Fathers Alfred Delp and Hermann Wehrle - martyr-priests murdered by the Nazis

Rev Dr Alfred Delp SJ and Rev Dr Hermann Wehrle SJ were both dragged before the Nazi People's Court on trumped up charges and martyred chiefly for being Catholic priests.

Fr Wehrle had merely heard the confession of a German cavalry officer, Major Ludwig Freiherr (Baron) von Leonrod, who was not even part of the 20th July plot to overthrow Hitler. He had declined to get involved.

Baron Leonrod was nevertheless condemned to death for not revealing what he knew about the plot, which was, in any case, very little.

Fr Wehrle knew even less but Baron Leonrod came to him for spiritual counsel and confession. Fr Wehrle gave him him open spiritual counsel and told him that tyrannicide was moral if the tyrant had no legal right to be leader.

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, the Jesuit newspaper, and limited the work of the Jesuits in Germany. The Jesuit provincial, Rev Fr Augustin Rösch SJ, 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, Count 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.

Rev Dr Augustin Roesch SJ, the Munich Jesuit Provincial
who clandestinely opposed Hitler and the Nazis

This was the difficulty for German Christians. Hitler had been voted in constitutionally. Was his government legitimate? Seemingly, then, yes. But then he had also usurped power as Chancellor but creating himself Fuehrer or "Leader" which was not a constitutionally recognised post. He had done so through the Ermaechtigungsgesetz or "Enabling" or "Empowering" Acts which purported to be constitutional but, in reality, could hardly be called so.

True, Chancellor Bruening (a Catholic) had persuaded President von Hindenburg to sign over to him the emergency powers under Article 34 of the Weimar Constitution but that was all legal and only temporary. This seemed different. But, on the other hand, the Weimar Constitution had only come in, after World War I, and in duress. Was it the last word on the subject?

All these debates, the 20th July plotters repeatedly considered, anxious to ensure that they behaved with impeccably correct morals and justice.

It is easy for us to sit back in our armchairs and say "what was the problem?". But we were not there and called upon to risk our lives. The issue is still live. As Catholics we are taught to obey the legitimately constituted government and not to seek to overthrow it unlawfully just because we do not like it. We do not have the right to impose upon others our own dislike of the government.

These distinctions were lost on a brutish thug like Roland Freisler, the ex-Communist then fanatical Nazi, President of the Nazi People's Court.

Newly released footage below shows the eloquent defence of Fr Hermann Wehrle and others and their ill treatment at the hands of the odious Freisler.

Rev Dr Hermann Josef Wehrle SJ
curate at Holy Blood Church, Munich,
martyred for the Faith in 1944

Freisler acts as both prosecutor and judge in a blatant breach of elementary natural justice and then, with all the venom he can muster, he screeches and screams at the victims earning himself the clandestine sobriquet "raving Roland".

He ensured that his victims, the false accused, were further humiliated by having them dressed in old ragged clothes, often without any belt to keep their trousers up, so that they appeared before this Nazi kangaroo court looking shabby, scruffy and humiliated, particularly those who had been generals or high officials.

Major Ludwig Freiherr (Baron) von Leonrod
German cavalry officer and devout Catholic aristocrat
martyred for the Faith in 1944

In these clips he finds Baron von Leonrod and Fr Wehrle, guilty of knowing of the 20 July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, and of following Catholic theology in considering themselves not bound to reveal their knowledge (clearly because of Hitler's tyranny).

He then condemns them to death, to be hanged by wire, suspended from meat hooks, in the cells of Ploetzensee prison as "enemies of the Reich" but, in reality and in the eyes of God, as deeply heroic Christian martyrs.

We salute their courage in standing firm before the odious treachery, heathen villainy and pagan devilishness of the National Socialist German Worker's Party and its atrocious, diabolical leadership who, with their symbol of a cross with arms broken, the satanic swastika, declared war on the old, royal, noble and Catholic Germany of men like Colonel Count Claus von Stauffenberg, Baron Ludwig von Leonrod and Fathers Delp and Wehrle.

See, in these clips, how these Catholic heroes had to explain their innermost thoughts to the brutal, insensitive Freisler who was wholly incapable of understanding the careful moral reasoning of men like Fr Wehrle.

He screams at them and then declares, in solemn tones: "Sie werden mit dem Tode bestraft", "they shall be punished with death!".

Freisler, who had been a Communist in his youth, had been sent to the Soviet Union to learn how they conducted their show trials of dissidents. He learned his evil trade well at the hands of the equally brutal Soviet prosecutors and judges.

Freisler himself was killed in a bombing raid not long after the 20 July plot trials when the court building was struck by a direct hit. He was found with a file in his hands about to persecute yet another victim of the "People's Court".

His victims are now commemorated in modern Germany as national heroes.

Yet there are still bigots like the "Reverend" Ray Dubuque and others who pretend that the Nazi leaders were really a "Catholic men's movement like the Knights of Columbus".

May we draw strength from the courageous stand against evil of these noble Catholic men. Consider what a singular honour it will be to spend eternity in heaven with men such as these. Are we worthy of the company of these gentle giants?

God give us the strength to learn from them and live as they did!

Christian martyrs of the old, once Catholic, Germany,
pray for us!

Maiorem hac dilectionem nemo habet ut animam suam quis ponat pro amicis suis.

Greater love than this no man hath, that he lay down his life for his friends.

John 15:13

...

