German Version
Erwin Bücken SJ
"Kick them out, we don't need them!"
Memory of the "Dismissal" of Jesuit Soldiers
While on occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II and of the NS dictatorship everywhere efforts for a comprehensive well-balanced memory were made, there is still no common tradition about the "dismissal" of hundreds of Jesuit soldiers yet. There are two contrary statements:
Documentarily proven a secret order was issued by Hitler in May 1941 to dismiss all called up Jesuits from the active military service and to transfer them as "n.z.v." (not serviceable) into the reserve status, i.e. - where the difference was observed - depending upon age into the Veteran Reserve II or into the Supplementary Reserve II.
Regardless of this fact one can up to this day read and hear that the Jesuits had been dismissed from the army on Hitler's secret order "because of being ineligible for military service"; hence not only as "n.z.v.", and not from the
For some people the argument about that thesis of "ineligibility" is an inconsequential controversy on words. For others it is only about a long disproved historical and legal legend which you can forget, and which would also do no honour to the Jesuits. But for the unswerving representatives of the ineligibility thesis it is about the interpretation: which has been the actual motive of Hitler, and which would have been the dangerous consequences of his secret order? Hence it is about the estimate that it did almost credit to the Jesuits to be considered as ineligible by such criminal dictators.
It is unfortunate that thereto still no uniform tradition and phraseology has been found. Hence it shall be tried to reconcile the seemingly incompatible views by an explanation which can be understood and accepted by everybody (and which should finally become the future tradition and phraseology), and to show which meaning Hitler's secret order had in reality for the moral justification of the dismissed Jesuits.
The Facts
Over the war years from the 537 German and 114 Austrian called up Jesuits only 343 German and 62 Austrian Jesuits were transferred into the reserve status, for either the secret order was not observed or it was not known that these soldiers were a Jesuits.
Hitler's secret order took place in the context of the National Service Act of that time:
- In the valid National Service Act the transfer into the reserve status und the given reason "n.z.v." for the transfer were expressly intended as possibility, and were not understood as dishonouring.
- Such a transfer into the reserve status was not a dismissal "from the armed forces (= from the military)", but only "from the active military service", so that the "dismissed" Jesuits remained for the future members of the armed forces, i.e. soldiers, but in the reserve status only!
The term "ineligibility for military service" did not exist in the German language up to the introduction of the compulsory military service and the new National Service Act 1935, and since the end of World War II it is no longer used in the National Service Act. The term "ineligibility for military service" has been coined for the first time 1935 for the National Service Act, not as direct value term, but as criminal term for the exclusion from military service due to serious crimes, particularly because of anarchist activities, with adequate draconic penal consequences, e.g. loss of the civil rights, ineligibility for military service, complete exclusion from the armed forces (= from the military), and subsequent measures adequate to the ineligibility.
The enforcement generally corresponded to the National Service Act:
- Those who were sentenced by a military court because of 'ineligibility for military service' were never transferred into the reserve status, but were always dishonouring excluded from the performance of the military service, i.e. they were totally excluded from the armed forces (= of the military) - hence quite in contrast to the transfer of the Jesuits!
- Those who were 'ineligible for military service' got with the exclusion from the armed forces only an exclusion certificate, but got never back the service record book - in contrast to the Jesuits, who got it back with the entry "n.v.z."!
- Those 'ineligible for military service' were, because of their dishonouring dismissal, excluded, among other things, from university studies - again in contrast to the Jesuits!
An official letter of the Supreme Command Army/Berlin to Father Georg Deichstetter (19.5.1942) read: "Your dismissal, which is based on a decision of the Führer (Hitler), entails neither a diminution of honour nor the impairment of your eligibility for military service." - a still more express refutation of the 'ineligibility for military service'-thesis by the highest authority is not conceivable.
Interpretation
If one states "ineligibility for military service" as reason for the Jesuits' dismissal "from the armed forces", then everybody who knows this term in its authentic military legal meaning will suppose that the Jesuits were in pursuance of most dangerous crimes sentenced to 'ineligibility for military service', and completely excluded from the armed forces.
One can impute to the representatives of the NS regime that they would have charged only too gladly the Jesuits with "ineligibility for military service" in its authentic sense, i.e. because of dangerous anarchist activities - with the adequate criminal consequences. Were they unable or did they not want to do it? That they wanted to postpone the persecution of Jesuit soldiers till the "final victory" cannot be assumed, because many Jesuits outside of the armed forces had already become victims of the illegal NS dictatorship.
On the contrary, the brown rulers - as prisoners of their own military law - met obviously with their limits within the armed forces. Not even one of more than 650 Jesuit soldiers could be sentenced by them to "ineligibility for military service" and dismissed completely from the armed forces because of heavy crimes, e.g. anarchist activities. According to the military law they could dismiss the Jesuits only from the active military service, and transfer them as "n.z.v." into the reserve status; even Hitler did not ignore the military law, and did not disregard it.
But which was Hitler's motive for the secret order? His order did not hit the Jesuits like a bolt from the blue. It was only an escalation in the persecution of the feared and hated Jesuit order, for Hitler was afraid of and hated everything that had international relations. That was sufficient to judge the Jesuits as in the long run politically unreliable and therefore "ineligible for military service", also without provable subversive activities, which would have been the condition for the sentence "ineligibility for military service", and for the complete dismissal from the armed forces.
