Wolfgang Meier (farmer)

Wolfgang Meier (born November 8, 1878 in Frauenornau , Obertaufkirchen , † February 22, 1945 in Dachau concentration camp ), was a German farmer who temporarily hid Augustin Rösch .

Meier grew up on the Einödhof Marx am Holz (Schwindkirchen) near Grüngiebing, which he also took over as a farmer. In the thirties he bought the castle building in Hofgiebing on an annuity. Meier had fourteen children with his wife Theresia Schellhammer (1879–1953), three of whom died in infancy. Meier was also sacristan in Hofgiebing . As he was considered reliable, he was asked to take Rösch , who was hidden in Moosen Monastery , into his property in Hofgiebing.

Registration card of Wolfgang Meier as a prisoner in the National Socialist concentration camp Dachau

At the end of September 1944, Rösch was brought to Hofgiebing and hidden on the first or second floor of the house, where he was hidden from neighbors and guests. However, the hiding place was betrayed to the Gestapo . Rösch was deported to Munich and then to Berlin together with other clergymen, while Meier - together with his children - was taken to the Dachau concentration camp . According to official reports, Meier died there of typhus on February 22, 1945 . His children, however, survived the concentration camp imprisonment.

Honors

The parish home in Schwindkirchen is called Wolfgang Meier House in memory of him .

In 1999 the Catholic Church accepted Wolfgang Meier as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century .

literature

• Georg Schwaiger, Art .: Wolfgang Meier, in: Helmut Moll (edited on behalf of the German Bishops' Conference), witnesses for Christ. The German Martyrology of the 20th Century (Paderborn et al. 1999, 7th, revised and updated edition 2019), pages 504–507.
• Albrecht A. Gribl / Dieter Vogel (eds.), Das Isental , Vilsbiburg 2008.

Web links

• Georg Schwaiger: The Jesuit Provincial Augustinus Rösch (1893-1961) and the Upper Bavarian farmer Wolfgang Meier (1878-1945). On the reality of church persecution and resistance during the Nazi era , in: Münchner Theologische Zeitschrift , Vol. 54, No. 3 (2003), pp. 262-270.
• When faith costs your life , OVB Online from February 21, 2015.
• In memory of the Bavarian martyr Wolfgang Meier , press release of the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising from February 24, 2010.