Josef Zilliken
Josef Kaspar Zilliken (born September 17, 1872 in Mayen ; † October 3, 1942 in Dachau ) was a German Roman Catholic priest of the Diocese of Trier , persecuted by the Nazi regime , prisoner in the Buchenwald , Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps and a victim of the Nazi regime -Arbitrariness.
Life
Josef Zilliken came as the son of the watchmaker Friedrich Zilliken and his wife Margaretha nee. Klee, born in Mayen. In his hometown he attended the Progymnasium from 1884 to 1888, the Gymnasium in Prüm from 1888 to 1891 and finally the Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium in Koblenz , where he passed his school-leaving examination in 1894. Zilliken then studied philosophy and Catholic theology at the Episcopal Seminary in Trier .
On 26 March 1898 he received from Bishop Michael Felix Korum the priesthood . He worked as a chaplain in Sulzbach / Saar , from 1901 as pastor of Wolfersweiler and from 1905 to 1922 in the same function in Thalexweiler . At the beginning of 1922 he was promoted to pastor of Prüm and soon afterwards to dean .
The priest, who was very attached to his home country and loyal to the church, was actively involved against the separatist movement , which wanted to separate the left Rhineland from Germany. He turned just as strictly against the emergence of National Socialism . As early as 1932 complained to the resident as a dentist in Prum, later NSDAP - district leader , since this publicly turned over Josef Zilliken against Hitler and his movement. Soon he received a complaint for refusing to give the German greeting ; a three-month prison sentence for allegedly insulting the Nazi chief ideologist Alfred Rosenberg in the New Year's Eve sermon in 1934 was suspended. In order not to let the parish become a target of the local Nazi functionaries, he asked Bishop Franz Rudolf Bornewasser to be transferred. On December 17, 1937, Josef Zilliken took over the small parish of Wassenach , near Lake Laacher . There, too, the priest continued to speak out fearlessly against National Socialism, which led to Gestapo interrogations and various penal orders.
On the afternoon of May 27, 1940, Pastor Josef Zilliken and his politically like-minded confrere Johannes Schulz from Nickenich were sitting on the terrace of the Waldfrieden inn near Maria Laach when Hermann Göring and his entourage suddenly appeared there as a guest. While the others present got up immediately and greeted the marshal with the Hitler salute, the two priests took no notice of what was going on and ignored Goering.
Both pastors were arrested that same evening. In June and July 1940 they were incarcerated in Buchenwald concentration camp, and from August to December of that year in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. At the end of 1940 she was transferred to the pastors' block of the Dachau concentration camp. As a special chicanery, the two clergymen had to march past a uniform cap ( Gessler hat ) that was supposed to symbolize Göring with their arms raised in the Hitler salute . They also had to write on a slate countless times: "Every German is obliged to greet the Reichsmarschall ."
From the spring of 1942, the almost 70-year-old Zilliken had to do forced labor until he was completely exhausted. Appeals for clemency from Trier Vicar General Heinrich von Meurers regarding the elderly priest were unsuccessful. When Josef Zilliken was physically exhausted, he reported to the Dachau infirmary. In the notion that he would not return from there, he had the sacraments given to him beforehand in the camp chapel and asked to greet his parishioners again and to exhort them on his behalf to always be loyal to the Catholic Church and to remain faithful to stay.
Death and remembrance
Zilliken died on October 3, 1942, the official cause of death was "cardiovascular failure in connection with pulmonary tuberculosis". His body was cremated.
Ten days after his death, a requiem for the priest was celebrated in the parish church of Wassenach, in the presence of 60 clergymen and with great sympathy from the population . His urn was buried in November of that year in the community cemetery. After the end of the Nazi regime, the remains were relocated in the middle of the local priest burial ground and a street in Wassenach was named after him.
The Catholic Church included dean Josef Zilliken as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century .
For a long time there were doubts as to whether the arrest of the two pastors actually went back to Göring himself, or whether the incident in the garden bar was just a welcome hook for overzealous local politicians to get rid of the two disagreeable clergy. In an NKVD intelligence protocol, which has only recently been available , interrogation statements by Hitler's personal adjutant Otto Günsch and his valet Heinz Linge were recorded. There is - as a historical marginal note - a passage about a meeting between Hitler and Göring in June 1940. There it says among other things:
“ Goering was also in high spirits. While waiting for the car in front of the shelter, he described his most recent 'adventure' to Hitler. A few days earlier he had been to a restaurant on the Rhine. All the guests got up, except for two Catholic priests. 'But I showed them. I sent them to the concentration camp, 'said Goering with a laugh. 'And I ordered a pole with an old cap of mine to be set up there. Now they have to march past it every day and practice the National Socialist salute. "
At the location of the dramatic event, the Waldfrieden inn , a memorial plaque was placed in the summer of 2010, which the bishops Felix Genn and Stephan Ackermann unveiled. Bishop Genn comes from Wassenach , Josef Zilliken's last place of employment, Bishop Ackermann grew up in Nickenich, Johannes Schulz's last pastor.
literature
- Maurus Münch: Among 2579 priests in Dachau - To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the liberation in Easter 1945. Trier 1972.
- Martin Persch : "My time here is rich ...". The Trier martyr priests in the Dachau concentration camp 1940–1945. In: Kurtrierisches Jahrbuch. 37 (1997), pp. 157-182.
- Martin Persch: Art .: Josef Zilliken. in: 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 , pp. 687-690.
- Albrecht Zutter, Richard Elsigk: Because he did not greet Göring - The fate of the Saarland priest Johannes Schulz. Wassermann Verlag, St. Ingbert, 1995, ISBN 3-928030-22-1 .
- Ute Bales: A disrespect . In: The Prümer Landbote, magazine of the Prümer Land history association . tape 124 , no. 1 , 2015.
- Sandra Ost : Zilliken, Josef Kaspar. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 24, Bautz, Nordhausen 2005, ISBN 3-88309-247-9 , Sp. 1586-1589.
Web links
- Website of the Rheinische Geschichte portal , about Pastor Josef Zilliken
- Memorial page from the Trier seminary to Josef Zilliken
Individual evidence
- ↑ Website for the Hotel Waldfrieden near Maria Laach
- ^ Website of the parish of Saarbrücken, St. Joseph, on the imprisonment of Pastor Schulz
- ↑ Website of the cath. Parish Nickenich on research into the death of Pastor Johannes Schulz
- ↑ Website of the Diocese of Trier on the memorial plaque at the Waldfrieden inn
- ↑ Website for the book
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Zilliken, Josef |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Zilliken, Josef Kaspar (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German, Catholic priest, Nazi victim and concentration camp prisoner |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 17, 1872 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mayen |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 3, 1942 |
| Place of death | Dachau |