September 13th 1939

Wednesday September 13th

The Poles are still holding, thank God, so perhaps the conquest of Poland is destined to be another “grande illusion?”

But the mask has been torn from the face of Hitlerism and a hideous creature has been revealed.  According to one report, not yet confirmed, the German High Command has declared that since the civilian Poles have been helping their army as guerrillas and “francs tireurs”, open towns and civilians are to be bombed and shelled! So it is ruthless, undisguised Prussianism once more, the German Will predominant.

One can almost admire the man who is prepared even to damn his soul for his country. One should not overlook the illuminating fact that in the legend of Faust, the intellectual prepared to sell his soul to the Devil - for unlimited and absolute power - was of Germanic  origin. I think I can understand now what the Middle Ages meant by selling one’s soul to the Devil. That is what Hitler has done.

We make very little, too little, of the mortal sin of Pride which was a commonplace of medieval and renaissance theology. It is often euphemistically called egoism, radical energy and even self-expression. But only the gigantic sin of pride in its medieval and personified form would be worthy to stand for an ambition so blind, so uncompromising and so deadly.

“What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”*

*Mark, 8:36.