Carl Klinkhammer

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Carl Klinkhammer (born January 22, 1903 in Aachen , † January 18, 1997 in Düsseldorf ), also known as the Ruhr chaplain , was a Catholic priest .

"Dr. Carl Klinkhammer 1903 - 1997. Chaplain in St. Johann Altenessen 1931 - 1933. The 'Ruhr chaplain' was arrested on April 21, 1933 in this St. Johann church in front of 293 first communion children wearing uniformed brown shirts. He was the first Catholic clergyman to be taken into 'protective custody' by the National Socialists. The occasion was his sermon in the evening prayer on April 20, 1933, in which members of the SA and SS from the local group Altenessen also took part. "

Life

In Aachen he passed the Abitur in 1923; After studying in Innsbruck and Bonn, he was ordained a priest in Cologne Cathedral in 1929 .

He gained notoriety a. a. through his protests against the National Socialist regime , which continued until the war , which earned him several arrests. As a chaplain in Cologne, he was removed from his position as head of the archdiocese in the spring of 1934. In 1935 he had to move to the diocese of Augsburg (to the Christ the King Society in Meitingen) and then to Speyer. In 1937 and 1938 he was repeatedly imprisoned for " pulpit abuse ".

In 1941 he was drafted as a medical soldier to the 24th Infantry Division in Russia. After retreating across the Baltic Sea, he was taken prisoner in Schleswig-Holstein, from which he was released in early 1946. He became chaplain at the Bonn Minster Church of St. Martin. When Klinkhammer denounced the shooting of a family man, who left behind his wife and three small children, as murder in 1947 for stealing coal , he was transferred to Düsseldorf under pressure from the British occupation and became a pastor in Heerdt (until 1991).

Bunker Church

As rectorate pastor, he obtained approval from the English commandant's office to convert the church bunker into a house of worship by turning the flak on the roof into a bell tower and blasting church windows into the 2.40 meter thick concrete walls. So he created the bunker church of Saint Sacrament at the Heerdter "Handweiser" .

The youth was very important to him. Since there was a social hotspot in the vicinity, but the Heerdt district at that time offered no opportunity for meaningful leisure activities for young people, the upper floor of the nursery school attached to the sister house was designed as a screening room for theater and cinema screenings. The cinema program was announced by Klinkhammer along with the christening, wedding and funeral dates at the end of each service. On White Sunday he visited each of his communion children at their celebration and presented them with a bronze crucifix . He preached in his bunker church for decades until shortly before his death. After the war he saw communism as the main danger.

Klinkhammer was a co-founder of the Düsseldorf Wednesday Talks . He also initiated the annual holiday campaign for children who had to stay at home. For them there was a daily program such as trips into the blue, visits to the cinema or a visit to a bathing establishment.

During his studies in Bonn he joined the WKSt.V. Unitas Ruhrania at.

Fight for morality

With his political and moral-ethical disposition he never held back. In 1951 he protested against the film Die Sünderin (with Hildegard Knef ). With young people he organized, according to a sermon by Cardinal Joseph Frings as "self-help", disruptions in film screenings up to and including the termination of a screening. Stink bombs were also thrown in cinemas. There were several fights with the police that had been summoned. Together with a clergyman and five other people, he was charged with coercion, gross nonsense and resistance to state authority and acquitted in the first instance. After the public prosecutor's office appealed against the acquittal, the Federal Court of Justice overturned the judgment, because it is not the conscience of the accused that is decisive, but rather the compatibility of their behavior with the principles of the rule of law. The case was referred to the Duisburg Regional Court for renegotiation. Due to the impunity law , the district court closed the process. Thanks to the law, which was used to amnesty victims of the Nazi regime, he was exempt from punishment and was henceforth allowed to participate in the Catholic Film Commission for Germany .

Honors

Fonts

  • On the way. Unity in the conversation of the Church . Fredebeul & Koenen, Essen 1965

Literature and Sources

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Text of the memorial plaque that was unveiled on the occasion of his 100th birthday on January 22, 2003 at the St. Johann Baptist Church in Essen-Altenessen.
  2. ^ Press office of the Archdiocese of Cologne: PEK-Nachrichten , No. 206 of June 6, 1975, pp. 1–2.
  3. ↑ Sybille Steinbacher p. 113ff (see above literature)
  4. ↑ Sybille Steinbacher pp. 120–121 (see above literature)
  5. ↑ Merit holders since 1986. State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on March 11, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Klinkhammer, Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German clergyman
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH January 18, 1997
Place of death Dusseldorf