My Battle Against Hitler

by Dietrich von Hildebrand,John Henry Crosby

  Upon arriving in Munich, I immediately went to the Maria-Theresia Strasse, where I was greeted with great rejoicing. Yet it was not long before the situation fundamentally changed. On the night of March 8, the Bavarian government was overthrown in a putsch. SA men burst into the home of the Interior Minister and arrested him in his nightshirt.

  The remaining senior officials fared similarly, and the government was taken over by the Nazis. The way in which the government was toppled was typical of the Nazis in that they did not even bother to put on the show of a legal proceeding. In the days following the burning of the Reichstag, it became very clear that the constitutional state and the rule of law in Germany were a thing of the past. A “popular uprising” was staged—the government was forcibly toppled, the “voice of the people” had spoken—whereas in reality it was a measure that had been carefully planned in advance, organized in Berlin, and commanded from there.

  One can indeed ask: why did no one resist? Where were the police, which after all were under the control of the Interior Minister? Where was the portion of the army stationed in Bavaria and under the command of Bavarian officers? What had become of the militias of young Bavarian patriots who were monarchists?

  The cause of this passivity was fear, which had taken hold of the leading elements, beginning with the burning of the Reichstag, and then with the abrogation of the constitutional state. Already in February the gruesome speeches of Hitler had had a crippling effect—on President Held,*4 on the leadership of the Bavarian patriots—like the gaze of a serpent on its victim. There is a moment when intimidation and paralysis set in to such a degree that one becomes passive in the face of something harmful, no longer actively resisting, even though the possibility of resistance still exists.

  It is not difficult to imagine my feelings when I heard about this in the morning. The die had now been definitively cast for me. The decision to leave Munich was in every respect inexpressibly painful for me. The parting from my sisters, from the beloved, beautiful house for which I had sacrificed my fortune, from my teaching, and from the place of my roots—all this meant a very great sacrifice. At the same time, I had to face a completely uncertain future, without a position and with just fifty marks in my pocket!

  Yet it was clear to me that I could no longer teach in a National Socialist country because I was convinced that I would be forced to make compromises, and that I would either have to keep silent about the injustices that would come or else risk the concentration camp.

  Better to be a beggar in freedom than to be forced into making compromises against my conscience! This was reason enough for my decision to leave Germany.

  Beyond this, I realized that I might have to reckon with immediate pursuit, since my hostility toward National Socialism was of course very well known. The death sentence for my high treason in 1923 had been completely forgotten in the meantime.*5 Yet my membership on the board of the Association for Opposition to Anti-Semitism engendered the hatred of the Nazis, and it was unlikely that my attack on National Socialism at the gathering of pacifists on January 10 had been forgotten. I had to assume I was at risk of ending up in a concentration camp and, even if this did not materialize, on a degree of surveillance that would interfere with my ability to leave the country.

  I think I can honestly say that I would have left Germany even without all of the peril of these various reasons. I had the conviction that this was right before God and thus, despite all the uncertainty of my future livelihood, I felt myself to be completely secure in the love of God. Deus providebit!—God will provide!

  I decided to give my talk at the conference of the Catholic Academic Association on Saturday, March 11, and then to depart. I was actually supposed to give lectures in Holland on Monday, March 13, but I was so preoccupied with the political catastrophe that I did not feel I was in a state to do so. On March 10, I went to see Beck*6 at the student center where the conference was to be held on March 11. I told him I thought it rather unlikely the conference would even take place under these circumstances, yet he answered that he had not heard anything of a cancelation. I shared with him my resolve to leave Germany and not to return as long as the National Socialists were at the helm. He said, “You’re completely right. Without question, you must leave without delay.”

  “Why don’t you leave as well?” I asked. “No, I must remain here, like a captain who cannot leave his ship.” I said to him, “The notion that the Reichstag was burned by the Communists is plain nonsense, don’t you think?” Beck replied, “Indeed, in strictest confidence I can tell you that the fire was staged by the Nazis themselves. I know this.” I tried once more to urge him to leave Germany as well, yet he clung to his point of view that he must stay. “But you must go,” he said, “there is no longer a place for you here. What has begun will continue inexorably until all of Germany is consumed in flames.” We parted with heavy hearts. I would never see Beck again.

  When I came home, Fedja*7 told me that sixty affluent Jews had suddenly been arrested without cause. I was completely beside myself. Justice was already being trampled on! A Jewish lawyer by the name of Dr. Siegel, who was known for his brashness, had protested the arrests and spoken harshly about Hitler. As punishment he was dragged through the city the next day with a sign around his neck bearing the words of his “slanders,” now directed back at himself.

  I was infuriated, but when I expressed my outrage to Borissowsky,*8 he replied, “It serves him right. Why did he berate Hitler? After all, he is the Chancellor.” Hearing Borissowsky speak in this way, I lost all of my trust in him. My retort was very sharp and I decided not to tell him about my plan to leave immediately after my lecture on Saturday evening. I did not trust him anymore.

