Franz Stappers

Franz Stappers (born November 2, 1884 in Issum , † March 25, 1945 in Lüttringhausen ) was a German Catholic clergyman who perished in Lüttringhausen penitentiary during the Nazi era .

Origin and education

Franz Stappers was born as the son of Franz Stappers and his wife Sybilla. Schwewels was born and after the Issumer elementary school in Emmerich , where he lived in the Hoppe'schen Knabenkonvikt , he attended the Royal Catholic High School. After graduating from high school, he entered the Collegium Borromaeum in Münster and studied philosophy and Catholic theology at the Royal University there . After graduating Stappers moving to the seminary and was on June 5, 1909 along with 42 other young men in the Great Cathedral of Bishop Hermann Jakob Dingelstad for priests ordained . The future Bishop Heinrich Wienken also belonged to his consecration course .

Act

After being ordained a priest, Stappers initially worked as a chaplain at the parish church of St. Antonius in Hau , until shortly after the death of Bishop Dingelstad on April 11, 1911, he became a chaplain to St. Urbanus in Winnekendonk and on July 14, 1920 he became a bishop Johannes Poggenburg was appointed chaplain to St. Willibrord in Kellen . Finally, on April 13, 1929, Bishop Poggenburg appointed him chaplain on St. Mary's Assumption in Bracht . When on August 13, 1930 Pope Pius XI. established the diocese of Aachen with the Bull Pastoralis officii nostri , Bracht was also spun off from the diocese of Münster and assigned to the new diocese of Aachen with the clergy who worked there. On 30 January 1934 it his new bishop appointed Joseph Vogt , succeeding Anton Heinen the pastor of St. Assumption in Rickelrath .

Persecution by National Socialism

As part of the morality lawsuits against members of the order and priests , the Gestapo started investigations against Stappers in 1936 in order to be able to prove that he was homosexual . Although the authorities were unable to produce any evidence, the case was not closed until the fall of 1942. Initially, the allegation of minor bodily harm to a former acolyte remained , which, however, also turned out to be incorrect, which is why these investigations were also discontinued in November 1942.

Arrest and death

A total of eleven Aachen diocesan priests were arrested in 1941 for listening to foreign broadcasters, a so-called radio crime, including Franz Stappers, who was arrested on October 2, 1941. On March 23, 1942, the Düsseldorf Special Court sentenced him to six months in prison, which he served in Düsseldorf.

Immediately before Stappers' planned release on April 2, 1942, the Aachen Gestapo, after consulting the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin, intervened by telegram with the Düsseldorf authorities and thus prevented his release. The Aachen Gestapo had applied for protective custody and transfer to a concentration camp for him in Berlin . Then a new hearing took place on 1 June 1942, this time in front of the Supreme Court in Leipzig , in the Stappers now to five years in prison was sentenced, he had to atone in Luettringhausen. There he was in solitary confinement for almost two and a half years until he was transferred to another priest in September 1944.

On March 17, 1945, Stappers fell ill with an intestinal infection, was transferred to a solitary cell on March 23, without adequate treatment, and was found dead on the morning of March 26.

Franz Stappers was buried on March 30th, Good Friday of 1945, in the Catholic cemetery in Lennep .

Honors

The Catholic Church accepted Franz Stappers as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century .

In Winnekendonk, at the Heiligenweg / Niersstrasse intersection, a stele has been reminding witnesses of faith on the Lower Rhine , including Franz Stappers, since 2010 .

literature

• Socialist youth in Germany - Die Falken , Landesverband Nordrhein-Westfalen, Kreisverband Heinsberg / Düren (Ed.): Resistance and persecution in the Heinsberg district in pictures and documents , Heinsberg 1981, p. 20.
• Klaus Fettweis: Between Lord and Glory. On the mentality question in the Third Reich using examples from the Rhine Province (publications of the Episcopal Diocesan Archives Aachen, vol. 42), Aachen 1989, p. 153.
• Ulrich von Hehl (Ed.): Priest under Hitler's terror. A biographical and statistical survey. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn, 4th edition 1998, ISBN 3-506-79839-1 , Vol. I, p. 308.
• Herbert Arens: Pastor Franz Stappers . In: Helmut Moll (ed. On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference): Witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century . Paderborn 1999, 7th revised and updated edition 2019, ISBN 3-506-78012-3 , Vol. I, pp. 24-27.