Franz Dabeck

Franz Dabeck SVD (* July 6, 1900 in Nottuln , North Rhine-Westphalia ; † December 12, 1984 ) was a Catholic priest and a member of the Society of the Divine Word , who, in addition to his duties as an educator, teacher and pastor in the He devoted himself intensively to arithmology and the Hellenistic word number mysticism during his biblical exegesis .

Because of his resolute opposition to National Socialism , he was persecuted by the Nazi regime and held as a protective prisoner in the pastors' block of the Dachau concentration camp from 1942 to 1945 . During his imprisonment in the camp, he suffered lifelong mental and physical suffering.

Origin, school and studies

Franz Dabeck was the son of a forester in the Münsterland . After attending elementary school , he switched to the boarding school of the Steyler missionaries in Steyl in the Netherlands , where he attended the Order's German school abroad , the St. Michael Gymnasium. In Steyl he also entered the order. This was followed by studies of theology and philosophy with a customary special emphasis on ethnological and religious-historical training.

Priests, teachers and educators

On September 30, 1928, Franz Dabeck was ordained a priest in the St. Rupert Mission House near Bischofshofen / Salzburger Land. From 1926 Franz Dabeck was initially employed as a teacher and educator in the school or boarding school of the St. Rupert Mission House. Subsequently, the order gave him corresponding tasks in the mission house St. Severin founded in 1931 in Fürstenfeld / Eastern Styria and in the mission house St. Imre Kőszeg / Hungary .

Arrest by the Gestapo and stay in a concentration camp

According to Franz Dabeck's own account, an argument with an avowed National Socialist led to his arrest and internment by the Gestapo. During his home leave, this relative of his family hoisted a swastika flag at the priest's parents' house on the occasion of Adolf Hitler's birthday . Since Franz Dabeck did not want to tolerate the display of "this symbol of unbelief" in his parents' house and the wife denied him, who was "only a guest in the house", the right to make a decision, a heated argument ensued between them. The woman's complaint finally led to Franz Dabeck being summoned by the Gestapo in Münster on May 26, 1942 , where he was immediately taken into 'protective custody'. During the imprisonment in Münster prison, the Gestapo man Dehm tried to convince Franz Dabeck to work with the NSDAP . When this did not lead to success, the father was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp on September 25, 1942.

When Franz Dabeck arrived at the Dachau concentration camp, his hat was knocked off by an SS man. Subsequently, he was exposed to the humiliating, arbitrary admission and equipping procedures as a concentration camp prisoner, which are usual for newcomers. His accommodation was in the pastor's block. He was initially assigned to the ' Plantage Work Command', which mainly included priests. The heavy field work in the most difficult working and weather conditions led to the completely inadequate nutrition very quickly to his physical exhaustion, whereby the food parcels allowed by his family from October 1942 and his transfer to a lighter work detachment saved him from complete collapse.

In January 1943, a quarantine was imposed in the Dachau concentration camp because of the ongoing typhus epidemic , so that the prisoners did not have to go to work outside their respective blocks during this time. Father Dabeck used this time for lectures on the secrets of numerical mysticism, which he gave to his fellow clergymen in the chapel of the pastor's block.

During his imprisonment in the camp, Father Dabeck was assigned to work in various work details, including the SS salary office, which was centrally managed from the Dachau concentration camp . In early 1945 he contracted a severe kidney infection , which got progressively worse due to inadequate treatment. At the time of greatest mortal danger, he was released from the Dachau concentration camp on March 27, 1945 with a number of other prisoners of priests.

After imprisonment and liberation from the National Socialist dictatorship

On the day of his release from Dachau concentration camp, Father Dabeck was brought to the hospital in Schwabing for treatment , where 13 liters of water had to be taken from him. After his return home, Father Dabeck was again given pastoral care by his order. In 1951, because of the consequences of his imprisonment in the concentration camp, he had to retreat to the St. Augustin Mission House, where from then on he only devoted himself to Bible exegesis and his personal research focus, arithmology and Hellenistic word number mysticism.

Publications

• Reorientation in the interpretation of the Word of God . In: Verbum SVD , published by the Institutum Missiologicum Societatis Verbi Divini, ISSN  0042-3696 , vol. 28 (1987), issue 4, p. 393ff.

literature

• Christian Frieling: Father Franz Dabeck SVD . In: Priests from the Münster diocese in the concentration camp . Aschendorff, Münster 1992, ISBN 3-402-05427-2 , pp. 83-84.
• Heinrich Holtmann, Klaus-Dieter Holtmann: A patient sufferer - Father Franz Dabeck, SVD . (= Sources and contributions to the history of Nottuln , Vol. 3), Nottuln 2000, ISSN  0944-3339 .