With Bound Hands: A Jesuit in Nazi Germany

by Mary Frances Coady

The Nazi persecution of Jews is well documented, so when we think of Nazi persecution in World War II, we often think of the suffering Jewish people. In With Bound Hands, we get a glimpse of Nazi persecution against Christians as we witness the imprisonment, and ultimate death, of Nazi resister and Jesuit priest Alfred Delp. 
With Bound Hands by Mary Frances Coady tells of Fr. Delp's struggle to maintain his faith in the face of imminent death. During Delp’s six-month incarceration and persecution at the hands of the Nazis, he writes of his fear, sadness, and anger, and then of his transformation from an “unholy character into a saint.” Delp ultimately reflects on his love of God, sense of peace, and surrender prior to his execution.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

250 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2003

Reviews

[Jeanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so impressed and touched by this telling of the life of Fr. Alfred Delp, S.J. - priest & martyr of the Nazis. He was a normal youth, rambunctious, rowdy, fun - raised in both the Lutheran and the Catholic faiths but finally deciding to make the Catholic faith his and with a calling to the priesthood. I was blessed by his teaching, and his passion. My heart broke with what he went through, I was encouraged by how he handled it and what he endured, I was blessed by his teaching - he continued to teach even from his prison cell. Although, understandably, he was sometimes discouraged, he often wrote to others to encourage them and urged the to prayer. I was stunned to find out the real reason for his martyrdom - it wasn't at all what he'd been led to believe, (treason) but was because of his faith.

[Don Klotz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written. It was easy to follow the time line and plight of this poor Jesuit in Nazi Germany. It was his destiny to be persecuted for being a Catholic Jesuit. He was arrested for allegedly being involved in the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler but in the end he was simply hated for being Catholic and wanting to "re-christen" Germany. His journey to complete surrender to God is compelling. The only drawback is that the letters presented are not the ones he wrote on various Christian/Catholic meditations but are mostly the personal letters he wrote to friends and family. Nevertheless, these letters show his journey to surrender completely in such dire circumstances. Great read.

[David Szatkowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delp was an ordinary man who faced extraordinary evil in Nazi Germany. What is great about this account of his life, it is not a pious nor sentimental read. Rather, Delp's humanity, with its strengths and flaws, is allowed to be shown. The author makes sure we see both his courage and his fear, his strength and weakness. Like all of us, Delp had to decide how to be faithful in the face of evil. He also shows what it means to do one's best to be faithful to the good.

[Betty · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of a brilliant, flawed man who was imprisoned by the Nazis on a pretext. Alfred Delp's biggest crime, in the eyes of the Nazis, was being a Jesuit. He's a man who is sometimes terrified and other times at peace in God's hands. This ambivalence is so real; he's looking at death by hanging and hoping against hope that he'll be acquitted. And then, he's accepting the inevitable. Just very human.

[Charles Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's amazing to me that I'm the only one who has read this among the Goodreads community. Fr. Alfred Delp was a man of tremendous courage who hated the Nazis and died at their hands. Mary Frances Coady does a remarkable job of telling his story in a way that will break your heart. People like Fr. Delp died for the rest of us. It's only right we take the time to read about this wonderful man.

[Paul Henderson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sad....enlightening

[Sasha Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brief biography, with edited prison correspondence, of Fr. Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest who was hanged in 1945 for his membership in a resistance group which was trying to develop a democratic constitution for Germany, to be used in the event of a coup or military defeat. The authorities initially thought (probably wrongly) that he had been involved in the 20 July plot, and merely planning for the aftermath of a defeat was considered treasonous in any case, but Delp believed that the true reason for his death sentence was that they had failed to persuade him to leave the Jesuit order and betray his fellow members, which would have been a major propaganda coup. This is no hagiography, but a warts-and-all account of a man who could be verbally cruel, whose resistance achieved very little, who bungled his last visit from his family and struggled to accept that there was going to be no miraculous rescue. It is all the more moving for that; the scene where he makes his final vows in prison brought tears to my eyes, as did the description of the memorial service his family furtively arranged (the authorities had forbidden them to hold a service or publish a death announcement, and Delp's ashes were probably thrown into a sewage pit).

[John Nash · Rating 5 out of 5]

Father Delp, the man with the ability "to turn a sermon almost into an experience of prayer" (how wonderful is that line), is one of the saints I hold in highest regard. He is human, he is saintly, he is devoted to God yet not arrogant enough to hide his weakness.

A fantastic read that's almost otherworldly in its preservation of his prison letters and their haunting oscillation between hope, prayer, fear, anxiety, and meditation.

[Steven R. McEvoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading books by and about those who spent time in Nazi Germany is always difficult and sometimes discouraging, yet often they end up dispelling the evil they recount by the triumph of the human spirit against it. This book should be a Holocaust classic right up there with Elie Wiesel’s Night or Etty Hillsum’s An Interrupted Life and Letter from Westerbork. However, our main character has more in common with Etty then Elie, for Elie was rescued in the dying days of the war, and both Etty and Alfred Delp, our hero, did not make it out.

This is the story of a young man studying to be a Jesuit Priest, a man who pushes the boundaries in his own order and ruffles some feathers outside of it as well. He is a man who has faith and is certain of the things he believes in. He is also certain that Hitler will fail and from early in the war is part of a group that is trying to create a plan for the rebuilding of Germany after the war. This group that he joined was called the Kreisau friends. In an early letter Delp wrote about the resistance: “Whoever doesn’t have the courage to make history is doomed to become its object. We have to take action.” P.48. Throughout the war Delp had many roles: parish priest, teacher at a boys’ school, active resistance friend and community leader.

Delp was arrested for a murder plot on Hitler, a plot about which he did not actually have any knowledge. He believed to nearly the end that he would be acquitted in his trial. In December of 1944 he wrote: “Today was a good day. Even though in the end we’re chained and locked up, the heart of the day is the mass. We pray and trust and are not in the least bit modest about what we expect from God.” P.107. Yet as time wore on, he would despair. But his faith in God would stand firm.

This book is an amazing testimony of the power of the intellect and of steadfast faith, in very troubled times.

(First Published in Imprint 2005-09-23 as 'Faith Versus Adversity')