My Battle Against Hitler

by Dietrich von Hildebrand,John Henry Crosby

  Abbot Peichl was the president, and Fr. Bichlmair*4 the vice president. Also on the board was Spitzer—ironically known as Monsignor Spitzer—whom I already knew since 1922. An industrialist named Spiegler was particularly active in some capacity or other. A Jewish convert, he was married to a Czech singer. Since becoming acquainted with Oesterreicher, many Jews had been baptized by him, often with me as godfather. The baptisms usually took place in the church entrusted to the nuns of Notre Dame de Sion.

  I think it was this same spring that a book by Anton Stonner was published in which for reasons of opportunism he professed himself entirely for National Socialism.1 I can hardly describe how much this book upset me. I could not believe my eyes when I read the passage where Stonner says that, in order to awaken a love for the swastika in children already at a young age, religion teachers should point out that mass vestments in the Middle Ages bore the swastika.

  In another place Stonner cites the Gospel passage that he who wishes to lead must serve, and then says that this entirely describes our Führer. After all, does not Hitler keep saying that he simply wishes to serve and does not the selection of his subordinates prove this? Then in a passage about the role of education in fostering physical fitness, Stonner suggests that Christ was also perfect in this regard, considering the strength he showed in crying out so loud from the cross after all he had suffered. These are not exact quotations, yet they convey exactly what Stonner had written.

  Dr. Missong wrote a lengthy, scathing review for the Ständestaat of Stonner’s book. This was not my first experience of Stonner. His conduct on past occasions had revealed a boundless egocentricity and lack of character, yet this book surpassed everything. It was unbelievable that a Catholic theologian could write such things, all the more so because he had said to me in March 1933, as I was leaving Munich and Germany for good, “You absolutely must go. There is no limit to what one can expect from these criminals.” Obviously nothing in the developments since 1933 justified the reversal of his earlier assessment.

  Following the death of Dollfuss, the Ständestaat came into increasingly desperate financial circumstances.

  A serious prospect for preventing bankruptcy of the journal presented itself in the summer semester of 1936. Probably around June, Klaus introduced me to a German gentleman who was interested in buying the Ständestaat. Both of us, Klaus and I, were naturally very cautious. After all, this man could be a Nazi in disguise trying in this way to clear away an obstacle for National Socialism. He invited us to an opulent meal at an elegant hotel and we discussed the possibility. We made clear that the orientation of the journal would have to remain the same, and, I think, we may even have stipulated that we would continue to be the editors of the journal. Everything was still rather vague. After having met us a few times, the man told us he would draw up and then present us with a contract.

  I had received an invitation from the League of Nations Committee on Intellectual Cooperation to participate in a symposium in Budapest that began on Trinity Sunday and lasted for eight days. The financial terms were very favorable, with each participant receiving not only free travel and lodging but also a sizeable daily sum of money by way of compensation for the time consumed by the symposium. Above all, I was extremely interested in the symposium, where I would be able to meet many significant personalities, and also to participate in discussions inevitably touching on the contemporary crisis of worldviews. In this way, I had the chance to act on behalf of my struggle and my work at an international forum.

  We traveled to Budapest on Trinity Sunday. Upon arriving, we were picked up and brought to an extremely elegant room at the Hotel Jägerhorn.

  We had received a program listing all the invitees. The well-known French writer Paul Valéry*5 was chairman of the symposium, which in turn was hosted by the Hungarian professor Pál Teleki,*6 who much later became the Prime Minister. Two among the participants I already knew. The one was Professor Huizinga, the important Dutch historian who as rector in Leyden had received me in 1933 when I had come to deliver a lecture. The other was the historian Professor Halecki*7 whom I had gotten to know well in 1931 at a meeting of the Pax Romana in Fribourg.*8

  Of the other participants, I still remember Thomas Mann,*9 the Milanese journalist Ugo Ogetti, the Spanish historian Madariaga,*10 Professor Joan Estelrich from Catalonia, a French writer named Duhamel,*11 a Hungarian historian Professor Edgar Alexander*12 a German professor and his wife whose names I have forgotten, and Baron Montinaque whom I probably also knew from the Pax Romana.

