The following is from a review of The Moral Imperative. New Essays on the Ethics of Resistance in National Socialist Germany 1933-1945, a book to which she contributed:

Churches specialize in the business of discerning evil. Yet they did little of that when public policy in Nazi Germany became overtly evil. In a chapter on "The role of the churches in the German Resistance Movement", John Conway sees in this 'reluctant resistance' of the churches, especially the Protestant ones, a legacy of their tradition to back up civil authority. This tradition peaked during World War I, when the churches invested their moral capital in support of German militarism and imperialism. Through the defeat of these secular causes, the churches forfeited their claims to moral leadership in Germany. They now dedicated their energies to preserving their organization and doctrine.

This protective attitude made the Churches blind to the need to defend the secular values and political ideals of the liberal republic. Instead they could find in the Nazi agenda old and new ideals to champion: nationalism, anti-liberalism, anti-parliamentarism, anti-communism and revisionist foreign policy. ....

While Conway sees in the commitment of the churches in World War I a compelling explanation for their global failure in the Nazi era, he is of course aware of the exceptional instances of heroic resistance by clergy and laity.

This is the theme of the chapter on 'Laity and Churches in the Third Reich' by Beate Ruhm von Oppen. Among the resisters, she cites H.J.von Moltke as one who did not count the churches out. He expected that their resistance would grow as Nazi persecution increased. He also assigned to the churches a role in the moral renewal after the war, and included Protestant and Catholics in the broad coalition he assembled to draft programmes for a defeated Germany. As an example of lay resistance on the humblest level, Ruhm v. Oppen pointed to the untutored religious obstinacy of the peasant Franz Jaegerstaetter in Austria, who refused to 'fight for a regime that was fighting against the church', and was beheaded. He had faith first,and resisted the evil that threatened its core; Moltke first recognised the evil, and in resisting it grew in faith, as his letters, edited so brilliantly by Ruhm v.Oppen, show. (emphasis added)

Miss von Oppen often spoke and wrote about the religous convictions that motivated and butressed the German resistance, as this review of a life of Bonhoffer shows.

Here is part of the Guardian's obituary for her last week:

In 1951 she moved to Chatham House ... translating and publishing Documents On Germany Under Occupation 1945-1954. During this time in London, she sang in Morley College choir under Michael Tippett. (a favorite composer of mine - rkb) He remained a lifelong friend.

In 1959 she ... was asked by the American Historical Association to join a team examining a huge collection of captured Nazi documents.... After a short spell at the Centre for International Affairs at Harvard, she became a tutor at St John's College, Annapolis, where she continued to teach for the rest of her life. St John's is a multidisciplinary university with a demanding curriculum; tutors teach, and all students study languages, music, texts from Homer to Einstein and more at the highest level. She taught music as well as literature, philosophy and even Euclid, though not Einstein.

Through her passionate interest in the German resistance to the Nazis, she met Freya von Moltke, the widow of Helmuth James von Moltke[who] brought [her husband's] letters with her to America. She asked Beate to edit and translate them. The book appeared in both English and German, with the German edition winning the Scholl prize in 1989. (note: the Geschwister-Scholl prize is one of Germany's top literary awards - rkb) ...

[von Oppen's] interest in and knowledge of music was immense. She was particularly fascinated and moved by the music and word setting of JS Bach, and wrote and published several essays on the subject.

It's no coincidence that Miss von Oppen chose St. John's College as her professional home. I've written about my undergraduate school several times here, here, here and here.

St. John's College deserves its reputation as one of the best and most distinctive institutions in the United States, indeed in the world. The College has a long and unswerving history of commitment to a single ideal: the life of the mind as principally represented in the great books of the Western tradition.

Those are the opening sentences of a recent joint accreditation review of St. John's by the Middle States Association and the American Academy of Liberal Education. Accreditation is not new, but I was pleased to see the school be recognized this way -- acceptance of the Program has been a long time coming among some academics.

The institutions and intellectual traditions of the West have been under attack from within for many years and are now under attack from without as well. I think it's worth remembering that not all those in academia agree with the attackers - and some put their lives on the line in its defense.

NOTE: those who are unfamiliar with Sir Michael Tippett's music might want to check out his work, which I first encountered while working as a student in the St. John's music library. I still get goosebumps remembering his oratorio A Child of Our Time, with its haunting soprano aria:

How can I cherish a man in such days, or become a mother in a world of destruction?

Despite his unflinching view on the horrors of WWII, the music always leaves me hopeful and more determined to go forward.