For the record: Hitler hated Christianity and described himself as "a complete pagan"

Hitler was no more Catholic than Martin Luther was, or John Calvin or a great many others who had some Catholicism as a child and then rejected that faith utterly.

To call Hitler a Catholic is about as logical as a square circle.

A few quotes from Hitler's Mein Kampf ("my struggle", the book that launched his political career and set out his political and philosophical testament):

"The root of the whole evil lay, particularly in Schoenerer's opinion, in the fact that the directing body of the Catholic Church was not in Germany, and that for this very reason alone it was hostile to the interests of our nationality".

"The attitude of the Pan-German movement toward the Catholic Church was determined far less by its position on science, etc., than by its inadequacy in the championing of German rights and, conversely, its continued aid and comfort to Slavic arrogance and greed".

"Thus, the first theoretical foundation for a struggle of the Pan-German movement against Catholicism..."

"In my study of the Pan-German movement and its struggle against Rome...the struggle against the Catholic Church..."

[Vol 1/Ch 3]

"...above all the [Catholic] House of Habsburg was destined to be the misfortune of the German nation".

[I/1]

Hitler's Table Talk (sayings written down by his secretary, verified and published at the time) is even more explicit. A few excerpts:

"The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity!"

"Christianity is a prototype of Bolshevism: the mobilisation by the Jew of the masses of slaves with the object of undermining society. Thus one understands that the healthy elements of the Roman world were proof against this doctrine."

Georg, Ritter von Schoenerer, Pan-Germanist, anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic influence on Hitler

"With what clairvoyance the authors of the eighteenth, and especially those of the past, century criticised Christianity and passed judgement on the evolution of the Churches!"

"But Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery".

"Kerrl, with the noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don't believe the thing's possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself."

"Pure Christianity - the Christianity of the catacombs - is concerned with translating the Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics."

"Our epoch will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity. It will last another hundred years, two hundred years perhaps."

"The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity. Bolshevism practises a lie of the same nature, when it claims to bring liberty to men, whereas in reality it seeks only to enslave them. In the ancient world, the relations between men and pagan gods were founded on an instinctive respect. It was a world enlightened by the idea of tolerance. Christianity was the first creed in the world to exterminate its adversaries in the name of love. Its key-note is intolerance. Without Christianity, we should not have had Islam. The Roman Empire, under Germanic influence, would have developed in the direction of world-domination, and humanity would not have extinguished fifteen centuries of civilisation at a single stroke. Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul..."

The Men Behind Hitler: a German warning to the world, by Bernhard Schreiber, gives a very interesting account of the racists, occultists and anti-Christian fringe-dwellers who supported Hitler.

"Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure".

"So it's not opportune to hurl ourselves now into a struggle with the Churches. A slow death has something comforting about it. The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science. Religion will have to make more and more concessions. Gradually the myths crumble. All that's left is to prove that in nature there is no frontier between the organic and the inorganic. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity".

"Christianity, of course, has reached the peak of absurdity in this respect. And that's why one day its structure will collapse. Science has already impregnated humanity. Consequently, the more Christianity clings to its dogmas, the quicker it will decline".

Enough? I could go on.

Notice, too, how Hitler uses all the same tired, old arguments that atheists continue to regurgitate today. Same old nonsense coming back century after century.

According to historian Michael Rissmann, young Hitler was influenced in school by Pan-Germanism and began to reject the Church, receiving Confirmation only unwillingly. A boyhood friend reports that after Hitler had left home, he never attended Mass or received the Sacraments again.

Georg Ritter von Schönerer's writings and the written legacy of his Pan-German Away from Rome! movement, which agitated against the Roman Catholic Church at the end of the 19th century, heavily influenced the young Hitler.

It is not just atheists who make the same old mistakes. However, the lesson of history is that atheists who mass-murder millions often don't think they are making mistakes. Often enough they think they are doing the right thing.

Certainly Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot did.

And that's just one of the many problems with atheists and heathens.

...

Face it "Reverend" Ray: the Protestant areas voted for Hitler - the Catholic areas did not

The "Reverend" Mr Ray Dubuque returns unrepentant and persistent in his fear of the truth. It does not suit him to face the truth so he simply pretends that it is not there.

Well, here is some more of the truth which he will doubtless find equally unpalatable to his campaign of slander, hatred and religious vilification against the Catholic Church.

Here is the proof that it was in Protestant areas that the Nazis got their highest votes and in the Catholic areas the lowest (save the exception of Berlin, where the common sense and down-to-earth humour of the native Berliners ensured they could never vote for the jack-booted Nazi popinjays).





[Source: Blog of Fr Ray Blake at: http://marymagdalen.blogspot.com/]

The dark area on the first map shows the 1933 Nazi vote in Germany.

The second map shows the distribution of Catholics in the 1932 census.

It is immediately obvious that majority Catholic areas didn't vote for Hitler whereas majority Protestant areas did.

Yet Protestant liars persist with the outright fib that Bavaria voted for Hitler. The truth is the exact opposite: Catholic Bavaria rejected Hitler, as did the Catholic Rhineland, and the Catholic parts of Westphalia and Silesia.

Remarkably, it is a nearly exact fit.

The Protestant areas, by contrast, are exactly the areas where the Nazis gained their votes. The only dot of white in the Nazi-voting Protestant areas is Berlin, for the reasons already mentioned.

It could hardly be clearer.

Face it, "Reverend", your German co-religionists supported Hitler and the Nazis, and, alas, some did so ardently.

