Karl Leisner

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Postage stamp for the 100th birthday of Karl Leisner

Karl Leisner (* 28. February 1915 in Rees ; † 12. August 1945 in Krailling ) is as Seliger revered martyrs of the Catholic Church , the result of his concentration camp died -haft.

Life

Leisner was born in Rees and baptized there in the parish church of St. Mary of the Assumption . He and his family moved to Kleve when he was six . Here he went to school, met the religion teacher Walter Vinnenberg , who introduced him to the ideas of the Catholic youth movement , and graduated from high school in 1934. During the time of National Socialism he studied theology in Münster and built up forbidden youth groups there, with whom he secretly traveled to the Benelux countries to organize free camps there. In 1934 the Bishop of Munster , Clemens August Graf von Galen , appointed him as diocesan youth leader . At the Reich Labor Service he organized mass visits for himself and other workers; the Gestapo searched his apartment and his documents.

The bishop's staff carved by fellow prisoners in the hand of Archbishop Marx
The death room is honored as a place of remembrance

On March 25, 1939, Bishop Count von Galen consecrated him as a deacon . During a healing stay in Prince Abbot Gerbert-house in St. Blaise Leisner was born on November 9, 1939 because of his Hitler criticism from the Gestapo arrested. He was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . On December 14, 1940, he was sent to the Dachau concentration camp ( most of the clergy prisoners were imprisoned in the pastors' block of this concentration camp ). There the Jesuit Father Otto Pies was his spiritual companion, who also significantly promoted his secret ordination. On December 17, 1944, the bishop of the French diocese of Clermont , Gabriel Piguet , who was also imprisoned in Dachau, consecrated the young man as a priest with the permission of Leisner's home bishop, Count von Galen , after the nun Josefa Mack, operating under the code name Mädi, in the Had smuggled in concentration camps. Fellow prisoners had carved a bishop's staff in advance. Leisner was the only one who was ever ordained a priest in a concentration camp . His first celebration on December 26, 1944 was the only holy mass that Leisner celebrated. The altar, where ordination and primacy took place, is now in the Berg Moriah Priest and Education House in Schoenstatt . Karl Leisner's Primizkelch is in his estate. Was freed when the camp on April 29, 1945 Karl Leisner was so ill that he into tuberculosis - sanatorium Planegg with Munich was admitted. A few months later he died of the consequences of his illness.

His grave is in the crypt of the Xanten Cathedral .

Honors

Karl Leisner was beatified by Pope John Paul II in Berlin on June 23, 1996 . His feast day is August 12th, the day of his death. The diocese of Münster reported on April 25, 2007 that the process for the canonization of Karl Leisner had been opened.

Inscription on the St. Blasien cemetery chapel

The Catholic Church accepted Karl Leisner as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century .

In Waldshut , the former Marienkapelle in Eschbacherstrasse (built in 1930) was consecrated to the Blessed Karl Leisner by the Bishop of Münster Reinhard Lettmann on August 12, 1996 .

In the spring of 2005, the Rees Transport and Beautification Association placed a bust of Karl Leisner in front of the portal of the Rees parish church of St. Mariä Himmelfahrt. In October 2011 it was moved and illuminated. On the occasion of Leisner's 100th birthday, the same association erected a desk-like sculpture on February 22, 2014 near Leisner's birthplace. Both sculptures are works by the Bocholt-based artist Jürgen Ebert .

Since December 13, 2014, a two and a half meter high bronze statue has been commemorating Leisner in Kleve. Designed by Bert Gerresheim , it stands on the forecourt of the collegiate church.

The German Post AG brought on 5 February 2015, 62- euro cents - special stamp out the 100th birthday Leisner. The design comes from the graphic designers Daniela Haufe and Detlef Fiedler.

Leisner and Schoenstatt

Karl Leisner got to know the Schoenstatt Movement as a youth and belonged to a Schoenstatt group until the end of his life, which also included the later Bishop of Munster, Heinrich Tenhumberg . For Karl Leisner, the few but intense times of personal encounter with the Blessed Mother in the Original Shrine remained decisive milestones on his vocation path throughout his life . Christ , my passion - guided by this ideal, he worked in the diocesan youth work and fought his way through to his decision to lead a celibate life as a priest. In the Dachau concentration camp, together with Josef Fischer, he founded the first Schoenstatt group in the camp, which ended their meetings in the famine year of 1942. From 1943 Karl Leisner belonged to the group "Victor in vinculis Mariae" and thus to the circle of Schoenstatters around the founder Josef Kentenich . From this ideal and living with this group, Karl Leisner drew the strength to accept his fate, which was burdened by pulmonary tuberculosis in addition to the difficult concentration camp conditions , as the will of God and finally to give up his life as a martyr.

