Let’s face it: God didn’t seem to be anywhere near Dachau
Concentration Camp during Hitler’s reign, or any other camp run by the SS for
that matter. However, since the fall of the Third Reich monuments have been
erected in Dachau
honoring the religious believers who brutally suffered under National Socialism
(Nazism). In my previous posting I mentioned the Church of Reconciliation
Hindsight is 20-20, as they say. No one could have known how
bad Hitler was going to be so compromise seemed like a good idea at the time.
Wrong. It is not hard for us to see today through the lens of history how
compromise with Hitler failed, but von Hildebrand saw it with utmost clarity as
it was unfolding in real time. I do not mention this great man and his struggle
to defeat Nazi ideology in the 1920’s and 30’s in Germany
and Austria
(and later in the U.S) as a simple interesting history lesson, but as a warning
for Western nations today. Compromise didn’t work with the Nazis and timidity won’t
work with the so-called Islamic State. Nazism needed to be crushed, and so does
a movement who blasphemes against God by raping and butchering in His name across
Iraq , Syria , and Nigeria . In an essay in October of
1934 titled Centerum Censeo…, von
Hildebrand quotes Cato the Elder who gave this advice to the Roman Senate,
“ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam” (moreover, I think that Carthage
should be completely destroyed). Carthage
and The Third Reich no longer exist, but how much blood would have been spared
if the world had taken heed of the threat of Nazism sooner! So it is with
today’s ‘Nazis’ in the Middle East and
elsewhere. Instead, the great nation called The United States is led by man who
says butchers and rapists have “legitimate grievances”.
As National Socialism grew ever stronger in Germany ,
internal resistance to it diminished. Within the local church, not only did
this take the form of compromise, but also withdrawal. Many clergy decided to
focus strictly on matters of faith and did not feel impelled to bear witness in
the public square, but they soon learned in a very personal manner that the
saying, “you might not like politics, but politics likes you”, was true enough.
In his 1935 essay, The Danger of Quietism,
von Hildebrand addressed this stream of thought and tried to stir those of the
Catholic clergy to greater action. If enough people - especially those in
positions of moral authority - had denounced the Nazi beast early and
forcefully there still might indeed have been bloodshed with a number of
martyrs to be counted, but the massive scale of atrocities that later occurred and
resulted in millions of deaths would undoubtedly have been averted. The problem
is, nobody wants to be those first martyrs. That being the case, it is far
easier to come to terms with evil than to confront it. But coming to terms with
the enemy by compromising with it only emboldens the enemy. By the time the
enemy comes for you it’s too late to resist.
Of course, it wasn’t up to the Catholic clergy to try to
singlehandedly take on Hitler and defeat him, but it is clear from von
Hildebrand’s memoirs in My Battle Against
Hitler that he believed the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition
provided the critical antidote to resist the drug of National Socialism, and he
was often frustrated by clergy who couldn’t see as clearly as he did just how
dangerous Hitler and company were on the world stage.
It didn’t take long for clergy to end up in concentration
camps. Therefore, Dachau
not only got filled up with Jews and other ‘undesirables’, but also priests.
In the next paragraph, the plaque above states, “Many
clerics were detained in concentration camps. Starting at the end of 1940,
clergy were moved from different concentration camps to the KZ Dachau…and to
some extent separated from the other prisoners. When the camp was liberated on
April 29, 1945, 1240 clerics were still there from a total number of over
2700.”
Polish priests were particularly singled out for
experimentation and extermination.
On the very bottom right of the above profile “The clergy
were often used for medical experiments” it says that, “Overall, 185 clergy
(176 of them Poles) were infected with malaria. Phlegmon experiments were
carried out on 40 of them (38 Poles). 12 lost their lives.”
“Here in Dachau
every third victim was a Pole + one of every two Polish priests was martyred +
their holy memory is venerated by their fellow prisoners of the Polish clergy
+”
Below is a monument to Western Christians…
…and a chapel for Eastern Christians (Russian
Orthodox).
One walks down an incline surrounded by walls topped with
interconnecting bars in order to go through the open gate and into the Jewish
memorial. It is reminiscent of walking down into a prison in which one might
not escape, but upon entering and looking up the unclimbable stone walls light is
seen pouring through an oblong opening in the roof and illuminating the
interior…like the light of God giving hope in a heart of despair.
When we think about the Holocaust, the extermination of the
Jews inevitably comes to mind. The story has often been told. Unfortunately it
continues to need to be re-told, perhaps more now than ever since the world is
again seeing a rise in anti-Semitism. As Pope John Paul II said, the Jews are
our elder brothers and sisters. Without Judaism there is no Christianity. Jesus
quoted scripture and is the fulfillment of that scripture. It is the duty of
Christians to defend our families, and that includes both our elder siblings
and our brothers and sisters in Christ embodied in the Eastern churches.
Sources referenced: My Battle Against Hitler, by Dietrich Von Hildebrand (translated by John Henry Crosby)