One such example was the Protestant Reich Bishop Ludwig Muller who is seen here giving the Nazi salute, surrounded by Nazi thugs.

Protestant Reich Bishop Ludwig Muller giving the Nazi salute surrounded by Nazi thugs

Stop lying and start telling the truth, "Reverend" Ray and others who remain in denial, and recognise that your Catholic brothers, like Pius XII, were leading anti-Nazis and that the majority of German Protestants, with some very noble exceptions, sold out to the Nazi Antichrist.

And Catholics make better beer, too!

...

Would the "Reverend" Ray rather slander Pius XII than save Jewish lives?

This is the face of a very ill-informed person calling himself the "Reverend" Ray Dubuque whose aim in life seems to be to slander the Catholic Church and particularly the late and saintly Pope Pius XII.

He asks what it was that Pope Pius XII saved the Jews from.

He then claims that numerous Nazi and extremist leaders in Europe were Roman Catholics, including Hitler himself.

He likens the Nazi inner circle to a Catholic men’s movement like the Knights of Columbus.

Yes, really! I am not making this up.

Let me spell it out for the "Reverend": according to Israeli diplomat and Jewish Rabbi, Dr Pinchas a Lapide, Pope Pius XII saved 860,000 Jews from the Nazi Death camps.

Let me repeat: 860,000 Jewish lives saved.

From a horrible death in the Nazi death camps.

Is that clear enough, now?

And Lapide says that this Pope did far and away more than all other agencies put together during World War II to save Jews.

That’s the Roman Catholic Pope saving all those Jewish lives – according to a Jewish Rabbi and Diplomat.

The Roman Catholic called Pope Pius XII.

Pope Pius XII - saviour of 860,000 Jews according to Jewish Diplomat and historian, Pinchas a Lapide.

I repeat.

Roman Catholic.

Pope.

Pius XII.

Saved 860,000 Jews from death.

Got that now, sir?

And I suspect that is rather more Jewish lives saved than ever the “Reverend” Mr Ray Dubuque saved!

And for this monumental act of humanity, the "Reverend" slanders this pope in the most vile, malignant and bigoted way imaginable by pretending he was a Nazi sympathiser and collaborator.

Yes, really! That is the extent of the Christian "charity" of this "Reverend" gentleman!

I doubt that the mendacious Mr Dubuque has ever even come close to being forced to live under a totalitarian regime. I suspect that he is pontificating, condemning and slandering the Pope from the complacent comfort of his armchair.

He clearly has no idea what an apostate is. It means one who has fallen away from the faith in which he was raised or chose.

Every one of the Nazis who was raised Catholic was an apostate and, in order to rise in the Nazi Party, openly repudiated their Catholicism in favour of the new "German" religion of the racist, Nazi state.

In short, they broke with the Roman Catholic Church utterly.

The 16th century Protestants also broke with the Roman Catholic Church but by the twisted illogicality of the “Reverend” he would also have to describe as “Roman Catholics” the following:

Martin Luther
John Calvin
John Wycliffe
Peter Waldo
Jan Hus
Huldrych Zwingli
Heinrich Bullinger
John Knox
Philipp Melancthon
Michael Servetus
Balthasar Hubmaier
King Henry VIII of England
Queen Elizabeth I of England

and everyone of the founders of Protestantism since they were all born, baptised and brought up Roman Catholics! Indeed, he would have to call half of them Roman Catholic clergy because that is what men like Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, Zwingli and Knox originally were!

Yes, folks! They were all Roman Catholic clerics. The very founders of the religion the “Reverend” Mr Dubuque claims to follow were nearly all Roman Catholic clergy.

Martin Luther in the garb of a Roman Catholic priest of the 16th Century. He repudiated the Catholic Church and started the Protestant Revolt. In later life, he published violently anti-Semitic works which, later still, were quoted, approvingly, by the Nazis. Most Protestants, however, now repudiate Luther's anti-Semitism.

But, by his own reasoning (if one can call it that), the "Reverend" would also have to describe the following Nazis as Protestants since that was the faith in which they were brought up:

Gunter d'Alquen – Chief Editor of the SS official newspaper, Das Schwarze Korps ("The Black Corps"), and commander of the SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers.

Ludolf von Alvensleben – SS-Gruppenfuehrer and Major-General of police in Crimea, commander of the Selbstschutz (self-defence) of the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia and responsible for the mass murder of thousands of Roman Catholic Poles and Jews.

Max Amann – SS-Obergruppenfuehrer and Head of Nazi publishing house Eher-Verlag and later convicted as one of the leading guilty men.

Heinz Auerswald – Nazi Commissioner for the Jewish residential district in Warsaw from April 1941 to November 1942.

Hans Aumeier - Deputy Commandant at Auschwitz and mass-murderer who was later hanged.

Artur Axmann - Chief of the Social Office of the Reich Youth Leadership. Responsible for organization and activities of the Hitler Youth.

Herbert Backe - Minister of Food (appointed 1942) and Minister of Agriculture (appointed 1943) and responsible for the “Hunger Plan” to starve tens of millions of Slavs in order to ensure steady supplies to the German people and troops. He later hanged himself in his prison cell.

Richard Baer - Commander of the Auschwitz I concentration camp from May 1944 to February 1945.

Alfred Baeumler - Philosopher who interpreted the works of Friedrich Nietzsche in order to legitimize Nazism.

Gottlob Berger - Chief of Staff for military SS and head of the SS's main leadership office and responsible for the forced death marches of POWs.

