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Even before the invasion of 1940, Brandsma had followed the bishops' initiative in his criticism of Nazi policies. The bishops had issued a warning against the N.S.B. as early as 1934, and had excluded party members from the sacraments in 1936.[11] Shortly after the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws, a book was published in Amsterdam entitled Dutch Voices on the Treatment of Jews in Germany (December, 1935). Professor Brandsma contributed an essay to this work, "The Fallacy of Weakness". In it, he attributes the discriminatory policy to envy which has evolved into hatred, supported by the theories of Nietzsche and Stirner. He suggests that a better alternative to knocking down others who have done well would be to use their success as a stimulus and a motive to better oneself. True strength is found only in accomplishment, especially for a people whose culture and talents lead them to call themselves Uebermensch.[12] The reaction was not long in coming. The Berlin newspaper Fredericus answered with the article "A Crafty Professor", in which Titus was called a learned protector of Jewish brigands. He was advised to encourage law-abiding Jews to upgrade their cultural status and to concentrate on taking advantage of the opportunities offered them in Germany - this at a time when the concentration camps were already in operation.[13] De Volksche Wacht went to great lengths to ridicule him. De Knuppel (The Bludgeon) accused Titus and some of his colleagues of being Communist sympathizers .[14] During the scholastic term just before the war, Dr Brandsma had given a series of lectures in which he exposed the root principles of National Socialism: the Volk was superior to everything else; the "race" was a godlike norm; "good" was whatever helped the Volk; Hitler was the prophet and guarantor of the people's unity, and everyone else, by contrast, was relatively unimportant.[15] Many of the details of these lectures have been lost, either because Titus himself destroyed some of his more compromising notes in 1941 after a colleague was arrested, or because the remaining papers were seized by the police after his arrest. On July 16, 1939 he delivered a sermon honoring saints Willibrord and Boniface at Lee uwarden (Frisia) . He attacked modern neo-paganism as a bigger threat than the primitive paganism faced by the earliest Christian missionaries. The newer version masquerades as a highly developed form of civilized life. Love is condemned and called a weakness; only personal effort and physical force will prevail. "It is said that Christianity with its profession of love has had its day, that it must be replaced by the old Germanic powerfulness." Yet the lessons of history teach that love prevails over all other human forces. "Nature is stronger than doctrine . . . . The new heathens will have to say 'See how they love one another' about us. Only then will we overcome the world."[16] De Knuppel responded with an article, "King Radboud or Professor Brandsma?" The ancient King Radboud was presented as a personification of the Teutonic violence and the primitive forces of the blond Frisians, forces too much domesticated by the Christian doctrine introduced by Willibrord (who was Anglo-Saxon) . "0 Frisian, how alienated you have become from the ideas of your ancestors!"[17] In December, 1939, Brandsma wrote a letter to the president of the Theological faculty at the University, saying that he felt National Socialism represented the strongest challenge to Catholicism . The only answer he saw was to stress the value of the human person enthusiastically, in both the natural and supernatural orders.[18] Titus never responded to hostile attacks - he felt that polemics were useless, and only confused the issues. In one sense he might be considered a pacifist. He simply preferred to hold up his own values in plain view, without hatred, and allow them to be seen clearly. He continued to show sympathy and patience for those who had fallen under Hitler's spell.[19] This method would be tested further. The Wehrmacht invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940 and crushed the Dutch army after only 5 days of fighting. The new Nazi regime began its rule by giving controlling positions in most key offices to local N.S.B. members, yet at first, very little seemed to have changed. Fr. Brandsma wrote that he had been left alone, personally, but that he had been asked to sign a document saying that he was of pure Aryan stock, with no Jewish ancestors. He also noted that two men had been watching his students and taking copious notes during his lectures.[20] He appeared to take these conditions in stride, even though he was forced to scale back his activities. Pius XI had described Nazism as a "doctrine of animosity in principle against God and his Church" which used any and all means to promote its ends. As that doctrine began to spread, Titus wrote that the mass of lies was actually worse than the military invasion had been, since it was not content to merely oppress people's liberty, but sought to pollute their consciences as well.