August Froehlich (pastor)

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August Froehlich (born January 26, 1891 in Königshütte ; † June 22, 1942 in Dachau concentration camp ) was a German Roman Catholic priest , pastor , resistance fighter against National Socialism , defender of the rights of German Catholics and Polish forced laborers and martyrs .

August Froehlich

Life

Origin and youth

August Froehlich was born on January 26th, 1891 in Königshütte in Upper Silesia into a wealthy merchant family (including the wholesale of flour). In 1912, after attending school in Beuthen and Liegnitz, he began to study theology in Breslau . After the outbreak of the First World War he had to interrupt his theological studies and joined the Kaiser Alexander Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 1 in Berlin as a one-year volunteer . On July 3, 1915, he was seriously injured on the Eastern Front in southeastern Russian Poland near Zamość . Russian soldiers of the 2nd Siberian Corps , who refused to take the man seriously injured by a bullet through his face, stabbed him in the stomach and neck with their bayonets . Since they thought he was dead, they left him there. German paramedics found him the next day . After convalescence , he was sent to the Western Front , where he was injured again. In the spring of 1918 he was awarded the rank of lieutenant and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class . On October 8, 1918, he was taken prisoner by the British. He was only released from it a year after the end of the war.

Priestly activity

On June 19, 1921 August Froehlich received by Cardinal Adolf Bertram in Wrocław Cathedral the priesthood . After his first ceremony on June 27, 1921 in his home parish St. Barbara in Königshütte, he was appointed to the prince-bishop's delegation by the diocese of Breslau and worked in Berlin and Pomerania .

Chaplain in Berlin

August Froehlich spent his chaplain years in Berlin ( St. Eduard / Neukölln , St. Bonifatius / Kreuzberg , St. Marien / Spandau and St. Thomas von Aquin / Charlottenburg) , which was affected by the economic hardship of the post-war period and its high inflation rates (1922/23) were overshadowed. Froehlich used a large part of his paternal inheritance and income to support families in need. He supported the “press apostolate” with the distribution of the Catholic daily press ( Germania and Märkische Volkszeitung ) and the Kirchenblatt, so that the Catholics could be given an alternative to the non-Christian, partly militant anti-Christian press.

Church rector of the St. Pauls Church in Dramburg

In 1935 August Froehlich rejected collections for the Nazi state in order to be able to maintain his own charitable efforts. This prompted the local NSDAP local group leader to publicly expose the clergy. Pastor Froehlich also sincerely refused the Hitler salute. You are an enemy of the state! shouted the main teacher, as Pastor Froehlich spoke of the provocative Heil Hitler in front of all the believers gathered for worship ! of the teacher with Grüß Gott! answered. In a letter dated September 23, 1935 to the Reich Labor Service Group Bad Polzin, which encompasses several points, he explained his reasons for ending his letters with Grüß Gott :

“I greet and end my letters with Grüß Gott for the following reasons: Grüß Gott is an old German greeting for Christians and Praised be Jesus Christ for Catholics. (…) In an earlier letter you refused to announce the service because, in your opinion, it would exert pressure. I ask you also to avoid any pressure to spread your political worldview, as you would expect me to do with my religious worldview. Political and religious world views are won through conviction, but never through pressure (...). According to the Concordat, d. H. On the word of the Führer, every Catholic is promised free religious activity. I am therefore proud of the priest's uniform and the Catholic greeting, just as you are of your uniform and greeting. I have at least as much courage to show this uniform and this greeting as I expect you to. "

Pastor of Rathenow

In 1937 he was transferred to Rathenow , where he was pastor of St. Georg until 1942 . This was preceded by his passive resistance , such as the refusal to participate in the collection of the Winter Relief Organization and the Hitler salute. Numerous Polish forced laborers were also used in Rathenow and its surroundings. Since the Polish Catholics were forbidden to attend German church services, Pastor August Froehlich and his chaplain celebrated their own services with the forced laborers on Sundays. When he heard of the mistreatment of Polish female forced laborers (including that of a pregnant woman), he bravely and decisively reported them.

Imprisonment and death

From March 20 to April 8, 1941 Pastor Froehlich in was Potsdam in protective custody taken, arrested again on May 20, 1941 and the July 28, 1941 by the Potsdam prison Buchenwald transferred. From there he was transferred to the Ravensbrück concentration camp and finally to the pastors' block of the Dachau concentration camp , where he died on June 22, 1942 due to the conditions of imprisonment.

Awards

Commemoration

  • Memorial plaques in St. Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin-Mitte remind of his fate
  • Memorial plaques on the rectory of St. Joseph in Berlin-Alt-Rudow and St. Georg in Rathenow
  • Bishop Czeslaw Domin inaugurated on 2 December 1993 a bilingual plaque at St. Paul Church in Drawsko Pomorskie (Pomerania) a
  • In Berlin-Rudow , August-Froehlich-Strasse was named after him from October 26, 1985 , and Pfarrer-Froehlich-Strasse in Rathenow
  • In Drawsko Pomorskie the plac ks. Augusta Froehlicha named after him
  • The Catholic Church accepted Pastor August Froehlich as a witness of the Christian faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century .

  • Memorial plaque in Berlin-Alt-Rudow

  • Memorial plaque of the martyrs of the Nazi era in the crypt of St. Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin-Mitte

  • Bilingual plaque on the facade of St. Paul's Church in Drawsko Pomorskie

literature

  • Annette Froehlich (Ed.): Pastor August Froehlich. From resistance to Nazi arbitrariness to martyr . Traugott Bautz, Nordhausen 2009, ISBN 978-3-88309-494-6 .
  • Ulrich von Hehl , Christoph Kösters: Priests under Hitler's terror. A biographical and statistical survey (=  publications by the Commission for Contemporary History . Series A: Sources. Vol. 37). 4th, revised and supplemented edition. 2 volumes. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 1998, ISBN 3-506-79839-1 .
  • Karl-Joseph Hummel , Christoph Kösters (Ed.): Forced Labor and the Catholic Church 1939–1945 (=  publications of the Commission for Contemporary History . Series B: Research. Vol. 110). Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn a. a. 2008, ISBN 978-3-506-75689-3 .
  • 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 . Vol. IS 119-122.
  • Benedicta Maria Kempner : Priest before Hitler's tribunals . Rütten & Loening, Munich 1966, p. 87-91 (2nd edition. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1967; unchanged reprint of the 2nd edition. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1996, ISBN 3-570-12292-1 ).
  • Heinz Kühn: martyrs of the diocese of Berlin. Klausener, Lichtenberg, Lampert, Lorenz, Simoleit, Mandrella, Hirsch, Wachsmann, Metzger, Schäfer, Willimsky, Lenzel, Froehlich . 2nd Edition. More publishing house, Berlin 1952.
  • Josef Mörsdorf: August Froehlich, pastor of Rathenow . More publishing house, Berlin 1947.
  • Reimund Schnabel: The pious in hell, clergy in Dachau . Union-Verlag, Berlin 1966.
  • Kurt Willig: Berlin priest in the concentration camp . In: Petrusblatt . No. 4 , December 23, 1945, ISSN  0342-9091 .

Web links

Commons : August Froehlich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Catholic parish of Sankt Georg Rathenow and Premnitz: Pastor August Froehlich. A picture of life , p. 10.
  2. ↑ Diocesan Archives Berlin: August Froehlich . Retrieved May 1, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Happy August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Catholic priest, pastor, German resistance fighter against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH January 26, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigshütte
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 1942
Place of death Dachau concentration camp