Karl morning sweat

Karl Morgenschweis prays for a war criminal

Karl Morgenschweis , even morning sweat written (* 14. July 1891 in Rosenberg , † 8. October 1968 in Buchloe ) was a German Catholic priest and longtime hospital chaplain in Landsberg prison .

Life

Karl Morgenschweis took part in the First World War with the 11th Bavarian Division as a lieutenant and battalion adjutant from 1914 to 1918 and received EK I. and II.

Morgenschweis initially worked as a priest at the Straubing prison. From October 1932 to August 1957 Morgenschweis was a chaplain in the Landsberg prison. At the time of National Socialism he looked after opponents of the Nazi regime imprisoned there . After the end of the Second World War , the prison was used as War Criminals Prison No. 1 , in which the convicts from the Nuremberg and Dachau trials served their prison sentences or were executed. At first Morgenschweis worked there as a pastor, after the end of the war as a senior pastor. Morgenschweis not only advocated pastoral care for the imprisoned war criminals , but also demanded their pardon and release.

The last seven Nazi criminals sentenced to death , including Oswald Pohl and Otto Ohlendorf , were hanged in Landsberg in the morning hours of June 7, 1951 . Pohl had previously professed Catholic Christianity on February 12, 1950. Pohl then wrote a book entitled Credo. My Path to God , which was revealed through morning sweat. Morgenschweis called himself "Seelenführer" Pohls and wrote:

"Pohl is an officer from head to toe [...], a man of high intellectual and heart training, upright, straight and true."

After his retirement, Morgenschweis worked as a pastor at the Heilig-Geist-Spital. Morgenschweis gave a speech on November 25, 1966 in Munich in front of the right-wing extremist Deutsche Kulturwerk Europäische Geist about his time in the Landsberg war crimes prison, which was subsequently published in Der Freiwillige , a magazine by former members of the Waffen SS . During this lecture, Morgenschweis stated that he had smuggled exonerating material for the convicts of the Malmedy trial from the Landsberg war crimes prison and handed it over to Bishop Johannes Neuhäusler for further use. Morgenschweis died in October 1968 in Buchloe Hospital.

Honors

In 1950, Morgenschweis was appointed a clergyman by the bishop . In 1952 he was awarded the Bavarian Medal of Merit. Morgenschweis received the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon on November 7, 1952 for his “services as a pastor” . In addition, Morgenschweis received the German Red Cross Decoration of Honor in 1958 . Through Pope John XXIII. Morgenschweis was awarded the " Papal Honorary Title " Monsignor in March 1959 . On February 10, 1960, Morgenschweis was awarded the City of Landsberg's Golden Ring of Honor.

literature

• Norbert Frei : Politics of the past: the beginnings of the Federal Republic and the Nazi past . Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-41310-2 .
• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
• Björn Krondorfer: A Perpetrator's Confession: Gender and Religion in Oswald Pohl's Conversion Narrative (PDF; 303 kB) . In: "Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality", Vol. 2, No. 2, ISSN  1177-2484 , pp. 62-81.
• Anton Posset : The priest and the SS general (PDF; 5.8 MB) . In: “Landsberg in the 20th Century”, issue 1/1993, Bürgerervereinigung Landsberg, ZDB -ID 1279672-4 , pp. 20–24.
• Anton Posset: “Key witness” morning sweat (PDF; 4.3 MB) . In: "Landsberg in the 20th Century", issue 1/1993, Bürgerervereinigung Landsberg, ZDB -ID 1279672-4 , pp. 25-30.
• Thomas Raithel: The Landsberg am Lech prison and the Spöttinger cemetery (1944-1958) . Oldenbourg, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-58741-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Anton Posset: The priest and the SS general . In: “Landsberg in the 20th Century”, issue 1/1993, Bürgerervereinigung Landsberg, pp. 20–24.
2. ↑ You may be guilty . In: "Der Spiegel", No. 9/1951 of February 28, 1951.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 416.
4. ^ Helmut Steuerwald: The churches under the spell of National Socialism ( Memento from March 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ Norbert Frei: Politics of the Past . Beck, Munich 1996, p. 231.
6. ↑ Karl Morgenschweis Quoted in: Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 416.
7. ^ The Confession of Monsignor Morgenschweis ( Memento of September 26, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) , 9 parts. In: "Der Freiwillige", No. 18/19 (1972/73), Issues 11–7, ZDB -ID 300296-2 .
8. ^ Ernst Klee: Forgiveness without regret , in Die Zeit , issue 9 of February 21, 1992
9. ^ ^{A b} Anton Posset: "Key witness" morning sweat . In: “Landsberg in the 20th Century”, issue 1/1993, pp. 25–30.