My Battle Against Hitler
Page 32
Here too, Christ’s words hold true: “He who is not with me is against me” (Mt 12:30). The soldier of Christ is obligated to fight against sin and error. His battle against the Antichrist is prompted by his love for Christ and for the salvation of souls; he fights this battle for the salvation of those who have gone astray. His attitude is one of true love. But those who flee from the inevitable battle and treat irenically those who have gone astray, obfuscating their error and playing down their revolt against God are, fundamentally, victims of egoism and complacency.
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* The Center Party was the dominant Catholic political party from its founding in 1870 until its suppression by Hitler in 1933.
Ceterum Censeo …!
Der christliche Ständestaat
October 14, 1934
Von Hildebrand takes as his title the famous advice that Cato the Elder kept giving the Roman Senate about how to conduct the war with Carthage: “ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam,” which means, “Moreover, I think that Carthage should be completely destroyed.” Von Hildebrand wants to say the same thing about the Nazi regime: it cannot be corrected or reformed; it is so fundamentally unsound that it can only be destroyed. He addresses here the type of person who often appears in the memoirs, namely the person who cannot discern this fundamental un-soundness and who harbors illusions of influencing Nazism in a Christian direction. Just recall the two German Dominicans whom von Hildebrand encountered over dinner in 1933 in Paris (see this page). In this essay he shows how we discern the incorrigible evil of Nazism: by examining its first principles, that is, its understanding of truth, of the human person, of the unity of the human family.
Notice his particularly significant statement at the end that even if the Nazi regime treated the Church well for tactical reasons, Nazism would remain an Antichrist and a deadly enemy of the Church because of the first principles on which it is built. We are reminded of this striking passage from the memoirs, 1933: “It is completely immaterial if the Antichrist refrains from attacking the Church for political reasons, or if he concludes a Concordat with the Vatican. What is decisive is the spirit that animates him, the heresy he represents, the crimes committed at his behest. God is offended regardless whether the victim of a murder is a Jew, a Socialist, or a bishop. Blood that has been innocently spilled cries out to heaven.” He is thus warning against a certain egocentric way of opposing Hitler—opposing him because he is a threat to me or to my people or to my church, and not in the first place because he shows the face of the Antichrist.
Some Catholics who with growing concern and regret see the increasingly manifest trend in National Socialism toward an outspoken rejection of Christianity pin their hopes on statements the Führer repeats from time to time to the effect that he opposes “neo-paganism” and adheres to “positive Christianity.” This hope betrays not only a naïve optimism, but also a complete failure to recognize the authentic essence of National Socialism. Indeed, it betrays a general ignorance of how one goes about discerning the spirit or essence of a movement.
The question whether a movement, tendency, or party is compatible with the spirit of Christ and the teaching of His Church cannot be answered simply by looking at the positions explicitly adopted by its representatives in their public pronouncements regarding Christianity and the Church. Most heretics initially presented themselves not as enemies of the Church but rather as “reformers.” Yet they articulated statements which materially contradicted the true teaching of Christ and fostered an ethos that was incompatible with His spirit. They presented these things as true Christianity; indeed, they frequently presented them as the authentic and original teaching of the Church. The mere fact that heretical theologians (or heretical laymen involved in religious matters) subjectively think that their theses are compatible with Christian doctrine offers no guarantee that they really are dogmatically unobjectionable.
Much less, therefore, does the assurance of the leaders of a political movement—who know and understand as much about the teaching of the Church and the spirit of Christ as an ass does about playing the harp—have any significance whatsoever for the attitude a Catholic must take toward these movements. At most, the assurance of the Führer of the National Socialist movement that he adheres to “positive Christianity” and opposes the endeavors of neo-paganism could be taken as expressing a political intention with regard to the Church. It could be interpreted as an assurance that he will not pursue a policy hostile to the Church, but it could never be taken as an indication that National Socialism as such wants to be Christianized, or could be Christianized. For the declaration, upon the lips of the very man who has called into being a movement that is anti-Christian in its profoundest essence, that he rejects neo-paganism and adheres to positive Christianity, merely proves that he has not the slightest idea of what is Christian and what is not.
The question whether a movement is or is not compatible with Christianity can never be decided by the subjective assurances of its “leaders,” but only by comparing the ideas which constitute its substantive core with the teaching of the Church, and by comparing the typical ethos of the movement with the spirit of Christ. It is surely not difficult to recognize that National Socialism is thoroughly and explicitly anti-Christian in every element of its substance. There are some who doubt the compatibility of National Socialism with Christianity only because of the books of Rosenberg, Bergmann, Gebhardt, etc., or because of the movement of the [aggressively Nazi] “Deutschchristen” and the “Deutschgläugiben,” and indeed hold that only these parts of the National Socialist movement are un-Christian. Such persons are truly to be pitied for the poverty of their sensus catholicus (sense for what is truly Catholic). Even if all these elements did not exist in National Socialism, someone with a clear view of the matter would not fail to recognize the Antichrist as the spirit informing the entire movement.