Werner Best - Civilian administrator of Nazi occupied France and Denmark.

Hans Biebow - Chief of Administration of the Łódź Ghetto.

Paul Blobel - SS commander primarily responsible for the Babi Yar massacre at Kiev.

Werner von Blomberg - Generalfeldmarshall of the German army between 1936 and 1938 and one of Hitler’s most devoted followers.

Hans-Friedrich Blunck - Propagandist and head of the Reich Literature Chamber between 1933 and 1935.

Ernst Wilhelm Bohle - leader of the Foreign Organization of the German Nazi Party from 1933 until 1945.

Martin Bormann - Head of the Party Chancellery (Parteikanzlei) and private secretary to Adolf Hitler.

Viktor Brack - Organiser of the Euthanasia Programme, Operation T4 and one of the men responsible for the gassing of Jews in the extermination camps.

Otto Bradfisch - Commander of the Security Police in Łódź and Potsdam.

Karl Brandt - Personal physician of Adolf Hitler in August 1944 and head of the administration of the Nazi T-4 euthanasia program from 1939. Convicted at Nuremberg and hanged as one of the many Nazi doctors convicted in the “Doctors’ trial”.

Walther von Brauchitsch - Commander of the German Army during the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Walter Buch - Jurist and supreme magistrate of the Nazi party. He committed suicide after arrest.

Werner Catel - Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Leipzig, considered an expert on the programme of euthanasia for children and participated in the T-4 Program which was later exported to the East for the murder of Jews.

Carl Clauberg - Doctor who conducted medical experiments on human beings in Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

Kurt Daluege - Responsible for the personal protection of Hitler and other party leaders. Also commanded the Ordnungspolizei throughout World War II and served as the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia following the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Hanged for war crimes.

Richard Walther Darré - Minister of Food and Agriculture from 1933 to 1942 and Nazi ideologist.

Otto Dietrich - Press Chief of the Third Reich. Later convicted of crimes against humanity.

Irmfried Eberl - Commandant of Treblinka, July to September 1942. Physician and mass-murderer who hanged himself after arrest.

Dietrich Eckart - Important early member of the National-Socialist German Workers' Party and a participant of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Introduced Rosenberg to Hitler.

Theodor Eicke - Leading figure in the establishment of concentration camps.

Richard Euringer - Writer who selected 18,000 "unsuitable" books which did not conform to Nazi ideology and were publicly burned.

Roland Freisler - Becoming a fanatical Communist, he later did a "flip" and joined the Nazi Party becoming State Secretary of Adolf Hitler's Reich Ministry of Justice and President of the Volksgerichtshof where he brutally presided over the show trials of anti-Nazis, ranting and tormenting them before ordering them to be brutally executed.

Wilhelm Frick - Minister without Portfolio until August 1943, later appointed to the ceremonial post of Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. He formulated the Enabling Act, the Nuremberg Laws and controlled numerous concentration camps. He was hanged in 1946.

Hans Fritzsche - Senior official at the Ministry for Propaganda.

Walther Funk - Minister for Economic Affairs from 1937 to 1945. Tried at Nuremberg.

Karl Gebhardt - Personal physician of Heinrich Himmler and one of the main perpetrators of surgical experiments performed on inmates of the concentration camps at Ravensbrück and Auschwitz. Convicted at the Nuremberg "Doctors' trial" and hanged.

Achim Gercke - Expert of racial matters at the Ministry of the Interior. Devised the system of "racial prophylaxis" forbidding the intermarriage between Jews and Aryans.

Hermann Göring - Second in Command of the Third Reich and commander of the Luftwaffe. Convicted at Nuremberg but committed suicide.

Arthur Greiser - Chief of Civil Administration and Gauleiter in the military district of Greater Poland. A brutal and ardent Nazi, racist and "ethnic cleanser", he was convicted after the war and hanged.

Walter Groß - Head of the Racial Policy office ardent racist and contributor to the "Final Solution" i.e. the extermination of European Jewry.

Kurt Gruber - First chairman of the Hitler Youth (1926-1931) and Nazi Gauleiter.

Karl Hanke - Governor and Gauleiter of Lower Silesia from 1940 to 1945.

Fritz Hartjenstein - Concentration camp commandant at Birkenau, Natzweiler and Flossenbürg. Sentenced to death after the war.

Paul Hausser - Prominent leader of the Waffen-SS and lieutenant-general.

August Heißmeyer - SS-Gruppenfuehrer and in charge of numerous concentration camps.

Rudolf Hess - Hitler's deputy and an ardent Nazi.

Werner Heyde - Psychiatrist and one of the main organizers of the T-4 Euthanasia Program that was the model used later for the extermination of European Jews. Committed suicide before the start of his trial in 1964.

August Hirt - Chairman at the Reich University in Strasbourg during World War II and had victims gassed so that he could experiment on them.

Karl Jäger - SD-Einsatzkommando leader and SS member whose "Jäger Report" detailing his responsibility for organising the mass murder of the Jews in Lithuania between July and December 1941 became a by-word for Nazi atrocity.

Friedrich Jeckeln - Leader of one of the largest collection of Einsatzgruppen and personally responsible for ordering the deaths of over 100,000 Jews, Slavs, Roma, and other "undesirables".

Alfred Jodl - Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW) during World War II, acting as deputy to Wilhelm Keitel. Convicted at Nuremberg and hanged.

Hans Jüttner - Head of the SS Main Leadership Office and also an SS-Obergruppenführer.

