Alfons Maria Wachsmann

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Monument to Alfons Maria Wachsmann on Rubenowstrasse in Greifswald
Memorial plaque for Alfons Maria Wachsmann in Bahnhofstrasse 46/47 (corner of Pfarrer-Wachsmann-Strasse) in Greifswald

Alfons Maria Wachsmann (born January 25, 1896 in Berlin , † February 21, 1944 in prison in Brandenburg-Görden ) was a Roman Catholic priest and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Born in Berlin, Wachsmann grew up in Silesia after the death of his father . He was a volunteer in the First World War , studied theology, received in June 1921 in Wroclaw by Cardinal Adolf Bertram the priesthood and was chaplain at the Holy Cross Church in Görlitz . In 1924 he moved to the Herz-Jesu-Kirche in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg for his second position as chaplain and from 1929 to 1943 he took over the parish of St. Joseph in Greifswald . As a student chaplain, he held weekly meetings to discuss religious and cultural issues; at the same time he was still the pastor of the foreign workers. He was a respected member of the community, as Benedicta Maria Kempner once described him with the words: “He soon understood how to create a recognized position in the life of the small university town thanks to his particularly attractive, all-round interested personality, full of amiability and cheerfulness . "

Wachsmann took a stand against National Socialism early on , in which he saw an instrument of torture for bondage. He tried to pass this opinion on to his students. As part of the Stettin Gestapo campaign against Catholic clergy in Pomerania ("Stettin case"), he was arrested on June 23, 1943, the same day the trial of the so-called Lübeck martyrs began, and brought into custody in Stettin.

On December 3, 1943, he was sentenced to death by the People's Court , transferred to the Brandenburg prison on January 5, 1944 , and executed there on February 21. The judgment was not overturned until November 1998.

Process documents

The indictment

  • 1st side of the indictment

  • 2nd side of the indictment

  • 3rd side of the indictment

  • 4th side of the indictment

  • 5th side of the indictment

The judgment

  • 1st page of the judgment

  • 2nd page of the judgment

  • 3rd page of the judgment

  • 4th page of the judgment

  • 5th page of the judgment

Commemoration

Memorial plaque of the martyrs of the Nazi era in the crypt of the Saint Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin-Mitte
Grave (2014)

On May 31, 1951, he was buried again in the old cemetery in Greifswald. A simple memorial stone in Rubenowstrasse has been a reminder of the humanist and theologian Alfons Maria Wachsmann since 1984 . After being reburied in the same year, his grave was rebuilt on the south side of St. Joseph's Church.

In 1999 the Catholic Church accepted Pastor Alfons Wachsmann into the German martyrology of the 20th century as a witness of faith .

In 2017, a stumbling block reminiscent of Wachsmann was laid in front of the Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche in Görlitz by the artist Gunter Demnig .

Fonts

  • On the question of the embedding of the religious in the overall process of the soul based on the protocols of Catholic students. Paderborn, 1935 (dissertation, University of Greifswald), urn : nbn: de: gbv: 9-g-4886882 .
  • From the Christian life of grace: [A cycle of fasting sermons]. Franke, Breslau [1933], urn : nbn: de: gbv: 9-g-4886882 .
  • On the situation of the diaspora. Bonifacius-Druckerei, Paderborn [1936], urn : nbn: de: gbv: 9-g-4889830 .

literature

  • Franz Herberhold : Alfons Maria Wachsmann - A victim of fascism . St. Benno, Leipzig 1963.
  • Benedicta Maria Kempner : Priest before Hitler's tribunals . Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1966, p. 87-91 .
  • Heinz Kühn: martyrs of the diocese of Berlin. Klausener, Lichtenberg, Lampert, Lorenz, Simoleit, Mandrella, Hirsch, Wachsmann, Metzger, Schäfer, Willimsky, Lenzel, Froehlich . More, Berlin 1952, p. 115-132 .
  • Ekkart Sauser:  Alfons Maria Wachsmann. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 13, Bautz, Herzberg 1998, ISBN 3-88309-072-7 , Sp. 125f.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Helmut Moll , (Ed. On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference): Witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century . Paderborn u. a. 1999. 7th revised and updated edition 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , Volume I, pp. 142–145.
  • Hans-Jürgen Schumacher, (Ed. On behalf of the Catholic Propsteigemeinde St. Joseph zu Greifswald): In the end there is light - Alfons Maria Wachsmann, life stages of a pastor, resistance fighter and martyr. Edition Pommern, Elmenhorst / Vorpommern 2019, ISBN 978-3-939680-48-2 .

Web links

Commons : Alfons Maria Wachsmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pastor Dr. Alfons Maria Wachsmann finally rehabilitated . In: Katholische Kirchenzeitung , No. 2/1999, January 17, 1999.
  2. ^ Greifswald - Pastor Wachsmann Monument ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Wachsmann, Alfons Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Roman Catholic theologian and resistance fighter against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH January 25, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH February 21, 1944
Place of death Brandenburg on the Havel