Alfred Delp, S.J., was hanged for high treason in Berlin-Plötzensee at the age of 37. He had been condemned to death only a few months before the end of World War II, after a mock trial presided over by the fanatical priest-hater Roland Freisler. The execution took place just after three oclock in the afternoon of Feb. 2, 1945. It was the feast of the Presentation, one of the days when Jesuits have traditionally professed their final vows. At Hitlers command, Delp’s ashes were scattered to the winds. There was to be nothing by which to remember him.
Had Delp survived the war, he might have returned to the editorial staff of the periodical Stimmen der Zeit in Munich, where he worked from July 1939 to April 1941, when the Gestapo abolished the magazine.