Against the Titans. Peter Nguyen
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 Moltke took care to include representatives of the two groups he saw as essential building blocks for a new Germany, namely majority Protestant and minority Catholic churches; such was the background for ecumenism and collaborative work among the future martyrs. Moltke’s introduction of the Jesuits to the Kreisau Circle was due in part to one of the members, Baron Guttenberg, who encountered Augustin Rösch, provincial of the Upper German Province, in Berlin. In October 1941, while in Berlin to negotiate the dismissal of Jesuits from chaplaincy work in the German military, Rösch met Guttenberg on the street. Guttenberg led him to an apartment building on the outskirts of Berlin where the Jesuit Provincial could meet Moltke. Moltke disclosed to Rösch what he knew of the Red Army reserves from official Abwehr reports, and he went on to predict that Germany would lose the war to the Soviet Union in a few years if Hitler was not removed from office.
Moltke insisted on some form of organized resistance. He argued, “We must fight, we must do everything to save what can be saved.”111 He also expressed his disappointment at the conflict between the Confessing Church and the Nazi-supported Reich Church. The different orientations harmed the Protestants, whereas, from the perspective of Moltke, the unity and coherence of the Catholic Church were protected by the structure of the episcopacy and the pope. While discussing the differences between the “Evangelische” and the Catholic churches, Moltke surprisingly added, “As a Protestant, there is one thing I want to say to you: Christianity can only be saved through the German bishops and the pope. We must unite to save Christianity, which is still there, and to make our concern the re-Christianization of the working world.”112 Rösch was convinced, but he believed Moltke’s invitation for collaboration had to be clarified, because he did not want his Jesuits to participate in any act of violence. On December 4, 1941, Rösch met Moltke and assured him of his cooperation in the Kreisau Circle.
On the weekend of May 25–27, 1942, the first large-scale Kreisau Circle conference was held at Moltke’s estate in Silesia. The task was to plan for a Germany after the dissolution of the Third Reich. The themes of the conference were the system of education and the relationship between church and state. Rösch attended and offered the Catholic position. The participants agreed that Christianity was the most potent force for the moral renewal of German and Western society, for the overcoming of hatred and deceit and for peaceful cooperation between peoples.113 Participants desired that the reconstruction of German society should welcome the ecumenical insights of all the churches. At the end of the conference, Moltke asked Rösch to suggest a Jesuit political scientist who could help the Kreisau Circle by providing the Catholic viewpoints on the state and the economy.114 At Rösch’s suggestion, Alfred Delp was brought into the group. From July 1942 onwards, Delp was engaged in the work of the Kreisau Circle.
Before the second Kreisau conference, scheduled for October 16–18, 1942, Alfred Delp conducted preliminary meetings with Moltke and Rösch to understand better the issues that confronted the group. A text written by Delp, dated August 2, 1942, shed light on these issues.115
Delp and Moltke believed that the starting point for discussion was the dehumanization and disempowerment of peoples. Nevertheless, they acknowledged that there should be no direct political activity from the churches, whose contribution lay in awakening the consciousness of people and providing support to those who were able and willing to participate in the transformation of society. The second meeting of the Kreisau Circle occurred as planned over the weekend of October 16–18, 1942, and focused on building up the state and the economy. Delp facilitated the discussion that addressed the premises of two social encyclicals: Rerum Novarum by Pope Leo XIII; and Quadragesimo Anno by Pope Pius XI. In these papal letters, the Catholic Church expressed concern for the working poor and the lack of social justice in the world.116 One of the socialist members of the Kreisau Circle exclaimed that the exposition of Catholic social teaching by Delp and the Catholic bishop’s confirmation revealed that the Catholic Church had made an irrefutable turn to socialism.117 The socialist wrote, “This is an incredible historical decision!”118
Delp and Moltke desired an economic system that was neither an end in itself nor a domain of the state.119 Instead, they sought a middle way between communism and unbridled capitalism. The two men saw the economy as an instrument with which human beings could responsibly shape the external conditions of their lives. They judged the European community, not just Germany, to be broken and, therefore, maintained that a new foundation was needed and should be built with Catholic Social Teachings. Here, Delp’s concern for the persecuted moved into the social–political