A Catholic Resists Hitler

The Washingon Free Beacon ^ | September 13, 2015 | Blake Seitz

[Kaslin]

The evil of National Socialism seeming so obvious in retrospect, it boggles the contemporary mind to reflect that such an ideology proved seductive to so many millions of Germans, including many intellectuals. Yet some resisted, and My Battle Against Hitler, a newly-translated memoir by one of Nazism’s most implacable foes, Dietrich Von Hildebrand, relates one such story.

Von Hildebrand was a Catholic philosopher at the University of Munich whose prime working years coincided with the rise of National Socialism in central Europe. As a resident of Munich, the cradle of Nazism, he was in a unique position to bear witness against the ideology from its inception.

Until recently, Von Hildebrand has not received the attention of similar figures like the Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer, perhaps because Von Hildebrand eventually emigrated to America with his family rather than die in the camps. As a definitional matter martyrs cannot survive their earthly tribulations, so Von Hildebrand was not a martyr, but he nevertheless made heroic sacrifices for his faith and the oppressed.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Hitler - a hero of the common man first elected by a minority vote of about thirty percent and raised to power through the rage of the people because of how badly their government was damaging their lives - interesting story....

[VitacoreVision]

Dietrich von Hildebrand compares Second Vatican Council to The Screwtape Letters. That is pretty awesome:

A vocal critic of the changes in the church brought by the Second Vatican Council, Hildebrand especially resented the new liturgy, saying, "Truly, if one of the devils in C. S. Lewis‍‍ '​‍s The Screwtape Letters had been entrusted with the ruin of the liturgy, he could not have done it better."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_von_Hildebrand

[ZULU]

Yeah, like Obama.

[tiki]

“His coreligionists’ indulgent attitude toward Nazism would prove a source of great pain to Von Hildebrand, just as it did to Bonhoeffer. First, Von Hildebrand watched as German Catholics contorted their faith to accord with Nazism—”

Hmmmmm, sounds a lot like the present.

[Mmmike]

The opening sentence is incorrect. When you look at the present-day evil of abortion, the phenomenon is all too understandable.

[hinckley buzzard]

In contrast, Bonhoeffer was safe in America but chose to return to be with his people in Germany, and died with them.

There were btw many Christian churchmen who resisted the Nazi hegemony. The Barmen Declaration, written by Karl Barth and promulgated in 1934 was a theological document, the foundation of what came to be known as "the Confessing Church."