Johann Maier (cathedral preacher)

Memorial plaque for Johann Maier in Regensburg Cathedral

Johann Baptist Maier (born June 23, 1906 in Berghofen, today in Aham , Lower Bavaria , † April 24, 1945 in Regensburg ) was a Catholic priest and cathedral preacher in Regensburg Cathedral from 1939 until his execution .

Life

Johann Maier was born on June 23, 1906 in Berghofen as the fourth child of farmers. He attended elementary school in Marklkofen and then in 1918 switched to the high school of the Benedictine Abbey in Metten , which he successfully completed in 1927.

Study of theology

He then went on to study theology at the Philosophical-Theological University of Regensburg . On the recommendation of the then Vicar General Johann Baptist Höcht , he left Regensburg a year later and then attended the seminary at the Germanicum in Rome . Maier was ordained a priest there on October 27, 1933 and in July of the following year he completed his studies with a doctorate in theology.

time of the nationalsocialism

He spent the years 1934 to 1938 as a priest in Munich, Fichtelberg and Weiden. On April 1, 1938, he became a spiritual director at the Dominican nunnery in Strahlfeld , which he left after just one semester for Regensburg to take on the role of a repeater at the Philosophical-Theological College there. The following year, in May 1939, Johann Maier was appointed cathedral preacher. Like all church universities in Bavaria, the university was closed by order at the beginning of the war. Maier was considered a silent but consistent opponent of the National Socialist regime, his sermons were monitored by the Secret State Police .

Maier's work in the final phase of the "Third Reich"

On April 22, 1945, the Gauleiter of the Bavarian East Markets, Ludwig Ruckdeschel , demanded the defense of the city to the utmost in Regensburg. But already the next day crossed US - armored units the Danube at Dillingen and the German troops retreated across the board.

On the same day, April 23rd , an excited crowd of about a thousand gathered on Moltkeplatz, today's Dachauplatz , to demonstrate for the surrender of the city without a fight. The cathedral preacher Johann Maier took the floor to calm the crowd. He wanted to ask the demonstration participants to only ask for a surrender of the city without a fight and not to make any demands on the NSDAP district leader. Before he finished his speech, he was arrested by plain clothes police. Other participants in the demonstration were also arrested.

The present Ruckdeschel demanded the immediate hanging in the face of the crowd, but was then persuaded to a stand trial. Maier was the same evening by a court martial for military morale to death by the strand convicted. The regional court director of Regensburg, Johann Schwarz, was chairman of the court, Alois Then acted as public prosecutor and SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hennicke was present as a trial observer for the Gauleiter . The deputy managing director of the Regensburger Milchwerke and chairman of the party court of the NSDAP, Hans Gebert, and the gendarmerie major Richard Pointner acted as assessors of the court court. The Regensburg Bishop Michael Buchberger refrained from any support of the defendant Maier, kept silent out of fear and hid in a cellar.

On the morning of April 24, 1945 at 3:25 a.m. Maier was hanged on Moltkeplatz together with the 64-year-old Regensburg citizen Josef Zirkl ; around his neck he wore a cardboard sign that read "I am a saboteur ". Michael Lottner, who was killed during the demonstration the day before, was laid with the two hanged men.

Memorial plaque for Maier on his house

Maier and the end of the war in Regensburg

On the day of April 26th, the Wehrmacht units and combat commander Hans Hüsson left the city of Regensburg and headed southeast. Major Othmar Matzke , the highest-ranking officer who remained in the city against the order of the day, then sent retired Major General in the morning of April 27 in consultation with Lord Mayor Otto Schottenheim . D. Leythäuser as a member of parliament to the US troops. This offered an unconditional surrender and then Regensburg was handed over to the 3rd US Army without a fight . After the purely militarily motivated troop withdrawal and the unconditional surrender, the city remained largely undestroyed. The commitment of Johann Maier and the above. Demonstration played no role here.

See also: End stage crime .

