Nikolaus Groß

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Sign on the Nikolaus-Groß-Haus in Niederwenigern , July 2010
Nikolaus-Groß-Haus, Niederwenigern, July 2010

Nikolaus Groß (born September 30, 1898 in Niederwenigern , today Hattingen , † January 23, 1945 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a German Christian trade unionist, a leader in the Catholic labor movement (KAB) , resistance fighter against National Socialism and victims of National Socialism .

On October 7, 2001, Nikolaus Groß was beatified by Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square .

Life

Nikolaus Groß attended the Catholic elementary school in Niederwenigern from 1905 to 1912. From 1912 to 1914 he worked as a young worker in the sheet metal rolling and tube works of the Weppen company in Altendorf / Ruhr (now the Burgaltendorf district of Essen ), from 1915 to 1919 he worked like his father as a miner at the Dahlhauser Tiefbau colliery .

In 1917 Nikolaus Groß joined the “Union of Christian Miners in Germany”, a union organized under the Volksverein for Catholic Germany , and trained there in evening courses and speaker training. In 1918 he joined the Center Party .

In 1920 he gave up the miner's profession and became youth secretary at the Christian Miners' Union in Oberhausen . From July 1921 to May 1922 he worked as an assistant editor at the association newspaper, the miner , in Essen and took part in union work in the Mansfeld copper slate mining (near Eisleben in the Harz Mountains ). From June 1922 to October 1922 he was briefly union secretary in Waldenburg in Lower Silesia and then worked from November 1922 to November 1924 as the district manager of the Christian miners union for the district of Zwickau (Saxony). From December 1924 to December 1926 he worked as a union secretary in Bottrop.

In January 1927, Nikolaus Groß switched to the Westdeutsche Arbeiterzeitung , the association organ of the KAB Westdeutschlands, and soon became its chief editor and editor-in-chief. The West German was characterized by a Nazi-critical course. After the March elections in 1933, the newspaper was banned for three weeks. Renamed Kettelerwacht at the turn of the year 1935 , it was finally banned on November 19, 1938. Nikolaus Groß took over the management of the KAB Düsseldorf, whose secretary was called up for the Wehrmacht. His activity involved many trips, which helped him in his future resistance work, and he represented the KAB at Catholic conferences. From 1937 he worked as the editor of the two-week magazine St.-Nikolaus-Blatt for the river boat mission and in 1939 took over the management of the KAB in the Kettelerhaus in Cologne.

Nicholas with his fiancée Elisabeth Koch, on the day of the engagement (1922)

Nikolaus Groß, together with Jakob Kaiser , Otto Müller , Josef Jakob and Bernhard Letterhaus, had been involved in the resistance against National Socialism since 1927 . With good friends from KAB, Christian trade unions, the center and the like. a. He advised the Cologne Circle , which met in the KAB association headquarters, the Kettelerhaus in Cologne, since 1942 at the latest on alternatives to the Nazi regime. The Cologne Circle worked closely with the Berlin Circle around Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and participated in its personnel planning for the time after Hitler. On August 12, 1944, Nikolaus Groß was arrested in connection with the July 20 assassination attempt , although he was not involved in it. On January 15, 1945, the People's Court , presided over by Freisler, sentenced him to death . Afterwards he was immediately taken to Plötzensee, with his wife following him. On January 18, 1945, in the presence of an SS man, they only had 15 minutes to say goodbye. He also said to her:

“Don't look for my body afterwards. You won't find it. We are all burned. And yet the Lord will resurrect us. "

- Nikolaus Groß : Alfons Friderichs in Heimatjahrbuch Cochem-Zell 1988

On January 23, 1945 he was executed in Plötzensee , which was initially kept secret - also from the family. The key sentence of the verdict was: "He swam with treason, so he must drown in it." After her return to Cologne on January 23, 1945, Elisabeth Groß asked cleric Hans Valks in her home parish for help. He then formulated a petition for clemency and brought it personally to the Archbishop of Cologne, Joseph Frings, to Bad Honnef on January 30, 1945 . Frings sent the letter to Reich Justice Minister Otto Georg Thierack to stand up for Nikolaus Groß, not realizing that the death sentence had already been carried out. The bills for the defense and execution costs were later sent to the widow. The family did not receive his farewell letter of January 21, 1945 until July 1945. In it were the following last words with which he had said goodbye to his wife.

"Goodbye in a better world."

