Voting Station

Clemens August Graf von Galen

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Religious Figure

The Resume

    (March 16, 1878-March 22, 1946)
    Born in Dinklage, Germany
    German count
    Catholic priest
    Appointed Bishop of Muenster (September 5, 1933)
    Named to the College of Cardinals (1946)

Why he might be annoying:

    One of his teachers at Jesuit school said, 'Infallibility is the main problem with Clemens, who under no circumstance will admit that he may be wrong. It is always his teachers and educators who are wrong.'
    During World War I, he approved of the German military's plans to annex and settle Germans in large parts of Eastern Europe.
    He was a believer of the 'stabbed in the back myth,' that the German Army was not defeated in World War I, but was instead betrayed by 'defeatist' politicians.
    He disliked democracy in general, and Germany's post-WWI Weimar Republic in particular.
    When he was named Bishop of Muenster, the local papal nuncio objected, claiming that Galen was too pugnacious and paternalistic.
    Shortly after arriving in Muenster, he spoke against a group of scholars who had criticized the Nazi government and called for 'a just and objective evaluation of his [Hitler's] political movement.'

Why he might not be annoying:

    As a parish priest in Berlin amid post-WWI chaos, he organized soup kitchens, clothing drives and aid societies.
    He began delivering sermons denouncing Nazi racial ideology (January, 1934).
    He denounced the Gestapo's terror tactics, including disappearances without trial (July, 1941).
    He exposed the Nazi government's euthanasia program against the mentally ill (August, 1941).
    He was placed under unofficial house arrest until the end of the war.
    He avoided a worse fate only because Joseph Goebbels argued it would cause unrest in heavily-Catholic Westphalia and Bavaria.
    Hitler said, 'I am quite sure that a man like Bishop von Galen knows full well that after the war I shall extract retribution to the last farthing.'
    His sermons inspired anti-Nazi resistors like Hans and Sophie Scholl.
    Hans Oster said, 'He's a man of courage and conviction. And what resolution in his sermons! There should be a handful of such people in all our churches, and at least two handfuls in the Wehrmacht. If there were, Germany would look quite different.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 12 Votes: 83.33% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 6 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 6 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 3 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 9 Votes: 44.44% Annoying