With Bound Hands: A Jesuit in Nazi Germany: The Life and Selected Prison Letters of Alfred Delp [Paperback]

Mary Frances Coady (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2003

Alfred Delp was a proud German, a Jesuit priest, a Nazi resister, and a martyr. Executed by the Nazis in 1945 for crimes against the Third Reich, Delp left a legacy in letters written from his prison cell. This book tells Delp's life story through a compilation of correspondence with his friends and family. It reveals his struggle to maintain his faith in the face of imminent death.

During Delp's six-month incarceration prior to his execution, he writes of his fear, sadness, and anger, and then his transformation from an "unholy character into a saint." Delp then reflects on his love of God, sense of peace, and surrender. This book tells not only the story of a single brave resister, but offers insight into the courageous stand many people made against the Nazi regime.

Product Details

• Paperback: 238 pages
• Publisher: Jesuit Way Loyola Press (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082941794X
• ISBN-13: 978-0829417944
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,168,640 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Faith on trial, December 19, 2005

By 

Steven R. McEvoy "MCWPP" (Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: With Bound Hands: A Jesuit in Nazi Germany: The Life and Selected Prison Letters of Alfred Delp (Paperback)

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.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From Death to Life, February 18, 2004

By 

"horacesense" (Red Deer, AB Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: With Bound Hands: A Jesuit in Nazi Germany: The Life and Selected Prison Letters of Alfred Delp (Paperback)

So often tragedy appears to be a failure or defeat in life when in fact it is a beginning of something worthwhile and beautiful. The imprisonment and execution of Alfred Delp, as revealed in his letters and the author’s commentaries in this book exemplify that truth. The reader may find it hard and even tedious to become embroiled in the desperate struggle to hold on to life by a man whose faith in eternity is never questioned. But this microcosm of the lives and suffering shared by millions under the Nazi regime is an example of the eventual futility of evil and should cause us to appreciate more deeply the freedom purchased for us today by those lives. The book is the beautiful fruit grown from the seed of one man’s death. It should be read.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A man transformed by the crucible of suffering, January 15, 2004

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: With Bound Hands: A Jesuit in Nazi Germany: The Life and Selected Prison Letters of Alfred Delp (Paperback)

With Bound Hands: A Jesuit In Nazi Germany by Mary Frances Coady presents the life and selected letters of Fr. Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest, youth leader, intellectual, and a dedicated resister to the Nazi regime who was taken prisoner and eventually executed by the Nazis. Father Delp's smuggled writings and prayers to friends and family mark a man transformed by the crucible of suffering, and provide a sober view of the depths of human cruelty as well as the struggle to endure. With Bound Hands stands as an enduring testament against the Nazis and their crimes -- and powerful reading for Catholics today.