Johannes Maria Lenz

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Handwritten book dedication by Father Johannes Maria Lenz

Johannes Maria Lenz , baptized Johannes Nepomuk (born April 7, 1902 in Graz , † July 16, 1985 in Villach ) was a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Vienna , Jesuit , author, publicist and persecuted by the Nazi regime from Austria . As a long-time prisoner in the Dachau , Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camps , he wrote at the suggestion of Pope Pius XII. a documentary book about his camp experiences.

Live and act

Johannes Maria Lenz came from Graz in Styria and entered the Jesuit order on September 7, 1923 , where he was ordained a priest on July 26, 1935 .

Because of his open opposition to National Socialism , Father Lenz was arrested in December 1938 and held in the police prison or in the custody of the District Court I. in Vienna . Released on May 6, 1940 after an acquittal before this court, the Gestapo arrested him again on the 18th of the month and delivered him to the Dachau concentration camp on August 9, 1940, where he stayed in the Mauthausen and Gusen I concentration camps was in the pastors' block until the liberation on April 29, 1945 . He was severely ill-treated and tortured there , but survived the camp detention relatively well.

After the liberation he stayed as a pastor in Dachau for some time until the last prisoners left. About the Munich auxiliary bishop Johannes Neuhäusler let him Pope Pius XII. 1945 the request to document his experiences in book form. On May 24, 1950, Lenz resigned from the Jesuit order and in 1951 joined the Kalasantine community , which he also left in 1954 to become a secular priest . He was incardinated in the Archdiocese of Vienna , but kept the title Father .

In addition to his priestly functions, he now mainly devoted himself to completing his experience report about the time in the concentration camps. He had started to write it down as early as 1945, but printing lasted until 1956, when the book was first published under the name "Christ in Dachau" . By 1974 the German edition had 10 editions with almost 50,000 copies; the work was also published in English, Polish and Slovenian. Father Lenz traveled a lot to the presentation of his book and to lectures on concentration camp imprisonment, including as far as the USA . The time in the concentration camp had radically changed his priestly life and was to shape it to the end; his book is regarded as a standard work on the topic across all denominations and parties.

In the 1970s, Johannes Maria Lenz came into opposition to the leadership of the Archdiocese of Vienna, because he spoke out against the innovations of the liturgical reform and advocated the celebration of the Tridentine Mass ( which is now permitted again ) . From spring 1979 he lived in Villach, where he died in 1985. His former fellow prisoner, Pastor Eugen Weiler (1900–1992), a priest from the Archdiocese of Freiburg , devoted a detailed biography to him in 1986.

literature

  • Johannes Maria Lenz: Christ in Dachau , 10 editions (1956–1974), self-published, Vienna.
  • Hans-Karl Seeger, Gabriele Latzel: Karl Leisner : ordination and primacy in the Dachau concentration camp , LIT Verlag, Münster, 2004; ISBN 3-8258-7277-7 ; Page 195; Scan from the source .
  • Eugen Weiler: Father Johannes Maria Lenz (biography), 1986.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Website of the German Communist Party of Hesse, about Minister Oskar Müller (1896–1970), with a positive reference to the book Christ in Dachau ( Memento from February 19, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Hans-Karl Seeger, Gabriele Latzel: Karl Leisner: Ordination and Primacy in the Dachau Concentration Camp , LIT Verlag, Münster, 2004; ISBN 3-8258-7277-7 ; Page 216; Scan from the source to Pastor Eugen Weiler
personal data
SURNAME Lenz, Johannes Maria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lenz, Johann Nepomuk
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian, Catholic priest, religious, persecuted by the Nazi regime, concentration camp prisoner, author
DATE OF BIRTH April 7, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Graz
DATE OF DEATH July 16, 1985
Place of death Villach