  At the reception that evening, there were naturally many Hungarians who had been invited, even though there were not official members of the Committee. I surely must have seen Count Széchenyi, who had come to visit me in Vienna and with whom I was so much of one mind, as well as Baron Kornfeld, a very wealthy industrialist who had great intellectual interests and surprisingly knew my books, for example, my Metaphysics of Community.

  The theme of the symposium was almost entirely on the battle between worldviews, be it fascism and socialism, communism and liberalism, and above all the antithesis between National Socialism and a Christian vision of reality. There was a markedly liberal contingent represented chiefly by Madariaga. Paul Valéry sympathized with him, Duhamel probably as well. Ugo Ogetti, whom Mussolini had appointed senator and invested with a title, represented fascism, while a few of the Hungarians, including the historian Valentin Hóman,*13 who was Minister of Culture at the time, somewhat sympathized with National Socialism. The Catholic contingent was made up of Halecki, Prof. Alexander, Estelrich, and me. Huizinga also represented a Christian conception of the world.

  I spoke against National Socialism in very sharp terms, pointing to its utter immorality and foolishness, which naturally left no uncertainty about my Catholic standpoint. Curiously enough, as I later learned, Thomas Mann liked my lecture especially well. For my part, I was very happy about Thomas Mann’s lecture in which he declared himself fully in favor of a worldview built on the foundations of antiquity and Christianity.

  I was very surprised to hear this from someone like Thomas Mann, the author of Joseph in Egypt and The Magic Mountain. He was, after all, so influenced by Freud and so far away from all religion. But apparently National Socialism had awakened him. He now saw, if only in part, where the disavowal of Christianity can lead. In any case, our encounter after the session was very genial, also because he had known several of my sisters. I myself did not recall ever having spoken personally with Thomas Mann. So this was the first time.

  I remember especially a fierce dispute between Madariaga and Ugo Ogetti during one of the sessions. Though of course I was an opponent of Fascist tenets, in this controversy I did sympathize with Ogetti more than Madariaga. Beyond his liberalism, Madariaga was also fiercely anticlerical, which naturally set me at odds with him more than anything else. This was still at the time when Mussolini’s position toward Hitler was one of reserve. Nor could I forget Mussolini’s conduct in 1934: his friendship with Dollfuss and then his mobilization of Italian troops at the Brenner Pass after the murder of Dollfuss.

  Mussolini had also published two essays that poured a great deal of water into the wine of Fascist doctrine. In the first, he defended the full sovereignty of the church and the state, notwithstanding that Fascist doctrine holds that the church is subordinate to the state. The second article was about Austria as the bulwark of Catholicism. Both articles were quite positive. Against this backdrop, I naturally felt much greater solidarity with Ogetti than with Madariaga, who was closely affiliated with the very leftist Spanish government thanks to his extreme liberalism and anticlericalism.

  Paul Valéry did not speak a great deal during the sessions; he presided and made occasional remarks. Count Teleki, who I think was a professor of astronomy,*14 was a pious Catholic, as I later found out, yet he did not make his Catholic position known in the discussions. The Danish professor was a socialist but also a very likeable person with whom one could have a good discuss
ion. His wife was very animated and interested in intellectual matters. She too was an ardent socialist. But we were united in the condemnation of National Socialism, and they were respectful of my Catholic standpoint, while making clear that they themselves did not share it.

  On Wednesday I was invited alone (without my wife) to a luncheon with the former prime minister Esterházy.*15 It was a private invitation totally unrelated to the symposium. I had been invited simply as a private citizen. I met various interesting people at this meal, which took place in the beautiful Baroque palace of Count Esterházy.

  The leader of the small land-holders party, Tibor von Eckhardt,*16 had also been invited. I had heard a great deal about him and the word was that he was rather sympathetic to National Socialism. Thus I sized him up through the narrow lens of strong prejudice, making no effort to engage him in conversation or to really get to know him. Much later in America, where I came to know him very well, I realized how unjust I had been to him. He never sympathized with National Socialism. Above all, he was an unusually intelligent man, especially in political matters, and a very dignified and cultivated Hungarian aristocrat. I will still have more to tell about him. But at the time I did not notice any of his qualities because I simply ignored him.

