On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the execution of Father Alfred Delp, the parish association Fürstenfeld commemorated the martyr who was executed by the National Socialists.
Fürstenfeldbruck– Birgitta Klemenz and pastor Otto Gäng read from Delps letters and Kassibern.
The last notes, which vicar vicar Manuel Kleinhans elicited from the piano, were deliberately faded away in the pillared hall of the event forum. The calm in these seconds amounted to an honorable commemoration of a personality who resisted the rulers of the Third Reich and at the same time questioned their own, the Catholic Church. “Away from arrogance and towards awe,” says Delp's reflections on the church at the turn of the year from 1944 to 1945.
The city's cultural adviser and the head of the parish association raised and lowered the voice only slightly. But that is enough to make the around 70 visitors aware of the importance and drama of those last months of the war. "Life has its valid and benevolent destiny," says Delp in a letter to two good friends. Words written in anticipation of the trial of treason and treason, which the top Nazi judge Roland Freisler made between 9 and 11 January 1945.
In one of his farewell letters, Delp expresses how he experienced the beginning of the trial: “The atmosphere is so full of hate that it can be expected to be enforced.” Freisler found Delp nervous and presumptuous - knowing that he would be convicted of his belief would. "The other party must be inferior to him."
But Delp did no favor to the regime of those days. He resisted the offers to renounce the Jesuits and to be released. And yet he confessed: "I am tired of sadness and thoughts." Delp felt the end of the war. Johann Wendt, a visitor to the reading, suspected that Delp might still have had hope of escaping the execution when he wrote these words: “Oh, if only one could make legs of world history. You can see where it is going. "
For the past few weeks, Delp has been writing down his thoughts with his hands tied. Then he followed Helmuth James Graf von Moltke to his death. Both had maintained a lively exchange as cell neighbors, even though they belonged to different denominations. Members of the guards tolerated the talks benevolently. The parish association took the connection between the two men as an opportunity to dedicate a reading to Moltke too. He was executed on January 23, 1945, Delp on February 2. Freisler was killed in a bomb attack on Berlin on February 3. HANS KÜRZL