Emil Kaschub - Doctor who conducted experiments on Nazi concentration camp prisoners.

Karl Kaufmann - Founding member of the Nazi party and Gauleiter of Hamburg.

Wilhelm Keitel - Field marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) and senior military leader during World War II. Convicted at Nuremberg and hanged.

Hanns Kerrl - Reichsminister of Church Affairs for the Third Reich who tried to marry the ideas of Protestant Christianity and Nazism.

Helmut Knochen - Senior commander of the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police) in Paris during the Nazi occupation of France. Sentenced to death after the war.

Erich Koch - Gauleiter of the NSDAP in East Prussia from 1928 until 1945, and Reichskomissar in Ukraine from 1941 until 1944.

Ilse Koch - Wife of Karl Otto Koch and an overseer at Buchenwald. Infamous for her sadistic cruelty, for using the skin from murdered prisoners as souvenirs and keeping shrunken heads on her dinner table. She was dubbed "the Witch of Buchenwald". Committed suicide in prison.

Karl Otto Koch - Commandant of the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald (from 1937 to 1941), and later at Lublin (Majdanek camp). Married to Ilse Koch.

Bernhard Krüger - Leader of the VI F 4a Unit in the Reichssicherheitshauptamt responsible for, among other things, falsifying passports and documents.

Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach - Ran the Friedrich Krupp AG heavy industry conglomerate from 1909 until 1941 and was financier of the Nazi party.

Herbert Lange - SS officer and commandant of Chełmno extermination camp, where he was implicated in thousands of gassings. Also led the execution of 1,558 mental patients at the Soldau concentration camp.

Robert Ley - Head of the German Labour Front from 1933 to 1945. Sentenced to death but committed suicide.

Arthur Liebehenschel - Commandant of Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps during World War II.

Wilhelm Loeper - Gauleiter in the Gau of Magdeburg-Anhalt.

Hinrich Lohse - Gauleiter for Schleswig-Holstein and Reich Commissar for the Ostland.

Werner Lorenz - Waffen-SS general and a leader of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, an organization charged with settling ethnic Germans in the Reich from other parts of Europe.

Hanns Ludin - SA-Obergruppenfuehrer, diplomat and ambassador to Slovakia implicated in slave-labour deportations. Executed after the war.

Martin Luther - advisor to Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, and participant in the infamous Wannsee Conference on the "Final Solution" i.e. extermination of Jews.

Viktor Lutze - SA officer and important participant in the "Night of the Long Knives".

Alfred Meyer - Deputy Reichsminister in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories.

Kurt Meyer - Waffen-SS officer noted for his command of various tank and artillery divisions but convicted of war crimes in shooting prisoners.

Wilhelm Mohnke - Founder member of the SS-Staff Guard and one of Hitler's last remaining SS-generals.

Hermann Muhs - SS-Oberfuehrer and Minister responsible for church and religious affairs.

Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath - Foreign Minister of Germany (1932-1938) and Reichsprotektor (Governor) of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (1939-1941). Convicted at Nuremberg.

Otto Ohlendorf - SS-Gruppenführer and head of the interior division of the SD. Sentenced to death for crimes against humanity and hanged.

Joachim Peiper - Senior Waffen-SS officer and personal adjutant to Heinrich Himmler from April 1938 to August 1941. Convicted in the Malmedy massacre trial.

Paul Pleiger - State adviser and Reich Commissioner for the Economy of the East which included the use of forced slave labour.

Oswald Pohl - Organizer and administrator of concentration camps.

Erich Priebke - Participant in the Ardeatine massacre in Rome on 24 March 1944.

Hans-Adolf Prützmann - Superior SS and Police Leader, and an SS-Obergruppenführer, who participated in the Holocaust in the Baltic States.

Joachim von Ribbentrop - Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938-1945. Convicted at Nuremberg and hanged.

Leni Riefenstahl - Film director, dancer and actress and documentary propagandist for the Nazi Party and favourite of Hitler.

Alfred Rosenberg - chief ideologist of the Nazi Party and a committed racist advocate of mass-murder. Convicted at Nuremberg and hanged.

Erwin Rösener - SS-Obergruppenführer, Higher SS and Police Leader, Commander SS Upper Division Alpenland (1941-1945) convicted at Nuremberg for ordering the execution of prisoners of war.

Ernst Rudin - pyschiatrist, social Darwinist, racist and one of the fathers of the Nazi race doctrines.

Baldur von Schirach - Nazi youth leader later convicted of being a war criminal. Schirach was the head of the Hitler-Jugend (HJ, Hitler Youth) and Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter ("Reich Governor") of Vienna.

Franz Schlegelberger - State Secretary in the German Reich Ministry of Justice (RMJ) and served a while as Justice Minister during the Third Reich. He was the highest-ranking defendant at the Nuremberg Judges' Trial.

Albert Speer - architect, author and high-ranking Nazi German government official, sometimes called "the first architect of the Third Reich".

Jürgen Stroop - SS and police general who oversaw the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto during the Nazi occupation of Poland in World War II. After the war, he was convicted of war crimes and hanged.

Josef Terboven - Nazi leader, best known as the Reichskommissar (commissioner) during the German military occupation of Norway.

Fritz Todt - engineer and senior Nazi figure, the founder of Organisation Todt for forced labour.

