The letters of von Galen
to Pius XII

In its July-August issue 30Days offered its readers three of the letters that Pius XII addressed to Clemens August von Galen in which Pope Pacelli expressed his full approval and gratitude for the steadfast courage with which the German bishop had opposed Hitler’s Nazism. Those letters, which were unknown to most people, are part of a correspondence that Pius XII engaged in with von Galen between 1940 and 1946. From the correspondence, never studied till now, we print three letters of the eight that the Lion of Münster sent to Pope Pacelli in those war years. The letters have never been translated before. Replying to Pius XII, von Galen informs him here not only of the persecution suffered under the Nazi regime but also of the terrible devastation caused by the Allied bombing of Germany, about which the bishop didn’t spare his words. They are letters that underline still more significantly the close agreement and the unity of thought between Pius XII and von Galen in the firm condemnation of Nazism as in the decided repudiation of the collective guilt attributed to the German people


Letter from von Galen of 4 November 1943 to Pius XII
Holy Father!

Kneeling spiritually at the feet of the Your Holiness, allow me to express my endless gratitude for the generous designation as assistant to the throne of Your Holiness, imparted on 8 September 1943 by His Eminence the Cardinal Secretary of State to the Chapter of our Cathedral. That I should have the honor of being made part of the restricted “pontifical family” is an undeserved privilege that cheers and rejoices my heart all the more in that, by the grace of God and family upbringing, the most profound ties of awe, of love and of the subjugation have bound me to the Vicar of Christ on earth since my youth; this is an attitude of mind that the fatherly affability and the benevolence of Your Holiness towards my person has further increased. I pray that God support my weak will so I may remain steadfast till the end in unswerving loyalty to Rome, to the rock of Peter and to the supreme Successor of the Head of the Apostles, and also to keep and strengthen in fidelity to the Holy Father the clergy and faithful entrusted to me. That He, in his benevolence and mercy, may see to it that soon I am granted to approach Your Holiness in person, so that I may give voice to my feelings of awe, of love and of gratitude.
I feel urged to thank Your Holiness in a particular way for your handwritten letter of 24 February 1943, delivered me in May by His Excellence the Apostolic Nuncio. Full of joy I communicated to my clergy and faithful the fatherly and wise teachings and admonitions contained in it. They must be guide and encouragement to us in the care of souls, made often so difficult, but also, and in a particular way, in the fight for our personal sanctification.
Together with other recent documents, I would have liked to present Your Holiness the text of two sermons that I gave on 29 June and 19 September in our cathedral, in which I made known to the faithful Your Holiness’s words of instruction and encouragement and, in the meantime, I emphatically rebutted the repugnant calumnies that are covertly broadcast against Your Holiness. Unfortunately the text of these two sermons, as also all the other reports and documents gathered to be sent in Rome, were burned as a result of the destruction of the bishop’s residence and of the building of the Ordinariate caused by an enemy air raid on 10 October.
In the course of the past year the enemy air attacks have often struck and damaged our industrial cities above all: Bottrop, Bocholt, Sterkrade, Gladbeck and in particular Duisburg-Hamborn. In these attacks large numbers of churches, ecclesiastical buildings, and many hospitals have also been seriously damaged. In Münster, a serious raid on June 10 among other things rendered temporarily unusabable many churches, and the church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus will be so for a long time. On Sunday 10 October, a raid by enemy bombers, brief but extremely savage, reduced most of the ancient and venerable historical center of Münster to rubble. We suffer much for the casualties it caused: along with a large number of the laity, four priests perished: two members of the Chapter of our cathedral, the prelates Prof. Dr. Emmerich and Prof. Dr. Diekamp, then Prof. Emeritus Dr. Vrede and the teacher Dr. Hautkappe. In the mother house of our “Confraternity of the Merciful Sisters of the Holy Virgin and Mary Mother Dolorosa (Clemensschwestern)”, the superior general was killed, along with the two provincial superiors of the two provinces of the order; additionally 56 sisters were killed, mostly local superiors who, just at that moment, had been summoned to participate in the exercises of the mother house. Other religious houses in the city, and also the seminary and the theological college were gravely damaged.
