Christoph Hackethal
Christoph Bernhard Wilhelm Hackethal (born March 28, 1899 in Hanover ; † August 25, 1942 in Dachau concentration camp ) was a Roman Catholic pastor in the diocese of Hildesheim . During the time of National Socialism he developed into an opponent of the Nazi regime, was arrested and abused during the Second World War for helping foreign workers and died after a year and a half imprisonment in the Dachau concentration camp .
Life
Christoph's father, Carl Hackethal (born January 30, 1857 in Reinholterode ) was a commercial employee and later authorized signatory of the printing and accounting book factory König & Ebhardt GmbH & Co. KG in Hanover. In 1893 he married Paula Kleiboldt (* 1869 in Dinklage ) in Vechta .
Christoph grew up with his siblings in the parish of St. Marien in the northern part of Hanover (residence from 1898: Herschelstrasse 13; from 1907: Im Moore 36 ). From 1906 he attended the community school.
After graduating from the Goethe Gymnasium in 1918, he began studying theology at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster in April . There he became an active member of the Catholic student association KStV Germania in KV . In 1923 he was in Hildesheim for priests ordained. After years of chaplaincy in Bremen-Hemelingen and at St. Elisabeth in Hanover, he became rector at the St. Bernward hospital in Hildesheim and cathedral preacher at the Mariendom . In 1934 he was given the parish of St. Gregory VII in Bündheim , which included what is now the area of the city of Bad Harzburg .
As a pastor, he made no secret of his distance from National Socialism. When the French and Poles came to his parish as forced laborers at the beginning of the war , he saw himself as their pastor as well as the local people. This included the relief of material hardship and joint worship services - both of which are strictly prohibited. Defeatist remarks about the outcome of the war ultimately gave rise to action against him.
On April 18, 1941, Hackethal was arrested by the Gestapo for “behavior that was detrimental to the state and defeatist statements” and taken to Labor Camp 21 in Hallendorf , where he was humiliated and tortured by a guard who was his brother's subordinate during the First World War. After he refused to participate in the hanging of Polish workers, he was transported to Dachau concentration camp in the summer of 1941. In barely a year and a half in prison, he was mentally humiliated and physically ruined until he died in August 1942. Some moving testimonies from fellow inmates have been preserved from this period.
The parents received news from the Gestapo that “the prisoner Christoph Hackethal died on August 25, 1942 of pneumonia. The corpse can no longer be viewed; she has already been cremated for sanitary reasons. The urn can be requested if the cemetery administration provides a suitable place. "
His parents asked for the urn with his ashes to be released, which was buried on September 23, 1942 in the New St. Nikolai Cemetery in Hanover.
The clergyman was included in the German Martyrology of the 20th Century , published in 1999 , as a martyr from the time of National Socialism .
Honors
Christoph-Hackethal-Strasse was named after Christoph Hackethal on December 11, 1961 in the Hildesheim settlement Godehardikamp , in today 's Moritzberg district .
literature
- Hartmut Felsberg: Hackethal, Christoph Bernhard Wilhelm. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 31, Bautz, Nordhausen 2010, ISBN 978-3-88309-544-8 , Sp. 581-590.
- Siegfried Koß, Wolfgang Löhr (Hrsg.): Biographical Lexicon of KV. 3rd part (= Revocatio historiae. Volume 4). SH-Verlag, Schernfeld 1994, ISBN 3-89498-014-1 .
- Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Günter Scheel (editor): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon. 19th and 20th centuries. On behalf of the Braunschweigische Landschaft eV , Hanover 1996
- Thomas Scharf-Wrede: Pastor Christoph Hackethal. In: Helmut Moll (ed.): Witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century. Volume I. 7th, revised and updated edition, Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , pp. 335–337.
- Klaus Mlynek : Hackethal, (1) Christoph Bernhard Wilhelm , in Dirk Böttcher , Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 144.
- Klaus Mlynek: Hackethal, (1) Christoph Bernhard Wilhelm. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 246.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Edmund Deppe: Three priests who died for their faith. In: KirchenZeitung , issue 33/2019 of August 18, 2019, p. 9.
- ↑ Klaus Mlynek: Hackethal ... (see literature)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hackethal, Christoph |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Hackethal, Christoph Bernhard Wilhelm (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German Catholic pastor and opponent of the National Socialist regime |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 28, 1899 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hanover |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 25, 1942 |
| Place of death | Dachau concentration camp |