Horst Wessel - posthumous hero of the Nazi movement following his violent death in 1930. He was the author of the lyrics to the song "Die Fahne hoch" ("The Flag on High"), usually known as Horst-Wessel-Lied ("the Horst Wessel Song"), which became the Nazi Party anthem, and which was also part of Germany's national anthem from 1933 to 1945.

Christian Wirth - senior SS officer during the program to exterminate the Jewish people of occupied Poland during the Second World War, known as Aktion Reinhard. He was a top aide of Odilo Globocnik, the overall director of Operation Reinhard, and his responsibility was scaling up the T-4 Euthanasia Program, in which disabled people were murdered by gassing or lethal injection, to the development of extermination camps for mass murder.

Karl Wolff - high-ranking member of the Nazi SS. He held the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS and was convicted of deporting 300,000 Jews to Treblinka death camp.

Adolf Ziegler - tasked by the Nazi party to oversee the purging of Degenerate art by artists such as Franz Marc and Emil Nolde. He was the favoured painter of Hitler.


...and that is just a few of them!

Famously, it was a Protestant who agreed to be appointed by Hitler the Reich Bishop of the Nazi Reich, namely Ludwig Muller. You can see a picture of him in the previous post giving the Nazi salute.

The Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, always opposed Hitler and the Nazis and some were brave enough openly to preach against him, like Bishop Count Clemens August von Galen, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Munster.

Count Clemens August von Galen, Bishop of Munster. He was called "the Lion of Munster" because of his outspoken criticism of the Nazi euthanasia policy. He knew that the Nazis would find it hard to arrest someone from so famous a family. Even so, his life was in constant danger.

Other priests were not so lucky. Many hundreds were arrested and sent to Dachau or executed like the Jesuits of Munich such as Fr Alfred Delp SJ.

Rev Alfred Delp SJ before the Nazi People's Court presided over by Protestant-born but Communist-turned-Nazi, Dr Roland Freisler, who sentenced Delp and other Catholic priests to a brutal death for daring to criticise Nazi brutality and murder of Jews.

The lesson that the unfortunate "Reverend" needs to learn is that it is in the interest of society that men remain true to historic Christianity and not abandon it for odious and murderous heathen creeds like Nazism.

The full absurdity of the views of the "Reverend" are revealed when one realises that he was, himself, raised a Roman Catholic so that, by his own classification, he is still one!

But is the "Reverend" listening?

Is he even thinking?

Over to you "Reverend"!

Those wanting to know more about the "Reverend" might care to try this:

http://www.patrioticthunder.com/whackjoboftheweek22.html

...

On the Eve of the Epiphany: "the kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts"

The Epiphany

of the Lord

to the Gentiles

on the same day as

the Baptism of the Lord

and

the miracle of wine at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee

"When Jesus therefore was born in Bethlehem of Juda, in the days of king Herod, behold, there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem, saying: where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and are come to adore him. And king Herod hearing this, was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling together all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where Christ should be born. But they said to him: In Bethlehem of Juda. For so it is written by the prophet: and thou Bethlehem the land of Juda art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come forth the captain that shall rule my people Israel.

Then Herod, privately calling the wise men learned diligently of them the time of the star which appeared to them; and sending them into Bethlehem, said: go and diligently inquire after the child, and when you have found him, bring me word again, that I also may come and adore him. Who having heard the king, went their way; and behold the star which they had seen in the East, went before them, until it came and stood over where the child was. And seeing the star they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And entering into the house, they found the child with Mary his mother, and falling down they adored him: and opening their treasures, they offered him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having received an answer in sleep that they should not return to Herod, they went back another way into their country."

[Matt 2:12 - Gospel for the Mass of the Epiphany]

The shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne Cathedral

The Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral contains their relics brought from Milan by ship to the City of Cologne on the order of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, in 1164 as a gift to the Prince-Elector Archbishop, Rainald of Dassel.

This gave rise to the English Carol "I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing in".

The relics had first been taken from Constantinople to Milan in 344 by Bishop Eustorgius of Milan.

Around 1199, the Roman Emperor Otto IV gave three golden crowns made for the three wise men as a present to the church of Cologne, the city where, the previous year, he had been elected King of the Romans and Emperor-elect by the Prince-Electors of the Empire (he later gained the support of all the imperial princes at Frankfurt in 1208).

An inscription reads:

Otto rex coloniensis curiam celebrans tres coronas de auro capitibus trium magorum imposuit.

Emperor Otto IV was the only member of the Welf dynasty to be elected Holy Roman Emperor and, being the son of Matilda Plantagenet (married to Henry the Lion, Duke of Bavaria), he was allied to England in the Franco-English wars. He was also the personal preference of Pope Innocent III, who crowned him Roman Emperor at Rome in 1209, although they later fell out over the issue of the imperial rights in Italy.

Because of the importance of the shrine and the cathedral for the later development of the city, the Coat of Arms of Cologne still shows these three crowns symbolizing the Three Kings.

Construction of the present Cologne Cathedral was begun in 1248 to house these important relics. The cathedral took 632 years to complete and is now the largest Gothic church in northern Europe.

On July 20th, 1864, the shrine was opened, and remains of the three Kings and the coins of Philip I, Archbishop of Cologne, were discovered.

An eyewitness report reads:

“In a special compartment of the shrine now there showed - along with remains of ancient old rotten or moulded bandages, most likely byssus, besides pieces of aromatic resins and similar substances - numerous bones of three persons, which under the guidance of several present experts could be assembled into nearly complete bodies: the one in his early youth, the second in his early manhood, the third was rather aged. Two coins, bracteates made of silver and only one side striken, were adjoined; one, provably from the days of Philipp von Heinsberg, displayed a church, the other showed a cross, accompanied by the sword of jurisdiction, and the crozier on either side.”

