Franz Virnich

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Franz Gabriel Virnich (born March 28, 1882 in Bonn ; † April 5, 1943 in the Brandenburg-Görden prison ) was a German landowner, lawyer , Catholic and victim of Nazi persecution.

Life

Virnich was born as the son of a member of the Center in a Catholic family in Bonn on the Rhine; his uncles were Jesuits , his sister Maria Rafaele Augustinian in the Couvent des Dames de Berlaymont . He was brought up in the well-known Stella Matutina , a Jesuit boarding school in Feldkirch, Austria . He did his Abitur in Saarlouis . He then studied law in Munich and Bonn . In Munich he became a member of the Catholic student association KDStV Rheno-Franconia Munich in 1909 in the CV . He also became a member of the KDStV Staufia Bonn (1911), the AV Austria Innsbruck (1914) and the KDStV Ascania Bonn (1920). Franz Virnich co-founded the KDSt.V. in 1927 . Borusso-Westfalia zu Bonn in the CV and committed liaison student with other Catholic student associations.

He found his first job as a trainee lawyer at the Dülken District Court and later at the Mönchengladbach District Court . He made no secret of his aversion to National Socialism . The Nazis were particularly interested in a parody of the famous Horst Wessel song that Virnich owned.

After his house was searched by the secret police, Virnich, who had learned that they intended to arrest him because of his connections to Viennese circles, fled to the Netherlands in July 1934. There he found refuge in the Jesuit college in Valkenburg . There he met the lawyer and politician Edmund Forschbach , who had fled Germany in July 1934 and who had fled the Reichstag, to which he had belonged as a guest of the NSDAP faction since autumn 1933, due to his involvement in conservative efforts to overthrow the Nazi state. Despite their different ideological backgrounds, both men subsequently found each other in their Nazi opposition and in the following weeks developed a lively activity directed against the Hitler regime: For example, at Virnich's insistence, Forschbach wrote an experience report that they sent to Rome and Vienna. Virnich and Forschbach also wrote an essay together that appeared in the Vienna Reichspost at the beginning of 1934 . In order not to endanger the Jesuits through their activities - the impression that the Jesuits made their college available to emigrants as headquarters for anti-Nazi activities could have led to retaliatory measures against the houses of the order in Germany - both settled in the house of one in August Community officials in Hulsberg over.

Haan-Lyversberg-Virnich family grave at the Melaten cemetery in Cologne (HWG)

While Forschbach returned to Germany in September 1934, Virnich took on a teaching position at Wynandsrade Castle for the Franciscan Minorites. In 1940, however, he was discovered by the Gestapo , arrested and first taken to the Gestapo prison in Bonn and later to Berlin-Moabit.

In the judgment of the People's Court in Berlin in 1942, it can be read that he was a victim of Nazi persecution, not least because of his activities as a Catholic fraternity student, and was sentenced to ten years in prison for “treason”.

On April 5, 1943, Franz Virnich suffered death in the Brandenburg-Görden prison, which was run like a concentration camp , as a result of "creeping execution". His grave is in the family grave at the Melaten cemetery in Cologne (HWG).

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

literature

  • Helmut Moll (Ed. 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. 421-424.
  • Franz Hubert Schorn: Franz Virnich 1882 - 1943. Victim of the Nazi judiciary. Bernardus, Langwaden 1998, ISBN 3-910082-59-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fritz Aldefeld (ed.): Total directory of RKDB Neuss 1,931th
  2. ^ Edmund Forschbach: Edgar J. Jung: A conservative revolutionary June 30, 1934 , 1984, p. 131ff.
personal data
SURNAME Virnich, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Virnich, Franz Gabriel (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German landowner, lawyer and Nazi victim
DATE OF BIRTH March 28, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Bonn
DATE OF DEATH April 5, 1943
Place of death Brandenburg-Görden prison