Johannes Paul Aeltermann

Johannes Paul Aeltermann (born June 26, 1876 in Danzig , † November 22, 1939 in Neu Fietz (Polish Nowy Wiec ) near Schöneck ( Skarszewy )) was a Catholic priest who was murdered by the SS in 1939 .

Life

Aeltermann was born in Gdansk in 1876. He studied at the seminary in Pelplin and was ordained a priest there on March 13, 1904. He worked as a vicar in Preussisch Stargard and in Danzig . From 1912 he was pastor of St. Bartholomew's Church in Meisterswalde (Polish Mierzeszyn ) , Danziger Höhe district (1920–1939 area of ​​the Free City of Danzig ). He became known as a staunch opponent of National Socialism . On May 21, 1933, a week before the People's Day election , he issued an eight-page brochure Swastika or Christian Cross? out in which he warned against National Socialism and pointed out its incompatibility with Christianity . He was later harassed for this and arrested by the police in 1935 .

After the outbreak of war and the incorporation of the Free City of Danzig into the German Reich, Aeltermann was arrested by an SS task force and taken to Neu Fietz together with about 60 Poles , including two other priests, where on November 22nd they were all murdered in one Mass graves were buried.

The grave in Neu Fietz was exhumed immediately after the war ended in 1945 . Aeltermann's body, identified on the basis of a medicine bottle, was solemnly buried on May 17, 1945 next to his parish church in Mierzeszyn. On October 13, 2003, the local primary school ( Szkoła Podstawowa ) received its name.

The Catholic Church accepted Dean Johannes Aeltermann as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century .

literature

• Helmut Moll (publisher on behalf of the German Bishops' Conference), witnesses for Christ. The German Martyrology of the 20th Century , 6th, expanded and restructured edition Paderborn u. a. 2015, ISBN 978-3-506-78080-5 , Volume I, pp. 758-760.

Web links

• Genealogy Forum - West Prussia ( Memento from February 7, 2006 in the Internet Archive )