[21] In a small, flat country without mountains or forests, military resistance to the Nazis was almost hopeless. There were no places to hide, no sanctuaries or safe areas in which to organize resistance . If there were to be a Dutch resistance at all, it would need an intellectual base, rather than a military one. The leaders would have to be academics or mystics - such leaders would necessarily be highly visible, and therefore in great danger. Titus realized that his best weapons were purely spiritual, since his resistance was not directed against men and women, but against their errors.[22] The "honeymoon" between the Nazi forces and the Dutch public came to an end in early 1941. Both the Catholic schools and the Catholic press came under strong pressure from the government. For Titus, these were "indispensable things", since he was simultaneously president of the Union of Directors of Catholic Schools (hitherto a rather unimportant post), and since 1935, the ecclesiastical advisor to the Dutch Catholic Journalists.[23] The schools were the first to feel the pressure. The Ministry of Education, Sciences and Cultural Protection had already demanded lists of Jewish pupils in Catholic schools. It had also banned several books in common use and stated that Catholic schools seemed to have too many teachers.[24] On February 21, the Ministry published a decree stating that all teachers living in religious communities would henceforth receive only 60% of their normal salaries: an attempt to separate teaching orders from their schools. Four days later, another decree announced that clergy and religious were unsuitable to be rectors, principals or heads of scholastic institutions. They were ordered to hand over their powers by the first of May.[25] In anticipation of such decrees, Titus had already called for a united front of school directors. With Archbishop de Jong's consent, he now wrote to the Ministry defending the teachers' rights and pointing out the unjust and unjustifiable aspects of the new decrees. When his objections met with little effective response, he went to the Hague in person to defend his cause. He told the Secretary-General that many religious teachers had devoted their lives to the schools and could not survive on reduced salaries. Would such a change help the State? The only response was that the Ministry wanted to see that no state money was wasted or given to the Church. The Secretary-General promised to support a written, documented report, if only Titus would submit one to the German Commissar.[26] Even when this was done, few changes were ever made in the decrees. Toward the end of August, 1941, another edict demanded the explusion of all Jewish students, including converts to Christianity. On September 12, Titus sent circulars to members of the Union, followed by a formal letter, asking that this not be done. "The Church makes no distinction of sex, race or people in carrying out her mission. We can not refuse admission to anyone who wants a Catholic education." A week later, the Ministry telephoned to tell him that an exception had been made for Jewish children enrolled before May 1940 (the month of the invasion) . But by the end of September, the Secretary-General "forgot" and demanded full enforcement of the explusion.[27] It seems, however, that the Carmelite schools ignored the ruling entirely, and continued to teach their Jewish students until the mass deportations began [28] Although many of Fr. Brandsma's personal papers were seized by the S.D. (Sicherheits Dienst, the party intelligence service) after his arrest, there is still evidence that he devised a plan to smuggle Jewish refugees to Brazil . One undated document speaks of specific Carmelite houses there (houses founded or re-established by Dutch Carmelites.[29] The moving force behind this scheme seems to have been a Miss Sophie van Berckel of the Hague, special advisor to the Archbishop on Jewish affairs. Whatever the details, the plan seems to have failed. Miss van Berckel was arrested, and died on Christmas day, 1944, in the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen . The Apostolate for the Reunion of Eastern Churches may also have been involved. Their agenda for a meeting on November 27 at Utrecht included "Help for Jewish Catholics". Unfortunately, few details survived.[30] Meanwhile, the Dutch bishops had increased sanctions against N.S.B. members. In January 1941, they declared that "No Holy Sacraments are to be given to any Catholic who supports the National Socialist idea to any important degree."[31] This action caused Goering's own newspaper, the Essener National Zeitung, to complain that without any reason, the bishops had excommunicated (which they did not) the entire N.S.B. "This means that the Catholic Church in Holland has declared open war on the entire National Socialist movement."[32] On July 25, another pastoral letter fired a stinging rebuke against the Nazi restriction of the Catholic radio, schools, youth organizations and charitable works. The bishops now declared that since the Catholic trade unions had all but lost their freedom of action, all union members who followed the new leaders would also be denied the sacraments. This action was similar to the action of the German bishops of July 6. The letter was signed by Archbishop Johannes de Jong of Utrecht, and Bishops Hopmans of Breda, Diepen of s'Hertogenbosch, Lemmens of Roermond and Huibers of Haarlem.[33] Finally, on September 8, the same bishops protested that their actions were not motivated by politics, but by the very existence or non-existence of Christianity as a way of life.[34] |
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