Richard Henkes

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P. Richard Henkes SAC

Richard Henkes SAC (born May 26, 1900 in Ruppach , Westerwald, † February 22, 1945 in Dachau concentration camp ) was a German Pallottine priest.

Henkes worked as a teacher and educator in Katscher from 1931, but also as a (fasting) preacher in Upper Silesia and from 1935 as a retreat master in Branitz . In his fight against National Socialism, he was reported to the Gestapo several times . He was arrested by the Gestapo in Ratibor on April 8, 1943 and taken to the Dachau concentration camp on July 10, where he was housed in the pastors' block . There he died of typhus on February 22, 1945.

Life

Richard Henkes was born on May 26, 1900 in the village of Ruppach in the Westerwald near Montabaur . To Pallottiner - missionary in Cameroon to be, he moved in 1912 from the elementary school to the newly built home study of the SAC in Vallendar , where at the same time, Father Joseph Kentenich for Spiritual was appointed. Richard Henkes was a zealous participant in the life of the Marian Congregation that was founded there , and he became chairman of the missionary section.

When he was called up for military service in Darmstadt in 1918 , he had to find out for himself that he could not realize all of his high ideals. In 1919 he graduated from high school and joined the Pallottine community. In 1921 he laid the first temporal consecration (comparable to the profession ), and received after overcoming a serious spiritual crisis in 1925 in Limburg an der Lahn , the ordination . From 1926 Henkes taught at the religious schools and boarding schools of the Pallottines in Schoenstatt , from April 1928 to September 1929 in Drüpt near the Alps and then again in Schoenstatt.

In 1931 Henkes was transferred to the Pallottine School in Katscher / Upper Silesia and in 1937 to Frankenstein , Lower Silesia. In addition to his teaching profession, confronting National Socialism became his second major calling after 1933 . During this time, Father Henkes courageously and publicly represented the values ​​of Christianity in school and increasingly during the retreats for the youth and in his sermons. In 1937 he was reported after a sermon in his home town of Ruppach; Because of an alleged disparagement of the Führer in Katscher, a trial was carried out against him at the special court in Breslau in 1937/38 , which, due to the amnesty law , remained without judgment after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich . The superiors of his community took the endangered brother out of school service in 1938. He then worked from Frankenstein as a youth chaplain, retreat master in Branitz, where he took up residence in 1940/41 after the Pallottine schools were closed. He preached to thousands in the great churches of Upper Silesia and on Annaberg .

In order to avoid being drafted by the Wehrmacht , he was appointed parish administrator in Strandorf in Hultschiner Ländchen by Vicar General Joseph Martin Nathan in 1941 . Through these activities and his open language, he became more and more a thorn in the side of the state rulers. So he said in Branitz with his huge sanatorium on the pulpit: the killing of innocent people is murder! He was summoned several times by the Gestapo.

On April 8, 1943, Richard Henkes was arrested by the Gestapo in Ratibor for a sermon in Branitz in which the Wehrmacht played a role, and on July 10 he was taken to the Dachau concentration camp. Like everyone else, he had to do forced labor there under inhumane conditions . He remained strong in his faith, shared his food parcels with many others, and encouraged his fellow prisoners, including through his sermons. In the Dachau concentration camp he did not belong to the Schoenstatt core group around Josef Kentenich ; rather, he got to know and appreciate the then professor and Regens Josef Beran , who later became Prague's archbishop and cardinal. Despite his poor language skills, Henkes continued the studies of the Czech language with him, which he had already started in Strandorf, because he wanted to stay as a pastor in the East after the war.

Towards the end of the war, the second major typhus epidemic broke out in Dachau . Even before volunteers were sought among the German priests for care at the camp service on February 11, 1945, Henkes, aware of the deadly threat posed by the typhus sufferers in Block 17, had himself locked in to look after them. After about two months in the service of charity, he became infected. Death took him there within five days.

Appreciation

Richard Henkes' grave in the Limburg Pallottine Cemetery

Pastor Richard Schneider and his Pallottine confreres in the concentration camp - a total of 12 - managed to have his corpse cremated individually and the ashes recovered. This was solemnly buried on June 7, 1945 on the 20th anniversary of his primacy in the Pallottine cemetery in Limburg and in 1990 transferred to the local bishop's crypt.

The Pallottines see in Richard Henkes a courageous fighter against all forms of contempt for human beings, an exemplary witness to the Christian faith and a martyr of charity in a time of cruel racial madness. Surviving priests of the Dachau concentration camp suggested his beatification in 1985 . Quite a few of them compare Richard Henkes with Father Maximilian Kolbe .

The Catholic Church accepted Father Richard Henkes as a martyr in the German martyrology of the 20th century .

