Galen: Wege und Irrwege der Forschung by Joachim Kuropka (review)

On October 9, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI beautified Cardinal Clemens August Graf von Galen, bishop of Münster (1933–1946). The Church singled out Galen for his piety and for his defense of Catholicism and Catholic morality in the face of National Socialism. Though there is great support in and outside Germany, especially in the Münster diocese, for Galen’s cause of sainthood, a significant number of individuals, historians and non-historians alike, have challenged his worthiness for such a distinguished honor. Joachim Kuropka, professor emeritus of modern European history at the University of Vechta, cannot, however, be counted among this number. For almost four decades, Kuropka has defended Galen’s honor by refuting the many charges made by his critics. In his latest collection, “Galen: Truths and Errors of Research,” Kuropka assembles twenty-six of his lectures and articles, spanning the years 1989-2011, which examine Galen’s life and ministry from a variety of viewpoints and perspectives. While there is significant overlap of content, there is much to be gleaned from the evidence presented.

Kuropka argues that the majority of Galen’s critics have centered upon what the bishop did not do rather than what he did. For him, such individuals suffer from presentism and thus fail to comprehend the significant challenges Galen and the Church faced under National Socialism. In particular, his tone is repeatedly critical, even dismissive of many of his peers, especially Beth Griech-Polelle (Bishop von Galen: German Catholicism and National Socialism [New Haven, 2002]), whom he accuses of passing judgment on Galen through an “American self-assurance of moral superiority” (p. 236). Kuropka observes that “it is always dangerous” for an historian to “declare what contemporaries of seventy or eighty years ago should have done” (p. 237). Rather, he suggests, historians must ask what actually could have been done under the circumstances.

Throughout the essays, Kuropka endeavors to reveal what Galen actually did to challenge National Socialism’s encroachment upon Münster’s Catholic milieu. Already in November, 1933, only fifteen days after his enthronement as bishop of Münster, Galen protested state intrusion in religious education. In his Easter letter of March, 1934, Galen challenged the state’s “brutal force” as it “trampled over” the legal rights of German citizens (p. 224). In the summer of 1941, Galen also spoke against the Gestapo’s excessive force and the state’s euthanasia program through bold, decisive sermons for which he will always be remembered. Yet, despite setting the facts straight about what Galen did, Kuropka also attempts to convince his readers that Galen spoke out for Jews. Here his argument does not convince. Even Kuropka himself admits that the extant documents cannot offer us definitive evidence of Galen’s record in behalf of German Jews. There is evidence that Galen did financially assist a few German-Jewish families and indirect evidence that after Kristallnacht he issued a directive to his clergy encouraging them to pray publicly for Jews. Yet, Kuropka’s efforts to persuade the reader that, in 1938, Galen instituted a catechetical campaign to refute the National Socialist’s racial ideology fall flat, especially in the face of the evidence presented by Ulrike Ehret in a 2010 article in European History Quarterly (pp. 35–56).

Still there is much to learn from this collection, notwithstanding Kuropka’s inability to take seriously the research of other historians, which centers upon the limitations of Galen’s protests in the face of the persecution and murder of European Jews. This will lessen the impact of his insightful work. Kuropka also does not convincingly address Galen’s nationalism. Even Walter Adolph, an avowed opponent of the Nazi regime, a priest of the Berlin diocese, and chancery advisor to Konrad von Preysing, the bishop of Berlin, had doubts about Galen’s allegiances. In December, 1937, Adolph wrote in his journal: “It is very difficult to have complete insight into Clemens August...