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Walter Dirks

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Walter Dirks(8 January 1901 inHörde,North Rhine-Westphalia– 30 May 1991 inWittnau, Baden-Württemberg), was aGermanpolitical commentator, theologian, and journalist.

Life and career

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From 1923 he wrote for the literary section of theFrankfurtjournalRhein-Mainische Volkszeitung[de],described as 'left Catholic'. He also served as secretary toRomano Guardini(1885–1968), an Italian-born German priest and influential theologian of the twentieth century. In 1933 the journal was shut down by the new Nazi regime. Dirks was arrested, but released after the paper was confiscated.[1][2]

Opposed toNational Socialism,Dirks spoke in public forums to stop the Nazi rise. He favored an alliance between the CatholicCenter Party (Deutsche Zentrumspartei)and theSocial Democratic Party of Germany(SPD).[3]Writing in the August 1931 issue of the journalDie Arbeit (Deutschland)[de],he "described the Catholic reaction to Nazism as 'open warfare'."[4]

Hisdissertationwas to remain unfinished, due in part to its likely rejection with the Nazis in power. In it Dirks discussed the 1923 bookHistory and Class ConsciousnessbyGeorg Lukacs.To avoid its seizure by theGestapoduring house searches, the manuscript was said to have been burned.[5][6]

From 1934 he worked at theFrankfurter Zeitung,first as a music critic, then from 1938 as editor of its literary section. The government closed the newspaper in 1943, and Dirks was forbidden (Schreiberverbot) to publish any of his writing. He began work at the Catholic publisherVerlag Herder.[7]Dirks is the author of several dozen books.

He was active in the post-war reconstruction of the city of Frankfurt. Dirks also participated in forming a new political party, theChristian Democratic Union(CDU), joining Protestants and Catholics.[8]In a 1946 article,Eugen Kogon,Clemens Münster, and Walter Dirks advanced the vision of a Christian socialist future for a democratic Germany.[9]The CDU, however, took another direction.[10]From 1946 Dirks was co-editor ofDie Frankfurter Hefte.[11]

AtSüdwestfunk,a public radio corporation, from 1949 Dirks was a political commentator on domestic issues. During 1953–1956 he worked withTheodor Adornoat theInstitut fur Sozialforschung (IfS),then home of theFrankfurt Schoolof social criticism. From 1956 to 1967 he was manager in Cologne of public televisionWestdeutscher Rundfunk.He co-founded in 1966 theBensberger Kreis,a circle of Catholic intellectuals.[12]

Dirks, an advocate for socialism, was an opponent of nuclear weapons andrearmament.With other writers such asEugen KogoninDie Frankfurter Hefte,he articulated these positions.[13]From the 1960s until the end of his life, Dirks' political orientation and point of view was in the minority among German Catholics.Gustav HeinemannthePresidentreferred to him as a moral conscience of the community.[14]

In 1941 he married Marianne Ostertag (1913–1991),[15]who later served on theCentral Committee of German Catholics(ZdK).

Marxism and Christianity

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A 1947 journal piece by Dirks, "Marxismus in christlicher Sicht",[16]acquired great influence. On the subject of Communism, it was the "decisive essay for the whole post-war German Christian thinking". Addressed were positive similarities between the prophetic passages of the youngMarxand the Christian gospel of love and community. Marx was first to identify with the realities of proletarian life, which Dirks saw as an act of love. Dirks wrote of this "radical thinking out of the existence of the helpless and exploited" and of Marx's "essentially Christian act... of solidarity with the other, with the neighbor, a sacrifice".[17][18]

In terms moral and spiritual Marx had described the "human relations in producing" and "the real world of power conflicts and selfish drives, without idealizing it." Marx thus widened the scope of the social justice project. As did then the Lutheran theologianPaul Tillich,Dirks saw beyond his inheritance of bourgeois idealism, looking forward. Yet, unlike Tillich who countered Communism with a 'religious socialism', Dirks understood Communism as another faith. Accordingly, he faulted Marx for anHegelianpantheism and for confusing spirit and ideology. Despite the prophetic quality of the early Marx, Dirks did not assume that he was "the appointed bearer of an historic promise". Rather, the moral claim on the Christian was to acknowledge, to listen to, and to minister to the working class. The project was to assist the exploited "until he can solve problems better and think better than the Communist". Dirks called on Christian churches for a responsive commitment, and renewed vigor.[19]

The Monk and the World

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Dirks here[20]describes himself as alayCatholic Christian, mentioning other like authors:Chesterton,Belloc,Bloy,Hello,and the novelistBernanos(p. 2). He introduces his book as one intending to show what benefit comes to the secular world from the monks. The point of view taken is journalistic. He tells it "from a personal way of thinking that seeks" a pathway through secular realities to "develop a consciousness" of the unity, so that one may share in "the true entirety of the history of God" (p. 31).

How do we laity benefit from the witness of monks? They live their lives in common, under vows of poverty, obedience and chastity. To answer the question we must comprehend how this life style "deviates so astonishingly from the norm of human existence" (p. 33). In the main, Dirks offers brief narratives of the major founders of monastic institutions:St. Benedict,St. Francis,St. Dominic,andSt. Ignatius.Each began in part as an answer to a historical challenge (pp. 71–73).