The beatification process

The provincial assembly of the Limburg Pallottine Province decided in January 2001 to initiate a process of beatification for Father Henkes. As early as 2000, the Czech Bishops' Conference unanimously agreed to support a beatification. They paid tribute to Father Henkes' heroic decision to voluntarily lock himself up in the Dachau concentration camp to care for Czechs suffering from typhoid.

On May 25, 2003, the Bishop of Limburg, in whose diocese is the birthplace of Father Henkes, opened the beatification process. The episcopal survey was completed on January 23, 2007 in the Pallottine Church of St. Mary by Bishop Franz Kamphaus with a large participation of the population. On January 31, 2007, the sealed files were handed over to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in the Vatican and officially accepted there as the second cause of 2007. With that the actual beatification process could begin. Under the guidance of the relator Zdzislaw-Josef Kijas, the position required for the process was created and translated into Italian. This version was handed over to the Congregation in Rome and initially examined and accepted by a commission of historians. In the meantime the International Theological Commission has also given a positive vote for the beatification of Father Henkes.

On December 21, 2018, Pope Francis officially recognized Henkes' death as “martyrdom”. Kurt Cardinal Koch performed the beatification on behalf of the Pope on September 15, 2019 in Limburg Cathedral .

literature

Unpublished Sources

  • Letters and other documents from Father Richard Henkes, collected by Manfred Probst, Vallendar 2002 (unpublished).

Literature (selection)

  • Astrid Maria Gerhardt: A life for charity: Father Richard Henkes - carer in the Dachau concentration camp . Tectum Verlag, Baden-Baden 2017, ISBN 978-3-8288-3909-0 .
  • Alexander Holzbach: P. Richard Henkes: A picture of life . Pallotti-Verlag, Friedberg 2005, ISBN 3-87614-069-2 .
  • Alexander Holzbach, Art .: Father Richard Henkes, in: 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 , therein: Alexander Holzbach, Art .: Pater Richard Henkes , Volume II, p. 1005– 1007
  • Manfred Probst: Witnesses of faith in the Dachau concentration camp. The life and death of the Pallottine priest Richard Henkes (1900–1945) . Pallotti Verlag, Friedberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-87614-048-3 .
  • Manfred Probst: The Lord God has the last word. The life of the Pallottine priest Richard Henkes (1900–1945) and his death in the Dachau concentration camp . Pallotti-Verlag, Friedberg 2007, ISBN 978-3-87614-072-8 .
  • Manfred Probst: Pallottine Father Richard Henkes SAC (1900–1945) - power to give life from the celebration of faith. In: Holy Service. (Salzburg) 60 (2006), pp. 203-211.
  • Manfred Probst: Richard Henkes SAC. In: Michael Hirschfeld, Johannes Gröger, Werner Marschall (eds.): Schlesische Kirche in Lebensbildern , Volume 7, Münster 2006, pp. 97–99.
  • Manfred Probst:  Henkes, Richard. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 22, Bautz, Nordhausen 2003, ISBN 3-88309-133-2 , Sp. 514-517.
  • Georg Reitor : Witness in the concentration camp. Father Richard Henkes, Martyr of Charity . Johannes Verlag, Leutesdorf 1988, ISBN 3-7794-1091-5 .
  • Manfred Probst: Life Path of a Faith Witness. Letters and documents from Father Richard Henkes SAC. Pallotti Verlag, Friedberg 2016, ISBN 978-3-87614-088-9 .
  • Martin W. Ramb, Andreas Thelen-Eiselen (ed.): And if the truth destroys me. Father Richard Henkes in the Dachau concentration camp. Graphic Documentary by Druzhba Pankow . Pallotti Verlag, Friedberg 2019, ISBN 978-3-87614-110-7 .

Web links

Commons : Richard Henkes  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Astrid Maria Gerhardt: A life for charity: Father Richard Henkes - carer in the Dachau concentration camp . Tectum Verlag, Baden-Baden 2017, pp. 80 and 159.
  2. ↑ The Lord God has the last word ( Memento from March 4, 2016). Message on the Pallottines website dated January 25, 2007.
  3. ^ Promulgazione di Decreti della Congregazione delle Cause dei Santi. In: Bollettino B0961. Holy See Press Office , 22 December 2018 (Italian).;
  4. ↑ jump for the dignity of man into the breach. Diocese of Limburg, accessed on May 19, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Violence transformed into love. The Pallottines and the Diocese of Limburg celebrate the beatification of Father Richard Henkes. Diocese of Limburg, September 15, 2019, accessed on September 16, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Henkes, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Father Richard Henkes SAC
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Pallottine priest and victim of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Ruppach
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 1945
Place of death Dachau concentration camp