We deplore above all the destruction of the ancient, great churches of the city of Münster. A high explosive bomb hit and set fire to the north bell tower of the Cathedral; the falling rubble and detritus hit and smashed two vaults of the main building and various others were damaged; in the interior, much was destroyed; the whole roof was consumed by fire. In the vicarial churches of Our Lady and of Saint Lambert the vaults of the choir collapsed, the churches of Saint Martin, Saint Clement and Saint Peter have suffered such serious damage that the possibility of restoration is doubtful.
In the cathedral square the curacies of the provost and of the dean of the Cathedral and the homes of three other capitular canons of the Cathedral were completely burned and destroyed, so that those reverend people were unable to save anything except some pieces of clothing; among the stricken there was also the capitular canon of the Cathedral Franz Vorwerk who, without any fault, is still in exile.
Thank to the merciful protection of God, I was personally unharmed, apart from some slight wounds, by the explosion of two high explosive bombs that had hit and partially demolished the courtyard of the bishops’ residence; but in the fire that inevitably followed I lost all my furniture, all my books, writings and documents and, among them, Your Holiness’s well-loved handwritten letters, a circumstance, the latter, which causes me particular pain; most of the pontifical vestments and sacred objects were destroyed; but it was possible to save the most necessary items of dress.
Still more serious and pregnant with unassessable repercussions is the fact that the offices of the General Vicariate and of the Officialate were entirely burned and destroyed, together with the documents kept there since 1820. I have already begged His Excellence the Apostolic Nuncio to grant me for this once dispensation from compiling the “Relatio de statu dioecesis” for this year, since all the preparatory documents, materials and the documents necessary to its drafting have been lost.
Holy Father! Still more than such external losses concern for the safety of the souls of the faithful entrusted to me and for the maintenance of the Christian religion in our country weighs on me. Of course, there are still thousands of those who, coming from all the social and professional classes, even among young people, are faithful to Christ and to His Holy Church, and with thankfulness to God I have been able to ascertain that the inhabitants of those areas of our diocese who, from time immemorial are mainly Catholic, are giving great witness in the ordeal and valiantly and with resignation bear the sufferings caused by the war and offer them to God. Again this year, travelling around for confirmations and on pilgrimages, I was able to rejoice and was edified by the extraordinarily vivid testimony, to the extent such is possible, to a faithful Catholic sentiment and one of devotion to the Pastor that God has given to the diocese. And yet it is undeniable that, in general, truly considerable parts of the German people look at Christianity, at true faith in God, with indifference, indeed with enmity, abandoning ever more the moral ties of the Christian legacy till now handed on. We must perhaps see in the war of annihilation that is threatening to reduce much of non-Christian Europe to a heap of rubble and to a wasteland, just chastisement come down on those who «have abandoned the font of living water, and have dug wells that do not hold water». Showing them the way back to the “fontes Salvatoris” is our great and heavy task. In the meantime, the thing most necessary is that we, together with all those who have remained faithful, following the example and the frequent admonishment of Your Holiness, accept from the hand of God, meekly and with gratitude, sufferings and deprivations, and we offer them to the divine Majesty as tribute of penitence and expiation. At the end of these lines allow me to express my deep gratitude to Your Holiness for all the teachings and the admonitions that have come to us. In these last weeks the content of the encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi has been a source of especial comfort and strength to me, above all the reference to the «tremendum sane mysterium, ac satis nunquam meditatum: multorum salutem a mystici Iesu Christi Corporis membrorum precibus voluntariisque afflictionibus pendere», because I draw from it the hope that our sacrifices and our sufferings, in unity with the cross of Christ, may obtain and accelerate the mercy of God for us, for our people and for all peoples.
In the hope that our prayers and the sacrifices offered by us may contribute to imploring every heavenly gift, freedom and health for Your Holiness, I ask humbly for my diocesans, laity and priests, especially for those at the front, and for our young people, the apostolic blessing, and I remain in the deepest veneration of Your Holiness, your most devoted and obedient son and servant
+ C. A.


letter of 20 August 1945 to Pius XII
Holy Father!