- Nikolaus Groß : Alfons Friderichs in Heimatjahrbuch Cochem-Zell 1988

After the murder became known - contrary to a prohibition - a funeral mass was read for him by the priest Hans Valks in the parish church of St. Agnes : “. ..for Nikolaus Groß, who was torn from life by brute force on January 23rd . "

family

Groß was born on May 23, 1923 with Elisabeth Groß. Koch (born March 11, 1901 in Niederwenigern , today Hattingen , † February 21, 1972 in Cologne ), married. The couple had seven children: Nikolaus Heinrich (* 1924, missing 1943, returned from Soviet captivity in 1948, † 2005), Bernhardine Elisabeth (* 1926, † 2015), Marianne (* 1927, † 2020), Liesel (* 1929), Alexander (* 1931, † 2019), Bernhard (* 1934, † 2019), Helene (* 1939). On the occasion of the beatification of his father in 2001, the son Alexander expressed himself critically. In his opinion, his father was not just a pious martyr of the Nazi era, but a man of resistance against Hitler. With this survey the Vatican hushed up its own cowardice during the war years.

Honors

Monument to Nikolaus Groß on Nikolaus-Groß-Platz in Sprockhövel - Haßlinghausen (2008)
Stolperstein in Cologne (Nikolaus-Groß-Str.6a)

A museum is dedicated to him in Niederwenigern. The south aisle chapel of the Essen Minster has been consecrated to Nikolaus Groß since October 10, 2004. On the occasion of his 68th birthday, the Nikolaus-Groß-Weg commemorates him near the Plötzensee execution site.

In Gelsenkirchen-Buer , since October 26, 2003, a stone memorial at the St. Urbanus Provost Church has been commemorating Nikolaus Groß.

In 1948, in Cologne , Rheydter Strasse was renamed Nikolaus-Groß-Strasse in his honor . There is also a Nikolaus-Groß-Straße in Berlin , Essen , Krefeld , Gelsenkirchen , Duisburg , Leverkusen , Oberhausen , Dinslaken , Bottrop , Bocholt , Viersen , Mönchengladbach , Lingen (Ems) , Paderborn-Elsen and in Menden (Sauerland) . Also in the places Künzell near Fulda , Hamminkeln , Schloß Holte-Stukenbrock and Rietberg streets were called Nikolaus-Groß-Straße , there is also a Nikolaus-Groß-Grundschule as well as a street in Bösperde , a Nikolaus-Groß-Hauptschule in Lünen and a Nikolaus-Groß-Weg in Mülheim an der Ruhr . There is also a Nikolaus-Groß-Straße in Eicker-Wiesen (suburb of Moers ) as well as in Lüdinghausen , Nottuln (both in the Coesfeld district ) and in Münster. In 1989 the Diocese of Trier named its private primary and secondary school (now a community school) in Lebach in honor of Nikolaus Groß "Nikolaus-Groß -schulen". The congregation "Seliger Nikolaus Groß" in Grumme was the first to be named after the blessed in 2002.

In 1998, at the suggestion of the then Essen bishop Hubert Luthe, a three-hour musical about his life story was created in the Mülheim parish of St. Barbara (text: Manfred von Schwartzenberg, music: Burkard Maria Kölsch), which was performed a total of 68 times up to 2015 and Attracted spectators from all over Germany. The Nikolaus-Groß-Lied, which is printed in the hymn book Hallelujah of the diocese of Essen, was written there.

In the diocese of Essen, the Nikolaus Groß initiative group was launched on January 23, 2002 by the Ruhr Bishop Hubert Luthe .

Since January 1, 2010, three KAB associations in Bottrop have merged to form the "KAB Nikolaus Groß Bottrop". This is intended to emphasize the ties between the KAB and Nikolaus Groß and his work as a trade union secretary in Bottrop, among others.

In the crypt of the Xanten Cathedral there is an empty sarcophagus with the names of three “witnesses to the faith”, including Groß. The "Groß" miner's lamp from his miner days has also been in this crypt since 1967 as the "Light of Xanten".

An oratorio based on his life story was composed in 2011 by Stefan Heucke (music) and Clemens Heucke ( libretto ). It was, in the 10th anniversary of the beatification, October 7, 2011 Mercatorhalle in Duisburg premiere . It is a commission from the diocese of Essen .

