70 years ago on this date, February
2, 1945, German Resistance Member, Alfred Delp, was executed by hanging in
Plotzensee Prison.
Unit 1012 will honor and always remember Delp. We will remember
and honor him for saving Jews during World War II and he rightfully deserves to
be recognized by the State of Israel as Righteous
among the Nations.
His story should be an inspiration for us to support victims’ rights and
defend the use of the death penalty by speaking out against evil and saving
lives. We also learn to take a Christian approach in doing the thing. We will post
information about him from Wikipedia and other links.
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Alfred Delp
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Alfred Delp (15 September 1907 in
Mannheim, Grand Duchy of Baden – 2 February 1945 in Berlin) was a German Jesuit
priest and a philosopher of the German
Resistance. Part of the inner Kreisau Circle resistance group, he is
considered a significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism.
Implicated in the failed 1944 July Plot to overthrow the Nazi dictator Adolf
Hitler, Delp was arrested, and sentenced to death. He was executed in 1945.
Early life and education
Alfred Delp was born in Mannheim, Grand Duchy of Baden, to a Catholic mother
and a Protestant
father. Although he was baptised as a Catholic, he attended a Protestant
elementary school and was confirmed in the Lutheran church in 1921. Following a
bitter argument with the Lutheran pastor, he requested and received the
sacraments of First Communion and Confirmation in the Catholic Church. His
Catholic pastor recognized the boy's intelligence and love for learning and
arranged for him to study at the Goetheschule in Dieburg. Possibly
because of the dual upbringing, he became later an ardent proponent of
radically better relations between the Churches.
Thereafter, Delp's youth was moulded
mainly by the Bund Neudeutschland Catholic youth movement. Immediately
after passing his Abitur
– in which he came out on top of his class – he joined the Society of Jesus in
1926. Following philosophy studies at Pullach, he worked for 3 years as a
prefect and sports teacher at Stella Matutina Kolleg in Feldkirch, Austria, where in 1933, he first
experienced the Nazi
regime, which forced an exodus of virtually all German students from Austria
and thus the Stella Matutina by means of a
punitive 1000 Mark fine to be paid by anyone entering Austria. With his
Director, Rev. Otto Faller and Professor Alois Grimm,
he was among the first to arrive in the Black
Forest, where the Jesuits opened Kolleg St. Blasien for some 300 students forced
out of Austria. After St. Blasien, he completed his theology studies in
Valkenburg, Holland (1934–1936), and in Frankfurt (1936–1937).
Ministry
In 1935, Delp published his Tragic
Existence, propagating a God-based humanism and reviewing the
existentialism of Martin Heidegger. In 1937, Delp was ordained a Catholic
priest in Munich. Delp had wanted to study for a doctorate in philosophy at the
University of Munich, but he was refused admission to the university for
political reasons. From 1939 on, he worked on the editorial staff of the Jesuit
publication Stimmen der Zeit ("Voices of the
Times"), until the Nazis suppressed it in April 1941. He was then assigned
as rector of St. Georg Church, part of Heilig-Blut Parish in the Munich
neighbourhood Bogenhausen. He preached both at Heilig-Blut and St. Georg, and
also secretly helped Jews who were escaping to Switzerland through the underground.
Resistance
Outspoken opposition to the Nazis by individual
Jesuits resulted in harsh response from government officials, including
imprisonment of priests in concentration camps. The government takeover of
church property, "Klostersturm", resulted in the loss of valuable
properties such as that of 'Stimmen der Zeit', and limited the work of the
Jesuits in Germany. The Jesuit provincial, Augustin Rösch, Father Delp's
superior in Munich, became active in the underground resistance to Hitler.
It was Augustin Rösch who introduced
Delp to the Kreisau Circle. As of 1942, Delp
met regularly with the clandestine group around Helmuth James Graf von Moltke to develop a model for a new social order after
the Third Reich came to an end. Delp's role was to explain Catholic social teaching to the group, and
to arrange contacts between Moltke and Catholic leaders, including Archbishop
(later Cardinal) Preysing of Berlin.
