Gerhard Hirschfelder

Francis John Gerhard Hirschfelder ( born February 17, 1907 in Glatz, Lower Silesia, † August 1, 1942 in the Dachau concentration camp) was a German Roman Catholic priest, resistance fighters against Nazism and youth minister of the former county of Glatz and martyrs. On 19 September 2010 he was beatified in Münster Cathedral.

Life

Gerhard Hirschfelder was born to the unmarried Maria Hirschfelder. After graduating from Catholic High School Glatzer Gerhard Hirschfelder studied as a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Prague belonging County of Glatz philosophy and theology at the University of Breslau. After his ordination on 31 January 1932 he worked until February 1939 as a chaplain in Tscherbeney and then in Habelschwerdt. In addition, he was appointed in July 1939 to the youth pastor of the County of Glatz.

Hirschfelder had a reputation as an excellent and popular pastor. A particular concern of his was the denominational youth work. She was influenced by the goals of the Catholic Association Quickborn, whose member he was. Through the mediation of life orientation and the Christian faith, he hoped to make the youth against the National Socialist ideology resistant. This, combined with NS - critical sermons he has already denounced during his chaplain activity in Tscherbeney. Also in Habelschwerdt he was spied on and repeatedly interrogated by the Gestapo. When he had denounced and proclaimed in a Sunday sermon in July 1941, the wanton destruction of Christian symbols "Who pulls the youth faith in Christ from the heart, is a criminal ," he was arrested on August 1 and in the prison of the county town of Glatz brought. There he wrote Way of the Cross prayers and wrote a brief commentary on the letters of Paul.

Four months later he was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp, where he received the prisoner number 28972. There he died on August 1, 1942, to exhaustion. His ashes were later buried in the cemetery a few weeks in Tscherbeney. His cause of death could not be posted. From the faithful in the places of his former ministry, He was soon revered as saintly.

Commemoration

In 1998, the International Gerhard Hirschfelder Circle was founded and opened the beatification process in the same year. On 27 March 2010, Pope Benedict XVI. the death of Gerhard Hirschfelder recognized as martyrdom. The beatification took place on 19 September 2010 at the Münster Cathedral by Cardinal Joachim Meisner. The liturgical feast day is August 2nd. His formerly simple grave in the cemetery of Tscherbeney (now Czermna ) was covered before the beatification with black marble finish and the grave plate with a trilingual inscription. In Münsterland Telgte a memorial stone at Hirschfeld.

Works

• Stations of the Cross prayers. Written down in prison to Glatz in 1941. Cloppenburg 1963
• Commentary on the Epistles of Paul and Stations of the Cross prayers. From the estate of the Servant of God Gerhard Hirschfelder. Münster 1999