Wilhelm Frede

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilhelm Frede (born June 29, 1875 in Meiderich ; † March 13, 1942 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp ) was a German diplomat in the service of the Dutch consulate who died as a victim of National Socialism .

Life

Wilhelm Frede, born in 1875 as one of six children of Julius and Adelgunde Frede, attended the Meiderich elementary school from 1882 to 1889 and then completed a commercial apprenticeship at the Rheinische Stahlwerke in Duisburg by 1894 . Then he worked from 1894 to 1897 as an office clerk in the "Verlag-Buchhandlung Hoffmann" in Duisburg and from 1897 as an accountant in the "Weingroßhandlung Remy" in Kleve . When his employer Theodor Remy was appointed honorary consul of the Dutch consulate in Kleve, Frede followed him and became a consulate employee. After his marriage to Maria Brohl and the birth of his daughter Mathilde in 1903/04 as well as voluntary engagements in many associations, some of which he founded (including the local association of the Catholic Business Association and the DJK Rhenania Kleve), Frede , who joined the Center Party in 1910, became a member of the Center Party in 1916 Consulate secretary and from 1926 deputy consul. For his 40 years in the service of the Dutch consulate, Frede was appointed Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands on April 28, 1938 .

After the National Socialists came to power in the German Reich , Frede, as a religiously professed Vice Consul to whom many refugees and those wishing to leave the country turned, increasingly came into conflict with Nazi politics, although only one single case of protest could be fully documented. When Frede confronted some boys during the November pogroms 1938 on November 10th, who threw stones at the house of the Jew Bernhard Gonsenheimer, he was insulted by a passerby and later denounced to the Gestapo , which was to have far-reaching consequences for Frede its shadowing by the Gestapo began in 1940. Nevertheless, Frede continued to take part in processions, maintained contacts with Catholic clergy and did not shy away from greeting and speaking to Jewish fellow citizens, so that he was considered "politically unreliable", a "fanatical Catholic" and a "friend of the Jews".

After the occupation of the Netherlands by the German Wehrmacht ( yellow case ), the Dutch consulate in Kleve was closed, and Frede then became head of the support center for Dutch nationals set up by the Swedish vice consulate in Duisburg in the former Dutch consulate . On October 6, 1941, Frede was dismissed from the service of the Swedish consulate under pressure from the National Socialist rulers. Two days later, the border inspectorate in Kleve recommended that Frede be taken into “ protective custody ” because the latter had not complied with a presentation order . On October 31, 1941, an arrest warrant was issued against Frede, who was imprisoned in Kleve on November 3 of the same year. After interrogations by the Gestapo, in which Frede's religiously based refusal to join the NSDAP and his help for Bernhard Gonsenheimer during the November pogroms were discussed, Frede was taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp on February 7, 1942 by order of December 19, 1941 , where he was detained as Detainee No. 41,087 on February 14th.

On March 13, 1942, Frede died as a result of his imprisonment in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and his body was burned. Fredes fellow prisoner Gustav Thorum reported that Frede froze to death when he was hung on a wall by members of the SS and showered with water. The official announcement said he had died of pneumonia due to a weak heart .

Appreciation

  • Some memories of Frede have been kept in Xanten Cathedral since 1966 as a “memorial to modern martyrs”.
  • In Kleve, a street and the sports facility of the DJK Kleve and a school in the Kleve district of Cattle bear his name.
  • The Catholic Church accepted Frede as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century .

Beatification process

The Diocese of Münster has after an extensive evaluation of the diocese side a beatification process initiated and the relevant documents of the March 13, 2020 Congregation for the Causes of Saints filed in the Vatican.

literature

  • Franz Kloidt: Gestapo files III / 4-F3 / 41g, martyr files Wilhelm Frede . von Acken, Krefeld, 1966.
  • Paul Gerhard Küsters: Wilhelm Frede: I hold on . Verlag für Kultur und Technik, Kleve 1999. ISBN 392463727X .
  • Helmut Moll (publisher 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. 556–558.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Beatification process is completed at diocese level" on lokalkompass.de from March 14, 2020, accessed on March 15, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Frede, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat in the Dutch consulate, victim of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH Meiderich
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1942
Place of death Sachsenhausen concentration camp