Johann Gruber

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Johann Gruber (born October 20, 1889 in Tegernbach near Grieskirchen , † April 7, 1944 in the Gusen concentration camp ) was a Catholic priest and one of the most prominent figures in the Austrian political resistance against the National Socialists . He is venerated as "Padre Gruber", "Père Gruber" etc., also as "the Saint of Gusen".

Johann Gruber did not give up his determined resistance to the Nazi regime even in the concentration camp and organized a kind of intelligence service in addition to a prisoner aid organization in the concentration camp.

Career

Johann Gruber was the oldest of a family with four children who lost both parents very early. From 1903 the pastor of Grieskirchen Johann Gruber made it possible to study at the Episcopal Seminary Kollegium Petrinum in Linz . In Linz, Johann Gruber entered the seminary after having passed his Matura and was ordained a priest in Linz on July 27, 1913.

After years of work in pastoral care and as a spiritual advisor to the Catholic Workers' Association, Johann Gruber switched to teaching at the Catholic orphanage in Linz in July 1918. Intellectually and pedagogically very talented, enabled him Bishop John M. Gföllner subsequently the teaching degree in history and geography at the University of Vienna , where Johann Gruber in 1923 his doctorate of philosophy. In Vienna he became a member of the Catholic student association KaV Norica in the ÖCV . Back in Linz, Johann Gruber taught at the episcopal teacher training institute, in various schools, but also in front of railway workers and trade unionists. During this time he also wrote textbooks and was finally appointed director of the home for the blind in Linz in November 1934, which he reformed with foresight and a willingness to conflict.

Resistance in the German Empire

This willingness to conflict should also determine Gruber's attitude towards the National Socialists in 1938. Johann Gruber was therefore taken into police custody on May 10, 1938 and subsequently sentenced to two years of heavy imprisonment in the Garsten prison on charges of immoral behavior towards his students in two trials . Since Gruber intervened in custody against his conviction, he was finally taken into protective custody by the Gestapo on April 4, 1940 and first transferred to the Dachau concentration camp , then in August 1940 with countless other priests as inmate "DR Protection No. 43050" Mauthausen transferred to the Gusen concentration camp .

In the Gusen I concentration camp , Gruber was initially employed as a nurse in the prisoners' area and in this role secretly organized medication for the sick. From 1942 he was responsible for the safekeeping and identification of archaeological finds as the “Museum Kapo” of the Gusen I concentration camp, which were found during the construction of a “ towing railway” between the Gusen concentration camp and the St. Georgen an der Gusen train station . During this time, Gruber also organized the care of children and young people in the Gusen I concentration camp. He used his contacts with the outside world to set up a secret aid organization for prisoners in the Gusen concentration camp with money smuggled in and, in return, to let information from the camp leak out . Soon he was therefore called "Papa Gruber" by his comrades in the camp.

It was not until March 1944 that Gruber's network in Gusen I concentration camp was uncovered through the carelessness of a liaison man. Gruber was locked in the camp prison at Jourhaus on April 4, 1944 and tortured for three days until he was finally on April 7, 1944 (Good Friday 1944) Protective custody camp leader Seidler with the words "You should perish, like your master, at the third hour" badly mistreated and brought to death.

Already during the interrogations, Oswald Pohl , the head of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office in Berlin, took the Gruber case in the Gusen concentration camp as an opportunity to call on clergymen to do some paperwork in a secret letter dated March 16, 1944 to all camp commanders Prohibiting concentration camps.

Surviving inmates of the Gusen concentration camp reported the martyrdom of Gruber to the Bishop's Office in Linz on May 5, 1945 after the concentration camp was liberated. In 1987 von Gruber's surviving comrades asked for him to be beatified by Cardinal Secretary of State Agostino Casaroli . In 1994/1995 the Austrian artist Alfred Hrdlicka dedicated a cycle of 14 etchings to Johann Gruber's martyrdom. The political judgments of the Nazi judiciary against Johann Gruber were not overturned until 1998 on application by the Linz Regional Court. On December 20, 2001, Governor Joseph Pühringer , Bishop Maximilian Aichern , Superintendent Hansjörg Eichmeyer and the directors Johann Marckhgott and Wilfried Schlögl unveiled a memorial plaque for Johann Gruber at the Institute for Hearing and Visual Education in Linz . In 2002, Bishop Maximilian Aichern also commissioned an institute project for biographical research on Johann Gruber at the Catholic-Theological University in Linz . In 2006 a memorial plaque was unveiled in the parish church of Grieskirchen. In 2013 the parish home in St. Georgen an der Gusen was named after Johann Gruber as part of the art project "Passage against forgetting" by artist Renate Herter. Johann Gruber achieved full rehabilitation more than 70 years after his death: In a judgment of January 7, 2016, the Regional Court for Criminal Matters in Vienna overturned the Nazi court ruling of 1939, also with regard to an alleged moral offense.

literature

  • Wolfgang J. Bandion : Johann Gruber, Mauthausen-Gusen, April 7, 1944 . WUV University Press, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-85114-206-3 .
  • Christian Bernadac: "L'Organisation Gruber". In: Christian Bernadac: Deportation. (1933-1945) . Vol. 1. France-Empire, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-7048-0706-X , pp. 495-507.
  • Hans Maršálek : The history of the Mauthausen concentration camp . 2nd edition. Österreichische Lagergemeinschaft Mauthausen, Vienna 1980, pp. 269–276.
  • Helmut Wagner: "Dr. Johann Gruber ”. In: Jan Mikrut (Ed.): Martyrs of Faith. Martyrology of the 20th century . Vol. 2 .: Dioceses: Graz-Seckau, Linz . Dom Verlag, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-85351-162-7 , pp. 135-148.
  • Helmut Wagner: Dr. Johann Gruber. Priest - Teacher - Patriot (1889–1944) , Wagnerverlag, Linz 2011, ISBN 978-3-902330-56-7
  • Thomas Schlager-Weidinger (ed.): Dr. Johann Gruber. Christ and Martyrs , Linz 2010, ISBN 978-3-9501682-5-9
  • Platform Johann Gruber (ed.): Think instead of Johann Gruber. New ways of the culture of remembrance , Wagnerverlag, Linz 2014, ISBN 978-3-902330-93-2

Artistic processing

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ nachrichten.at of May 17, 2017: He was the Christ in Hell ; accessed on May 17, 2017
  2. ↑ nachrichten.at of June 26, 2017: How a critical pastor went through the Nazi hell ; Retrieved June 26, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Gruber, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Catholic priest and Nazi victim
DATE OF BIRTH October 20, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Grieskirchen
DATE OF DEATH April 7, 1944
Place of death Gusen concentration camp