The bones were wrapped in white silk and returned to the shrine where they remain to this day to be venerated by all the Faithful.

By long tradition, on the Feast of the Epiphany – called Dreikoenigsfest (the Feast of the Three Kings) in the lands of the old Holy Roman Empire – the Rector of the Parish (or in his absence, the father of each family) visits each house with a cross-bearer, 2 acolytes and 3 children dressed as the kings, one bearing a censer with lighted incense. At each house a little ceremony takes place, the house is blessed with Epiphany water, and over the door lintel of the house the following is inscribed with blessed chalk:

20 + C + M + B + 10

In my house we always perform this traditional ceremony.

This symbolises the present year and the blessing of the 3 Magi, Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, upon each home.

The symbols remain all year or until the weather has washed them away.

Blessed Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, wise men and kings from the East, pray for us!

+

The Journey of the Magi

by T S Eliot


A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

+ + +

"three trees on the low sky... I should be glad of another death."

...

O most holy night...

O most Holy Night...

...all the earth being at peace...

Anton Raphael Mengs. Adoration of the Shepherds.

"And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his espoused wife, who was with child. And it came to pass, that when they were there, her days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room in the Inn. And there were in the same country shepherds watching and keeping the night watches over their flock. And behold an Angel of the Lord stood by them and the brightness of God shone round about them, and they feared with a great fear. And the Angel said to them 'Fear not; for behold I bring you tidings of great joy that shall be to all people. For this day is born to you a Saviour who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign unto you: you shall find the Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger'. And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will.' "

[Luke 2:4-14]
[The Gospel of the Nativity of Our Lord, the first Mass of Christmas at midnight]

OCTAVO KALENDAS JANUARII
The Eighth Day before the Calends of January, being
CHRISTMAS DAY

In the 5199th year of the creation of the world, from the time when God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth;

the 2957th year after the flood;

the 2015th year from the birth of Abraham;

the 1510th year from Moses, and the giving forth of the people of Israel from Egypt;

the 1032nd year from the anointing of King David;

in the 65th week according to the prophesy of Daniel;

in the 194th Olympiad;

the 752nd year from the foundation of the City of Rome;

the 42nd year of the rule of Octavian Augustus,

all the earth being at peace,

JESUS CHRIST

the eternal God,
and Son of the eternal Father,
desirous to sanctify the world by His most merciful coming,
being conceived by the Holy Spirit,
nine months after His conception
was born in Bethlehem of Judaea,
MADE MAN OF THE VIRGIN MARY.

THE NATIVITY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST ACCORDING TO THE FLESH

[From the Martyrology of Christmas Day
sung at the old Office of Prime in Cathedral Chapters and Monasteries of the Latin rite of the Roman Catholic Church, to an ancient chant by a dignitary in Choir recalling the Septuagint chronology. All others in Choir remain standing throughout until the lector comes to the word "Bethlehem" at which all bend the knee unto the ending.]

O Emmanuel,
Rex noster et legifer noster, expectatio Gentium, et Salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster.

O Emmanuel,
our King and Lawgiver, the desire of the nations and the Saviour thereof, come to save us, O Lord our God.

[Isaias 7:14,33,22]
[The 7th of the Great 'O Antiphons' of Advent, sung at Vespers in the Roman rite for the last 7 days of Advent]



Puer natus est nobis,
et filius datus est nobis, cujus imperium super humerum ejus et vocabitur nomen ejus, magni consilii Angelus.

Unto us a child is born,
a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder and His name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor"

[Isaias 9:6]
[Introit of the third Mass of Christmas, during the daytime]

Happy Christmas to all!



...

Catholics and Jews in World War II again...

Another ill-instructed fellow (hi, Keir!) purports to besmirch the name of good Catholics who risked their lives to save Jews in World War II.

He didn't bother to read the condemnation of Nazi beliefs that the Pope wrote in 1937 in his encyclical letter Mit Brennender Sorge addressed to the Church in Germany.

He didn't read the fruitless condemnation of Nazism that the Dutch Catholic bishops wrote that resulted in the deaths of many more Jews, including all Catholic convert Jews, as a direct result.

He hasn’t read of the decision of Pope Pius XII not to issue condemnations that would only lead to tens of thousands of more deaths but, instead, to organise Europe-wide clandestine operations to save Jewish lives which rescued 860,000 Jews.

He is so quick to condemn those who saved Jews rather than the British and US governments who did so very little to save Jewish lives.

He has not read what Jewish Diplomat, Pinchas a Lapide, wrote about the heroic work of Pope Pius XII in saving Jewish lives.

Pinchas a Lapide, Israeli diplomatic consul in Milan, Orthodox rabbi, and a lecturer at Bar Ilan University, testified in his book The Last Three Popes and the Jews that Pope Pius XII was responsible for saving 860,000 Jews in World War II, more than all other agencies put together.

He did not read about the sacrifices made by Pope Pius XII to obtain 35 kilos of gold to save innocent Roman Jews from execution by Colonel Herbert Kappeler and the SS.

He did not read how this caused the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, to convert to Roman Catholicism, taking the Pope's own name, Eugenio, as his baptismal name.