  D’Ormesson*9 had invited us during this time. Sadly I had to decline. Much as I would have liked to see him, much as I knew we would have been of one mind, it was simply too risky for me to visit the French ambassador, since the Nazis were surely spying to see who visited him, and I wanted to draw as little attention as possible. Besides, I did not have the time. After all, I had to prepare my lecture, which was not easy given the agitation and outrage that filled me.

  On Saturday morning, I attended the opening of the conference. Münch had not come, but Landmesser, the Vice President of the Association, was there. Seeing him before the opening, I expressed my surprise that the Association had decided to hold the conference under these circumstances. After all, the Hitler regime made the ongoing work of the Association impossible. He replied, “On the contrary, look at the telegram for the Association I received today from Vice Chancellor von Papen. Brüning would never have bothered to do the same.” I was horrified. How could a Vice President of the Catholic Academic Association, founded to imbue everything with the spirit of Catholicism, base his judgment of a regime on whether it was courteous toward the Association, rather than looking to the regime’s spirit and its first principles?

  This kind of egotism would be catastrophic for any kind of organization. To ask only whether one’s own organization would suffer under the Nazis, while failing to consider what the Third Reich meant for Germany and for the entire world, would have been disgraceful even for an association with the interests of, say, the Masons. Yet for an organization whose very raison d’être was to suffuse all things with the spirit of Christ, one would be hard-pressed to conceive of anything more grotesque than to judge the Antichrist’s rise to power by whether the Association was treated cordially by the government. Add to this the fact that von Papen, after the burning of the Reichstag, was a very insignificant, uninfluential background character, and that a friendly telegram from him did not in the slightest represent the government’s stance toward the Academic Association.

  Landmesser’s attitude was therefore not only a betrayal of the spirit of the Association—and, indeed, a betrayal of the Catholic Church, which was naturally far worse—it was in addition an expression of great stupidity. I was horrified and did not continue speaking with him since I re
alized that he was totally blind and that I would not be able to open his eyes, regardless of what I might say. Moreover, there was no longer any time for extended discussion.

  Franz Xaver Landmesser delivered a lecture which provoked the eminent Catholic social theorist, Fr. Oswald Nell-Breuning (1890–1991), into harshly criticizing phenomenology, the philosophical tradition in which von Hildebrand had been educated. The charge was that phenomenology did not show respect for reality but remained too subjective. Unfortunately, Nell-Breuning “took Landmesser to be a phenomenologist,” writes von Hildebrand, “and so he assumed I was fundamentally in agreement with Landmesser.” Both Landmesser’s lecture and Nell-Breuning’s response “in a sense challenged me directly, and so my task had become something other than I initially had planned on.” Von Hildebrand wanted to show that phenomenology, rightly understood, is distinguished by its unconditional respect for reality.

  The main issue for me now was to fend off the errors in regard to phenomenology, and also to distance myself from Landmesser’s thesis, since I found what Nell-Breuning had said about social questions to be much more correct than Landmesser. I decided to present a different lecture than I had planned, which meant I had to prepare a new text quickly during the lunch recess which I would then present sometime after 4 p.m., once the conference had resumed.

  It was 12:30 p.m., and I hurried home to eat a hasty lunch, and then to draft the new lecture with my response to Fr. Nell-Breuning during the two hours at my disposal. Of course, it could at most be a very detailed outline, and I would have to speak freely. I had initially expected the lectures of Landmesser and Nell-Breuning to be shorter and, indeed, my own talk had originally been scheduled for before noon. Under the circumstances, I decided to postpone my departure from Germany until Sunday evening, since the time after my lecture would not suffice for making final preparations.

  I had just finished eating and was still sitting at the table when Marguerite Solbrig arrived in a state of great agitation. She said to me, “You must leave immediately. This morning, SA officers came to the office and arrested many of my colleagues. You cannot imagine the horrible expression in their faces, and how cruel and brutal they were.” Though what she said made a strong impression on me, I replied, “Please tell me more after I have prepared my lecture, which I have to focus on now. We can discuss everything afterward.”

  I drank a strong cup of coffee and turned to my preparation. Within an hour and a half, my outline was complete. It was a refutation of Nell-Breuning’s attack on phenomenology as well as a short exposition of my position on the sociological questions which had been at issue. Yet the primary emphasis lay in my exposition of the true nature of phenomenology. Marguerite and I still spoke briefly, and she told me in greater detail about her awful experience with the Nazis who had come to her office. We spoke of my departure on Sunday evening, and then I said goodbye and left to go to the student center for my lecture. I think I succeeded in speaking with great precision and liveliness, and in so doing to enter into the depth of the problem. It was my last lecture in Germany. Not until 1948, fifteen years later, would I again speak in Germany. Nell-Breuning was very impressed and said to me, “I am 99% in agreement with what you said.” I did not remain for the conclusion of the conference, but went home immediately.

  As I walked to the streetcar with my wife, I think Rintelen*10 was also there. It is true that we weren’t on the best of terms, yet at that moment I felt solidarity with him in opposing the Nazis. From his remarks I could see how upset he was at the persecution of the Jews in the last few days. I began to speak about the Nazis so sharply and in such a loud voice that Gretchen begged me to be cautious since my words could easily be heard.

