NAZI MISRULE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 November 1941, Page 6

NAZI MISRULE

DENOUNCED BY GERMAN BISHOP MONASTERIES SEIZED BY GESTAPO : I BOLDLY-WORDED PROTEST. AND DEMAND FOR JUSTICE. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, November 1. An outspoken protest against Gestapo misrule in Germany was made by the Roman. Catholic Bishop of Munster in a sermon on July 13, the text of which has now been received in London. In his sermon which followed the bombing of Munster by the R.A.F., the Bishop said: ‘T see myself obliged to speak of another terrible happening that has befallen at the end of a horrifying week. Munster had not recovered from the appalling devastation which the external enemy caused, when the Gestapo confiscated both houses of the Society of Jesus and forced the reverend fathers and lay brothers to leave without delay not only their houses, not only our city, but also the province of Westphalia and the Rhine province. The same hard fate has overtaken the convent. Nuns expelled from Westphalia must leave Munster by 6 o’clock. Houses in the possession of the two orders have been sequestrated for the gauleitung of northern Westphalia. “So we see that the assault on monasteries which has been raging in Austria, southern Germany, western Poland, Luxembourg, the Lorraine and other parts of the German Empire has now been let loose on Westphalia. “We must be prepared for a repetition of such terrible news in the next few days, when one monastrey after another will be seized by the Gestapo and the inmates, true German patriots, be cast out into the streets like criminals and slaves, and hurried out of the country like obnoxious vermin. “And why? We are told, for political reasons. No inmate of these monasteries has been accused of any offences or crime, or summoned before a court, or indeed sentenced. We have seen the Gestapo imprison blameless, honoured Germans without a verdict from the courts and without an opportunity to defend themselves.. They have been deprived of their liberty, expelled from their native places and. interned. Two members of my Cathedral Chapel were suddenly dragged from their dwellings by the Gestapo, deported from Munster and banished to distant places. No one is certain, even though he is conscious of being the most conscientious citizen, even though he knows he is completely innocent, that he will not one day be fetched out of his house, deprived of his liberty, and shut up in dungeons or concentration camps by the Gestapo. “I am well aware that this may happen any day to myself. I will then no longer be able to speak publicly, so I speak publicly today. I openly warn them not to continue on . this course, which I am firmly convinced will call down God’s punishment on mankind and bring our people and country to misery and ruin. “The right to life, inviolability and liberty is an indispensable part of the moral and social order. Any State which oversteps this divinely imposed limit and permits or causes the punishment of innocent men undermines its own authority. Therefore, as a German, as an honourable citizen, as a representative of the Christian religion, and as a Catholic Bishop, I cry aloud—‘We demand justice!’ .If this cry remains unheeded the nation and country will perish from inner corruption.” •