Ernst Volkmann (conscientious objector)

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Ernst Volkmann (on the information board at the "Ernst-Volkmann-Stiege" in Bregenz)
Reference to the Ernst-Volkmann-Stiege at the parish church Bregenz-St. Gallus
Memorial plaque for Ernst Volkmann at the parish church of St. Gallus in Bregenz (Photo: July 2010)

Ernst Volkmann (born March 3, 1902 in Schönbach , Bohemia ; † August 9, 1941 in Brandenburg an der Havel ) was an Austrian conscientious objector in World War II .

Life

Volkmann came to Bregenz for the first time in 1924 and finally settled there as a guitar maker in 1927. He married and lived with his family in the house next to the parish church of Bregenz-St. Gallus , where he performed sacristan services.

On several occasions Volkmann failed to comply with the request to register the military in the military registration office, so that a report was made in the spring of 1940. Although Volkmann was determined to be responsible in a medical examination, the judge in charge had the subsequent proceedings discontinued.

When Ernst Volkmann was drafted into the Wehrmacht in Lienz in February 1941 , he let the company commander there know that “after all that he had done to the Church and Austria, he could not swear allegiance to a man like Hitler”. Another psychiatric report was drawn up and Volkmann's sanity was again determined. The case went to the Salzburg divisional court and, as Volkmann persisted, to the Reich Court Martial in Berlin .

At the main hearing there on July 7, 1941, Volkmann was threatened and humiliated, but he again demonstrated his strength of character and declared that taking the oath of the flag was a violation of his moral freedom.

Ernst Volkmann was executed in Brandenburg prison on August 9, 1941 ; his wife's petition for clemency was refused. On the same day, two other conscientious objectors were beheaded for religious reasons, Jehovah's Witness Alois Schübl from Vienna and Leander Zrenner from Munich as a member of the Reform Adventists .

Appreciation

After the war, Volkmann was listed on the local war memorial as a “fallen man” in 1941, which shamefully veils his fate. (See text on the pictured brass plaque from 2007.)

In 1983 Meinrad Pichler published the first appreciative article about Ernst Volkmann. On October 26, 2003, Volkmann was commemorated in a service broadcast by ZDF from Bregenz. In December 2004 he was mentioned in connection with Franz Jägerstätter , who was murdered exactly two years after him in the same prison. On November 10, 2005, Ernst Volkmann was honored in a special ceremony in the Bregenz Lake Chapel as part of the Carl Lampert Recall events. On September 23, 2007, the Christian parishes and the city of Bregenz erected a memorial plaque on the outer wall of the parish church of St. Gallus. This was replaced on November 14, 2010 by a memorial stele. There is also an Ernst-Volkmann-Stiege, which leads from the parish church St. Gallus down the slope to the Thalbachkloster.

In 1999 the Catholic Church accepted Ernst Volkmann as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century .

literature

  • Susanne Emmerich, Walter Buder (ed.): Mahnwache. Ernst Volkmann (1902–1941). Feldkirch 2005, ISBN 3-902221-05-4 . ( PDF file; 2.04 MB )
  • Helmut Moll (publisher on behalf of the German Bishops' Conference), witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century. Paderborn et al. 1999, 7th revised and updated edition 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , Volume I, pp. 868-871.
  • Meinrad Pichler: Resistance and Resistance in the Wehrmacht. In: Von Herren und Menschen, Persecution and Resistance in Vorarlberg 1933–1945. Bregenz 1983, pp. 143-152. ( PDF download option )
  • Meinrad Pichler: Not for Hitler. The Catholic conscientious objector Ernst Volkmann (1902-1941). In: Susanne Emmerich, Walter Buder (Ed.): Mahnwache. Ernst Volkmann (1902–1941). Feldkirch 2005, ISBN 3-902221-05-4 , pp. 6-10. ( PDF file; 2.04 MB )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ News from a "wonderful country", the 'GFM-Rommel' country on longberger-musikschule.de
  2. ↑ Michael Striebel: Eyewitness - A play by Joshua Sobol . Online ( Memento from February 13, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Jutta Berger: Bregenz: Monument for the Resistance , derstandard.at, November 24, 2014, accessed November 15, 2015. - Image of the blue stele.

Web links

Commons : Ernst Volkmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Volkmann, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian conscientious objector in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Luby
DATE OF DEATH August 9, 1941
Place of death Brandenburg on the Havel