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"WOE BETIDE ALL OF US" — VON GALEN
1941
The Murder of Unproductive Persons
It follows the translation of the full text transcript of
Bishop von Galen's The Murder of Unproductive
Persons
sermon, delivered at St. Lambert's Church in Munster,
Germany — August 3, 1941.
Go here for
the original German
version of this sermon.
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To my regret I
have to inform you |
that during the
past week the Gestapo has continued its campaign
of annihilation against the Catholic orders. On
Wednesday, July 30, they occupied the
administrative center of the province of the
Sisters of Our Lady in Mühlhausen [Kempen
district], which formerly belonged to the
diocese of Münster, and declared the convent to
be dissolved. Most of the nuns, many of whom
come from our diocese, were evicted and required
to leave the district that very day. On
Thursday, July 31, according to reliable
accounts, the monastery of the missionary
brothers of Hiltrup in Hamm was also occupied
and confiscated by the Gestapo and the monks
were evicted.
Already on July
13, referring to the expulsion of the Jesuits
and the missionary sisters of St Clare from
Münster, did I publicly make the following
statement in this same church: None of the
occupants of these convents is accused of any
offence or crime, none has been brought before a
court, none has been found guilty.
I hear that rumors
are now being spread in Münster that after all
these religious, in particular the Jesuits, have
been accused, or even convicted, of criminal
offences, and indeed of treason. I declare:
These are base slanders of German citizens, our
brothers and sisters, which we will not
tolerate. I have already lodged a criminal
charge with the Chief Prosecutor against a
fellow who went so far as to make such
allegations in front of witnesses. I express the
expectation that the man will be brought swiftly
to account and that our courts of justice still
have the courage to punish slanderers who seek
to destroy the honor of innocent German citizens
whose property has already been taken from them.
I call on all my
listeners, indeed on all decent fellow-citizens,
who in future hear accusations made against the
religious expelled from Münster to get the name
and address of the person making the accusations
and of any witnesses. I hope that there are
still men in Münster who have the courage to
play their part in securing the judicial
examination of such accusations, which poison
the national community of our people, by coming
forward with their person, their name and if
necessary their oath. I ask them, if such
accusations against the religious are made in
their presence, to report them at once to their
parish priest or to the Episcopal
Vicariate-General and have them recorded. I owe
it to the honor of our religious orders, the
honor of our Catholic Church and also the honor
of our German people and our city of Münster to
report such cases to the state prosecution
service so that the facts may be established by
a court and base slanderers of our religious
punished.
[Gospel reading
for the 9th Sunday after Pentecost: "And when He
was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over
it ...", Luke 19,41- 47]
My dear diocesans,
it is a deeply moving event that we read of in
the Gospel for today. Jesus weeps. The Son of
God weeps! A man who weeps is suffering pain,
pain either of the body or of the heart. Jesus
did not suffer in the body; and yet he wept. How
great must have been the sorrow of soul, the
heartfelt pain of this most courageous of men to
make him weep.
Why did he weep?
He wept for Jerusalem, for God's holy city that
was so dear to him, the capital of his people.
He wept for its inhabitants, his
fellow-countrymen, because they refused to
recognize the only thing that could avert the
judgment foreseen by his omniscience and
determined in advance by his divine justice: "If
thou hadst known ... the things which belong
unto thy peace!" Why do the inhabitants of
Jerusalem not know it? Not long before Jesus had
given voice to it: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ...
how often would I have gathered thy children
together, as a hen doth gather her brood under
her wings, and ye would not!" (Luke 13,34). Ye
would not. I, your King, your God, I would. But
ye would not! How safe, how sheltered is the
chicken under the hen's wing; she warms it, she
feeds it, she defends it. In the same way I
desired to protect you, to keep you, to defend
you against any ill. I would, but ye would not.
That is why Jesus
weeps; that is why that strong man weeps; that
is why God weeps. For the folly, the injustice,
the crime of not be willing and for the
evil to which that gives rise, which his
omniscience sees coming, which his justice must
impose, if man sets his unwillingness against
God's commands, in opposition to the admonitions
of conscience, and all the loving invitations of
the divine Friend, the best of Fathers: "If thou
hadst known, in this thy day, the things which
belong unto thy peace! But thou wouldst not!"
