Alfred Delp who was born in Mannheim, Germany in 1907, was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in Munich at the age of twenty-nine. He had hoped to continue his studies after ordination but was prevented for political reasons. Instead Father Delp went to work for the Jesuit publication “Voice of the Times.”
On July 20, 1944 an unsuccessful plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler resulted in the arrest of over 7,000 suspected members of the German resistance movement. Due to his association with the Kreisau Circle, a gathering of intellectuals planning for a new social order after the fall of the Third Reich, Alfred Delp found himself among those the Gestapo put in prison.
During the six months of his imprisonment before his execution on February 2, 1945, Delp was able to smuggle out of prison a series of letters and reflections. Due to the time of year in which Delp wrote, much of his writing focused on the seasons of Advent and Christmas.
In December 1944 after having spent five months in Tegel Prison in Berlin, Delp wrote, in what is probably a profound understatement,
This year the temptations toward a picturesque Christmas are probably reduced.
It is tempting to want to cling to our childhood vision of Christmas. It seems tragic that Christmas should be robbed of any of its pure innocence and beauty. But, even in this beautiful season of the year, Father Delp was determined to look honestly at the harsh realities of the world in which he lived. He acknowledges in a series of hard rhetorical questions that the beauty of Christmas has not changed the painful realities of much of human history.
The harshness and coldness of life have hit us with a previously unimaginable force. Some of us, whose homes cannot even offer the cold shelter of the stable in Bethlehem anymore, perhaps begin to forget the picturesque little ox and little donkey and to approach the quesiton of what Christmas is really all about. Is the world more beautiful and life healthier because of that first Christmas? Because the angels finally and publicly sang their Gloria? Because the shepherds awestruck, ran and adored? Because King Herod panicked and murdered little children?
Who could blame Father Delp for his dark vision of the world after five years living in Nazi dominated Germany.
But he does not end on this dark note. Even in prison, suffering under the vicious totalitarian regime of Adolf Hitler, Delp maintains that suffering and pain have important work to do in our lives and that this work will only be accomplished if we are willing to face honestly the sometimes harsh realities of life even at Christmas.
Release of tension (whether through avoidance, indifference, resignation, insensitivity, physical atrophy, destruction of the metaphysical nerves, overexertion,or weariness with life) is one of the deadly wounds from which modern man is bleeding to death. Eliminating the tension that strained one to the last nerve may have seemed life a relief at first, like liberation from an uncomfortable burden. Yet over time, one cannot avoid recognizing that these burdens are among the fixed conditions and prerequisites of life.
If we are to truly live, we need to be willing to hold the tension of the fact that things are not always as we might hope they would be. Life is often painful, difficult, and messy. “These burdens are among the fixed conditions and prerequisites of life.” We can rail against them, fight with all our might to make the world different than we know it is, or we can accept the realities of life as they present themselves and live from that place of honesty, openness and surrender.
Like Father Delp in Germany in 1944, many people in the world today can only anticipate a harsh Christmas. It is important, particularly for those of us for whom Christmas may be less of a struggle, to hold tenderly the reality of suffering that this season embodies for so many.
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December 2, 2010 at 8:26 am
jaqueline
> We can rail against them, fight with all our might to make the world different than we know it is, or we can accept the realities of life as they present themselves and live from that place of honesty, openness and surrender. <
I have to ask:
If this were true, that we ought to accept the conditions of life as they are and not fight against them would Father Delp and his colleagues have suffered in prison? They wanted to assassinate Hitler after all. They were not prepared to accept life as it presented itself, they put their lives at risk.
Yesterday I was speaking with a colleague about our present day attitude to violence;labelling it as bad yet allowing it in video games etc. I wondered: is violence really 'bad' or is it neutral, one more aspect of life ( shouldn't we practice acceptance of that? ) which is good or bad according to it's use…after all lions use violence, mothers defend their children , Judith cut off a head, David slew Goliath,and then: what if we did not use violence against Hitler? What if we surrendered and accepted Hitler's vision for the world?
Hitler wanted German children to be violent…" Terrifying, unafraid of death, The terror of the world " Hitler accept that in reality despite all our 'beauty and kindness and peace and love " of the Christmas story, that the way the world runs is dog eat dog and d*** it if that is the way the world is then Germany will be top dog!!! ( not that it did not have the experience of being underdog to contrast with ). Hitler accepted the way the world was and chose to fight it.
What if someone like Hitler rose up today? Would our youth be equipped?