About St. Francis (pp. 152–181), Dirks historically situates the start of theFranciscanorder when medieval societies began to transform into urban business cultures (pp. 164–167). Buying and selling became a focus in the evolving role of the merchant. Hence the laity faced novel situations. St. Francis is quoted expressing the connection between violence and property:

Sir, if we had property, we would need weapons for our protection. For from property, litigation and quarrels arise, and through these the love of God and one's neighbor is greatly diminished. And so in this world we desire no property whatever.[21]

As Dirks sees it, the mission of St. Francis was to the wealthy. His was not a movement of the poor against the rich, although he recognized the contradiction between the hierarchy's wealth and the admonitions of Jesus. The perple xing thing (then and now) was that St. Francis preached poverty, "Lady Poverty", to the rich. To be sure, he urged the rich to give alms, yet the "threat to the rich man from his wealth caused him much greater anxiety" (p. 163). St. Francis saw that "the nature of wealth had changed.... that riches were striking root in men's hearts in a different way....it had become more intimately precious" (p. 165). The merchant was put "in the slow process of learning how to separate workaday atheistic behavior from devout observance" and "under these conditions he was imperiled" (p. 166).[22]

Selected publications

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  • Erbe und Aufgabe,1931
  • Die Antwort der Mönche,1952[23]
  • War ich ein linker Spinner?,1983
  • Der singende Stotterer: Autobiographische Texte,1983
  • Gesammelte Schriften,8 volumes, 1987–1991[24]

Legacy

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Awards

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References

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  1. ^French Wikipedia: Walter Dirks (to access use side bar).
  2. ^Walter Dirks,The Monk and the World(New York: David McKay 1954), "About the Author".
  3. ^German Wikipedia: Walter Dirks (access at side bar).
  4. ^John Cornwell,Hitler's Pope:The Secret History of Pius XII,New York: Viking, 1999,ISBN0-670-88693-9,p. 108.

    Catholic criticism of the National Socialists was vehement and sustained in the press and from the pulpit. The Catholic journalist Walter Dirks... described the Catholic reaction to Nazism as "open warfare." The ideology of the National Socialists, he asserted, "stood in blatant, explicit contrast to the [Catholic] Church. (insert by Cornwell)
  5. ^German Wikipedia: Walter Dirks.
  6. ^French Wikipedia: Walter Dirks.
  7. ^German Wikipedia: Walter Dirks.
  8. ^From 1949 to 1963 the CDU was led byAdenauerformerly of theZentrumpartie.The CDU became known for fielding center-right candidates. Cf.,Fritz Stern.Five Germanys I have known(New York: Farrar Straus Giroux 2006), pp. 195–196.
  9. ^French Wikipedia: Walter Dirks.
  10. ^Peter H. Merkl,The origin of the west German republic(Oxford Univ. 1963), pp. 104–105. After 1948 theCDU Finance Ministersaw an opening to favor free enterprise. An"economic boom"followed that supplied consumer goods. "In the CDU/CSUthe business wing replaced the labor wing in control. "
  11. ^Gerd-Rainer Horn and Emmanuel Gerard,Left Catholicism, 1943–1955: Catholics and Society in Western Europe at the Point of Liberation,KADOC-studies 25, Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2001,ISBN9789058670939,pp. 196–202.
  12. ^German Wikipedia: Walter Dirks;Bensberger Kreis[de](whereErnst-Wolfgang Böckenfördewas a member).
  13. ^Alice Holmes Cooper,Paradoxes of Peace: German Peace Movements Since 1945,Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1996,ISBN9780472106240,pp. 67–69
  14. ^French Wikipedia: Walter Dirks. Gustav Heinemann(SPD)was President of theBRD,1969–1974.
  15. ^Marianne Dirks[de](German Wikipedia).
  16. ^English: "Marxism from a Christian point of view" published inDie Frankfurter Hefte(February 1947).
  17. ^Charles C. West,Communism and the Theologians. Study of an encounter(London: SCM Press 1958; New York: Macmillan [pb 1963]), pp. 104–107 (at 105: West's "decisive" quote, Dirks' "radical" and "essentially" quotes) & 110, 331–333; cf. 247 (perHelmut Gollwitzer); Marx as first per factory worker poverty (105–106, 247, 331–332).
  18. ^Jean-Yves Paraïso,"Walter Dirks und der junge Marx: Zu Walter Dirks' Aufsatz 'Marxismus in christlicher Sicht'",Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte,v. 7/2, pp. 319–335 (1994). Accessed 2020-9-27.
  19. ^West,Communism and the Theologians(1958, [pb 1963]), 104–107 (107: West's "until" quote) & 110 (West's "human relations" and "real world" quotes, and "appointed" quote), 247, 331–333; bourgeois idealism (105–106, 332), call on churches (107, 247, 332–333); Tillich, 78–87, 91–104.
  20. ^See bibliography: 1952, translated 1954.
  21. ^p.162. Note: reference to Karl Marx made here, and at p.168.
  22. ^Also discussed: theThird Order,155–156, 164, 171–175.
  23. ^Published by Verlag der Frankfurter Hefte, English translation:The Monk and the World(New York: David McKay 1954), xi + 234 pages.
  24. ^French Wikipedia: Walter Dirks.
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