Movie

  • Ikarus-Film (Ed.): Karl Leisner. Christian out of passion. DVD, Munich 2015.
  • Ikarus-Film (Ed.): The miracle in the Dachau concentration camp DVD, Munich 2015.

Fonts

  • Hans-Karl Seeger (ed.): Karl Leisner's last diary. 2nd edition, ISBN 978-3-8367-0638-4 .
  • Hans-Karl Seeger, Gabriele Latzel (Ed.): Karl Leisner. Diaries and letters. A life chronicle. Kevelaer 2014, ISBN 978-3-7666-1881-8 .

literature

  • Christian Feldmann : Those who believe must resist - Bernhard Lichtenberg - Karl Leisner. Herder, Freiburg et al. 1996, ISBN 3-451-26052-2 .
  • Hermann Gebert: History of a Vocation. Patris, ISBN 3-87620-234-5 .
  • Wilhelm Haas (Ed.): Christ my passion. Karl Leisner. His life in pictures and documents. 3. Edition. Butzon and Bercker, Kevelaer 1985, ISBN 3-766-69425-1 .
  • Josef Heckens (Ed.): Red roses and barbed wire: The blessed martyr Karl Leisner; Life and testimony. Butzon and Bercker, Kevelaer 1996, ISBN 3-7666-0061-3 .
  • Arnaud Join-Lambert: Whole and undivided. 15 days with Karl Leisner. Translation by Josef Barmettler, Jutta Krugmann, Oskar Bühler. Foreword by Robert Zollitsch . Patris, Vallendar 2010, ISBN 978-3-87620-342-3 .
  • Jürgen Kappel: Karl Leisner - living the love of God. Bitter, Recklinghausen 1996, ISBN 3-87-620193-4 .
  • Heinrich Kleinen:  Leisner, Karl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , pp. 160 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • René Lejeune: Like gold refined in a fire. Parvis.
  • Matthias Mertens : ordination behind barbed wire. From the Dachau concentration camp. In: Neue Zürcher Nachrichten . In five parts on March 28, 29, 30, 31 and April 1, 1949. Complete also in: Gaesdoncker Blätter. 41. Jg., 1988, pp. 14-26 (testimony of Leisner's ordination published early on).
  • Helmut Moll (Ed. 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 1, pp. 523-529.
  • Otto Pies : Stephanus today. 7th edition. Commented by Hans-Karl Seeger. ISBN 978-3-928441-69-8 .
  • Joachim Schmiedl : Karl Leisner - Life for the Young. Patris, Vallendar-Schoenstatt 1996, ISBN 3-87620-193-4 .
  • Hans-Karl Seeger: Karl Leisner - visionary of a united Europe (= Topos Plus Biography. Volume 563). ISBN 3-7867-8563-5 .
  • Hans-Karl Seeger, Gabriele Latzel (Ed.): Karl Leisner - ordination and primacy in the Dachau concentration camp. 2nd Edition. ISBN 3-8258-7277-7 .
  • Hans-Karl Seeger, Gabriele Latzel, Christa Bockholt (eds.): Otto Pies and Karl Leisner: Friendship in the hell of the Dachau concentration camp. Pies, Sprockhövel 2007, ISBN 978-3-928441-66-7 .

Web links

Commons : Karl Leisner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Dachau Altar at Moriah.de.
  2. ↑ See: Hans-Karl Seeger, Gabriele Latzel: Karl Leisner - ordination and primacy in the Dachau concentration camp .
  3. ↑ Vatican Radio : Vatican: Wondrous Leisner? January 10, 2007
  4. ^ Diocese of Münster : The process of canonization has begun ( memento of May 29, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) April 25, 2007
  5. ↑ R. Winterhalder: Bishop Lettmann consecrated Waldshut Chapel to the blessed priest Karl Leisner. Catholic Sunday newspaper , Church in South Baden, p. 6
  6. ↑ Inauguration of the Karl Leisner memorial by Bert Gerresheim in front of the collegiate church in Kleve on Saturday, December 13, 2014
  7. ↑ See in particular: Hermann Gebert: History of a Vocation - Karl Leisner 1915–1945.
personal data
SURNAME Leisner, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German clergyman, martyr of the Catholic Church
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Rees
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 1945
Place of death Planegg