school,” leading to the dissolution of faith in God and the eclipse of the human.92 In Delp’s judgment, “the Lord of life is finally gone, and with this, the real retreat and the actual struggle for humanity materializes,” wherefore human persons are seduced into seeking ultimate meaning in what they create, in their own power, in their “titanic pride.”93 He criticized his society’s militarism as an attempt to storm Olympus—understood as a “titanism,” or as an advancement of Nietzsche’s claim that God is dead and humankind is the sovereign master of all that is.
However, Delp’s work at Stimmen der Zeit was short-lived. On August 15, 1941, eight Gestapo officers came to the door of Stimmen der Zeit to close down the Catholic publication and seize the building with the statement “for the protection of the people and the state.”94 This action was in keeping with a policy that many Christian leaders, both Protestant and Catholic, had suspected for some time, namely that the Nazis planned to rid Germany of Christianity. On September 22, 1941, an SS memo confirmed those suspicions, putting forth the goal of “the complete destruction of all Christianity.”95
Anti-Nazi Activities
After the closure of Stimmen der Zeit, a new ministry for Delp began as the rector of St. Georg, a small church in Munich. His homilies carefully criticized the Nazi regime without drawing attention from the Gestapo. In November 1941, however, after viewing the Nazi propaganda film on euthanasia Ich klage, such discretion ceased. He preached against the film’s ideas, which represented in Delp’s words, “an escape from the difficulty of love and community.”96
Even if a person’s organs are gone, and he can no longer express himself as a human being, he is still human, and there remains a constant call toward an inner nobility and a call to love and sacrificial strength for those who live around him. If you deprive people of the ability to nurse and heal their sick, you make human beings into egotistical predators who are interested only in their pleasant life.97
Though Delp protested openly against euthanasia, there is little evidence that he spoke to the persecution and plight of the Jewish people. His decision to avoid this topic, however, was strategic: he was engaging in helping Jewish refugees escape the Nazi regime and did not want to draw attention to his covert activities.98 The Jesuit priest obtained food, rations, and money for Jews who were fleeing Germany through Munich. During their flight from Germany, the Jews received accommodations from Delp in his rectory or in the homes of some parishioners. In this way, Delp helped twelve Jewish people to flee into Switzerland. He ceased to participate in this project when his superior missioned him to be a contributing member of the anti-Nazi resistance group—the Kreisau Circle.
At the heart of Delp’s homilies was the issue of the relationship between God and the world and how that relationship could offer fulfillment amid sensemaking crises. That relationship was embodied chiefly in the saints, who revealed that a meaningful, flourishing life required obedience to a higher call on behalf of and to be a point of security for others amid the disembedding forces of the times. In a homily on the Feast of St. Joseph99 in 1943, Delp preached that during this turbulent and hard-pressed time, the figure of St. Joseph held an important message for the church and the world. Delp stated,
This man was called out of existence for the sake of the Kingdom of God. Would the Herods of the world have ever cared for the carpenter of Nazareth, if he had not been brought to Jesus? He had to emigrate for the sake of the kingdom of God, for the sake of a higher role.100
In Delp’s view, the saintly life did not involve living for oneself alone. The saint existed as a being-for-another. He or she lived out a kenotic disposition in obedience to a divine call.
Delp continued to say that in the midst of these troublesome times, it was hard to find a just person. He defined the just person as one who was called by God, did God’s will, and saw the world from God’s perspective for the sake of the world. St. Joseph shows to the world that a righteous person becomes an intersecting point for God’s love for others, because he or she “is a rock, capable of being the starting-point of new settlements for men and women who have become homeless, who have been dragged into the turbulent water [of the time].”101 Delp remarks that his country has fallen into a horrific state because “we no longer have people who serve [like St. Joseph], rather we only have people who want to be like gods.”102 The striving to be like gods will only lead people to a bitter resignation. The one act that “makes one truly human is the surrender of one’s heart and the striving to make all hours of one’s existence and work into one great adoration.”103
Abandonment of self to God’s will, as evinced in Delp’s homily on St. Joseph, was not the summit of the Christian life rather it is the foundation of the Christian life. Christian self-sacrifice is not ultimately an act of self-renunciation or self-mastery instead it is a gift of self to another. The disciple who gives him- or herself over to God’s call exists in horizontal solidarity with humanity. Delp wrote, “This carpenter, even where violence loomed threateningly on the horizon, still maintained his responsibility, loyalty, and obedience”104 to God on behalf of his wife and son. To this end, Delp characterized St. Joseph as a strong silent witness to the serious drama of redemption, where all men and women were called to do his or her unique role. To be a disciple in the modern world with its looming threats was for every moment of one’s existence to be given over to the service of God.
Collaboration with Helmuth James von Moltke
Delp’s work in the Kreisau Circle was intimately related to that of Helmuth James von Moltke, the founding member of the enterprise. The mandate of the Kreisau Circle was the preparation and organization of a group of people who would stand ready to take over the German government upon the fall of the Nazi regime, which they believed was inevitable. The new government would re-establish the German nation in the civilized world. Amid the conditions of wartime and totalitarian Germany, the Kreisau Circle’s members could gather only infrequently. Nonetheless, the group remained remarkably cohesive, held together by friendship, a clear purpose, and the threat of Nazism. Moreover, the group had an anchor in the person of Moltke,105 who established himself as the crux of the entire enterprise, and it was at his family seat at Kreisau, in Silesia, that three significant conferences took place.
Helmuth James von Moltke was born at Kreisau, in Silesia, on March 11, 1907. He was the first child of Helmuth von Moltke and his wife, Dorothy. Both parents were Christian Scientists, but the children grew up Lutheran. As a young man, Helmuth James embarked on studies in law, politics, and history, studying in Breslau, Berlin, and Vienna. Helmuth worked in the legal office of a former justice minister in Berlin. Like Alfred Delp, as Hitler was rising to power, the young Moltke was vocal about his antipathy toward the Nazis. He warned, “Whoever votes for Hitler votes for war.”106 When Hitler attained the chancellorship in 1933, Helmuth lost all desire to work as a judge in Nazi Germany.107 In 1935, Moltke went abroad to study British law at Oxford. He used the opportunity to introduce himself to those in favor of appeasement in the British camp and convince them of the real goals of the Nazis.108 After he had finished his program at Oxford, Moltke returned to Germany in 1939, just as the war was breaking out. He made use of his knowledge of British law by joining the Foreign Division of the Abwehr (the German intelligence service) as legal adviser to the High Command of the Armed Services. The Abwehr, under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, was a focal point of much opposition to the Nazi regime.109 Moltke’s job as a legal adviser to the German military enabled him to remain in touch with different anti-Nazi resistance movements in Germany. From this position, he started the Kreisau Circle, in which Delp would eventually be a key contributing member.
The beginning of the Kreisau Circle originated in Moltke’s judgment, as a member of Abwehr, that Germany would lose the war and that well-established bureaucrats would be vital to the rebuilding of Germany.110
