Hermann Lange (Nazi victim)

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Hermann Lange

Hermann Lange (born April 16, 1912 in Leer ; † November 10, 1943 in Hamburg ) was a German Catholic priest who was a victim of the political justice system of National Socialism and was one of the so-called Lübeck martyrs . In 2011 he was beatified .

Sacred Heart Church in Lübeck
Memorial plaque in the ramparts near the Hamburg remand prison

biography

Hermann Lange grew up as the son of a navigation teacher in a middle-class family in Leer and attended the local high school . His uncle Hermann Lange of the same name was a pastor in Bremen as well as cathedral dean in Osnabrück and his role model. As a high school student, he joined the Catholic Bund New Germany , part of the Catholic reform movement, and became its group leader there. He decided early on to become a priest. He was always hostile to National Socialism.

He studied Catholic theology in Münster and was ordained a priest in Osnabrück in 1938 . After pastoral work at St. Joseph in Neustadtgödens and Lohne near Lingen , he was appointed adjunct on June 1, 1939 and a year later as vicar at the main Catholic church, the Herz-Jesu-Kirche in Lübeck. His main task was the youth and male pastoral care of the community.

Lange is described by contemporary witnesses as unusually serious, reliable and gifted in education. He is considered to be the intellectual among the arrested three clergymen of the provost church. His sermons were of a high standard. The reform-oriented theologian viewed National Socialism with disgust and denounced the war crimes of the Germans in a small circle. He was critical of military service under National Socialist leadership.

Arrest and trial

Long copied and distributed leaflets and writings critical of the Nazi regime, including the written sermons of the Münster bishop, Clemens August Graf von Galen . He was finally denounced and arrested by the Gestapo on June 15, 1942 for “preparing to commit high treason” after a house search had taken place the previous year. He did not deny his negative attitude towards National Socialism and war. With him came two other Catholic clergy from the provost church - Eduard Müller and Johannes Prassek - as well as the Protestant pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink , who had also turned against the Nazi regime. In the same operation 18 Catholic lay people were arrested. For a long time, separated from his Catholic confreres, he was sent to the Lübeck-Lauerhof prison with the Protestant pastor Stellbrink . Langes wrote a letter from his imprisonment: “Personally, I am very calm and look forward to what is to come. When one has really done the whole surrender to the will of God, then there is a wonderful calm and the awareness of unconditional security ... People are only tools in God's hands. If God wants my death - let it be done ... ”After a year of pre-trial detention , a three-day trial took place at the end of June 1943 before the 2nd Senate of the Berlin People's Court , which had traveled to Lübeck especially for this purpose. The death sentence demanded by the public prosecutor Drullmann and passed by the court for "decomposition of the military in connection with treasonous favoring of the enemy and radio crime" was accepted by Kaplan Lange, trusting God. He and his clerical co-defendants were then transferred to the Holstenglacis prison in Hamburg . His bishop, Hermann Wilhelm Berning, visited him there . The appeal for clemency for his three priests was unsuccessful.

Hermann Lange was executed in the Holstenglacis prison on November 10, 1943 at 6:26 p.m. by executioner Friedrich Hehr with the guillotine . His last words to Prison Pastor Behnen are: “... a happy reunion in heaven. Give my regards to my dear Lübeckers and my compatriots in Leer. "

memory

The joint execution of the four ministers whose blood under the guillotine is "flowed into each other literally" every minute, is today a mainstay of North German ecumenism .

The urn with the ashes of Hermann Lange was only buried in his hometown and is now located under a glass plate in the floor of the crypt of the provost church in Lübeck. In October 2013, the Lübeck Martyrs Memorial was opened in an extension of this church, providing information about the political and ecclesiastical situation at the time, the four clergy and the lay people who were also accused.

A plaque on the outer wall of the Hamburg remand prison commemorates the executed clergy. In Lübeck, Leer and Hamburg streets were named after Hermann Lange, as well as the parish hall of the Catholic parish Maria Königin in Leer-Loga .

