Resisting Fascism: Father Alfred Delp - Discourse by Rudolf J. Siebert and Dustin J. Byrd

In recent years, through books and films, Americans have come to know about the Protestant Minister Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and his martyrdom at the hands of the Nazis. What is lesser known are those Catholics who also resisted Nazism and paid the ultimate price for doing so. Among them was Father Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest from Mannheim who served a community at the end of his life in Bogenhausen, a neighborhood in Munich. Born into a mixed Catholic (his mother) and Protest (father) family, young Alfred would eventually opt for Catholicism after being rebuffed by a Lutheran pastor who didn’t take well to his questions. After receiving his first communion, he would later study at the Goetheschule in Dieburg. He would later go on to join the Jugendbund Neudeutschland Catholic youth movement. It was banned in 1933 by the Nazis. In 1926, Alfred joined the Society of Jesus, better known as the “Jesuits,” a religious order founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in 1540. After joining the order, Father Delp would continue his studies in Austria, the Netherlands, and Frankfurt, Germany, much of it under the watchful eye of the Nazi regime, which came to power in 1933. The Nazis were always suspicious of the Jesuits despite the Reicheskonkordat signed by the Nazi regime and the Vatican in 1933. Delp was official ordained a priest in 1937 in Munich, but because the University of Munich rejected his candidacy for their doctorate in philosophy program, Delp worked as an editor for the Jesuit journal, Stimmen der Zeit (Voices of the Times), which was eventually banned in 1941 by the Nazis – again for what they believed was anti-Nazi sentiments advocated by the Jesuits. Like many, Father Delp stood in opposition to Hitler and the Nazis, seeing fascism as being antithetical to Christianity and Catholicism in particular. Nevertheless, open defiance and/or denunciation of the Nazis resulted in harsh treatment for Jesuits, including the confiscation of their property, closure of their schools and media outlets, and imprisonment. Nevertheless, Father Delp would eventually join a clandestine group called the Kreisau Circle, which worked to envision a post-Nazi German society, one that would be more in tune with Christian values. Systematically imagining the very idea of the collapse of the Third Reich was enough to herald the charge of treason, but to be associated with Claus von Stauffenberg’s July 20th, 1944, failed attempt to assassinate Hitler would ultimately result in Delp’s arrest by the Gestapo. After the failed plot, Hitler commissioned a special Gestapo group to arrest, interrogate, put on trial, and execute all who were involved, no matter in what way they were involved. Having spent months in Berlin’s famous Tegel prison, Delp would eventually face the communist-turned-fascist judge, Roland Freisler, who conducted his famous show trials, often with hidden cameras filming the proceedings so Hitler could satisfy his lust for vengeance by watching his victims be berated and humiliated by Freisler. For Delp, the trial was a farce; it was aimed at him personally – not because of what he did, but because he was a Jesuit. Although he was offered his freedom if he were to leave the Jesuit order, he refused, which costed him his life. Delp was executed at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin on February 2nd, 1945, one day before an allied bomb landed of judge Roland Freisler and killed him. On the orders of Heinrich Himmler, Delp’s body, along with the bodies of the other July 20th plotters, were cremated and dispersed among sewage fields near Berlin. Delp’s many letters written in prison stand as a testament to what he saw as the need for a radical dependence of God, both in turmoil and in tranquility. While Delp has been remembered in Germany, with many schools, streets, and chapels named after him, his beatification process began in 1990, with documentation from his final parish being sent to the Archbishop of Berlin for consideration. While that process is ongoing, the West’s trouble with authoritarianism and fascism is once again impelling us to look at figures like Alfred Delp for inspiration. For more information on Dr. Siebert: https://www.dialectical-religion.org For more information on Dr. Byrd: https://www.dustinjbyrd.org For more information on Ekpyrosis Press: https://www.ekpyrosispress.com For more information on the Institute for Critical Social Theory: https://www.criticalsocialtheory.com