Appreciation

• Maier's grave is in the bishop 's burial place in the cathedral. A plaque commemorates him in the cathedral . A statue on the rooftop commemorates him and Josef Zirkl and Michael Lottner.
• The Catholic Church has the cathedral preacher Dr. Johann Baptist Maier, the warehouse worker Josef Zirkl and the gendarmerie chief sergeant i. R. Michael Lottner was accepted into the German martyrology of the 20th century as a witness of faith .

literature

• Karl Hausberger : To die so that others can live. The Regensburg cathedral preacher Dr. Johann Maier (1906–1945) . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2005, ISBN 3-7954-1758-9
• Helmut Moll (publisher on behalf of the German Bishops' Conference), witnesses for Christ. Das deutsche Martyrologium des 20. Jahrhundert , Paderborn et al. 1999, 7th revised and updated edition 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , Volume I, pp. 636–640.
• Anton M. Kormann: Cathedral preacher Dr. Johann Maier. Memories of a martyr . 1995, ISBN 3-980-40162-6
• Christian Feldmann: The cathedral preacher. Dr. Johann Maier - a life in the resistance . Mittelbayerische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Regensburg 1995, ISBN 3-927529-72-9
• Werner Chrobak, Paul Mai , Barbara Möckershoff: 50 years later. Cathedral preacher Dr. Johann Maier and his time . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995, ISBN 3-7954-1083-5
• Helmut Halter: City under the swastika. Local politics in Regensburg during the Nazi era , Universitätsverlag Regensburg, 1994, ISBN 3-9803470-6-0
• Ekkart Sauser:  Maier, Johann. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 14, Bautz, Herzberg 1998, ISBN 3-88309-073-5 , Sp. 1223-1224.
• Martin Deubzer: The judicial murder of cathedral preacher Dr. Maier. In: Konrad Hofmann (Ed.): Schlaglichter. Evidence and pictures from the fight against the church. (= Christian Germany 1933 to 1945. Catholic series. Issue 8. ) Herder publishing house, Freiburg im Breisgau 1947.
• LG Amberg, October 4, 1949 . In: Justice and Nazi crimes . Collection of German criminal judgments for Nazi homicidal crimes 1945–1966, Vol. V, edited by Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann, CF Rüter . Amsterdam: University Press, 1970, No. 171, pp. 395-401 Death sentences by a court martial against 2 Regensburg citizens who had demonstrated for the surrender of the city without a fight.

Web links

Commons : Johann Maier (priest)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Johann Baptist Maier in the catalog of the German National Library
• Short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ludwig Weikl: Cathedral preacher Dr. Johann Maier 1906–1945 , in: Georg Schwaiger and Paul Mai (eds.): The Diocese of Regensburg in the Third Reich , Verlag des Verein für Regensburg Diocesan History 1981, p. 441.
2. ^ Christian Feldmann: The cathedral preacher. Dr. Johann Maier - a life in the resistance . 1995, p. 148.
3. ↑ Albrecht Bald: “The border shimmers brown and the Mark stands true!” The NS-Gau Bayerische Ostmark / Bayreuth 1933–1945. Grenzgau, Grenzlandideologie and economic problem region , Bayreuth 2014 (= Bayreuth Reconstructions, Vol. 2), p. 140
4. ↑ Christian Feldmann: Der Domprediger , 1995, pp. 172-173.
5. ^ LG Regensburg, July 3, 1948 . In: Justice and Nazi crimes . Collection of German convictions for Nazi homicides 1945–1966, Vol. II, OCLC 271065833 , edited by Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann, CF Rüter . Amsterdam: University Press, 1969, no. 72, pp. 767–784 Execution of a retired gendarmerie guard after he was arrested at the rally to surrender Regensburg without a fight
6. ↑ Jürgen Mulert: American sources on the history of the surrender of Regensburg in April 1945 , in: Negotiations of the Historical Association Regensburg and the Upper Palatinate (VHVO) Volume 127, 1987, p. 274.
7. ↑ Helmut Halter: Stadt unterm Hakenkreuz , 1994, p. 549.
8. ↑ Joachim Brückner: End of War in Bavaria 1945 , Verlag Rombach Freiburg, 1987, p. 154.
9. ↑ Werner Johann Chrobak: Cathedral preacher Dr. Johann Maier - a blood witness for Regensburg , in: Negotiations of the Historical Association of Regensburg and the Upper Palatinate (VHVO) 125, 1985, p. 483; available online (last accessed May 2012).