In the most profound veneration and filial love I kneel spiritually to the foot of the papal throne, to greet the supreme Vicar of Jesus Christ, the common father of Christianity. Already months ago I appealed to the Allied military government to authorize and make possible the free exchange of letters with Rome as also a personal visit to Your Holiness. Yet, so far, without success! I hope now, on occasion of the next Episcopal Conference of Fulda, at least to be able to send these few lines to Your Holiness, through the intermediary of his Excellence the Apostolic Nuncio.
I feel the duty and the desire of expressing first of all gratitude toward Your Holiness, also on behalf of my diocesans. The isolation from Rome, which has lasted for months, and the impossibility of getting information about the state, words and the actions of Your Holiness, have not decreased our love for the Holy Father nor our fervor in praying for you, nor even our aspiration to receive teaching, guidance and comfort from you. The first words of Your Holiness that we have received, after so long, were those of the Speech to the College of Cardinals of 2 June, sent us recently by the Apostolic Nuncio and later delivered to me also by the Secretary of the Chancellery, Dr. Pünder, who has finally returned home. The concise tenor, together with the unquestionably clear exposition of the past, of the current situation and of its dangers, again shows us Your Holiness’s benevolent understanding and unchanging love for us, for our poor people and for our country, toward which almost all the rest of the world seems to nourish only hatred, aversion and thirst for revenge. Even the new German newspapers, directed by the forces of occupation, must publish declarations aimed at imputing to the whole German people, even to those who never stooped to the erroneous doctrines of Nazism and who even, according to their possibilities, resisted it, collective guilt and responsibility for all the crimes committed by the previous holders of power. It seems that this attitude of mind is the reason for the treatment of the Germans prisoners of war, which goes against the Geneva Convention (there is still no information whatsoever about those who perished in captivity in Russia); that it is the reason for allowing campaigns of robbery and of looting by foreign workers deported in their time to Germany, especially Russians and Poles, with the suite of arson, murders and rape of decent women and virgins; that it is the reason, besides, of the ruthless expulsion of the German population from its country and from its property, as has in part already been done, and in part is programmed for the future. It is truly appalling that the exasperated nationalism culminating in the cult of the race is dominant today also among the victors, to such an extent that it has been decided in Potsdam to expel the whole German population from the territories allotted to Poland and Czechoslovakia (east Prussia, Pomerania, east Brandenburg, Silesia, Bohemia and so on) and crowd them into the now already overpopulated west German territories.
On the other hand in Holland they have reached the point of preventing the return and even visits to their wives and children of German men who have lived and dwelt in that country for years, who got married to Dutch women there and whose families live there and are waiting for the return of the father. Such violent tearing apart of families precisely recalls Nazism’s doctrines of race, that displayed itself in the persecution of the Jews and in the violent tearing apart of marriages between Christians with baptized Jews.
How thankful we are, in the midst of such a world attitude, for the fond, understanding, consoling and encouraging words of Your Holiness of 2 June 1945. We hear them as the words of the Vicar, of He who came into world «non ut iudicet mundum, sed ut salvetur mundus per ipsum».
I write to Your Holiness from the ruins of the city of Münster, that even in the last days of war, on 23 and 25 March 1945, was again buried under high explosive and incendiary bombs. On that occasion, along with the cathedral, the old parts of the city were almost completely destroyed and burned; of the old churches, only the church of Saint Maurice, which lies outside the city, is serviceable. The work of rebuilding, repair and the protection of the still serviceable remains is not backed by the forces of occupation, and in effect, in the light of the shortage of living accomodation, the work must certainly be postponed.
We look ahead with great worry. Because of the bombing very many have lost home, work, business. Very many in the East and West, fleeing the battle areas, have abandoned their homes and cannot return: this is true above all for those who fled the Russian soldiers, who cannot go back, nor get news of their loved ones who stayed there. Our Christian people in the countryside have taken in with great generosity the refugees fleeing the cities, the frontiers, the war zones, reducing their own needs to the minimum so as to be able to provide the outsiders with food and accommodation.
But, in the long run, the community living forced on one-time independent families in small and undivided houses, with spaces, furniture and pots and pans now in common, is a tough strain not only on patience and love, but also on good manners. To this is added the all but desperate and futureless condition of our economy, and the latent danger of the proletarization, indeed of the total impoverishment, of great families until now wealthy and affluent enough, even of the most cultured strata. As it will be difficult to preserve faith in the fatherly goodness of God and in the faithful fulfilment of the commandments of justice and love of one’s neighbor in all those people who are going to have to bear the “proletarian lot of an uncertain existence”! Already today, apostles of a communism without God are engaging in feverish agitation, especially in the industrial zones: we fear that the triumphal march of Bolshevik ideas will spread well beyond the frontiers of the Russian occupation zone. Unfortunately the forces of occupation in the West, England and America, seem unaware of this danger, or seem not to have the courage to take the necessary countermeasures, undertaking effective action against the danger of the proletarization of the German people.
Holy Father! I humbly ask pardon if I am afflicting Your Holiness’s paternal heart by speaking of our difficult situation. On the other hand I can assure you that our faithful people so far persevere steadfast in the faith, that most of the combatants returning home soon return to the Catholic tradition of their fathers, that the soldier-priest and seminarians give the clear impression of having kept their sacred vocation, through all the dangers, honorably and without stain. God be thanked for these numerous and real graces, and for the comfort that such knowledge brings. They will serve to spur me to a boundless faith in God and to cheerful optimism in work and in care for the Kingdom of Christ.
I must also ask pardon that I dare write Your Holiness in a way that in terms of form, paper and writing is inadequate and scarcely dignified. I humbly beg you consider my poverty as justification of this circumstance, since I must content myself with what I find. Following the filial desire of my heart, I dare bring to the benevolent paternal heart on the throne of Peter my profound respect and set out my worries. Confident in the benevolence that Your Holiness has demonstrated so many times toward my poor person, I take the liberty of adding this further information: my younger brother Franz, confidential servant to Your Holiness, whom Your Holiness knows, arrested by the Gestapo in August 1944 and taken away without any apparent reason, was released from the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen neat Oranienburg in April and in July returned to his family, alive, even if debilitated and with his health seriously compromised.
In allowing myself to enclose the text of a sermon I gave on 1 July 1945 in the sanctuary of Telgte near Münster, I humbly ask for apostolic blessing for myself, my diocese, my priests, the soldiers returning from the front, so many families broken up and in poverty, young people under threat, and I remain, with filial reverence,
Son and obedient servant of Your Holiness
+ C. A.
Bishop of Münster


