This is the story behind the immortal hymn, “To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King.” It was told to me by its lyricist, Msgr. Martin B. Hellriegel. Born in Heppenheim, Germany, Msgr. Hellriegel was the parish priest of the German-settled parish of Holy Cross in North St. Louis, MO, when I knew him. He brought my wife Jane into the Church. Jane and I met at Washington University in St. Louis. Monsignor gave us weekly pre-Cana classes after his convert class instruction. We would talk of his life, and the subject of his writing came up. He told me how, at the height of Hitler’s power in 1941, he wrote this hymn as a direct confrontation with Germany’s self-proclaimed “savior.” Monsignor wanted to remind all, especially his German parishioners, that Jesus was the true victor, leader, and redeemer.

I left for a life in military service after commissioning in college. My memories of Msgr. Hellriegel’s firm faith that half-century ago have truly influenced my entire life, including my 50 years together with Jane.

The Power of the Truth

When should we speak the truth of Christ to corrupt and tyrannical power? When does our faith call us to be more than observers? What can we learn today about how others faced a world wracked with fear and confusion?

During the Nazi rise to power, Hitler usurped virtually all traditions, symbols, and words of pious German Christianity. Indeed, the most blasphemous was to call Adolf Hitler the savior. Perhaps this extract from the SS catechism characterizes this subtle transference best: The question, “Whom must we primarily serve?” required the response, “The people and our Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler.” “Why do we believe in Germany and the Fuehrer?” “Because we believe in God…and in the Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, whom He has sent us.” These instructions echo the first questions of the Christian catechism.

Indeed, by 1941 Hitler’s political, economic, and military successes appeared as providential as he claimed. He raised Germans from the shame of the Depression’s joblessness and revived a beaten people’s pride by giving them military victory. His rule extended to virtually every land and nation of Europe, North Africa, and Eurasia as far as the outskirts of Moscow. But in Hitler’s dominion, salvation required absolute obedience to his belief in racial supremacy and hatred of the “race defilers,” the Jews. Hitler’s rule required a gradual but inevitable denial of a personal, loving God in favor of faith in racial victory.

Far away in the little Baden neighborhood of St. Loius, MO, an American community settled by Germans on the banks of the Mississippi, a parish priest was composing a song that would strike the Nazi a blow from which they would never recover. Father Martin Hellriegel, a German immigrant and pastor to several communities in the St. Louis, MO area, considered the rise of racial nationalism in his former homeland. As Hellriegel read in the 1937 papal encyclical of Pius XI, Mit brennender Sorge (With Burning Anxiety), the only Encyclical ever issued in the German language, the Pope outlined how Germans had lost their way. Their government had betrayed their agreement with the Vatican. They abandoned traditional Christianity in favor of a twisted racial Darwinism that called “immortality” not survival of man after life on earth, but survival of the race. The new German paganism maintained “revelation” was not God’s word to man, but suggested rather the triumph of a master race over lesser peoples. The Pope further noted that to suggest—as the Nazi did of Hitler—that even the greatest of men was on a par with Christ, our Savior from sin and death, would be to make that man a “Prophet of Nothingness.”

Hymn to True Victory

Hellriegel knew his people. To defeat subtle Nazi usurpation of Christ’s words and mission, he would restate the Christian message simply and clearly for all the world. The pastor knew what Christ intended when our “yes” should mean “yes,” our “no” mean “no.” Hellriegel found an energetic, almost martial tune in an old copy of the Mainz (Germany) Church music book. To the music from 1870, he wrote new lyrics. They are a point-by-point rebuttal of Nazi beliefs. He called the song “To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King” and he wrote it in 1941 at the height of Nazi power.

Hellriegel’s opening salvo was that Jesus, not Hitler, was “…our Sovereign King, who is the World’s Salvation.” If Jesus was sovereign, Hitler was not. If, as the Catholic Church proclaimed, all in the world could be saved, no claim of racial peculiarity could stand. “All praise and homage do we bring, and thanks and adoration”—a direct slap at the obsequious accolades offered Hitler for having brought Germans back into wealth, prestige, and power.

It is the refrain, “Christ Jesus Victor, Christ Jesus Ruler, Christ Jesus Lord and Commander,” which is the most powerful statement of faith. Hitler promised Sieg (victory), and was the Fuehrer (ruler), who rescued Germany from the hydra-headed oppression of the Versailles Treaty, the traitorous Jews, the internationalist Catholic Church, and Communists. At the very height of German battlefield victories, Hellriegel declared not Hitler but Christ as the true Commander. (In later years, that intentional military term was changed to “redeemer.”) Hellriegel’s refrain, repeated over and over again, specifically denied each of Hitler’s claims, just as had been done in the papal letter.

Indeed, “Thy reign extend, O King, benign, to every land and nation./ For in thy Kingdom, Lord divine, alone we find salvation,” contends that Christ’s kingdom, not Hitler’s empire, was the place of salvation. Even a notorious oath of fidelity to Hitler, required of every government and military official in Germany, was specifically attacked in this song. All the world owes its loyalty not to Hitler: “I swear to thee, and to the superiors whom thou shall appoint, obedience unto death. So help me God.” Rather, as Hellriegel wrote: “To thee and to thy church great king, we pledge our hearts oblation,/ until before thy throne we sing, in endless jubilation.”

The hymn “To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King” is sung even today. As history bears out, Hitler’s claims have been revealed as nothing but lies. The challenge this song threw at the apparent victor of Europe, at the height of Hitler’s power, was mighty. For, as each verse attested, there was a greater truth which stood in opposition to Hitlerism. There were other, more ancient meanings to the words usurped by the Nazi. Simple and clear, the hymn carried a power to change hearts by speaking the truth.