It is something
terrible, something incredibly wrong and fatal,
when man sets his will against God's will. I
would. Thou wouldst not. It is therefore that
Jesus weeps for Jerusalem.
Dearly beloved
Christians, the joint pastoral letter of the
German bishops, which was read in all Catholic
churches in Germany on June 26, 1941, includes
the following words:
It is true
that in Catholic ethics there are certain
positive commandments which cease to be
obligatory if their observance would be
attended by unduly great difficulties; but
there are also sacred obligations of
conscience from which no one can release us,
which we must carry out even if it should
cost us our life. Never, under any
circumstances, may a man, save in war or in
legitimate self-defense, kill an innocent
person.
I had occasion on July 6 to add the following
comments on this passage in the joint pastoral
letter:
For some
months, we have been hearing reports that
inmates of establishments for the care of
the mentally ill who have been ill for a
long period and perhaps appear incurable
have been forcibly removed from these
establishments on orders from Berlin.
Regularly the
relatives receive soon afterwards an
intimation that the patient is dead, that
the patient's body has been cremated and
that they can collect the ashes.
There is a
general suspicion, verging on certainty,
that these numerous unexpected deaths of the
mentally ill do not occur naturally but are
intentionally brought about, in accordance
with the doctrine that it is legitimate to
destroy a so-called "worthless life," in
other words to kill innocent men and women,
if it is thought that their lives are of no
further value to the people and the state.
A terrible
doctrine which seeks to justify the murder
of innocent people, which legitimizes the
violent killing of disabled persons who are
no longer capable of work, of cripples, the
incurably ill and the aged and infirm!
I am reliably informed that in hospitals and
homes in the province of Westphalia lists are
being prepared of inmates who are classified as
"unproductive members of the national community"
and are to be removed from these establishments
and shortly thereafter killed. The first party
of patients left the mental hospital at
Marienthal, near Münster, in the course of this
week.
German men and
women! Article 211 of the German Penal Code is
still in force, in these terms:
Whoever kills
a man of deliberate intent is guilty of
murder and punishable with death.
No doubt in order to protect those who kill with
intent these poor men and women, members of our
families, from this punishment laid down by law,
the patients who have been selected for killing
are removed from their home area to some distant
place. Some illness or other is then given as
the cause of death. Since the body is
immediately cremated, the relatives and the
criminal police are unable to establish whether
the patient had in fact been ill or what the
cause of death actually was.
I have been
assured, however, that in the Ministry of the
Interior and the office of the Chief Medical
Officer, Dr. Conti, no secret is made of the
fact that indeed a large number of mentally ill
persons in Germany have already been killed with
intent and that this will continue.
Article 139 of the
Penal Code provides that "anyone who has
knowledge of an intention to commit a crime
against the life of any person [...] and fails
to inform the authorities or the person whose
life is threatened in due time [...] commits a
punishable offence".
When I learned of
the intention to remove patients from Marienthal,
I reported the matter on July 28 to the State
Prosecutor of Münster Provincial Court and to
the Münster chief of police by registered
letter, in the following terms:
According to
information I have received, it is planned
in the course of this week, the date has
been mentioned as July 31, to move a large
number of inmates of the provincial hospital
at Marienthal, classified as "unproductive
members of the national community," to the
mental hospital at Eichberg, where, as is
generally believed to have happened in the
case of patients removed from other
establishments, they are to be killed with
intent.
Since such
action is not only contrary to the divine
and the natural moral law but under article
211 of the German Penal Code ranks as murder
and attracts the death penalty, I hereby
report the matter in accordance with my
obligation under article 139 of the Penal
Code and request that steps should at once
be taken to protect the patients concerned
by proceedings against the authorities
planning their removal and murder, and that
I may be informed of the action taken.
I have received no information of any action by
the State Prosecutor or the police.
