The Lion of Münster

"We cannot give up confessing that there is someone higher than the race, the people and the nation: the Almighty and eternal Creator of peoples and nations." Monsignor Clemens August von Galen does not mince his words as he addresses the assembly of the faithful gathered in Münster Cathedral. The year is 1934, Adolf Hitler's rise to power continues in the country, supported by a pounding propaganda whose xenophobic characteristics are exalted by the prospect of a future Greater Germany at the helm of the world. Paranoid madness that few at the time were able to diagnose and combat head-on. One of these was the "lion of Münster", namely Msgr. Von Galen. His fight against the "Nazi dragon" continues tenaciously, with serious risks for his own safety and that of the Christians who remained immune from Hitler's poison: many priests are deported. Von Galen encourages them to persevere: "The innocent receive grace from God to maintain their Christian strength."

In '41, here is the systematic elimination of the mentally ill, the AktionT4 project. The bishop rises up: «These are men and women, our neighbors, our brothers and sisters! They are unproductive, if you will. But does this mean that they have lost the right to live?". Goering accuses him of "sabotaging the resistance force of the German people in the midst of the war", Hitler promises him the gallows, and his brother Franz is deported together with 40 priests from Münster. When it becomes clear that Germany will lose the war as its cities are destroyed by the Allies, the prelate's actions and thoughts are of material and moral support to his people. He urges us not to hate the enemy: «Is it a consolation for a German mother that the son of an English mother is killed? Revenge does not console!». Von Galen died in 1946. True to his motto, Nec Laudibus, Nec Timore (Neither with praise, nor with fear), for him justice and truth are above everything. No Hitler, the "Verführer", "seducer, one who leads astray" has ever made him change his mind...


Annamaria Gobbato
NP August / September 2023