with British officials, Galen told the international press that "just as I fought against Nazi injustices, I will fight any injustice, no matter where it comes from". He repeated these claims in a sermon on 1 July 1945, which was copied and illegally distributed throughout occupied Germany. The British authorities ordered him to renounce the sermon immediately, but the bishop refused. In the face of his resistance and broad popularity, they allowed him free speech without any censorship. In an interview with Swiss media, Galen demanded punishment for Nazi criminals but humane treatment for the millions of German prisoners of war who had not committed any crimes and who were being denied contact with their relatives by the British. He criticized the British dismissal of Germans from public service without investigation and trial. He forcefully condemned the expulsion of German civilians from former German provinces and territories in the east annexed by communist Poland and the Soviet Union. A paper from the British Foreign Office called Galen "the most outstanding personality among the clergy in the British zone... Statuesque in appearance and uncompromising in discussion, this oak-bottomed old aristocrat... is a German nationalist through and through." When SS-General Kurt Meyer, accused of complicity in the shooting of eighteen Canadian prisoners of war, was sentenced to death, Galen pleaded for his life to be spared: "According to what has been reported to me, General Kurt Meyer was sentenced to death because his subordinates committed crimes he didn't arrange and of which he did not approve. As a proponent of Christian legal opinion, which states that you are only responsible for your own deeds, I support the plea for clemency for General Meyer and pledge for a pardon." On second review, a Canadian general, finding only "a mass of circumstantial evidence", commuted Meyer's death sentence to imprisonment. Meyer served nine years in British and Canadian military prisons. College of Cardinals Unexpectedly, at Christmas 1945 it became known that Pope Pius XII would appoint three new German cardinals: Bishop Clemens August von Galen, Bishop Konrad von Preysing of Berlin, and Archbishop Josef Frings of Cologne. Despite numerous British obstacles and denial of air travel, Galen arrived in Rome 5 February 1946. Generous American cardinals financed his Roman stay, as German money was not in demand. He had become famous and popular, so after the pope had placed the red hat on his head