letter of 6 January 1946 to Pius XII
Holy Father!

With filial reverence I kneel spiritually at Your Holiness’s feet, and I search in vain for the words that might express what I feel at the bottom of my heart. The radio and the newspapers have made known that Your Holiness has been pleased to amplify the Sacred College of Cardinals through the nomination of a great number of new members. Summoning to the supreme Senate and Council of the Head of the Church men from all the parts of the world, peoples and nations, Your Holiness has demonstrated to the whole world in insuperable fashion the supranationality of the Holy Catholic Church, its coherence and its unity that show how shameful is hatred among peoples. Not even our poor German people, devastated by the war, humiliated by defeat, and today trampled on every side by hate and the thirst for revenge, has not been forgotten, indeed uplifted by the nomination of three German bishops to the College of Cardinals; and for this, with heart deeply touched, the German Catholics together with their bishops and priests and many non-Catholics Germans also thank the Vicar of Christ on earth.
If Your Holiness has decided that my poor person must also be amongst these and must enter the Sacred College of Cardinals, I can only say that this dignity and unexpected and undeserved nomination confuses and weighs upon me, so that, with Peter I would say: «Exi a me, quia homo peccator sum, Domine».
Only the principle that, as far as possible, I have aimed to honor throughout my whole existence, of considering every wish of the Pope a commandment from Him who has made you universal Pastor, leads me to utter my humbly «Adsum», as already on the day of my priestly consecration, and to accept the dignity and honor you bestow on me. It consoles me to detect in it a recognition of the courageous behavior of the majority of the Catholics of the diocese of Münster to me entrusted, who, in the years of the persecution and oppression, remained faithful to Christ, to His Holy Church, to the Holy Father, and through their strength of mind and behavior made possible that, even publicly, I could defend the rights of God and of the Church, and the rights given by God to the human person. The incessant evidence of friendship reaching me from my diocesans at the announcement of the news of my nomination, the countless good wishes from the whole diocese and from all Germany give me the right to interpret in this sense and accept this act of grace from Your Holiness.
And that is the reason that, with filial abandonment, I express to Your Holiness on behalf of the faithful of my diocese and also of German Catholics my most deferential gratitude for this fresh, undeserved evidence of benevolence and paternal love. With this I renew the solemn vow of immutable fidelity, of assiduous obedience and of filial love to the Head of the Church, to the Vicar of Christ on earth and to the sublime person of Your Holiness, for whom, in our poor prayers, we daily endeavor to implore the grace, the protection and the help of God.
In the joyful hope that I shall soon kneel at Your Holiness’s feet, and with the humble request for the apostolic blessing for me and for my diocesans, I remain, in profound deference, the most obedient son and servant of Your Holiness
+ C. A.