Klemens August von Galen cytaty

„W tej rozstrzygającej godzinie zachęcamy i napominamy naszych katolickich żołnierzy, w imię posłuszeństwa Führerowi, żeby spełniali swój obowiązek i byli gotowi ofiarować całą swoją osobę.”

fragment encykliki „Mit brennender Sorge” papieża Piusa XI przygotowanej przez von Galena.

„Wobec fizycznej przemocy gestapo każdy obywatel niemiecki staje bezbronny.”

we wrześniu 1939.
Źródło: Ulrich von Hehl, Kirche, Katholizismus und das nationalsozialistische Deutschland, w: Katholische Kirche im Dritten Reich, Mainz 1976, s. 222.

„Nikt z nas nie jest pewien, czy pewnego dnia nie zostanie wyrzucony ze swego mieszkania, obrabowany ze swojej wolności i zamknięty w piwnicach lub obozach koncentracyjnych.”

“And now go and serve your fatherland.”

Klemens August von Galen: Cytaty po angielsku

“I encouraged them, each who was able, to serve the Fatherland…I have done this [volunteered] because I believe I must be a good example for my community.”

von Galen, to the philosopher Josef Pieper when he went to say farewell to the bishop, having been drafted into the German army in 1943. Pieper remarked; I was somewhat baffled; it was a long time since I had heard such words, but on his lips they were by no means a mere pathetic cliché; he meant them in all seriousness;they were to be taken literally. See Beth A. Griech Polelle, Bishop Von Galen, p. 20.

“These unfortunate patients must die but rather because, in the opinion of some department, on the testimony of some commission, they have become 'worthless life' because according to this testimony they are 'unproductive national comrades.'”

Galen to his mother, August 3 1914.

“Have you, have I the right to live only so long as we are productive, so long as we are recognized by others as productive?”

The argument goes: they can no longer produce commodities, they are like an old machine that no longer works, they are like an old horse which has become incurably lame, they are like a cow which no longer gives milk.
Speech against Nazi euthanasia (August 3, 1941)