Laurentius Siemer
Lawrence M. Siemer OP ( born March 8, 1888 in Elisabethfehn, † October 21, 1956 in Cologne ) was a provincial of the Dominicans and was part of the resistance against National Socialism.
Life
Joseph Siemer was born the sixth of ten children of a long-established farming family on March 8, 1888 entered the Dominican Order after high school and received the religious name Laurentius. After studying theology, ordination, and working as a medic in World War I, he studied in Münster classical philology and history, one of the founding members of the Catholic Student Association Ravens mountain in KV and made his 1920 state exam. In 1921 he became rector of the grammar and boarding school of the Dominicans in Vechta. From 1932 he was - until 1946 - was elected Provincial of the German Province of the Dominicans ( Teutonia ).
Siemer joined from the beginning the Nazi uncompromisingly opposed. In the Easter edition of the center newspaper "Germania", he openly criticized the racist ideology of the Nazis, he described in a later editorial in this newspaper the equation of race and religion as " degeneration " and called on Catholics to not be influenced by the current intellectual trends to leave.
1935 Siemer was arrested by the Gestapo and spent several months in prison. By 1941 Siemer actively supported resistance groups against Nazism and presented the monastery Walberberg for conspiratorial meetings. Siemer was a member of the Cologne district. He declared it a duty " to do everything possible so that Nazism would be destroyed ." He postulated the " ruthless and consistent participation in the conspiracy against the Nazi state."
Siemer was closely associated with Josef Wirmer, which was provided as justice minister after the fall of Hitler, friends. 1942 Siemer worked for Carl Goerdeler, whom he met frequently, a draft on the future relationship between church and state in Germany.
After the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944 Siemer escaped his captors and hiding in his home until the war ended under adventurous circumstances. First, it took the family Kurre on in Schwichteler, he was hidden from September 1944 until the arrival of the Allied troops in April 1945 with the family Trumme in Handorf near Holdorf. His profile was:
" Seek the provincial of the Dominican Order Joseph Siemer, called Father Lawrence, who has a leading role in the preparations for the assassination of the leader of 20 July 1944. He managed to escape just before the arrest. "
Siemer was together with his brother Eberhard Welty after 1945 the magazine " The New Order " out, trying in vain as to take Jakob Kaiser, Walter Dirks and others, significant influence over the party program of the new Christian meaning that Christianity and socialism together would be reconciled. As a name for the then CDU -called new party, he suggested " Christian Socialist Union".
From his work in the resistance against Hitler Siemer has rarely spoken; he saw himself as a representative of a supranational power, he kept the resistance against Hitler for granted.
After serving as Provincial of the Dominicans Siemer co-founder and Secretary General was ( until 1951 ) of the Catholic academics working in Germany.
From 1950 Siemer has been through numerous radio and television speeches lectures known, as a book ( "We are human beings " ) were published. On October 21, 1956 Siemer died suddenly of heart failure, for the year 1957, he had been chosen by the Aachen carnival society as a Knight of the Order against the deadly seriousness.
Siemer received a Great Federal Cross of Merit and honorary memberships of Catholic connections in CT, CV and UV.
Works
- So we are human beings (1957 )
- Records and letters (1958 ) Frankfurt / M