My Battle Against Hitler

by Dietrich von Hildebrand,John Henry Crosby

  On February 12, 1938, Austrian chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg went to Berchtesgaden, just across the border in Germany, to meet with Hitler. Schuschnigg had clung to the notion of “peaceful coexistence” with Nazi Germany and hoped still to preserve Austria’s independence. Among many demands, Hitler told Schuschnigg to curb the journalistic activities of Dietrich von Hildebrand and other German émigrés fighting Nazism from Austria.7

  Schuschnigg’s last move was to hold a referendum in which he hoped to secure a clear mandate for continuing Austrian independence in full view of the international community. Voting was scheduled for March 13, 1938. When Hitler learned of this, he decided to act preemptively. Of course, von Hildebrand was unaware of Hitler’s plan and so he continued to believe that he was safe until the referendum.

  Here we come to the remembrance that Hellmut Laun has left of von Hildebrand’s last days in Vienna. The date is Monday, February 28:

  It was Mardi Gras 1938 and we had decided to have a light-hearted get-together in my apartment, so as for once to forget for a while the daily concern and agitation that we lived with. There were about thirty of us, the inner circle of von Hildebrand’s friends, and the party lasted into the early hours of the morning. Von Hildebrand stood at the center of this happy group; he was as lively and entertaining as anyone could be in such a social setting. He told us many funny stories from his life, and as many jokes as the Viennese comedian Karl Farkas, and at the end of the evening he read to us from his beloved Molière. My guests departed in a very happy frame of mind. During this joyful evening we had forgotten about the storm clouds that were forming on the horizon.8

  One cannot fail to be impressed by von Hildebrand’s freedom of spirit. It surely gives evidence of his deep trust in divine providence that he was able, even in the lengthening shadow of catastrophe, to celebrate like this with his friends.

  The following evening, Laun was settling in for an early night, exhausted from the previous night’s celebration. No sooner had he laid down than the telephone rang. Laun recounts:

  [Theodor] Kern was on the line. His voice was somber and changed as he asked me to come immediately with my car to the Hildebrand’s apartment in the Habsburgergasse. I got no answer out of Kern when I tried to probe him about what was going on. I quickly realized that something had happened that he could not mention on the telephone.

  Arriving in his small car, Laun found the von Hildebrand family and some of their closest friends in a state of highest tension. The call had come from Salzburg, “If Anna still wishes to see her grandmother, she must leave immediately.” The sudden departure was especially difficult for Gretchen, as von Hildebrand describes in his notes:

  The situation was terribly dramatic. My wife Gretchen had to be persuaded to leave. For her this exodus meant another adventure. She had lived under such tension for the last few years that it was very difficult for her to make up her mind. Finally I succeeded in convincing her that it was only flight which could save my life and hers.

  The sun was already setting as Laun’s car, with von Hildebrand and his wife, headed toward the small town of Marchegg on the Czech border, where they hoped to catch a train to get out of Austria. The route would take them through a sparsely populated portion of Austria which was completely unfamiliar to Laun, who continues:

  It was pitch black with a clear starry sky above. I had been driving straight for quite some time and I was on the lookout for lights on the assumption that we would soon be arriving in Marchegg. Suddenly the engine stalled and would not restart. What could I do in the dark, without light, and without proximity to nearby houses? We were dismayed since each of us was conscious that von Hildebrand’s life would be in greatest danger if we missed the train! As I opened the hood, without any hope of discovering the problem, I heard my passengers begin praying the rosary. Wearily I closed the hood and tried again to start the car. The engine started running as if nothing had been the matter. We breathed a sigh of relief, but after another hundred meters we had again come to a stop. This routine repeated itself dozens of times. It was a terrible ordeal for poor Professor von Hildebrand as we only made very slow progress in small stages. Finally we saw lights coming from Marchegg in the distance, but we had to admit defeat. It would no longer be possible to reach the train station in time.

  Again, we have von Hildebrand’s own description:

  There are moments in life in which everything seems to be collapsing: our head-over-heels departure from Vienna, which seemed to guarantee our safety, turned out to be an illusion. Why should Hellmut’s car develop troubles just when its good performance was essential to our escape? We prayed ardently, and finally decided to spend the night in the small town of Marchegg and take the very first train in the morning. We found a room in a small inn on the main road; and it was there that we spent one of the most terrible nights of our lives: trucks were constantly passing and every time I imagined that they were German tanks which had already advanced all the way to the northern border of Austria.

  The next morning, they continued with their plan and rode together to the train station by bus. Laun again captures von Hildebrand’s remarkable freedom of spirit:

  We took our seats on the bus. Along the way—and this I will never forget—von Hildebrand recited his favorite poems by Mörike. Outwardly he seemed completely composed.