First of all, as I have frequently shown in these pages, the article in the Party program that reduces religion to a function of the feeling of the Nordic Germanic race not only negates Christianity, but the religious sphere as such. An innerworldly and thoroughly subjective factor thus becomes the criterion for the attitude that must be taken to religion. Since religion is essentially the revelation of God, it cannot be measured by any innerworldly standard. This point of the Party program is enough to place an unbridgeable gulf between National Socialism and religion in general, and a fortiori the Christian Catholic religion. Even if the National Socialist platform made no other substantial affirmation regarding Christianity, this point alone would be a sufficient warrant for all the bishops of Germany to pronounce a justified anathema on National Socialism.
Second, the statement made by Hitler himself at the Party convention in Nuremberg in 1933 that “the difference between a human being of a higher race and one of a lower race is greater than the difference between a human being of a lower race and an ape” constitutes a formal negation of Christian teaching. To begin with, Hitler implicitly denies the spiritual nature of the human being when he regards differences among spiritual persons as greater than the distinction between spiritual persons and mere non-personal forms of life. The failure in principle to recognize the essence and value of the human being and to take into account the fact that a human person, regardless of race, is a being endowed with an immortal soul, capable of consciously knowing and loving God and called to eternal fellowship with Him, means the denial of one of the fundamental presuppositions of Christianity. For the entire Creed unconditionally presupposes the spiritual nature of the human being and the unique value of each immortal soul. Moreover, this basic constitutive difference between human beings and even the most highly developed of animals cannot find a more elementary expression than in the fact that the second divine Person not only took on human nature, but even died for all human beings on the cross.
Third, Hitler’s statement denies the primacy of the spiritual sphere in the human person over the vital sphere. In contrast to Catholic te
aching, which St. Thomas Aquinas summarizes with the phrase anima forma corporis (the soul is the form of the body), in National Socialism the human being is degraded to a mere function of the vital sphere. Linked with this is its logically consistent denial of the Catholic doctrine that each soul (unlike the body) proceeds immediately from the hand of God and is not a product of physical generation. National Socialism thereby characterizes itself unequivocally as a “materialism of blood,” and no thinking person can doubt its complete incompatibility with Christian teaching any longer.
Finally, Hitler’s declaration denies the unity of human nature, and thus also the community of mankind. Christianity does not merely teach the descent of all human beings from Adam and Eve, nor does the Church only teach that human persons constitute one family. Rather, the totality of all persons—all those who have ever lived, who are living now, and who are still to be born—form such a close community that it was possible for everyone to fall in Adam and Eve and for everyone to be redeemed and raised up in Christ. The unity of all human beings, the totality of mankind, is an indispensable presupposition of Christian doctrine.
Furthermore, the totalitarian claim made by National Socialism runs into an irreconcilable conflict with Christianity. The doctrine of the omnipotence of the state is heretical in every form, and most of all in its most extreme form, National Socialism, which in this respect far surpasses anything that has ever existed before. According to Church teaching, the state is a community with a sharply circumscribed sphere of competence. A person belongs to it only insofar as he is a citizen; but his membership in the state does not constitute the totality of his being. His final destiny transcends the sphere of the state by far: he is created by God, destined for God, and belongs “totally” to God alone. He is, moreover, primarily destined to be a member of the Mystical Body of Christ, and only secondarily to be a citizen of the state.
What, then, is a Catholic to say in response to a doctrine which not only demands a state monopoly on education, but even gives the state a right to determine which human beings are permitted to procreate, and thus which human beings may or may not be born? Only one response to such a doctrine is possible: Anathema sit (Let him be anathema).
Let no one object that National Socialism has not developed on the basis of such a definite theory, or that its intellectual formulations are vague, or that it is a movement which could still “develop in a very different direction.” No: every movement has an inner idea which determines its outward manifestations and shapes its life and ethos. We must therefore carefully observe the outward manifestations of a movement in order to grasp its ethos. Only then will we recognize which statements are typical and characteristic of it, and which are only a demagogic bluff. Anyone with the slightest sensitivity to the spirit of a movement cannot fail to recognize the nature of National Socialism: naturalistic, antagonistic to things of the spirit, and based on a materialism of blood.
The idolization of virility—that is, the “heroic military ethos” which is the leading image of the Third Reich and is unequivocally expressed in all its public declarations, speeches, songs, poems, decrees, and edicts—represents the most extreme antithesis to the spirit of Christ and the Catholic ethos. In its idolization of the brutal “masterful” or “noble, Nordic” man who relies solely on himself and his own strength and who arbitrarily disposes over his own country (and others’ as well), we encounter not only a pagan ethos alien to Christianity, but the purest form of an utterly arrogant rebellion which rejects the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount. We need only see for ourselves the physiognomy of any National Socialist leader, or listen to any of their speakers’ tone of voice and cadence, or observe the megalomaniac hubris which permeates all their pronouncements, with all their strutting displays of brutality and ruthlessness, all their glorification of arbitrariness and power, and all their explicit elimination of objective law! Is it possible to find anywhere in history a mentality more radically opposed to the spirit of Him who said: “Blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness?”
