Bernhard Wensch

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Bernhard Wensch (born July 7, 1908 in Wilmersdorf near Berlin; † August 15, 1942 in Dachau ) was a Roman Catholic priest, doctor of theology , first youth pastor in the Diocese of Meißen , a staunch opponent of National Socialism and a Christian witness of the 20th century. Century. He died in the Dachau concentration camp .

Childhood and youth

The Wensch family initially lived in Berlin, before moving to Dresden in 1918 . Bernhard Wensch attended the König-Georg-Gymnasium in Dresden and passed his Abitur there in 1927. During his school days, Bernhard Wensch belonged to the Catholic Association of New Germany , through which he was strongly influenced in his thoughts and actions. During this time his desire to become a Catholic priest arose and solidified.

Studies, doctorate and priesthood

Parish Church of St. Maria Magdalena in Kamenz with the Dr.-Bernhard-Wensch-Weg along the church

After graduating from high school, Bernhard Wensch studied theology and philosophy at the University of Innsbruck , where he received his doctorate in theology in 1930 . He then entered the seminary of his home diocese in Meissen. On March 17, 1934, Bishop Petrus Legge consecrated him as a priest in Bautzen Cathedral . After ordination , he was initially a chaplain at the parish church of St. Maria Magdalena in Kamenz until he was appointed diocesan youth pastor in 1937. In addition, Bernhard Wensch - at the same time as his brother Alois Andritzki , who later also perished in the Dachau concentration camp - was chaplain at the Catholic Court Church in Dresden.

Stand up for Christian conviction

Bernhard Wensch saw through the propaganda of the National Socialists very clairvoyantly. As a youth pastor, he wanted to enable the young people entrusted to him not to be carried away by the National Socialist zeitgeist. With this in mind, he held courses and retreats for the young people of his diocese and encouraged the young people to stand against the Nazi temptations and hostility to the Christian faith.

Persecution by National Socialism

As pastors, which the DC circuit opposed by church associations and by the National Socialist state, Bernhard Wensch was under particular scrutiny of the Nazi party and the Gestapo . On May 19, 1941, he was arrested by the Gestapo on the occasion of the confiscation of circulars that Catholic youth in Saxony had written and produced, and held in custody for months and interrogated. He was charged with “inciting the youth against the state”. He remained in detention without a court ruling.

Imprisonment and death

Priest's crypt with the grave of Bernhard Wensch on the Old Catholic Cemetery in Dresden
Memorial plaque in memory of the Sorbian martyrs on the former grave

First Bernhard Wensch was brought to Sachsenhausen concentration camp , then on November 7, 1941 he was sent to Dachau concentration camp, where he was housed in the pastor's block . There he showed exemplary calm, composure and willingness to give himself, especially in view of the actions directed by the SS against the imprisoned clergy. Hermann Scheipers , who was presumably the last living priest prisoner in the Dachau concentration camp until his death in 2016, reported that during the typhus epidemic that had ruled the prisoners since spring 1942, Bernhard Wensch came secretly and at risk of death to the disability block and he, who was there terminally ill and therefore with the expected transport to the Hartheim killing center as part of the Nazi euthanasia program , and brought communion to other sick prisoners . Once Bernhard Wensch gave him his entire daily ration of bread, even though he was already sick from constant starvation and suffered from severe diarrhea. Just a few days later, Bernhard Wensch himself was admitted to the infirmary, where he died three days later.

The alleged ashes of Bernhard Wensch's remains were sent to the relatives of the deceased by the concentration camp administration. They were buried in 1942 in the priestly crypt in the Old Catholic Cemetery in Dresden.

Honors and souvenirs

Stumbling block for Dr. Bernhard Wensch
  • As early as 1946 in the Dresden suburb of Hohen dölzschen, the former Hindenburgstrasse was renamed Bernhard-Wensch-Strasse.
  • From the point of view of his fellow prisoner , Hermann Scheipers , Bernhard Wensch committed and sacrificed his life in the spirit of the Christian Gospel through his pastoral and selfless actions towards himself and the other sick people in the invalid block of the Dachau concentration camp . In his book and in his lectures Scheipers pays special tribute to Bernhard Wensch and other priests from the then diocese of Meißen who perished in the Dachau concentration camp.
  • Bernhard Wensch was accepted into the German martyrology of the 20th century as a witness of faith .
  • In the city of Heidenau on January 19, 2005, at the fourth commemoration there (since the fall of the Wall ) for those persecuted by National Socialism, this time in particular the Catholic priest Bernhard Wensch, who died in the Dachau concentration camp, was honored.
  • In the city of Kamenz , a path along the Catholic parish church of St. Maria Magdalena was posthumously named after Bernhard Wensch on April 30, 2009; on October 13, 2008, a " stumbling block ", a brass plate with his name and important biographical data, was set in the ground in front of the rectory of the Catholic parish of St. Maria Magdalena.
  • The urns of Bernhard Wensch and his two confreres, Alois Andritzki and Aloys Scholze , who also perished in the Dachau concentration camp , were transported in a procession from the Old Catholic Cemetery in Dresden to the Catholic Court Church on February 5, 2011 . Since Whit Monday 2011, the three urns have been kept permanently in a shrine in the cathedral.

literature

  • Rudolf Siegel, Johannes Lubczyk, Hermann Scheipers: martyrs of truth. A memorial sheet for the youth chaplain of the Meißen diocese who died in the Dachau concentration camp, Dr. Bernhard Wensch. More-Verlag, Berlin 1948, 16 pp.
  • Hermann Scheipers: A tightrope walk - priests under two dictatorships. St. Benno Verlag, Leipzig 1997, 202 pages, ISBN 3-7462-1221-9 .
  • 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. 194–196.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Kleiner: Name of the path between the parish church of St. Maria Magdalena and the rectory after Dr. Bernhard Wensch. Catholic parish Sankt Maria Magdalena Kamenz / Sa., 2009, accessed on June 18, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Stolperstein reminds of the Catholic priest Bernhard Wensch in Kamenz. Diocese of Dresden-Meißen, October 1, 2008, accessed on June 18, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Unknown perpetrators steal the memorial plate of the Nazi victim Kaplan Wensch. Diocese of Dresden-Meißen, October 14, 2008, accessed on June 18, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Over 2,000 people attend the urn procession in Dresden: Ashes from Alojs Andritzki, Aloys Scholze and Bernhard Wensch are ceremoniously transferred to the cathedral. Diocese of Dresden-Meißen, February 5, 2011, accessed on June 18, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Wensch, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German priest of the Catholic Church
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin-Wilmersdorf
DATE OF DEATH August 15, 1942
Place of death Dachau