Wilhelm Weber (pastor)

Wilhelm Weber (born June 3, 1889 in Langenhorst , † February 3, 1963 in Bockum-Hövel ) was a German Catholic clergyman and Nazi victim.

Life

After studying Catholic theology and ordination on August 14, 1913 in Münster , Wilhelm Weber worked as a chaplain successively in Haltern , Borken (St. Remigius Provost Church) and Hamborn from that year . From 1939 he was pastor of the St. Pankratius parish in Bockum-Hövel .

On November 27, 1943, Wilhelm Weber was arrested in the Bockum-Hövel parsonage for “behavior that was harmful to the state” and brought to the prison in Münster. The imprisonment was preceded by many years of friction with the local groups of the NSDAP and the SA . These subsequent events were followed by the arrest: despite massive insistence by the local SA, he stubbornly refused to allow the burial of a NSDAP member who had died in an air raid in the church cemetery in Hövel because of his previous resignation from the church. He also asked the widow of an SA troop leader who had died shortly before to have the civilian SA badge removed from her husband's grave in the church cemetery. He was also accused of having buried a Polish Catholic forced laborer, who was generally considered to be a suicide, in a solitary grave in the then still Catholic cemetery.

Weber publicly made derogatory comments about the presumptuousness of the National Socialist officials. The Gestapo in Munster became aware of this through denunciation and arrested him. After imprisonment in Münster, Weber was from February 19, 1944 to April 10, 1945 in the so-called pastor's block of the Dachau concentration camp with prisoner no. 64053 imprisoned. The then 55-year-old priest was assigned to the straw sack plug work detachment there because of his age . No due process had ever taken place. His cousin, the Münster social and Caritas scientist Heinrich Weber (1888-1946), tried in vain to get his release.

After Weber was released from the concentration camp, he was first admitted to the Dachau rectory. From there he went to the abbey of the Benedictine monastery Sankt Walburg Eichstätt , whose abbess was a sister of the Baroness von Twickel at the Ermelinghof Palace in Bockum-Hövel. His niece Anne Marie Goerdeler visited him in Eichstätt. She was the daughter-in-law of the resistance fighter Carl Friedrich Goerdeler , who had played a key role in planning the failed assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 and was chosen as the new Reich Chancellor. She was appalled by the uncle's health. The sisters looked after him to the best of their ability, so that he was able to return to Bockum-Hövel in the summer of 1945. He took up the parish office again and sat in the following time u. a. for the reconstruction of the nave of St. Pankratius Church, which was destroyed by two bomb hits in 1944. In the period from 1954 to 1957, the reconstruction took place under his direction.

In 2009 a stumbling block was laid for him in Bockum-Hövel (a district of Hamm since 1975) .

literature

Christian Frieling: priest from the diocese of Münster in the concentration camp. 38 biographies . Aschendorff, Münster 1992, ISBN 3-402-05427-2 , therein pp. 195–197: Wilhelm Weber .
Manfred Hermanns : Caritas in Germany during the time of National Socialism. In: Barbara Dünkel and Verena Fesel (eds.): Wohlfahrtspflege, Volkspflege, Welfare: regional and supra-regional research results of social work between 1920 and 1970. Lit, Münster / Hamburg / Berlin / London 2001, ISBN 3-8258-5409-4 . P. 150.
Peter Hertel: In front of our front door. A childhood in the Nazi state - experienced early, explored late, agenda-Verlag, Münster 2018. ISBN 978-3-89688-596-8 .
Joachim Kuropka : Reports from Münster 1924–1944. Secret and confidential reports from the police, Gestapo, NSDAP and their branches, state administration, jurisdiction and the Wehrmacht on the political and social situation in Münster. Regensberg, Münster 1992, ISBN 3-7923-0626-3 . Pp. 571, 587.

Footnotes

^ Christian Frieling: Priest from the diocese of Münster in the concentration camp . Aschendorff, Münster 1992, p. 195.
↑ Peter Hertel: In front of our front door. A childhood in the Nazi state - experienced early, explored late . agenda-Verlag, Münster 2018, ISBN 978-3-89688-596-8 , p. 208 .
^ Christian Frieling: Priest from the diocese of Münster in the concentration camp . Aschendorff, Münster 1992, p. 196.
↑ Peter Hertel: In front of our front door. A childhood in the Nazi state - experienced early, explored late . agenda-Verlag, Münster 2018, ISBN 978-3-89688-596-8 , p. 209 .
^ Christian Frieling: Priest from the diocese of Münster in the concentration camp . Aschendorff, Münster 1992, p. 197.
↑ Peter Hertel: In front of our front door. A childhood in the Nazi state - experienced early, explored late . agenda-Verlag, Münster 2018, ISBN 978-3-89688-596-8 , p. 204 .

personal data
SURNAME	Weber, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German Catholic clergyman
DATE OF BIRTH	June 3, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH	Langenhorst
DATE OF DEATH	3rd February 1963
Place of death	Bockum-Hövel

[1] Christian Frieling: Priest from the diocese of Münster in the concentration camp . Aschendorff, Münster 1992, p. 195.

[2] Peter Hertel: In front of our front door. A childhood in the Nazi state - experienced early, explored late . agenda-Verlag, Münster 2018, ISBN 978-3-89688-596-8 , p. 208 .

[3] Christian Frieling: Priest from the diocese of Münster in the concentration camp . Aschendorff, Münster 1992, p. 196.

[4] Peter Hertel: In front of our front door. A childhood in the Nazi state - experienced early, explored late . agenda-Verlag, Münster 2018, ISBN 978-3-89688-596-8 , p. 209 .

[5] Christian Frieling: Priest from the diocese of Münster in the concentration camp . Aschendorff, Münster 1992, p. 197.

[6] Peter Hertel: In front of our front door. A childhood in the Nazi state - experienced early, explored late . agenda-Verlag, Münster 2018, ISBN 978-3-89688-596-8 , p. 204 .