Arrest and trial
After the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler failed, a special Gestapo commission arrested and interrogated all
known members of the Resistance. Delp was arrested in Munich on 28 July 1944
(eight days after Claus von Stauffenberg's
attempt on Hitler's
life), although he was not directly involved in the plot. He was transferred to
Tegel Prison in Berlin. While in
prison, he secretly began to say Mass and wrote letters, reflections on Advent,
on Christmas, and other spiritual subjects, which were smuggled out of the
prison before his trial. On 8 December 1944, Delp received a visitor, Franz von
Tattenbach SJ, sent by Rösch, to make his final vows to the Jesuit Order. This
was supposedly forbidden, but the attending policemen did not understand what
was going on. Delp wrote on the same day, It was too much, what a
fulfillment, I prayed for it so much, I gave my life away. My chains are now
without any meaning, because God found me worthy of the "Vincula
amoris" (chains of love).
He was tried, together with Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, Franz Sperr, and Eugen Gerstenmaier, before the People's Court (Volksgerichtshof)
on 9–11 January 1945, with Roland Freisler
presiding. Alfred Delp, Helmuth von Moltke, and Franz Sperr were sentenced to
death by hanging
for high
treason and treason.
The court had dropped the charge against Delp of cognizance of the 20 July
plot, but his dedication to the Kreisau Circle, his work as a Jesuit priest,
and his Christian-social worldview were enough to seal his fate as a victim of
the Nazi "system of justice".
Execution
While he was in prison, the Gestapo offered Delp his freedom in return for his
leaving the Jesuits, but he rejected it. Delp, like all prisoners connected
with 20 July, was required to wear handcuffs day and night. Prisoners being
taken to execution were handcuffed with their hands behind their backs. The
sentence was carried out on 2 February 1945 at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. The very next day,
Roland Freisler was killed in an air-raid. A
special order by Heinrich Himmler required
that the remains of all prisoners executed in connection with the 20 July Plot
be cremated, and their ashes scattered over the sewage fields. Accordingly, the
body of Alfred Delp was cremated and his ashes disposed of somewhere near
Berlin; nobody knows where.
Posthumous honours
In September 1949, Rev. Superior Otto Faller
at Kolleg St. Blasien unveiled memorial plaques for
two former educators and teachers slain by the Nazis, Alfred Delp and Alois Grimm,
whose ashes were buried there. Some thirty years later, Kolleg St. Blasien named its new theatre hall
after Alfred Delp. The Alfred Delp Memorial Chapel was built in Lampertheim
in 1965. Many schools in Germany are named after Alfred Delp, among them one in
Bremerhaven.
In Mannheim,
a Catholic student residence is named for him. The guesthouse on the campus of
the Canisius College in Berlin also bears his name. In Dieburg, the
uppermost level at the Gymnasium, the Alfred Delp School, the Catholic
community centre, the Father Delp House, and a street are named after him. The Bundeswehr
named its barracks
in Donauwörth
the Alfred-Delp-Kaserne.
Alfred Delp in his own words
- God does not need great pathos or great works. He needs greatness of hearts. He cannot calculate with zeroes
- It is the time of sowing, not of harvesting. God is sowing; one day He will harvest again. I will try to do one thing. I will try to at least be a healthy and fruitful seed, falling into the soil. And into the Lord God's hand.
- Whoever does not have the courage to make history, becomes its poor object. Let's do it!
- When we get out of here, we will show, that (ecumenicism) is more than personal friendship. We will continue to carry the historical burden of our separated churches, as baggage and inheritance. But never again shall it became shameful to Christ. Like you, I do not believe in the utopia of complete unity stews. But the one Christ is undivided, and when undivided love leads to him, we will do better than our fighting predecessors and contemporaries.
- If there was a little more light and truth in the world through one human being, his life has had meaning.
- In half an hour, I'll know more than you do. These were the last words of Alfred Delp. He whispered them jokingly, to the Prison Chaplain Rev. Peter Buchholz, who accompanied him to his execution.
- Someday, others shall be able to live better and happier lives because we died Written after the death sentence was passed.
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