Theodor Kellermann

Theodor Kellermann (born October 22, 1911 in Steele , † February 3, 1945 in Kirspenich ) was a German Catholic clergyman.

Life

Theodor Kellermann was the son of Heinrich Kellermann and his wife Elisabeth geb. Sign. He attended the municipal high school in Essen-Steele, where he graduated from high school in 1932 . He then studied theology at the University of Bonn and the University of Freiburg . He was ordained a priest on March 3, 1938 .

After a short leave of absence - at that time the Archdiocese of Cologne had more priests than could be deployed - he was sent to Passau , where he took up his first position as chaplain in the parish of St. Paul on May 1, 1938 . The following year he went to Winhöring for a few weeks before coming to Königswinter on July 14, 1939 . On February 22, 1940, he became a pastor at the St. Joseph Hospital there. On July 18, 1940, he was transferred to the Herz-Jesu parish in Euskirchen .

There Kellermann quickly acquired the reputation of a great philanthropist. When the effects of World War II reached Euskirchen in autumn 1944 , he proved that charity was not just a word, but a guiding principle for him . He was constantly out and about on his bike to rescue, care for and care for bomb victims . He never went into the air raid shelter , but watched where the bombs fell so that he could then dig for those who had been buried. He paid for this courage with his life when on February 2, 1945 another hail of bombs fell over Euskirchen and he was seriously wounded by shrapnel . He survived the emergency operation but died the following morning. His grave is in the Euskirchen main cemetery.

Honors

After the end of the war, the former Casinostrasse in Euskirchen was renamed "Kaplan-Kellermann-Strasse". The secondary school on Kölner Straße also got his name. At the entrance there is a plaque with the image of the chaplain.

literature

• Hans-Dieter Arntz : End of the war 1944/1945. Between the Ardennes and the Rhine. Kümpel Verlag, Euskirchen 1984, ISBN 3-9800787-1-X , p. 452.
• N / A: Theodor Kellermann.
  • Euskirchen 2004. (on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of death, online as PDF; 1.2 MB)
  • Euskirchen 2011. (on the occasion of the 100th birthday, online as PDF; 6.4 MB)