I had already
written on July 26 to the Westphalian provincial
authorities, who are responsible for the running
of the mental hospital and for the patients
entrusted to them for care and for cure,
protesting in the strongest terms. It had no
effect. The first transport of the innocent
victims under sentence of death has left
Marienthal. And I am now told that 800 patients
have already been removed from the hospital at
Warstein.
We must expect,
therefore, that the poor defenseless patients
are, sooner or later, going to be killed. Why?
Not because they have committed any offence
justifying their death; not because, for
example, they have attacked a nurse or
attendant, who would be entitled in legitimate
self-defense to meet violence with violence. In
such a case the use of violence leading to death
is permitted and may be called for, as it is in
the case of killing an armed enemy. No, these
unfortunate patients are to die, not for some
such reason as this but because in the judgment
of some official body, on the decision of some
committee, they have become "unworthy to live,"
because they are classed as "unproductive
members of the national community."
The judgment is
that they can no longer produce any goods. They
are like an old piece of machinery which no
longer works, like an old horse which has become
incurably lame, like a cow which no longer gives
any milk. What happens to an old piece of
machinery? It is thrown on the scrapheap. What
happens to a lame horse, an unproductive cow? I
will not pursue the comparison to the end — so
fearful is its appropriateness and its
illuminating power.
But we are not here
concerned with pieces of machinery, we are not
dealing with horses and cows, whose sole
function is to serve mankind, to produce goods
for mankind. They may be broken up, they may be
slaughtered when they no longer perform this
function. No, we are concerned with men and
women, our fellow creatures, our brothers and
sisters; poor human beings, ill human beings,
they are unproductive, if you will. But does
that mean that they have lost the right to live?
Have you, have I, the right to live only so long
as we are productive, so long as we are
recognized by others as productive?
If the
principle that men is entitled to kill his
unproductive fellow-man is established and
applied, then woe betide all of us when we
become aged and infirm! If it is legitimate
to kill unproductive members of the community,
woe betide the disabled who have sacrificed
their health or their limbs in the productive
process! If unproductive men and women can be
disposed of by violent means, woe betide our
brave soldiers who return home with major
disabilities as cripples, as invalids!
If it is
once admitted that men have the right to kill
"unproductive" fellowmen, even though it is at
present applied only to poor and defenseless
mentally ill patients, then the way is open for
the murder of all unproductive men and women —
the incurably ill, the handicapped who are
unable to work, those disabled in industry or
war. The way is open, indeed, for the murder of
all of us when we become old and infirm and
therefore unproductive. Then it will require
only a secret order to be issued that the
procedure which has been tried and tested with
the mentally ill should be extended to other
"unproductive" persons, that it should also be
applied to those suffering from incurable
tuberculosis, the aged and infirm, persons
disabled in industry, soldiers with disabling
injuries.
Then no man will be safe.
Some
committee or other will be able to put him on
the list of "unproductive" persons, who in their
judgment have become "unworthy to live". And
there will be no police to protect him, no court
to avenge his murder and bring his murderers to
justice. Who could then have any confidence in a
doctor? He might report a patient as
unproductive and then be given instructions to
kill him!
It does not bear thinking of, the
moral depravity, the universal mistrust which
will spread even in the bosom of the family, if
this terrible doctrine is tolerated, accepted
and put into practice. Woe betide mankind, woe
betide our German people, if the divine
commandment, "Thou shalt not kill", which the
Lord proclaimed on Sinai amid thunder and
lightning, which God our Creator wrote into
man's conscience from the beginning, if this
commandment is not merely violated but the
violation is tolerated and remains unpunished!
I
will give you an example of what is happening.
One of the patients in Marienthal was a man of
55, a farmer from a country parish in the
Münster region — I could give you his name
— who
has suffered for some years from mental
disturbance and was therefore admitted to Marienthal hospital. He was not mentally ill in
the full sense. He could receive visits and was
always happy, when his relatives came to see
him. Only a fortnight ago he was visited by his
wife and one of his sons, a soldier on home
leave from the front. The son is much attached
to his father, and the parting was a sad one. No one can tell, whether the soldier will return
and see his father again, since he may fall in
battle for his country.
