Johann Gruber

Johann Gruber ( born October 20, 1889 in Tegernbach at Gries churches, † April 7, 1944 in the concentration camp Gusen ) was a Catholic priest and one of the most prominent figures of the Austrian political resistance against the Nazis. He is revered as the " Father Gruber ", " Pere Gruber ," etc., as " the Saint of Gusen ".

Johann Gruber did not give up its strong opposition to the Nazi regime even in concentration camps and organized in addition to a prisoner in a concentration camp charity also a kind of news service.

Career

Johann Gruber was the eldest of a family with four children, the very early lost both parents. As of 1903, therefore, the pastor of churches Gries Johann Gruber made ​​it possible to study at Bishop's College Seminar Petrinum in Linz. In Linz Johann Gruber also joined by Stored Matura in the seminary and was ordained in Linz on 27 July 1913 a priest.

After years of ministry in the parish ministry and as a spiritual advisor to the Catholic Workers' Association Johann Gruber joined in July 1918 as a teacher in the teaching profession at the Catholic orphanage in Linz. Intellectually and educationally very talented, Bishop John M. Gföllner enabled him subsequently teacher training for history and geography at the University of Vienna, where Johann Gruber in 1923 received his doctorate of philosophy. In Vienna he became a member of the Catholic Student Association Kav Norica in the ACA. Back in Linz taught Johann Gruber at the Episcopal College of Education, in different schools but also in front of railway workers and unionists. He also wrote textbooks at this time and was finally appointed in November 1934 as Director of the Institution for the Blind in Linz, which he reformed with vision and also Konfliktfreudigkeit.

Resistance in the German Reich

This Konfliktfreudigkeit should the attitude Gruber in 1938 against the Nazis determined. Johann Gruber was therefore already taken on May 10, 1938 in police custody and sentenced subsequently media attention on charges of immoral behavior towards his students into two methods to two years hard labor in prison Garsten. As Gruber also intervened in custody against the unjustified in his view, judgment, Gruber was finally taken on April 4, 1940 by the Gestapo in protective custody and sent to the Dachau concentration camp. From there, Gruber was then transferred in August 1940 with countless other priests as a prisoner "DR Protection No. 43050 " via Mauthausen concentration camp Gusen.

In KL Gusen I Gruber was initially employed as a nurse in the infirmary and organized in this function secretly medicines for the sick. In the years 1942-1944 Johann Gruber was a " museum - capo " of the KL Gusen I responsible for the custody and determination of archaeological finds that the construction of a railroad (the " siding " ) between the KL Gusen and the train station of St. Georgen of Gusen were found. During this time, Gruber also organized the care of children and young people in KL Gusen I. The prominent feature enabled Gruber as a prisoner contact with the outside world. Gruber used this opportunity to build with eingeschleustem money in the Gusen concentration camp, a secret organization for prisoners and to let pass information from the camp to the outside in return. Soon he was therefore called by his comrades in the camp as " Papa Gruber ".

It was only in March 1944 Gruber's network in KL Gusen I was uncovered by the carelessness of a link man. Gruber was closed on April 4, 1944 in the camp prison when Jourhaus and tortured for three days until it finally on April 7, 1944 ( Good Friday 1944) the protective custody camp Seidler with the words "Thou shalt die, as your master, the third hour " himself heavily tortured and brought to death.

Even during the interrogations took Oswald Pohl, head of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office in Berlin, the event Gruber in KL Gusen as an opportunity to in a secret letter dated 16 March 1944, all camp commanders recourse of clergy to any paperworks in to prohibit the concentration camps.

Survivors prisoners of KL Gusen reported the martyrdom Gruber's already one day after the liberation of the concentration camp on 5 May 1945 the Diocesan Linz. In 1987, surviving comrades of Gruber requested a beatification process for him with Cardinal Secretary of State Agostino Casaroli. The Austrian artist Alfred Hrdlicka dedicated 1994/1995 the martyrdom of John Gruber a cycle of 14 etchings. The political judgments of the Nazi judiciary against Johann Gruber were repealed only in 1998 at the request by the Regional Court of Linz. On 20 December 2001 was unveiled a plaque for Johann Gruber in the Department of Hearing and Sehbildung Linz by Governor Joseph Pühringerhütte, Bishop Maximilian Aichern, Superintendent Hansjörg Eichmeyer and the directors Johann Marckhgott and Wilfried Schlögl. Bishop Maximilian Aichern was in 2002 also has an Institute project to biographical research to Johann Gruber at the Catholic-Theological Private University Linz in order. 2006, a memorial plaque was unveiled in the Parish Church of Gries churches. In St. Georgen an der Gusen "Passage against forgetting " was in 2013, the Kunsprojektes named the artist Renate Herter the parish hall after Johann Gruber.