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Clemens August Graf von Galen

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Blessed Clemens August Graf von Galen (1878-1946), German count, Bishop of Münster, and cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. An outspoken critic of the Nazi regime, he issued forceful, public denunciations of the Third Reich's euthanasia programs and persecution of Jews, making him one of the most visible and unrelenting internal voices of dissent against Nazism's atrocities.

File:Bischof-galen.jpg
Foto Clemens August Graf von Galen

He was also known as a German nationalist and anti-communist who favoured the Second World War against Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union.

In 1945 he told international press that although he and others had been opposed to nazism, it was their duty to be loyal to their fatherland and thus consider the Allies their enemies.

The historian John S. Conway called him "the most outstanding personality among the clergy in the British zone.... Statuesque in appearance and uncompromising in discussion, this oak-bottomed old aristocrat ... is a German nationalist through and through."

The cause for Beatification was concluded positively in November 2004, and he will be beatified on October, 2005 in the St. Peter's Basilica of Rome.