My Battle Against Hitler ― Faith, Truth, and Defiance in the Shadow of the Third Reich

This unpublished memoir from German-Catholic philosopher, Dietrich von Hildebrand, demonstrates his opposition to anti-Semitism, his precient understanding of just how deadly Nazism and Hitler would be, and his courage as he perpared to flee Germany.

Dietrich von Hildebrand was a German Catholic philosopher, theologian, and one of the earliest opponents to anti-Semitism. This memoir offers Von Hildebrand's reflection on this period and provides an extraordinary glimpse into the darkest periods of the 20th century including insight on Eugenio Pacelli (papal nuncio to Germany, later cardinal secretary of state, and ultimately Pope Pius XII). As von Hildebrand later wrote, Pacelli was far from being "soft" on Nazism, and was one of Hitler's fiercest enemies.

DIETRICH VON HILDEBRAND (1889-1977) was the son of sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand and converted to Catholicism in 1914. He was a vocal opponent of Adolf Hitler and Nazism, fleeing from Germany to Vienna, Austria in 1933 upon Hitler's rise to power. There, with the support of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, he founded and edited an anti-Nazi weekly paper, Der Christliche Standestaat (The Christian Corporative State). For this, he was sentenced to death in absentia by the Nazis. When Hitler annexed Austria in 1938, Hildebrand was once again forced to flee. He spent eleven months in Switzerland, near Fribourg. He then moved to Fiac in France, near Toulouse, where he taught at the Catholic University of Toulouse. When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, he went into hiding, until, after many hardships, he was able to escape with his wife, son, and daughter-in-law to Portugal. From there, they traveled by ship to Brazil and then to New York in 1940. There he taught philosophy at the Jesuit Fordham University on Rose Hill, The Bronx, New York. Hildebrand retired from teaching in 1960 and spent the remaining years of his life writing. He is the author of dozens of books, both in German and English. He was a founder of Una Voce America. Von Hildebrand died on January 26, 1977 after a long struggle with a heart condition.