GALLEN, CLEMENS AUGUST von. — Cardinal,
b. March 11, 1878 at Dinklage Castle (Oldenburg), d. March 22, 1946 at Münster. Ordained
priest in 1904. He was a parish priest, first in Berlin until 1929, and subsequently at the parish of St. Lambert in Münster, until his appointment as bishop, which took place on September 5, 1933, at the most critical moment of Church-State relations in Germany.
The rise of National Socialism to power and the spread of racist and neo-pagan ideas soon gave the new bishop the opportunity to prove himself a staunch defender of the rights of Catholics and the Church. Well known are his sermons of the summer of 1941, in which he energetically protested against the seizure of monasteries and convents, sermons that constitute a violent indictment against the illegal actions of the Gestapo and state authorities, as well as against the entire system of government then in force. They had a very wide resonance and made the figure of the Bishop of Münster well known at home and abroad. In recognition of his energetic defense of Catholic rights during the Hitler regime, Pius XII created him a cardinal with the title of St. Bernard at the Consistory of February 18, 1946. His untimely death occurred soon after his return to his diocese.