Wilhelm Caroli

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Wilhelm Caroli

Wilhelm Caroli , (born April 7, 1895 in Saarlouis , † August 23, 1942 in Dachau concentration camp ) was a Catholic priest of the Speyer diocese and persecuted by the Nazi regime . He was severely physically abused and starved to death as a prisoner in Dachau concentration camp.

Life

Wilhelm Caroli was born in Saarlouis as the son of the chief clerk of the court, Adolf Caroli. He attended high school in Saarlouis and later in Mayen , where he passed his school leaving examination in 1914. After a short stay in the Trier seminary , he was drafted into the Prussian military in May 1915 and used as a medic on the Eastern Front. However, in March 1916 he returned to the seminary. He received minor ordinations up to deacon , but was dismissed in 1920 because he made fun of the rain and the professors at a trial sermon, whom he aptly and wittily characterized with the help of some Old Testament figures, for which his colleagues gave him thunderous applause.

Bishop Ludwig Sebastian , in the neighboring diocese of Speyer, made it possible for Caroli to transfer to his diocese and ordained him there on March 12, 1921 as a priest. The young priest worked as chaplain from March 19 of that year in Ludwigshafen am Rhein , St. Dreifaltigkeit, from July 12, 1924 to January 24, 1925 in Grünstadt and finally in Kusel until he was awarded his first pastor on December 1, 1926 in Rheingönheim .

Since 1927 editor, 1928–1933 editor of the “Catholic Church Gazette” in Ludwigshafen, Caroli has demonstrably fought vehemently from 1930 onwards against the emergence of National Socialism . In 1933 the pastor came into conflict with the Nazi movement because on January 22nd, in his church paper, he denounced anti-Semitism as "nonsense". He was also strongly committed to maintaining the Catholic denominational schools, which were a thorn in the side of those in power.

Caroli was officially warned in a letter of March 25, 1933, and on the night of June 26-27 , 1933, three SA men attacked her in front of the Rheingönheim rectory and beat him to unconsciousness with rubber truncheons. Since the priest refused to hoist the swastika flag on the church tower, SA men also forcibly entered the church and flagged the tower. On the evening of July 8, 1935, violence broke out again after a demonstration against the pastor. Heated protesters stormed the church and smashed parts of the facility. The police refused to intervene.

In the summer of 1937, Caroli was sentenced to eight months in prison for violating the Reichsflaggengesetz and was expelled from the Saar-Palatinate district . After serving his sentence in Frankenthal and Zweibrücken , he moved in with his brothers, both priests who worked in Kell and Kürrenberg in the Diocese of Trier . From July 1939 he settled in Kottenheim near Mayen for compulsory retirement, but continued to help with pastoral care. There he gave a harsh sermon in the parish church of St. Nicholas , in which he condemned the practice of euthanasia . Caroli was therefore arrested again in October 1941 for abuse of the pulpit , was first placed in protective custody in Koblenz and from there on February 18, 1942 to the pastor's block in the Dachau concentration camp. Here he died six months later of illness and exhaustion; as it was said: "... as a result of severe intestinal catarrh."

His fellow inmate, Pastor Friedrich Seitz , later reported that Caroli had been systematically beaten to death and that in the end she only weighed 45 kilograms. The priest's body was cremated in the concentration camp and the urn was sent to his brother in Kell. He kept it with him in the rectory, where it came to light after his death. She was finally transferred to Ludwigshafen-Rheingönheim and buried on November 24, 1996 in the former warrior chapel of St. Joseph's Church . This chapel now bears Caroli's name.

Plaque

A plaque was placed in the church for the pastor with the following wording:

Wilhelm Caroli
7. 4.1895 born in Saarlouis
1926–1938 pastor in Rheingönheim
1933–1945 in the fight against Nazi terror, the church experienced a time of
Persecution and probation. During these years priests grew
and lay people to a heroic love and loyalty. The concentration camp
Dachau, one of many, was occupied with 200,000 prisoners at the time,
including 2,579 clergy.
His path of suffering
June 27, 1933 attack by 3 SA men, knocked unconscious
8 July 1935 demonstration in front of the rectory and church
July 10, 1935 relocation
7.4.1937 Residence ban for the Palatinate and Saarland
July 16, 1937 From the special court in Frankenthal: Imprisonment of 8 months
(Zweibrücken) "for advanced offenses against the flag law and insult"
01.03.1938 retired, returned to his homeland, helped his brother in the
Pastoral care of the parish Kottenheim (Laacher-See)
At the end of 1941 he was arrested again and taken to the Dachau concentration camp "for pulpit abuse"
August 22nd, 1942 After 8 months of agonizing starvation, he was allowed to die
give + for his church and the German people + and enter
into eternal peace. The final sentence of his will
reads: With thanks to God I confess myself as a child and a priest
of the one, holy, catholic and papal Church. your
I want to be a member and stay for time and eternity. Amen

Miscellaneous souvenirs

Stumbling block for Wilhelm Caroli in front of the St. Joseph Church in Ludwigshafen
Memorial plaque for Wilhelm Caroli at the Church of St. Lubentius in Kell

In the memorial chapel in Kottenheim, pastors Wilhelm Caroli are commemorated in addition to those who died from the two world wars and the murdered members of the Jewish Gottschalk and Levy families.

In Ludwigshafen, Carolistraße is named after the Nazi victim, as is the Catholic parish home in Rheingönheim. On May 30, 2005, a so-called stumbling block was laid in front of the seminary he lived in (Trier, Jesuitenstrasse 13) in Caroli's memory . Ludwigshafen followed in November 2007 with the same action in front of the rectory that Caroli once lived in (today Carolistraße 23), where he was knocked unconscious in 1933.

In 1999 the Catholic Church accepted Pastor Wilhelm Caroli as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century .

Caroli is venerated in the Diocese of Speyer as a confessor against National Socialism.

literature

  • Viktor Carl: Lexicon of Palatinate personalities . Hennig Verlag, Edenkoben, 2004, ISBN 3-9804668-5-X , p. 132.
  • Historical Notes - Supplement to the Schematism of the Diocese of Speyer 1947 , Pilger-Verlag Speyer 1947, p.
  • 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 , Volume I, pp. 664–667.
  • Friedrich Seitz: Priest in Dachau , Der Pilger , No. 6, from March 24, 1946.
  • Eva Wetzler: The Catholic Church and National Socialism in Ludwigshafen , Volume I. Diözesanarchiv Speyer, Speyer, 1994, p.
  • Uncompromising opponent of National Socialism. The Rheingönheim pastor Wilhelm Caroli died in Dachau 70 years ago. In: Schifferstadter Tagblatt , No. 196 of August 23, 2012. ZDB -ID 1019722-9 . Also online at Saarkurier Online from August 22, 2012 Online .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Claudius Engelhardt: The parish church in Kottenheim. A tour of the church and its history. BoD - Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2014, ISBN 978-3-7322-9829-7 .

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Caroli  - Collection of images, videos and audio files