  On the feast of Corpus Christi, all of the participants of the symposium went to Esztergom. The weather was beautiful, as it was throughout our sojourn in Budapest. We rode in a car together with Ogetti. The drive to Esztergom, the old episcopal city on the Danube northwest of Budapest, was very beautiful. I was particularly delighted to see all the little places where Corpus Christi was being celebrated. We saw numerous processions, houses decorated with rugs and flowers. Frequently we came across large quantities of flowers that had been strewn onto the street. We also saw many of the faithful returning from the processions.

  Ogetti had described my father, perhaps after his death, as the last of the great Italian Renaissance artists. This was not only an allusion to the fact that my father, like the Renaissance sculptors, was also an architect and even a painter, but above all to his spiritual kinship with them. Upon arriving in Esztergom, we gathered for a meal on a terrace with a beautiful view. Paul Valéry gave a speech on this occasion which he ended by saying “Eljén” (“Viva”)—the only Hungarian word he knew.

  This trip to Esztergom allowed for more personal conversations with other attendees. I was able to speak with Baron Montinaque, an especially congenial person who was also an exceptionally handsome man. But what drew me to him most was that he was a deeply devout Catholic. When one is surrounded by a mix of nonbelievers and lukewarm Catholics, it is always a unique and profound joy suddenly to encounter someone who is deeply devout and Catholic to the core. And so it was with Montinaque in this setting.

  The participants were invited to a lunch on Margaret Island, where von Hildebrand met both the culture minister and the philosopher Béla von Brandenstein (1901–89), both of whom sympathized with National Socialism. One other professor from Vienna attended the forum, the eminent historian Alfons Dopsch (1868–1953). “I was happy to meet him in this context,” von Hildebrand wrote, “and not just during the faculty meetings in Vienna which provided me a mixture of sheer torture and boundless boredom.” Von Hildebrand and Gretchen “returned to Vienna, very satisfied by our time in Budapest.”

  On July 11, 1936, the Schuschnigg government signed an agreement with Germany as part of a larger attempt to improve relations with their threatening neighbor. Schuschnigg sought to reduce German propaganda in Austria and also to have the Thousand Mark embargo lifted. Germany agreed not to intervene in internal Austrian affairs and also to lift the embargo in exchange for amnesty for Austrian members of the Nazi Party, which was illegal in Austria, and for inclusion of two high-level Nazis in the Austrian government. This was a source of “deepest sorrow” for von Hildebrand, for this “journalistic truce” meant a further constraint on his intellectual battle aganst Nazism.

  Germany and Austria agreed to end all feuding between one another in the press. Naturally, this was a disastrous mistake. One can only defend a fortress under siege by resisting any act of appeasement. The moment one begins coming to terms with an opponent—which inevitably results from such a journalistic truce—one has already begun to aid one’s enemy by throwing open the gates to the Trojan Horse.

  Not only did this step reveal the unfortunate spirit now animating the Austrian government—the spirit of appeasement, which was also represented by Guido Zernatto*17—it also meant we now had to fear that the censor would make great difficulties for our journal, even forcing us to alter our course which, of course, we would never have accepted. The journal only had a purpose if we could carry out the struggle against National Socialism with all our might and without any compromise.

  I still remember how Klaus and I had been invited to the home of an Austrian aristocrat. We were sitting in the garden or perhaps the terrace of his house, and raising our wineglasses we toasted “to Austria and the return of the monarchy.” We had begun by discussing the phony truce, and our sorrow and worry over the direction of the Schuschnigg regime weighed heavily on us as we looked out over our beloved Vienna on this beautiful and still very bright summer evening. Our toast to Austria was marked by an inner “perhaps.” For there are moments when, precisely because everything is going so badly, one can only muster a spirit of spes contra spem, of “hope against all hope.” This spirit filled us in that moment and is the reason that toast remains so unforgettable for me.

