page_title: Jesuits and Nazi Germany
section_title: The Kreisau Circle
hierarchical_section_title: Jesuits and Nazi Germany / Jesuits and the Resistance / The Kreisau Circle
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Gedenktafel Alfred Delp in C7, 1-4, Mannheim
context_page_description: At the outbreak of World War II, the Society of Jesus had some 1700 members in Nazi Germany, divided into three provinces: Eastern, Lower and Upper Germany. Nazi leaders had some admiration for the discipline of the Jesuit order, but opposed its principles. Of the 152 Jesuits murdered by the Nazis across Europe, 27 died in captivity or its results, and 43 in the concentration camps.
  Hitler was anticlerical and had particular disdain for the Jesuits. The Jesuit Provincial, Augustin Rosch, ended the war on death row for his role in the July Plot to overthrow Hitler. The Catholic Church faced persecution in Nazi Germany and persecution was particularly severe in Poland. The Superior General of the Jesuits at the outbreak of War was Wlodzimierz Ledochowski, a Pole. Vatican Radio, which spoke out against Axis atrocities, was run by the Jesuit Filippo Soccorsi.
  Jesuits made up the largest contingent of clergy imprisoned in the Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration Camp, where some 30 Jesuits died. Several Jesuits were prominent in the small German Resistance, including the influential martyr Alfred Delp of the Kreisau Circle.
context_section_description: Religious motivations were particularly strong in the Kreisau Circle of the Resistance. Formed in 1937, though multi-denominational it had a strongly Christian orientation. Its outlook was rooted both in German romantic and idealist tradition and in the Catholic doctrine of natural law. The Circle pressed for a coup against Hitler, but being unarmed was dependent on persuading military figures to take action.
  Among the central membership of the Circle were the Jesuit Fathers Augustin Rösch, Alfred Delp and Lothar König.  Bishop von Preysing had contact with the group. The Catholic conservative Karl Ludwig von Guttenberg brought the Jesuit Provincial of Southern Germany Augustin Rösch into the Kreisau Circle, along with Alfred Delp. For figures like Rösch, the Catholic trade unionists Jakob Kaiser and Bernhard Letterhaus, and the July Plot leader Klaus von Stauffenberg, "religious motives and the determination to resist would seem to have developed hand in hand."
  According to Gill, "Delp's role was to sound out for [the group's leader] Moltke the possibilities in the Catholic community of support for a new, post-war Germany." Rösch and Delp also explored the possibilities for common ground between Christian and socialist trade unions. Lothar König, S.J., became an important intermediary between the Circle and bishops Gröber of Freiburg and Preysing of Berlin.
  The Kreisau group combined conservative notions of reform with socialist strains of thought – a symbiosis expressed by Alfred Delp's notion of "personal socialism". The group rejected Western models, but wanted to "associate conservative and socialist values, aristocracy and workers, in a new democratic synthesis which would include the churches. Delp wrote: "It is time the 20th Century revolution was given a definitive theme, and the opportunity to create new and lasting horizons for humanity" by which he meant, social security and the basics for individual intellectual and religious development. So long as people lacked dignity, they would be incapable of prayer or thought. In Die dritte Idee (The Third Idea), Delp expounded on the notion of a third way, which, as opposed to Communism and capitalism, might restore the unity of the person and society.
caption: The Jesuit Alfred Delp was an influential member of the Kreisau Circle - one of the few clandestine German Resistance groups operating inside Nazi Germany. He was executed in February 1945.[45]
exif: {}