  But the pressure was obviously enormous. Even after von Hildebrand had boarded the train with Gretchen, Laun, standing under their compartment window on the platform, remembers how von Hildebrand kept looking anxiously toward the border:

  I could see from the tension in his expression that he feared the news of the invasion could still arrive before the departure of the train and that this would lead to the closure of the border. Finally the all-clear was given! We waved and waved until in the distance the train passed over the March Bridge and then disappeared from sight. I knew at that very moment the terrible fear of death had suddenly lifted from my beloved friend and he was now saved.

  Laun returned to have his car repaired. The source of the stalling turned out to be a broken gas line. As he burst into the apartment of his friends, he learned that there had been a false alarm from Salzburg. To the surprise of Laun and the circle of friends, von Hildebrand and his wife returned to Vienna a few days later. Laun comments:

  Of course we knew that a final farewell was quite imminent. We sensed that the occupation of Austria would have the effect of making a war even less avoidable. Thus our final gatherings took place under a shadow and an uncertain and threatening future drew near. We knew how much von Hildebrand loved Western Europe, especially Austria and Vienna, whose beauty he knew and admired in all its particulars.

  In fact, Hitler’s invasion came just a few days later, and so did von Hildebrand’s final escape from Vienna. Here, in addition to von Hildebrand’s notes, we have an account written by his nephew, Michael Braunfels, who was then a music student living in Vienna. Braunfels sheds further light on why von Hildebrand hoped to stay in Vienna, despite the fact that his friends in Germany were increasingly calling to urge his departure—in guarded tones, of course. Braunfels recounts:

  In the Kärntnerstrasse people expressed their opinions boldly through swastikas and the red, white, and red [of the Austrian flag] which they wore on their lapels or on the arms. Toward the end of the week, it became ever more clear that the swastikas were hopelessly in the minority—which again encouraged Gogo’s*1 optimism and relative lack of worry. If my memory is correct, I still saw Gogo on Wednesday or Thursday of that week and though being somewhat nervous he was still quite optimistic.9

  March 11 was for Braunfels a day like any other:

  That evening, I went over to Gilbert Schuchter’s to prepare a rice pudding. We engaged in much light-hearted banter. Just as we were expecting a Mozart symphony on the radio, we were stunned when instead we heard the voice of [Arthur] Seyss-Inquart.*2 He admonished the public to remain calm and announced that he had taken control of the go
vernment in order to welcome Hitler’s troops. We immediately left and ran to the von Hildebrands’ in the Habsburgergasse. Naturally it was not easy to make our way through the crowds that were gathering. We saw many shady characters who were now brashly, arrogantly, and aggressively displaying themselves as Nazis. There were also faces, pale and shocked, eyes wide with terror, and many elderly women standing in their doorways with eyes red from crying.

  Finally they reached the von Hildebrands’ apartment:

  When I saw Gogo, his hands were trembling from the agitation. Gilbert and I implored him to leave everything and to flee at once. In the background I could see Gretchen already packing their suitcases.

  Von Hildebrand might have been able to save his possessions:

  I still wished to try to save my beautiful furniture and works of art, and it occurred to me that I could sell them pro forma to George Shuster (the president-to-be of Hunter College [in New York City]) and his wife, Doris, who were in Vienna at the time. They would then become American property and be saved. A young Jewish attorney expressed himself willing to draw up the deed, and I still see myself going from room to room, and declaring that I was selling my property to Dr. Shuster.… But the awareness that the Jewish attorney was endangering his life by drawing up this deed, and the terrible pressure under which we found ourselves, made me give up the whole project. It was getting late, and the tumult on the streets was increasing.

  Von Hildebrand’s ability to show concern for the Jewish attorney, even in a moment of looming mortal danger for himself, reminds us that his struggle against Hitler was above all carried out on the battlefield of conscience.

  Braunfels’ account continues:

  I told Gretchen that once I had helped Gogo find a taxi I would come back in a second one to pick her up. Gilbert and I stood on either side of Gogo as we prepared to leave. He had dressed to make himself as unrecognizable as possible, allowing his hat to sit low on his brow. Not for the world would he be separated from his old-fashioned walking stick with its silver cap, by which everyone knew him (he insisted it was absolutely necessary in case he needed to defend himself!). It was not at all easy to find a taxi. There were just too many people who needed to flee!

  Could it be that von Hildebrand’s humor did not desert him, even in this dire moment? Braunfels reports, “When we finally got a taxi in the vicinity of the opera house, Gogo bowed before the taxi driver, as if before the Kaiser himself!” Schuchter continued on with von Hildebrand to the train station, while Braunfels soon found a second taxi and returned to the apartment to fetch his aunt Gretchen. This was not without its own drama:

  As I stepped onto the street with Gretchen, the car was surrounded by a curious and—to my perception—rather rowdy crowd. For this reason it seemed prudent and safer if Gretchen rode alone to the train station, so that the crowd would not bother her. I bid a heartfelt farewell to “Mama.” The meter popped up in the taxi, and the crowd no longer paid heed to Gretchen, who rode off undisturbed, while I walked slowly toward home. They followed me for a brief while, but as I did not turn around, they eventually went their own way.