  Thank God, our journal was not subjected to censorship, as we had feared. At the same time, the indirect persecution became far more aggressive. Attempts were made to shut us down, but we were not censored. We were able to carry on our struggle against National Socialism without compromise until the very end, that is, until our flight from Vienna.

  Yet from the moment of this so-called journalistic truce, we became a thorn in the side of the government. They only did not dare to shut us down for the simple reason that doing so would have given scandal in the eyes of the French, Italian, British, and American embassies. This would have created the impression that Austria had fundamentally abandoned the battle for its independence. This of course was not the policy of the Austrian government, which had in no way renounced the independence of Austria. The government did not wish to be “Nazified,” yet its leaders wrongly thought one could live in peaceful coexistence with Hitler, and that through concessions one could induce him to greater friendliness. With the exception of Italy, this was the fundamental error of all the European nations at that moment, for they had not yet grasped the spirit of a totalitarian state.

  In Salzburg, to my great joy I met Franz von Hoesslin*18 in the courtyard of St. Peter’s Church. We greeted each other very warmly. Some acquaintance of mine wanted to take a picture of me, so Franzl and I were photographed together. Franzl laughed and said, “I’m lost if this photo falls into the hands of the Nazis. If I’m seen standing arm in arm with enemy number-one of National Socialism, then surely I’m ripe for the concentration camp.” He laughed as he spoke and seemed to be unafraid. Hoesslin was a very courageous person to begin with.

  He told me on this occasion (perhaps he had already told me previously?) that he had spoken about me with Eva Wagner-Chamberlain*19 in Bayreuth. She had asked about me and when Hoesslin laughed and told her I had become a very dangerous and feared man, she cried out full of pity and horror, “So he is not a Fascist? Poor man! How unfortunate!” Nevertheless, she said “Fascist” rather than “National Socialist,” which revealed a little remnant of reserve in the face of National Socialism. Being far less bad than National Socialism and lacking the senseless racism, Fascism struck her as being in better taste.

  Annette Kolb,*20 who had left Germany in 1933, came to visit us in Vienna. Fedja painted a portrait of her. It was always a joy to see Annette again. There was something stimulating and totally original about her. She delighted me through all the memories she embodied for me. Her pres
ence brought back the world of 1908, of Mottl,*21 of Berlioz’s Beatrice and Benedict, of her parent’s home on the Sophienstrasse. This was the backdrop against which I saw her. I kept meeting Annette in the most varied of life circumstances, in St. Moritz after the war and now again in Vienna. Naturally, we very much agreed in regard to National Socialism, which she rejected just as totally as did I. She had been living in Paris since 1933.

  A particularly great joy for me was the visit of Ludwig Derleth*22 and his wife. They just turned up one day at our apartment on the Habsburgergasse. It was the first time I had seen him since 1920, that is, since his marriage. He had been in Rome for a long time and then in Switzerland. Now he had moved to Vienna and was living outside the city in Perchtoldsdorf, along the way to Mödling. I was overjoyed to see him again and to experience once more his noble character and his extraordinarily spiritual makeup. He said to me, “To me, you are ‘Monsieur Colonna,’ ” by which he alluded to my unflinching struggle against National Socialism.*23

  During this time, we also had a controversy with the well-known specialist in German studies, Nadler,*24 who was a professor in Vienna. He had a theory in which he divided German literature according to the various Germanic tribes, itself an unfortunate idea. He had written a book in which he suggested among other things that a particular distinction of the Austrian tribe was that it had given Hitler to Germany. Nadler himself was not a National Socialist—in fact, he presented himself as a Catholic—and so we were very surprised by his remark. He did not speak in an effusive way, nor did he include any adulation of Hitler. Still, he presented it as a service rendered by Austria.

  Klaus wrote a very good review of the book in our journal. In an effort to elicit goodwill on Nadler’s part, Klaus wrote that surely he could not possibly have meant that Hitler was a blessing for Germany. On the whole, the book received a very positive treatment, expressing just the one regret that Nadler’s remark could be misunderstood. Nadler, however, sent a reply in which he explained that he had meant exactly what he had written, namely that Hitler was to Austria’s great credit. We printed his letter, yet this time with a stronger expression of regret over such a blunder.