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1. Under persecution by the Gestapo
- Wayne State University Press
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Chapter 1 Under persecution by the Gestapo "Are you the secretary of Father Friedrich Muckermann?"1 "Lead me to the editorial rooms of The Grail"2 The small, stocky man with the angry, flashing eyes who spoke to me in this way pulled a metal badge out of his pocket with his left hand and held it up quickly with the words: "Geheime Staatspolizei, secret police." Yes, I was the secretary of Father Muckermann, and this encounter with the Gestapo in theyear 1934was the beginning ofa chain ofpersecution and hounding by its agents. For many years I had held the position of secretary with Father Muckermann. I was the managing director of his monthly magazine of literature and life, The Graily and later I also served as editor of the various newspaper articles he published. Longbefore the seizure ofpower, Father Muckermann had pointed to the true nature ofNational Socialism in speeches and writings everywhere and had openly warned of its dangers and the consequences that would necessarilyarise from itfor Germanyand the entire German people. This had earned him the glowing hatred of party followers. Then, in 1934, when he left Germany overnight as a result ofconstant attacks and open threats by the National Socialist newspapers and, at the instigation of his friends, crossed the Dutch border, the entire directorship of the editorial operation was transferred to me. I dedicated myself to this assignment with the assistance of a few remaining faithful followers and was restlessly busy, often late into 1. Father Friedrich Muckermann (1883-1946) was a publisher, Jesuit priest, and founder of the Catholic periodical Stimmen der Zeit (Voices of the times). In 1933, Muckermann was banned by the Nazis from publishing and from speaking in public. In 1934, he fled to the Netherlands, where he became the editor of the resistance journal Der Deutsche Weg (The German way). In 1936 he emigrated to Italy, and in 1937 he fled Italy to Paris via Vienna. He eventually settled in Switzerland in 1943. Muckermann died in 1946. 2. Der Gral was a Catholic literary monthly founded in 1906 by Eichert and Kralik, edited by Father Muckermann in Miinster and published in Essen. 61 The Blessed Abyss the night. A number of employees left us out of fear of persecution; we who remained, however, held together until the year 1938, full of energy but with our teeth clenched. At that time, the Gestapo appeared in the editorial building, forbade all further work, confiscated all editorial property, and threw us out on the street, naturally without any grounds or explanation. This was the order of the day in the Third Reich. All the furnishings of The Grail editorial offices (seven rooms, as well as the press-agency office and all furniture and valuable office machines) were taken out on trucks, never to be seen again. The large and valuable library of Father Muckermann was thrown out of the second-floor windows into the trucks below—this wonderful special collection that had been brought together through years of intensive work. I myself was unoccupied and unemployed from then on (1938). For three years I had to fend for myself byworking as a freelance writer, through thick and thin, more often than not going hungry, until I was arrested on February 4,1941. Why was I arrested by the Gestapo three years after the dissolution of The Grail and seven years after the departure of Father Muckermann from Germany? When Father Muckermann left Germany in 1934 against his will, but in response to the urgent advice of benevolent people, and escaped to safety outside the country, he had, in great haste, brought nothing more with him than the most necessary toiletries and whatever he was wearing at the time. It was lucky that he escaped the hostility and persecution in good time, for shortly after his departure there followed the horrible, murderous, eternallyblacknight ofJune 30,1934, duringwhich so manyinnocent people were shot by the SS.3 At the same time, being a great optimist, he still hoped that the storm, which had flared up against him, would soon quiet, that National Socialism would never be able to hold out in Germany, and that he would then be able to return home. But things happened differently. For many years he was chased from one European country to the next. From Holland, his first asylum, he asked me in a letter to bring him the bare essentials—his clothing, cassock, soutane, underclothes, breviary, reference library, and...