Does the rest of the world other than North America have the luxury of allowing their children "peace, love and understanding?
What if our grandparents and parents did not use violence with Hitler and just accepted and surrendered? I assure you we would be in a very different world…They accepted life as it is and fought.
The post war babies despised war and did not recognise their parents sacrifice, that enabled them to have long hair and talk about peace and put flowers in their hair.
The assassination attempt might have failed, and another bombing attempt failed because of a fluke of Hitler changing his mind about the time of a speech, but the sum of these attempts had the effect of causing Hitler to deeply mistrust his Generals…and when it came to D Day and beyond, that mistrust caused some foolish decisions, contradicting command on the ground that along with allies cost him the war. Perhaps we should wonder how it would have gone if those resisting Hitler had just accepted 'life as it presented itself.
I may be pushing us to look at things from another point of view, one not necessarily having the whole story either, but I think though, that we may have to recognise that accepting the world or life as it is, does not always look like surrender.
December 2, 2010 at 3:02 pm
inaspaciousplace
Neither Alfred Delp nor the majority of the 7,000 other Germans arrested following the assassination attempt against Hitler on July 20, 1944 were any part of the plan to eliminate Hitler. Delp was merely meeting with a group of intellectuals who were attempting to plan for the renewal of German society following what they viewed as the inevitable fall of the Third Reich. This was of course viewed by the Nazis as a treasonous activity, but it was not a plan to assassinate anyone.
Accepting life as it presents itself does not mean doing nothing in response. It means living honestly in the face of reality and opening fully to the circumstances of life as they truly are, then choosing to act in the light of the reality one sees. Had this skill been more commonly practiced by the world community as a whole, it is questionable whether the world would have had to deal with the horrors of Nazism as long and as painfully as turned out to be the case.
Violence as a solution to a problem that has emerged due to neglect and willful blindness is a questionable strategy.
December 3, 2010 at 12:44 am
jaqueline
Thanks for clarifying Delp’s role, however, does it change my post very much? Delp or no, someone sought to dispose of Hitler….without those attempts and the willingness of people to lay down their lives I wonder where we would be now.
In believing in the absolute of non violence are we denying how the world really is ?
Don’t get me wrong, I come from a violent background and have no love for violence, but I am on Clint’s side in Pale Rider and I am thankful for those who fought against Hitler in the War.
How can we be sure it is a bad thing categorically? I cannot deny lions are violent when they hunt to live…I cannot deny the need for a soldier, I cannot deny that the world is violent in nature ( earthquakes anyone?). Do we consider these immoral? ( apparently we do..rather we accuse God because God ‘allows’ these to happen. )
The scriptures declare King David as a hero mighty in battle, and Judith’ brave..do not the scriptures praise these? Don’t these challenge our stance of absolute non violence?
What about a mother defending her children..are we to condemn her to a life time of guilt if heaven forbid it comes to that? Who are we to judge these acts when most of us have not grown up in a world that threatens our lives?
Are these stories thorns in our sides as we say we believe in the Prince of Peace? I believe in Him when he says put down your sword AND when He appears as a mighty warrior at the end of days…go figure .
I have these questions, they are not easy but they are honest questions. Mostly though, I deeply worry for the younger crowd..I worry that we have taken away their options for response to the world ‘as it is’.
I deeply want our young ones to not have to face violence in their everyday ( as much of the world still does ). I deeply want our culture to be motivated by gentleness and peace and love, (are soldiers are not motivated by these also?). I long for those be the foundation for our lives, but I worry very much that sheltered idealism and one sidedness has declawed them, and my fear is that we may one day find out that it has left them helpless.
December 3, 2010 at 1:58 am
jaqueline
PS…my questions do not detract in any way from my admiration for this article…I should have mentioned that and mentioned that it is very true and moving especially your call to reminding us of those for whom Christmas is not so merry…but I did not want my admiration for it to seem disingenuous in the light of the challenging issues it allows one to think about.
It reminded me of Philosophy Cafe last. One the Congregation Emmanuel’s Rabbis joined us. It was very interesting and diverse and opinionated!! However at the end the Chair person ,mentioned how this is how it ought to be and how we can all disagree and discuss without hurting each other etc etc.
I piped up ( of course ) and said ” but we have that freedom because we can all go home knowing our children and families are not going to be hauled out an killed because we spoke our mind”
The Rabbi shared ” but there have been those in the past for whom that has been true and they are the ones I listen to and who
give me courage.”
Albert Delp is one of those and I am grateful you share him with us .