In front of his last freely chosen place of residence on Rheydter Straße (today Nikolaus-Groß-Straße 6a ) in Cologne's Neustadt district, a stumbling block was laid by the artist Gunter Demnig in memory of Nikolaus Groß .

In 1999 the Catholic Church accepted Nikolaus Groß as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century .

In the Catholic praise for God from 2013, the farewell letter from Nikolaus Groß is printed in the Cologne “Eigeneil” under number 705.4.

See also

literature

in order of appearance

  • Jakob Hausmann:  Great, Nikolaus. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 144 ( digitized version ).
  • Alfons Friderichs : Nikolaus Groß had to die in 1945 - the father came from Moselkern. In: Heimatjahrbuch Kreis Cochem-Zell. 1988, p. 137.
  • Jürgen Aretz (Hrsg.): Nikolaus Groß: Christ - workers leader - resistance fighters. Letters from prison. Matthias Grünewald (= Topos Taschenbücher, Volume 229), Mainz 1993, 2nd ed. 1995.
  • Helmut Moll (Ed. On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference): Witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century. Schöningh, Paderborn 1999, 7th revised and updated edition 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , Volume I, pp. 209-213.
  • Vera Bücker, Bernhard Nadorf, Markus Potthoff (eds.): Nikolaus Groß. Worker leaders - resistance fighters - witnesses of faith. “How should we stand before God and our people?” Political and social Catholicism in the Ruhr area 1927 to 1949. Lit, Münster 2001, ISBN 3-8258-5680-1 .
  • Vera Bücker: Nikolaus Groß. Political journalist and Catholic in the resistance of the Cologne Circle. With an essay on Alexander Groß's prison letters. Lit, Münster 2003, ISBN 3-8258-5774-3 .
  • Alfons Friderichs: Great, Nikolaus. In: Personalities of the Cochem-Zell district. Kliomedia, Trier 2004, ISBN 3-89890-084-3 , p. 135.
  • Heinz Schild: Fighter for Christian values. As a Catholic, Nikolaus Groß was a staunch opponent of National Socialism ... In: Rheinische Post , July 24, 2010, p. B6 (series: Famous Niederrheiner ) with ill .: Groß in front of the court; Great with one of his children.
  • Baldur Hermans (ed.): Revisions to Nikolaus Groß and Heinrich Hirtsiefer . Nikolaus Groß-Haus-Verein, Essen and Niederwenigern 2015.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andreas Fasel: The mysterious breath of holiness . October 6, 2001 ( welt.de [accessed May 10, 2019]).
  2. ↑ Information on Nikolaus Groß's professional activity
  3. ↑ Nikolaus Groß. Worker leaders - resistance fighters - witnesses of faith. How should we stand before God and our people? Political and social Catholicism in the Ruhr area 1927 to 1949, eds. Vera Bücker, Bernhard Nadorf, Markus Potthoff, 2nd edition, Münster 2001, p. 27. In: book.google.de. Retrieved March 16, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Nikolaus Groß (1898-1945) . In: Kirsten-Serup Bilfeldt: Stolpersteine ​​- Forgotten names, blown traces. Guide to the fate of Cologne during the Nazi era . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2004, 2nd edition, ISBN 3-462-03535-5 , pp. 53–65
  5. ↑ Information on the children in Elisabeth Groß's résumé
  6. ↑ daily newspaper Trouw , 6 October 2001
  7. ^ Publik-Forum , October 2001
  8. ↑ Nikolaus-Groß-Weg. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  9. ↑ nikolaus-gross.com _Stone memorial commemorates Nikolaus Groß
  10. ↑ [Leverkusen street directory https://www.leverkusen.com/strasse/index.php?view=Gross ]
  11. ↑ https://www.saarbruecker-zeitung.de/saarland/saarlouis/lebach/nikolaus-gross-schule-feiert-runden-geburtstag_aid-24369287 , accessed on September 3, 2018.
  12. ↑ ns documentation center: Stumbling block for Nikolaus Groß , accessed on February 3, 2015
  13. ↑ Groß 'farewell letter [1]
  14. ↑ Announcement, Edith Stein, holy, and Nikolaus Groß, blessed, to commemorate in the "Diözesanproprium" [2]

Web links

Commons : Nikolaus Groß  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Great, Nicholas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trade unionists, victims of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH September 30, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Niederwenigern
DATE OF DEATH January 23, 1945
Place of death Berlin-Plötzensee