  Already at the train station, von Hildebrand waited for Gretchen’s arrival with great anxiety. He writes:

  The anguish I went through while waiting at the railway station cannot be described; time was pressing and I had firmly decided not to leave without Gretchen, whose life was certainly also in danger. What a prayer of gratitude came to my lips when I saw her! We rushed to the train that was leaving for Pressburg [Bratislava] shortly afterwards.

  But they would not be safe until they had crossed into Czechoslovakia. Von Hildebrand continues:

  The trip from Vienna to the Czech border is not a long one; but it was a terrible one. The train was full of people, mostly Jews, hoping to escape at the very last minute; they all had an agonized expression on their faces; one felt as if they were terrified by the sight of a snake about to devour them. There was a gruesome Nazi on the train, who was gleefully looking at his victims in all the compartments. When the train finally arrived in Pressburg, the conductor announced that only those who had a foreign passport could leave the country; all others were to go back to Vienna. The expression of despair visible on people’s faces was so terrible that one had the feeling of a sort of apocalypse.

  This would have been a death sentence for the von Hildebrands had they been using Austrian passports. Dietrich had in fact automatically become an Austrian citizen the day he began teaching at the University of Vienna in 1935, but he had never acquired an Austrian passport and instead traveled on the Swiss passport he had inherited from his grandfather. By marriage, Gretchen was also a Swiss citizen:

  I had this precious document with me. In the Swiss passport, the place of birth is not indicated; it only states the Canton to which one belongs, and one’s profession: in my case, the only things stated were Zurich and Professor. The guard asked me whether I was a professor in Zurich; without answering I nodded, and we went through.

  A few hours later, the border police would have been equipped with the arrest warrants and photos of Dietrich and Gretchen that were posted at all Austrian border crossings. Von Hildebrand continues:

  Practically all the other passengers were sent back to their horrible fate. The train started moving again, and all of a sudden we saw the sign indicating that we had reached Czech territory. We were saved. What a hymn of gratitude we prayed! Of course, the future was dark: we had lost everything, and all my fears about the spreading of Nazism had been confirmed; I knew with absolute certainty that Austria was to be the first victim, but that the invasion of this noble country was only a first step that was to lead inevitably and mercilessly to another terrible world war.

  “Five hours after our departure,” he writes, “in the middle of the night, three Gestapo agents came to my apartment to arrest me, and found it empty. I had the honor of being the first on their list of arrests, after the heads of the government.” Some have suggested that he would not have been arrested but simply shot on sight:

  I made a telephone call to Vienna, to find out that three Gestapo officers were in my apartment. The maidservant who answered the phone was sly and clever enough to make me understand that we had undesirable guests by asking them sotto voce whether I was to know that they were there.

  I found out later that my devoted friend Marguerite Solbrig had had the presence of mind to burn my address book, containing the list of all my friends, acquaintances, and collaborators in Vienna. She certainly saved lives by this loving and intelligent gesture.

  It would have been fascinating to hear von Hildebrand himself describe how he and Gretchen made their way from Czechoslovakia, then to Hungary, and then to Fribourg in Switzerland, where they would live for eleven months, and from Switzerland to Toulouse in southern France, where he taught for most of 1939 at the Catholic University of Toulouse. It would have been gripping to hear him tell how they experienced the German invasion of France in 1940 and the German advance toward the south of the country, and about their struggle to find a way out of France through Spain into Portugal.

  Not only would he have told of the horrors of flight and hiding but he would have given particular attention to the many people who overwhelmed him with their generosity as he ran from one place to another, seeking safety for himself and his family. He would have singled out for a special remembrance the saintly Edmond Michelet, to whom he was referred by the Catholic philosopher Yves Simon; only through the heroic services of Michelet and his wife was von Hildebrand able to get the false documents he and his family needed to remain hidden in France until they could escape to Spain and then to Portugal.

  He would have told how, once he arrived in Lisbon, he learned that he had been put, through the mediation of Jacques Maritain, on a list of one hundred Jewish German intellectuals to be brought to the United States by the Rockefeller Foundation. He was one of just two Catholics who were included on account of their outspoken battle against anti-Semitism.r />
  Had he finished his memoirs he would have let us see not just the witness but the refugee, the man of faith who in desperate circumstances kept alive his hope in God and his gratitude for every helping hand extended to him and his family.

  Perhaps nothing sums up so deeply the spirit of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s witness as what he confided to his wife, Alice, in his final years. It is fitting that we give her the last word, for Dietrich’s memoirs, remarkable as they are as a historical document, were first and foremost a love letter and a labor of love:

  Having spent a blessed sabbatical year with my husband at the family villa of San Francesco in Florence, and having seen the von Hildebrand mansion in Munich, I once asked my husband,

  Was it not hard for you, having spent much of your life in these beautiful and noble houses, to live for years totally dependent on the help of others and in slummy apartments?” He looked at me in utter amazement. “How could you ask such a question?” he exclaimed. “For nothing in the world would I have traded the joy of tasting the sweetness of Christian charity!”

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