you will have many friends; if cloudy times appear, you will be alone”). Ovid is pointing to the attitude of others toward us when we have hit on hard times. But what I have in mind is a form of solus eris (“you will be alone”) which is not the fault of others but the consequence of our own state of mind, which does not entail any fault on our part either. I am also not thinking of a condition of “being abandoned” in an outward manner, but rather a state of “feeling alone” due to an objective situation for which we are not to blame.

  I remember only one conversation from my visit with Placci. I told him about the letter from the Nazis sent to all university professors, requiring one to state whether one was Aryan or non-Aryan, and also about the decree that any non-Aryans were to lose their professorships. Placci was horrified by the whole situation. He said, “While I know that my ancestors were Catholics, I would be unable to offer any details about their race. Until now, this question has not interested anyone. I could not prove that there had never been a non-Aryan among my ancestors.” Placci’s statement made me happy. I fear this was the last time I ever saw him. Dear, congenial Placci. His presence was a constant in my life from the earliest years of childhood until 1933. Ever delightful, Carlo Placci would reliably turn up from time to time.

  It must have been during this same May that the Catholic Academic Association once again held a conference at the Abbey of Maria Laach. To my great distress, Papen had been invited to give a lecture. The whole conference turned out to be an ignominious affair. A priest from Maria Laach praised the Third Reich as the realization of the Body of Christ in the secular world. All sorts of speeches were given in praise of National Socialism and the Third Reich. Landmesser also gave a disastrous talk. I was completely beside myself as I heard the details of the conference. I decided to withdraw immediately from the Association, above all, to resign as a member of the board and as chairman of the Association’s foreign commission.

  I had already heard about statements by Münch and Kirnberger which I thought were appalling. Both of them had said to Gretchen (or to someone in Munich who told Gretchen) that the only thing still necessary was for Hitler to find his way to the faith and to convert. If that happened, the new situation in Germany would in fact be tremendously fortunate. Thus, we had to storm heaven for Hitler’s conversion; we had to pray for him. This was a horrid blend of equivocation and an attempt at self-deception. To begin with, there was far more to be decried in Hitler than his personal lack of faith, namely his entire gruesome doctrine, the totalitarian state he had created, and the spirit of all his collaborators.

  This remark would have been meaningful in the case of a great and enlightened monarch, whose only shortcoming lay in not being a believing Catholic. Yet in the case of Hitler, everything was permeated by the spirit of the Antichrist, and so everything had to be rejected—nationalism in its entirety, from top to bottom. Even Franz von P
apen, who at least in his private life gave the impression of being a fervent Catholic, had taken part in the abolition of every liberty and in the use of terror. Had Hitler actually converted, he would in consequence have had to dismiss all of his subordinates, dissolve the Third Reich, and immediately turn himself over to a court for his many crimes. It was therefore total nonsense to believe that Hitler was only lacking faith and nothing more. Certainly one should pray for him, as one should pray for every criminal, for the eternal good of his soul, but one should simultaneously pray that he be removed from his position as soon as possible, that Germany and the entire world be freed of him.

  Much as I was saddened by the remarks of two such close friends who had always stood against National Socialism and even against German nationalism, what I heard about the conference went far beyond this. I was terribly upset by this shameful betrayal, this miserable compromise. I wrote to Kirnberger, though in very cautious terms, since already then it could be compromising with the censors to receive a letter attacking the regime. Thus I only wrote, “I cannot accept the direction taken by the Catholic Academic Association at its recent conference. For this reason, I am resigning from the board. I am also giving up my place as chairman of the foreign commission, since in any event I will no longer be living in Germany.” In his response, Kirnberger expressed his great regret about my resignation, saying that he did not understand what I had said about the direction of the Catholic Academic Association; at Maria Laach, the intention had simply been to incorporate the Catholic intellectual heritage into the new historical situation.