  I still remember the following details about the time just before my departure. It must have been on Sunday afternoon that d’Ormesson came to visit me. He was very serious and he said, “I understand fully why you did not accept my invitation. Even now, I did not come in my car so as to avoid drawing attention to my visit. But since I assume you are abandoning Germany, I wanted to bid you farewell.” I said to him, “You are indeed right. I have decided to give up everything and to leave Germany.” I explained my reasons and how as a Catholic and as a Catholic philosopher I could not in good conscience witness all these horrors and remain silent. Such a violent regime presented only one alternative, namely to make compromises or to end up in the concentration camp. Only by emigrating could one escape this alternative.

  D’Ormesson, of course, understood me completely, and he said, “We are heading for a war, but I want you to know that I do not consider this to be the only Germany. I am happy to have come to know you, and in you, a different Germany. May God protect you!” I was very moved by the nobility of this outstanding human being, and moreover that he had come to say goodbye. We parted with great warmth. My last full day in Munich was filled with the solemnity of a farewell. I was fully aware of the sacrifice I was making, and expressly made a conscious farewell to the beloved house, indeed to every single room. It was clear to me that I was unlikely ever to see it again. I told Stonner*11 about my plan to leave, and he strongly urged me to carry through with my decision. “For God’s sake,” he said, “you must leave. You cannot remain here.”

  At midday on Sunday, I decided it was after all better if Gretchen joined me in leaving Munich. Initially, I had wanted to depart for Florence alone. She was in far less danger than I was, and it was unlikely that her departure would be obstructed, especially since she, like I, possessed a Swiss passport. She could always follow me later. Yet at the last moment, I decided I would rather she travel with me. After all, our future was so completely uncertain. Everything lay in total darkness for us. We did not know where and how we would live, and on what basis, for I had no money, and what I could bring over the border was very limited. I had surely picked up my monthly stipend for March—300 marks—to which I was entitled as an adjunct professor. Yet after settling various debts and buying our train tickets to Florence, I had only about 150 marks left.

  There was so much to consider together with Gretchen that it was better if she traveled with me. Yet I think the main reason I asked her to come with me was that I did not want to be alone during this time of such difficulty and sadness. On Sunday evening we sat in complete silence for the entire train ride to Florence. Strangely enough, our passports were not even inspected by the German border control as we passed out of Germany, an oversight, naturally, yet something that struck me as strange at a moment I perceived as one of flight.

  They arrived in Florence at San Francesco, the villa that von Hildebrand’s father, Adolf, had bought, and at which von Hildebrand had been born. It was now owned by his sister Elizabeth (Lisl) Brewster. The Ethics he mentions was not written until the 1940s and not published until 1953 in New York under the title Christian Ethics and not in Germany until 1959.

  We reached San Francesco in the afternoon, and while Lisl was very happy to see us, she was also surprised by the suddenness of our unexpected arrival. I did not initially tell her that we had fled and what my arrival signified. I now find it incomprehensible that I did not immediately explain everything to her. I was so caught up in my own rule of not discussing anything, which I had already observed in Salzburg, that I felt everything must be kept in the dark, at least for the time being. Yet Lisl was not to be fooled and said, “Your arrival, of course, means that you have fled,” to which I said, “Yes, if that is how you wish to describe it.” Being extraordinarily generous, she did not hesitate to receive us with great warmth.

  I lost no time writing to Otto Müller in Salzburg to propose that he pay me an advance of 100 marks per month for my Ethics, which I would deliver to him in the foreseeable future. With this came, of course, the understanding that Müller would publish the Ethics, which he was eager to do, while for my part I hoped in this way to have at least enough money to live. After all, for the moment we were Lisl’s guests, depending on her even for our daily bread. Yet it was c
lear from the start that we could not burden her over the long run, as her financial situation was not the best.

  At the beginning of the year, the French Catholic philosopher Étienne Gilson (1884–1978) had invited von Hildebrand to speak at a celebration at the Sorbonne honoring St. Albert the Great’s elevation to Doctor of the Church, to be held for several days in early April. The celebration of the German saint was in part a friendly gesture toward Germany, and the German ambassador was chairman of the celebration. An attaché at the German embassy in Paris also wrote von Hildebrand with a warm personal invitation. Von Hildebrand was to be one of the three main speakers, with Gilson and the French education minister, and had been asked to speak on “the unity of the West as it had existed during the Middle Ages, and how this unity could be restored.” He had also been invited to give lectures in Leiden and Utrecht (Holland) in the middle of March.

  One of the first things I did upon arriving in Florence was to send a letter to the attaché at the embassy in Paris. In it, I told him that in light of the situation in Germany and my departure from there, I realized that surely they were no longer counting on me as I could hardly still speak as a representative of Germany. After all, the original invitation had invited me as a German, as a friendly gesture toward Germany, and the German ambassador was chairman of the celebration. Being set for the beginning of April, I had to write immediately to give them enough time to invite another German. Yet to my great amazement, I received a reply from the attaché at the German embassy telling me that my assumption was wrong, that I was still the speaker as before and that they were definitely counting on my presence. He also hinted of his hope that this invitation might open the door for an academic position for me in Paris.