He condemns a pope who was a prisoner in the Vatican and at the mercy of the Nazi occupiers of Rome and he does so from a position of total comfort and safety, free from danger, long after the war is over and without any experience of life under a totalitarian regime.

He - who doubtless never had to face such challenges – is so ungallant as to condemn those popes who did so much to save Jews at risk to their own lives.

The Venerable Pope Pius XII who, during World War II, was responsible for saving 860,000 Jewish lives

He is so ignorant of the very subject he claims to pontificate about that he is unaware that the Pope who condemned the war-time carpet bombing of civilians was not the Pope at the time but was an Apostolic diplomat saving Jewish lives.

He seems unaware that Angelo Roncalli – who would become Pope John XXIII – played a pivotal role in saving the lives of thousands of Jews while serving as the papal representative to Turkey during World War II.

He seems unaware that Roncalli, on the orders of Pope Pius XII, used diplomatic couriers, papal representatives and the Sisters of Our Lady of Zion to transport and issue baptismal certificates, immigration certificates and visas – many of them forged – to Hungarian Jews to save their lives.

He seems unaware that "Operation Baptism" proved so effective that when the Soviets captured Budapest in February 1945, as biographer Lawrence Elliott wrote, "some 100,000 Jews (200,000 in the whole of Hungary) had been spared".

Blessed Pope John XXIII who, when Apostolic Delegate in Turkey, rescued thousands of Jews in Hungary by issuing false baptismal certificates and passports

He overlooks the fact that Chaim Barlas, who worked closely with Roncalli as head of the Palestine Jewish Agency's Rescue Committee, wrote "Much blood and ink have been spilled in the Jewish tragedy of those years, but to the few heroic deeds which were performed to rescue Jews belong the activities of the apostolic delegate, Monsignor Roncalli, who worked indefatigably on their behalf".

He clearly does not know that the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation asked the Holocaust Museum of Israel to designate Roncalli as "Righteous Among the Nations", an honour reserved for non-Jews who helped Jews during the Holocaust.

Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish Diplomat who co-operated with the Papal Nuncio in Hungary to save thousands of Jews from death

He also seems unaware that Rabbi Simon Moguilevsky, Chief Rabbi of Buenos Aires, called Roncalli "a man truly created in the image of God".

He further seems unaware that successive Israeli governments praised and thanked Pope Pius XII for saving so many Jewish lives.

He even goes so far as to call the saving of 860,000 Jewish lives "inactions during the war", even though Pope Pius XII saved more Jewish lives during the Holocaust than all other agencies put together.

He thinks that "all the rules had been thrown out" in the war so that the Allies were allowed to commit war crimes but, in the same contradictory breath, he condemns those, like the popes, who, unlike the Allied bombing planners, were scrupulous in following "the rules" and in saving the innocent, especially the Jews.

He seems to think that the Blitz gave the Allies carte blanche to commit war crimes in response.

Yet he speaks of the "security of one's home in 2009" and "the context of the time rather than that of generations later" when it is he who, from the safety and comfort of his armchair, claims to sit in judgement upon those who lived under totalitarianism and, whilst preposterously speaking of throwing out "the rules", claims to condemn those saviours of Jews for not risking their own lives even more than they already were.

He claims to find the condemnation of area bombing by popes and Catholics as “rather appalling”.

What shall we say of those who claim to find “rather appalling” the righteous rage of the just against the bombing of innocent civilians, the very same just souls who did more to save Jewish lives than all other agencies put together, particularly when the person finding this “rather appalling” cannot even be bothered, from the complacent comfort of his armchair, to find out the truth despite having every opportunity since he, unlike they, lives in peace, tranquillity and security rather than under a terrorist police state and the constant threat of a horrible death?

When one also takes into account the fact that the UK took very few Jewish refugees and the US took less than 20,000 throughout the whole period of the persecution of European Jewry in sharp contradistinction to the 860,000 Jews saved by the orders and plans of Pope Pius XII, our view of this person claiming to find the Pope and his Church “rather appalling”, whilst ignoring the truly appalling complacency of the Allied governments, is likely to be very dim indeed.

Rabbi Israel Zolli converted to Catholicism as a result of seeing what Pope Pius XII did for the Jews. He took the Pope's name of Eugenio as his baptismal name.

Nevertheless, this is yet further compounded by a deep ignorance which is apparently unaware that the government parties NSDAP and DNVP jointly won 52% of the vote in March 1933 compared to only 11% for the Centre Party so that it was not the Church that abandoned the Centre Party but rather the German people, contrary to the yet further muddled (or worse) view of those who try to blame the Church. After the 1933 election the Centre Party was powerless to stop the Nazis and was inevitably finished whatever the Church might have done. But it is not at all uncommon for the uninstructed to blame the powerless for the faults of the powerful.

In sharp contrast to the German Protestant Church which sold out to Nazism in the form of the Deutsche Christen which produced Hitler's Protestants and the Reich Bishop, Ludwig Muller, the Catholic Church continuously and consistently opposed the Nazi regime, saved more Jewish lives than all other agencies together and suffered direct persecution and the execution of Catholic laymen and priests whose memory some have little or no compunction but disgracefully to defame and besmirch.

Protestant Reich Bishop Ludwig Muller willingly and openly acted as Hitler's Bishop for the Third Reich in marked distinction to the Catholic Church which always opposed the Nazi regime

One hopes that this fellow will now be prepared to revise his view and will avoid making the same mistake twice.

He might even apologise for making such appallingly false accusations against the innocent and the heroic.

...