The information which had been verbally reported to Brother Wellner (at that time in the Provincialate Cologne) sounds reliable, that Hitler - in reaction to Father Best's letter of complaint about the expulsion of Jesuits from their native houses in view of the engagement of hundreds of Jesuits in the armed forces - had said: "Kick them out, we don't need them!" Then the appropriate authorities had to see how that could be realized in the context of the military law.
About the Emergence of the "Ineligibility for Military Service" Thesis
If the historical and legal facts are not known, considered, or interpreted sufficiently, and if you have only in view the regime's hostility against the church, it becomes understandable that many Jesuits interpreted the "dismissal" as dismissal "from the armed forces (= from the military) because of 'ineligibility for military service'".
In the question after Hitler's motive the borderline between truth and misinterpretation is easily blurred, if one - thoughtlessly and against its authentic meaning - understands the term "ineligible for military service" in the sense of "not worth to defend his native country". One can interpret Hitler's motive in this figurative sense (see above), but then one should express it also with these words, and not wrongly with "ineligibility for military service", for this term meant quite different presuppositions, procedures, and consequences.
It is a false conclusion, if one confounds cause and effect or even equates them: After the initial honourable (!) transfer of the Jesuits into the reserve status, which happened according to the military law, one had without doubt to reckon in the future with an illegal harassment (see above) of the dismissed Jesuits, hence with measures appropriate to the factual findings of "ineligibility for military service". But that does not justify the legend that there was from the beginning a "dishonourable dismissal from the armed forces because of 'ineligibility for military service'".
About the Importance of the Matter in Question
According to my opinion it is of importance that the 'ineligibility for military service' thesis rather obscures substantial things instead of elucidating them, i.e. the moral justification of the Jesuit soldiers in relation to the regime and the regime's perversion of the law by using it against the Jesuits.
Of course, everyone is allowed to hold the interpretation that in Hitler's view the Jesuits, because they were decided Christians, were - in the sense of the NS ideology - "not worthy" to defend the homeland, to get possibly even an military award, and, what is more, to undermine the military power. But if not even one Jesuit was found guilty of a dangerous crime by a military court, and therefore not even one of them could be dismissed from the armed forces according to the military law because of "ineligibility for military service" in the authentic sense, then
- contrary to the NS regime the Jesuits are just by this morally justified, and it does them credit, and
- the perversion of the law by the NS regime becomes obvious by the fact that, regardless of the honourable transfer into the reserve status, afterwards the Jesuits were in danger to be persecuted in pursuance of the 'ineligibility for military service law'.
Result
Hence in the interest of a uniform tradition that is acceptable for everyone one can put down in writing:
- On secret order of Hitler from May 1941 the Jesuits had to be dismissed from the active military service and as "n.z.v." (=not usable) to be transferred into the reserve status (=Veteran Reserve II or Supplementary Reserve II).
- The reason for it was supposedly that Hitler regarded the Jesuits as politically unreliable, and therefore not worthy of defending their country.
- But subsequently to the execution of the secret order harassments against the Jesuits were to be feared, appropriate to the 'ineligibility for military service' paragraph of the military law, similarly to those who had been dismissed legally of the armed forces because of 'ineligibility for military service'.
- This then would have been a military-law-contradicting consequence, and would have been contrary to the military-law-conform cause and execution of the secret order.
Historical Documents about the "Dismissal" of Jesuits from the Military Service
Documents as well of the Supreme Command of the armed forces as of the 'Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung' (Ministry for Sciences and National Education) that have been found by the head of the archives of the German Province of the Society of Jesus, Dr. Clemens Brodkorb, in the Bundesarchiv Berlin, confirm the work of Father Erwin Bücken SJ about the question of the "dismissal" of Jesuit soldiers from the military service.
The two documents show clearly that the dismissal did not happen from reasons of "Wehrunwürdigkeit" (ineligibility for military service), but that the Jesuits as "n.z.v." ('not serviceable') should be moved to the reserve status, i.e. - where the difference was observed - depending upon age into the Veteran Reserve II or into the Supplementary Reserve II.
From: 'Jesuiten intern 3/2006
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Abschrift Oberkommando der Wehrmacht 31. Mai 1941 Der Chef des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht Für die Richtigkeit |
Abschrift für das Reichskirchenministerium
dium der aus der Wehrmacht entlassenen Jesuiten eine Anlage. - - - Die Anordnung des Führers besagt lediglich, daß sämtliche in Im Auftrage
Einschreiben! |
From: Bundesarchiv Berlin R/5101 -- 23316, Page 79 and 97
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A detailed expose with proofs is published in the of the Catholic Military Bischop Office Berlin edited magazine MILITÄRSEELSORGE in the number Dokumentation 2004: "Wehrunwürdigkeit" der Jesuiten im Zweiten Weltkrieg - eine zeitgeschichtlich bedeutsame Legende, von Erwin Bücken SJ, S. 165-182. Erwin Bücken SJ |
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