The deeds of the National Socialists truly correspond to the spirit of the Antichrist. From their sterilization laws and their attitude toward the destitute and the incurably sick to the sadistic torture of those languishing in concentration camps; from the unprecedented murders of June 30 [1934], which were subsequently “legalized,” to the preparations for the murder of our unforgettable Chancellor Dollfuss, everything exudes the unmistakable spirit of the Antichrist.
Only the one who lacks all sensus catholicus, all spiritual-intellectual clarity, and all capacity for judgment could still doubt today that National Socialism is a thoroughly anti-Christian movement which operates with a frightening logical consistency, a movement that draws its very life from its intrinsic antithesis to Christianity!
These factors—racist materialism, anti-personalism, naturalism, and totalitarianism—are not merely accidental elements, as is the case, for instance, with socialism’s ideological opposition to culture. Rather, they are profoundly rooted in the very spirit and essence of National Socialism. As we have seen, Hitler’s pronouncements against neo-paganism cannot in any way alter the anti-Christian nature of his party. It therefore betrays an enormous political naïveté when people believe that his declarations should be interpreted as expressing a sincere intention to take a politically friendly stance toward the Church. For in the long run, the creator of National Socialism will not be able to avoid coming into greater and greater conflict (even on a strictly practical level) with the Church and its demands.
Anyone with even a modicum of political literacy will clearly see that these pronouncements are merely a political stratagem. First, one sends other persons ahead who so appall Catholic circles in their public and unrestrained attacks on Christianity and the Church that the Führer’s subsequent disavowal of these people almost makes his behavior appear to be a sign of hope, indicating a friendly disposition toward Christianity. “Aha,” say some, “the Führer is against ‘neo-paganism’; so, when those groups are eliminated, National Socialism and the Church can make their peace.”
But does a movement come into conflict with the Church only when it attacks the Church outright? Is not everything that is opposed in any way to the spirit of Christ also incompatible with His Church? Is someone an enemy of the Church only when he attacks her openly, and not as soon as he denies the truths of Christianity? Is he not an enemy of the Church who not only tramples underfoot the commandments of God in practice, but also avows that he rejects them in theory, and is imbued with an ethos as incompatible with Christianity as fire is with water?
In truth, even if Hitler were to burn all the neo-pagan books; even if he were to condemn Rosenberg, Bergmann, and Gebhardt to the same fate as Roehm [whom Hitler had executed]; even if he were to forbid all direct attacks on the Church; even if he were not merely to ratify favorable concordats, but also abide by them—even then, as long it refused to dissolve and liquidate itself completely, National Socialism would remain every bit as much the Antichrist against which we must fight relentlessly. For the constitutive intellectual content which holds it together as a movement, as well as the ethos which informs its outward manifestations, are loathsome in the eyes of God, and do not become the slightest bit more pleasing to Him when camouflaged and veiled in phrases that are friendly toward Christianity. Rosenberg, Bergmann, and the “Deutschgläubigen” are merely the overt consequences of the deepest essence of National Socialism, and we must be grateful to all those who help to expose its real essence and work to eliminate all the obscurity which surrounds it.
Here, as with physical illnesses, the more clearly the presence of the sickness is revealed by its symptoms, the better it will be for the patient. No suppression of the symptoms, no palliative treatment, no weak attempts to make peace with the spirit of the Antichrist (for to make such a peace would be to repeat Judas’ betrayal of Christ), no deal-making or obfuscation o
f antitheses—nothing can free either Christianity or the world from this horrible danger. The only remedy is a clear recognition of its true nature and the complete annihilation of this brown [Nazi] plague. There can be only one attitude for all Christians toward National Socialism, the one expressed in the Church’s prayer: “Hostium nostrorum, quaesumus, Domine, elide superbiam: et eorum contumanciam dexterae tuae virtute prosterne.” “We beg Thee, O Lord, break the pride of our enemies and humble their insolence by the power of Thy right hand.”
“Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam—Moreover, I think that Carthage should be completely destroyed.”
FALSE FRONTS
Der christliche Ständestaat
September 27, 1936
Though von Hildebrand spoke as a fervent Catholic, he also knew how to appeal to a wider audience. In this essay he appeals to those who, while they may not belong to any church or even consider themselves believers, nevertheless still share the heritage of Western Christian civilization. They may have, for instance, a respect for truth yet without tracing this respect back to the God who is Truth. These people stand with von Hildebrand and other committed Catholics in forming a common front against both German Nazism and Russian Bolshevism.
Von Hildebrand sharply contests here the Nazi claim that the principal struggle in the world is the struggle between Nazism and Bolshevism. These two movements are in reality kindred spirits; their differences lie on the surface, but in their ideological substance they are cut from the same cloth. The real struggle of the age is between the totalitarian regimes, whether Nazi or Bolshevist, and the Christian West, including regimes and individuals who simply live by its light even though they may not profess the Christian name.