Anton Gebert

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Anton Gebert (born April 10, 1885 in Heiligenkreuz near Plan , West Bohemia; † May 17, 1942 in Dachau concentration camp ) was a Sudeten German Roman Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Prague .

Life

After studying Catholic theology and its promotion of the farmer's son Anton Gebert received in the July 18, 1909 Prague , the ordination . His spiritual career brought him to the office of canon and cathedral chapter at the metropolitan chapter of St. Vitus . He was also the rector of St. Salvator's Church for the Germans in Prague. On October 19, 1934 he received his doctorate in theology. He was a lecturer in catechetics at the Theological Faculty of the German University in Prague .

As early as October 1938, Gebert and Prelate Josef Grüner approached the German chargé d'affaires in Prague, Andor Hencke , with the demand for further German dioceses in Bohemia . This demand was justified with the stronger "national reliability" of the Sudeten German clergy , which is greater than that of the Old Reich German and Austrian , which has been proven "through its fight against the Czechs". After the occupation of the so-called remaining Czech Republic by the armed forces and the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia on March 15, 1939, Gebert became the local Wehrmacht chaplain . He lived in the house at Burgplatz 6 in Prague 4 .

The Archbishop of Prague , Cardinal Karel Kašpar, commissioned Gebert in 1940 with the pastoral care of arrested Czech priests. In the early hours of January 6, 1941, he was arrested himself and taken to Pankrác prison. The arrest warrant was issued on May 6, 1941 by District Court Judge Dr. Seidl issued (AZ. 7 Gs. 675/41). On June 12, 1941, the Chief Public Prosecutor at the Special Court in Prague , Franz Ludwig , brought charges against Gebert (AZ: 5 Js. 545/41) for having "hateful, inflammatory and low-minded malicious statements about leading figures of the state or the National Socialists German Workers' Party ”and owned foreign broadcasters. On July 23, 1941, Gebert was sentenced to one year in prison. Instead of being fired after he was in the Terezin concentration camp detained and from there on 1 May 1942 as prisoner no. 29884 to Dachau deported . He died there just 17 days later. The urn with his ashes, enclosed in a wooden coffin, was buried in his hometown Heiligenkreuz / Chodsky Ujezd. The grave has not been preserved.

His uncle was Theobald Scharnagl (1867–1943), the 43rd abbot of the Osek monastery in northern Bohemia .

Appreciation

The Catholic Church has accepted Cathedral Capitular Anton Gebert as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century .

literature

  • Benedicta Maria Kempner : Priest before Hitler's tribunals . Unchanged reprint of the 2nd edition from 1967. Bertelsmann, Munich 1996, ISBN 978-3-570-12292-1 , p. 111 ff .
  • Helmut Moll (Ed. On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference): Witnesses for Christ. Das deutsche Martyrologium des 20. Jahrhundert , Paderborn et al. 1999, 7th revised and updated edition 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , Volume I, pp. 851–852.
  • Ulrich von Hehl : priest under Hitler's terror. A biographical and statistical survey. Part 2. Publications of the Commission for Contemporary History, 37. Schöningh, 1996, ISBN 3506798391 .
  • Rudolf Grulich: Sudeten German Catholics as Victims of National Socialism. Edited by the Sudeten German Priestly Work. 1999 ( interview ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The date of May 17th is mentioned on his death sheet . Other sources, including Searching Dachau Concentration Camp Records in One Step (see note 6), also mention May 18 as the date of death.
  2. ^ Emil Valasek: The struggle against the priests in the Sudetenland 1938 to 1945. Archive for Church History of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, 16th Institute for Church History of Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia (Ed.), 2003, ISBN 3921344204 , p. 64 ( Excerpt ).
  3. ↑ Martin Zückert, Laura Hölzlwimmer: Religion in the Bohemian Lands 1938–1948. 2007, p. 24 .
  4. ↑ Benedicta Maria Kempner: Priest before Hitler's Tribunals , p. 111.
  5. ^ Benedicta Maria Kempner: Priest before Hitler's Tribunals , p. 112.
  6. ↑ Searching Dachau Concentration Camp Records in One Step online . Johann Wolfgang Brügel : Czechs and Germans 1939–1946. Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1974, ISBN 3485035432 , p. 135 ( excerpt ).
  7. ↑ Oral communication from his niece, who was present at the funeral.
  8. ^ Entry in the Biographia Cisterciensis .
personal data
SURNAME Gebert, Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German clergyman and political victim of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Heiligenkreuz bei Plan , West Bohemia
DATE OF DEATH May 17, 1942
Place of death Dachau concentration camp