He became a notable symbol of religious liberty for his public condemnation of the Nazi government’s policies, including from the pulpit of St. Hedwig’s Cathedral in Berlin.

[1][2] Despite widespread fear and suppression, Lichtenberg openly called for justice and the humane treatment of Jewish citizens, underscoring the moral responsibilities of religious leaders under totalitarian regimes.

He was also recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 2004 for his efforts to aid Jews during the Holocaust, making him one of the few individuals honored for moral resistance across both religious and cultural communities.

[6] Lichtenberg's encouragement of Catholics to view a screening of the film version of Erich Maria Remarques' anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front prompted a vicious attack by Joseph Goebbels' paper Der Angriff.

[6] Named provost of the cathedral, in 1938, Lichtenberg was put in charge of the Relief Office of the Berlin episcopate, which assisted many Catholics of Jewish descent in emigrating from the Third Reich.

[8] After Kristallnacht, the first organized Nazi pogrom in Germany, Lichtenberg warned at the Berlin Church of Saint Hedwig: "The synagogue outside is burning, and that is also a house of God!"

In 1941, Lichtenberg protested against the involuntary euthanasia programme by way of a letter to the chief physician of the Reich, Minister of Public Health Leonardo Conti (1900–1945): I, as a human being, a Christian, a priest, and a German, demand of you, Chief Physician of the Reich, that you answer for the crimes that have been perpetrated at your bidding, and with your consent, and which will call forth the vengeance of the Lord on the heads of the German people.

"Nazi leaders faced the prospect of either having to imprison prominent, highly admired clergymen and other protesters – a course with consequences in terms of adverse public reaction they greatly feared – or else end the programme".