Beatification process

In March 2004, the Archdiocese of Hamburg announced the intention to initiate a beatification procedure for Hermann Lange, Johannes Prassek and Eduard Müller. Therefore, on May 10, 2004, the Roman lawyer Andrea Ambrosi was appointed " Postulator " - the lawyer for the proceedings. The procedure was considered difficult because on the one hand a separation of the three Catholic martyrs from the Protestant pastor Stellbrink is viewed as unacceptable, and on the other hand the beatification of a Protestant pastor is not possible. On July 1, 2010, the Vatican Press Office announced that Pope Benedict XVI. authorized the prefect of the Congregation for Canonization to “ enforce” a corresponding decree and the process of beatification was completed. The beatification of Lange and the two other Catholic clergy took place on June 25, 2011 in front of the Sacred Heart Church in Lübeck. Cardinal Walter Kasper also remembered the Protestant Stellbrink in his sermon. The Vatican set June 25th as the day of liturgical remembrance, as the day of the execution was already occupied in the general church calendar.

literature

  • Josef Schäfer SJ (arr.): Where his witnesses die is his kingdom. Letters from the beheaded Lübeck clergy and reports from eyewitnesses. Hamburg 1946.
  • The Lübeck martyrs 1943. In: Catholic guide 1963 for Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein , Hamburg 1963.
  • Merz, Martin: 'The Pfaffen auf Schafott': a Lübeck trial 50 years ago. Booklet accompanying the exhibition “Erase my eyes from…” The life and violent death of the four Lübeck clergy during the Nazi era; Revised manuscript of a radio broadcast as part of the 'Religion and Society' series on August 6, 1993 in the third program of Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Lübeck 1993.
  • Else Pelke: The Lübeck Christian Trial 1943. Mainz 1961/1974.
  • Manfred Hermanns: New German witness and martyr of the north. In: Hirschberg , vol. 42 (1989), pp. 562-564.
  • Manfred Hermanns: Lange, Hermann, Lübeck vicar and martyr. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, Volume XXXII (2011) columns 864–869.
  • Ingaburg Klatth: 'Erase my eyes ...': Life and violent death of the four Lübeck clergy during the National Socialist era. An exhibition in the castle monastery in Lübeck from November 8, 1993 to November 10, 1994. In: Democratic history: Yearbook on the workers' movement and democracy in Schleswig-Holstein 8 (1993), pp. 205–280.
  • Martin Thoemmes , Art .: Hermann Lange. In: Witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century. Edited by Helmut Moll on behalf of the German Bishops' Conference, Paderborn et al. 1999, 7th revised and updated edition 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , Vol. I, pp. 319–327.
  • Ecumenism in Resistance. The Lübeck Christian Trial in 1943. Lübeck 2001.
  • Peter Voswinckel: Complete after 61 years. Farewell letters from the four Lübeck martyrs in a historical context. In: Zeitschrift des Verein für Lübeckische Geschichte und Altertumskunde 85 (2005), pp. 279–330.
  • Isabella Spolovjnak-Pridat, Helmut Siepenkort (ed.): Ecumenism in resistance. The Lübeck Christian Trial in 1943. Lübeck 2006.
  • Peter Voswinckel: Guided paths: The Lübeck martyrs in words and pictures . Butzon & Bercker, Kevelaer 2010, ISBN 978-3-7666-1391-2 .
  • Martin Thoemmes: "Never say three, always say four". The memory of the Lübeck martyrs from 1943 until today. Ansgar, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-932379-93-2 .
  • Ann-Helena Schlüter : "Free as birds: The heroes of Lübeck - A story against forgetting" , SCM Hänssler (23 August 2018), ISBN 978-3-7751-5865-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b "The Lübeck Blood Witnesses 1943" in Catholic Guide 1963 for Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein; Hamburg 1963
  2. ^ Judgment of the People's Court
  3. ↑ Ecumenical resistance ended under the guillotine on www.evangelisch.de
  4. ^ Press Office of the Holy See, Bulletin No. 436/2010 of July 1, 2010 (Italian)
  5. ^ New church newspaper of September 19, 2010 (38), Hamburg
  6. ↑ Thousands at the beatification of Nazi resistance members in Lübeck ( Memento from July 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). In: Lübecker Nachrichten online from June 25, 2011
  7. ↑ New Church Newspaper of June 24, 2012 (25), Hamburg
personal data
SURNAME Lange, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Catholic priest, blessed and one of the Lübeck martyrs
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Leer (East Frisia)
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 1943
Place of death Hamburg