Clemens August Graf von Galen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Blessed Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen
"Lion of Münster"
Born March 16, 1878, Dinklage Castle, Lower Saxony, Germany
Died March 22, 1946, Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Venerated in Catholic Church
Beatified 9 October 2005, Saint Peter's Basilica, Rome, Italy by Pope Benedict XVI recognition celebrated by Carindal Saraiva Martins
Feast 22 March
Saints Portal

Blessed Clemens August Graf von Galen (March 16, 1878 – March 22, 1946) was a German count, Bishop of Münster, and Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He received his education in Austria at the Stella Matutina (Jesuit School). After his ordination he worked in Berlin at Saint Matthias, were he became close friends with Nuncio Eugenio Pacelli, later to be Pope Pius XII. An outspoken critic of the Nazi regime, he issued forceful, public denunciations of the Third Reich's euthanasia programs and persecution of the Catholic Church, making him one of the most visible and unrelenting internal voices of dissent against the Nazis.

He was also known as a German patriot and a fierce anti-Communist who favoured the battle at the Eastern Front against Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union.

A sermon the Bishop gave in 1941 served as the inspiration for the anti-Nazi group The White Rose, and the sermon itself was the group's first pamphlet.[1]

The published sermons of von Galen show that he condemned the racist deportations of the Nazis. Von Galen, further, suffered virtual house arrest from 1941 until the end of the war.

In 1945 he told international press that although he and others had been opposed to Nazism, it was their duty to be loyal to their fatherland and thus consider the Allies their enemies.[2]

He spent the rest of his life forcefully condemning Allied crimes during the occupation of Germany and the terror of the expulsion of German civilians from former German territories in the east, annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union.

Unexpectedly, at Christmas 1945 it became known that Pope Pius XII would appoint three new German cardinals, one of them Bishop von Galen, who was made a Cardinal on February 18, 1946. He interpreted it as "a sign of the love of the Pope for our poor German people. Before all the world he has, as a supranational and impartial observer, recognized the German people as equal in the society of nations". On his journey to Rome, he visited almost every POW camp on his way and told the German Wehrmacht soldiers to be brave and to behave decently, and he smuggled a large number of comforting personal messages to their worried families.

Following his return from the cumbersome travel to Vatican City, the new cardinal was celebrated enthusiastically in his native Westphalia and in his destroyed city of Münster, which still lay completely in ruins as a result of the air raids. He died a few days after his return from Rome in the St. Franziskus Hospital of Münster. His last words were:[3] Ja, Ja, wie Gott es will. Gott lohne es Euch. Gott schütze das liebe Vaterland. Für ihn weiterarbeiten... oh, Du lieber Heiland! ("Yes, Yes, as God wills it. May God repay it to you. May God protect the dear fatherland. Go on working for him... oh, you dear Savior!") He was buried in the family crypt of the Galen family in the destroyed Cathedral of Münster.

Cardinal von Galen belonged to one of the oldest of most distinguished noble families of Westphalia,[4] and was born in the Catholic, southern part of the Duchy of Oldenburg (Oldenburger Münsterland, near the border with the Netherlands), on the Burg Dinklage. He was son of Count Ferdinand Heribert von Galen, a member of the Imperial German parliament (Reichstag) for the Catholic Centre Party, and Elisabeth von Spee.

A paper from the Foreign Office called him "the most outstanding personality among the clergy in the British zone... Statuesque in appearance and uncompromising in discussion, this oak-bottomed old aristocrat... is a German nationalist through and through."

In June 1945 he preached in a pastoral letter:

"We dearly want to thank our Christian soldiers, who always believed to do the right thing and risked their life for their fatherland and their people and even in the midst of war retained immaculate in heart and hand by not deteriorating to hatred, pillages and unjust violence."

SS-General Kurt Meyer, who was accused of ordering that no prisoners be taken resulting in the shooting of 18 Canadian prisoners, was sentenced to death and his relatives asked Bishop Galen to intervene. Galen did so, as he said: "According to what has been reported to me, general Kurt Meyer was sentenced to death, because his subordinate men committed crimes he didn't arrange nor did he approve. As a proponent of Christian legal opinion, which says that you are only responsible for your own deeds, I support the mercy petition for general Meyer and pledge for a pardon." On review, a Canadian General, finding the evidence against Meyer "to be a mass of circumstantial evidence", commuted his death sentence. Meyer served nine years in British and Canadian prisons.

The cause for beatification was concluded positively in November 2004, and he was beatified on October 9, 2005 in St. Peter's Basilica of Rome by Pope Benedict XVI.

[edit] External links

Mgr. von Galen spoke out vigorously against the appalling acts perpetrated by his country's "liberators". He did so as early as July 1, 1945, during a pilgrimage of Münster diocesans. On that occasion he denounced "the ransacking of our homes destroyed by bombs", "the pillaging and destruction of our houses and farms in the countryside by armed bands of robbers", the "murder of defenceless men", "the rape of German women and girls by bestial lechers",[5] the indifference of the occupation forces to the risk of famine in Germany, all these horrors finding justification on the basis of "the false view 'that all Germans are criminals and deserve the most severe punishment, including death and extermination!" ("ja Tod und Ausrottung!").

That sermon is quoted in a tribute to Mgr. von Galen written by Dr. Alfred Schickel, director of the Zeitgeschichtliche Forschungsstelle (Contemporary History Research Center) of Ingolstadt, where the full text is archived. The tribute is entitled "Ein furchtloser Kirchenmann und Anwalt seines Volkes" (A fearless churchman and defender of his people).

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ The White Rose Shoah Education Project Web
  2. ^ It must be noted, that this particularly refers to the Soviet Union, Communism in general and the Allied air raids on German cities. The hostile attitude may also have been caused by British-American bombing of civilian targets even in the latest stage of the war.
  3. ^ Gottfried Hasenkamp, Heimkehr und Heimgang des Kardinals, a.a.O., S. 13
  4. ^ Von Galen Family
  5. ^ Probably referring to the mass raping and cruelties committed against German civilians in annexed former eastern Germany.