The son, the soldier,
will certainly never again see his father on
earth, for he has since then been put on the
list of the "unproductive." A relative, who
wanted to visit the father this week in Marienthal, was turned away with the information
that the patient had been transferred elsewhere
on the instructions of the Council of State for
National Defense. No information could be given
about where he had been sent, but the relatives
would be informed within a few days. What
information will they be given? The same as in
other cases of the kind? That the man has died,
that his body has been cremated, that the ashes
will be handed over on payment of a fee? Then
the soldier, risking his life in the field for
his fellow-countrymen, will not see his father
again on earth, because fellow countrymen at home
have killed him.
The facts I have stated are
firmly established. I can give the names of the
patient, his wife and his son the soldier, and
the place where they live. "Thou shalt not
kill!" God wrote this commandment in the
conscience of man long before any penal code
laid down the penalty for murder, long before
there was any prosecutor or any court to
investigate and avenge a murder. Cain, who
killed his brother Abel, was a murderer long
before there were any states or any courts of
law. And he confessed his deed, driven by his
accusing conscience:
My punishment is greater
than I can bear ... and it shall come to pass,
that every one that findeth me the murderer
shall slay me.
(Genesis 4,13-14)
"Thou shalt
not kill!" This commandment from God, who alone
has power to decide on life or death, was
written in the hearts of men from the beginning,
long before God gave the children of Israel on
Mount Sinai his moral code in those lapidary
sentences inscribed on stone which are recorded
for us in Holy Scripture and which as children
we learned by heart in the catechism.
"I am the
Lord thy God!" Thus begins this immutable law.
"Thou shalt have not other gods before me." God, the only God, transcendent, almighty,
omniscient, infinitely holy and just, our
Creator and future Judge, has given us these
commandments. Out of love for us he wrote these
commandments in our heart and proclaimed them to
us. For they meet the need of our God-created
nature; they are the indispensable norms for all
rational, godly, redeeming and holy individual
and community life.
With these commandments God,
our Father, seeks to gather us, His children, as
the hen gathers her chickens under her wings. If
we follow these commands, these invitations,
this call from God, then we shall be guarded and
protected and preserved from harm, defended
against threatening death and destruction like
the chickens under the hen's wings. "O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem ... how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye
would not!"
Is this to come about again in our
country of Germany, in our province of
Westphalia, in our city of Münster? How far are
the divine commandments now obeyed in Germany,
how far are they obeyed here in our community?
-
The eighth commandment: "Thou shalt not bear
false witness, thou shalt not lie." How often is
it shamelessly and publicly broken!
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The seventh
commandment: "Thou shalt not steal". Whose
possessions are now secure since the arbitrary
and ruthless confiscation of the property of our
brothers and sisters, members of Catholic
orders? Whose property is protected, if this
illegally confiscated property is not returned?
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The sixth commandment: "Thou shalt not commit
adultery." Think of the instructions and
assurances on free sexual intercourse and
unmarried motherhood in the notorious Open
Letter by Rudolf Hess, who has disappeared
since, which was published in all the
newspapers. And how much shameless and
disreputable conduct of this kind do we read
about and observe and experience in our city of Münster! To what shamelessness in dress have our
young people been forced to get accustomed to —
the preparation for future adultery! For
modesty, the bulwark of chastity, is about to be
destroyed.
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And now the fifth commandment: "Thou shalt not kill", is set aside and broken under
the eyes of the authorities whose function it
should be to protect the rule of law and human
life when men presume to kill innocent
fellow-men with intent merely because they are
"unproductive," because they can no longer
produce any goods.
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And how do matters stand
with the observance of the fourth commandment,
which enjoins us to honor and obey our parents
and those in authority over us? The status and
authority of parents is already much undermined
and is increasingly shaken by all the
obligations imposed on children against the will
of their parents. Can anyone believe that
sincere respect and conscientious obedience to
the state authorities can be maintained when men
continue to violate the commandments of the
supreme authority, the Commandments of God, when
they even combat and seek to stamp out faith in
the only true transcendent God, the Lord of
heaven and earth?
