Richard Schneider (clergyman)

Richard Schneider (born January 5, 1893 in Hundheim , † September 6, 1987 in Buchen (Odenwald) ) was a German Catholic clergyman and was temporarily imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp .

Fight against National Socialism before January 30, 1933

Richard Schneider, son of an innkeeper, was encouraged by the local clergy early on and sent to the Tauberbischofsheim boys' convent with the aim of becoming a priest. On June 12, 1921, he was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Freiburg and since May 1930 has been pastor in Beuggen, Deanery Säckingen . Even before the seizure of power by the Nazis, he was with the NSDAP conflict. He had publicly stated that Hitler was as unbred as the dogs in Karsau. He described the NSDAP as the party of idlers and bankrupts. He was one of the few Germans who had read Hitler's Mein Kampf before the seizure of power and confronted the audience at Nazi gatherings with it.

In the Nazi state

This earned him the lasting hostility of local Nazi leaders. As early as May 1933 he was interrogated by the police for the first time because a student had reported untruthfully that he had said in class that the students should not go to the "Dreck-HJ". Further denunciations followed, initially without any direct effect.

Richard Schneider thwarted attempts by the party to seize the assets of Catholic associations by shifting assets in good time. He anticipated the prohibition against reading a critical pastoral letter from the responsible Archbishop Conrad Gröber from the pulpit by reading it out early. He publicly rejected publicistic attacks by the Nazi press and speakers, exposing the attackers as previously convicted criminals in appropriate cases. In 1939, to the annoyance of the party, he took in a regimental comrade from the First World War, a baptized Jew, in the rectory.

Wartime

With the outbreak of the Second World War, the political situation of the parish also worsened because some local staff who were more distant from the NSDAP, in particular teachers and border officials working on the nearby border with Switzerland, were replaced by staunch party supporters and members of the SS . Richard Schneider circumvented the Gestapo's prohibition against contacting members of the parish who had been drafted for military service by sending parcels to the soldiers.

arrest

His attempts to win two apostate children back to the Christian doctrine led to his arrest on September 7, 1940 by the Gestapo. Without criminal charges or even criminal proceedings being carried out against him, he was held in Waldshut prison until he was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp . He was given a so-called protective custody warrant signed by Heydrich on October 20, 1940 . He had repeatedly made disparaging remarks about the SS to the parents of sons who had been drafted into the SS, thereby provoking extreme indignation. It is to be expected that it will continue to cause unrest in the population, especially during wartime. He arrived in Dachau on November 22, 1940. He knew what to expect there. He had Wolfgang Langhoff's book Die Moorsoldaten , published in Switzerland . 13 months concentration camp. Read non-political factual report . He had considered suicide to escape suffering, but resisted the temptation.

In the Dachau concentration camp

When they arrived in Dachau, tree-long SS men tore open the doors of the transport car, beat the prisoners indiscriminately and kicked them. Schneider received the prisoner number 21,613. This treatment as well as the complete undressing, removal of all body hair and showering with cold water - directed also on the genitals, which in older prisoners could almost lead to death - served the depersonalization and were only the beginning of a long program, the person physically and psychologically destroy.

Initially, Schneider was assigned to "Punishment Block 17", whose inmates were destined to die, and which was therefore also called the "Death Company". At that time, this block consisted of fifteen clergymen, including two Protestants.

In order to work, the prisoners had to stand in ankle-deep water in all weathers and dig sand and gravel with completely inadequate clothing. Serious illnesses were the immediate consequence. Treatment was refused. Richard Schneider narrowly escaped this scheduled extermination because on December 11, 1940 a so-called priest's block , which was initially separated from the rest of the camp by barbed wire and guards, had been set up. The conditions were a little better here.

On December 23, 1940, Richard Schneider was admitted to the sick block because of the serious illness he had suffered in the punishment block. There he saw sick people being killed by over-sized doses of poison, air embolism, or injection of gasoline. After he had recovered somewhat, he came back to the priests block.

On June 24, 1942, he accidentally escaped the murder in a gassing car , which he was supposed to be one of 300 clergymen . Richard Schneider escaped the mass deaths caused by hunger and illness in the summer of 1942 because he was assigned to a special detachment called the “plantation”. This command was under Franz Vogt. As a result, he escaped the otherwise (especially Polish) priests intended deadly "medical" experiments of the tropical medicine doctor Claus Schilling through infection with malaria or poisoning and the camp doctor Sigmund Rascher through hypothermia or negative pressure.

Discharge

One month before the Dachau concentration camp was liberated by the 7th US Army on April 29, 1945 , Richard Schneider, suffering from severe health problems, was released on March 29, 1945. Archbishop Conrad Gröber's various attempts to free Richard Schneider from the clutches of the Gestapo had been completely in vain and mostly had not been answered at all. Richard Schneider had already been mistakenly believed to have been murdered.

After 1945

Richard Schneider's spirit remained unbroken despite the severe persecution he had suffered. He was transferred as a local chaplain to Schlierstadt , now a district of Osterburken , and worked there until his retirement in 1960. He was a co-founder of the Klinge Youth Village. In recognition of all these services he received high public honors, including the award of the Federal Cross of Merit and the Conrad plaque of the Archdiocese of Freiburg in the 1980s .

literature

• Hugo Ott : Introduction and preliminary remarks on the following reports and documentation by concentration camp priests of the Archdiocese of Freiburg. In: Freiburg Diocesan Archive 1970, pp. 1–23.
• Pastor Richard Schneider's report on his experiences in the Dachau concentration camp. In: Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv 1970, pp. 24–51.
• Heinz Bischof: As a political prisoner in the Dachau concentration camp, Unser Land, home calendar for Neckartal, Odenwald, building land and Kraichgau 2004. ISBN 3-929295-68-7 .
• Sales Hess : Dachau Concentration Camp, A World Without God , ISBN 978-3-87868-199-1 , p. 91.