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The observance of the first
three commandments has in reality for many years
been largely suspended among the public in
Germany and in Münster. By how many people are
Sundays and feast days profaned and withheld
from the service of God! How the name of God is
abused, dishonored and blasphemed! And the
first commandment: "Thou shalt have no other
gods before me." In place of the only true
eternal God men set up their own idols at will
and worship them: Nature, or the state, or the
people, or the race. And how many are there
whose God, in Paul's word, "is their belly" (Philippians
3,19) - their own wellbeing, to which they
sacrifice all else, even honor and conscience, the pleasures of the senses, the lust for money,
the lust for power!
In accordance with all this
men may indeed seek to arrogate to themselves
divine attributes, to make themselves lords over
the life and death of their fellow-men. When
Jesus came near to Jerusalem and beheld the city
he wept over it, saying:
If thou hadst known,
even thou, at least in this thy day, the things
which belong unto thy peace! but now they are
hid from thine eyes. For the day shall come upon
thee, that thine enemies [...] shall lay thee even
with the ground, and thy children within thee;
and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon
another; because thou knewest not the time of
thy visitation.
Looking with his bodily eyes,
Jesus saw only the walls and towers of the city
of Jerusalem, but the divine omniscience looked
deeper and saw how matters stood within the city
and its inhabitants:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem
[...]
how often would I have gathered thy children
together, as a hen doth gather her brood under
her wings, and ye would not!
That is the great
sorrow that oppresses Jesus' heart, that
brings tears to his eyes. I wanted to act for
your good, but ye would not. Jesus saw how
sinful, how terrible, how criminal, how
disastrous this unwillingness is.
Little man, that frail creature, sets his
created will against the will of God. Jerusalem
and its inhabitants, His chosen and favored
people, set their will against God's will.
Foolishly and criminally, they defy the will of
God. And so Jesus weeps over the heinous sin and
the inevitable punishment.
God is not mocked,
Christians of Münster! Did the Son of God in his
omniscience in that day see only Jerusalem and
its people? Did he weep only over Jerusalem? Is
the people of Israel the only people whom God
has encompassed and protected with a father's
care and mother's love, has drawn to Himself? Is
it the only people that would not? The
only one that rejected God's truth, that threw
off God's law and so condemned itself to ruin?
Did Jesus, the omniscient God, also see in that
day our German people, our land of Westphalia,
our region of Münster, the Lower Rhineland? Did
he also weep over us? Over Münster?
For a
thousand years he has instructed our forefathers
and us in his truth, guided us with his law,
nourished us with his grace, gathered us
together as the hen gathers her chickens under
her wings. Did the omniscient Son of God see in
that day that in our time he must also pronounce
this judgment on us: "Ye would not: see, your
house will be laid waste!" How terrible that
would be!
My Christians, I hope there is still
time; but then indeed it is high time: That we
may realize, in this our day, the things that
belong unto our peace. That we may realize what
alone can save us, can preserve us from the
divine judgment: that we should take, without
reservation, the divine commandments as the
guiding rule of our lives and act in sober
earnest according to the words: "Rather die than
sin."
That in prayer and sincere penitence we
should beg that God's forgiveness and mercy may
descend upon us, upon our city, our country, and
our beloved German people. But with those who
continue to provoke God's judgment, who
blaspheme our faith, who scorn God's
commandments, who make common cause with those
who alienate our young people from Christianity,
who rob and banish our religious, who bring
about the death of innocent men and women, our
brothers and sisters, with all those we will
avoid any confidential relationship, we will
keep ourselves and our families out of reach of
their influence, lest we become infected with
their godless ways of thinking and acting, lest
we become partakers in their guilt and thus
liable to the judgment which a just God must and
will inflict on all those who, like the
ungrateful city of Jerusalem, do not will what
God wills.
O God, make us all know, in this our
day, before it is too late, the things which
belong to our peace! O most sacred heart of
Jesus, grieved to tears at the blindness and
iniquities of men, help us through Thy grace,
that we may always strive after that which is
pleasing to Thee and renounce that which
displeases Thee, that we may remain in Thy love
and find peace for our souls!
Amen.
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