Bernhard Lichtenberg

Bernhard Lichtenberg , born on December 3rd, 1875 in Ohlau in Silesia, dead on November 5th, 1943 with Hof in Bavaria, was a catholic Prêtre, which was opposed to the mode Nazi. He counts with the number of the Justes among the nations with the Mémorial of Yad Vashem. He was béatifié in 1996, at the same time as Karl Leisner.

Biography

He studies the catholic theology of 1895 to 1898 with Innsbruck, then in Breslau (Wrocław), where it is ordered priest in 1899. From 1913 to 1930 it is cleaned parish of the Sacred Heart in Berlin-Charlottenburg. During the First World War, it is mobilized in a regiment of infantrymen. It receives a medal of the Red Cross. It is one moment elected at the Parliament of Charlottenburg under the label of the catholic party, the Zentrum. In 1931, the bishop of Berlin calls it in the chapter of cathedral, then, in 1938, names it provost of the cathedral.

In 1931, Lichtenberg publicly invites to look at again the film In the West, nothing (according to the novel of Erich Maria Remarque), prohibited by “Film-Oberprüfstelle”, the committee of cinematographic censure of the time. Joseph Goebbels, the future minister of propaganda Nazi, lance then an intimidation campaign against Lichtenberg. In 1933, after the takeover of the Nazis, the housing of Lichtenberg is excavated by the Gestapo. In 1935, having learned reality from the concentration camps, it protests in a letter addressed to Hermann Göring.

In November 1938, Bernhard Lichtenberg attends the first pogroms. The evening even, he declares during his sermon with the Holy-Edwige cathedral of Berlin: “Outside, the synagog is burning, that one also is a house of God”. It also decides to publicly request each evening during the office of Vespers “for the persecuted not-Aryan Christians, for the Jews”. It will extend thereafter its prayer to the prisoners of the concentration camps.

October 23rd, 1941, it is arrested by the S, is imprisoned and tortured. In September 1943, it receives a visit in prison of its bishop. Mgr Konrad von Preysing brings to him a personal message of the pope Pie XII. In 1943, it is off-set with the concentration camp of Dachau. But, patient of the heart, it dies during his transfer on November 5th, 1943, under not elucidated conditions. Its body is transported on November 16th with the Saint-Sébastian church, which is not destroyed yet, then transferred in 1965 in the crypt from the Holy-Edwige cathedral.

Beatification

June 23rd, 1996, with the Olympic stadium of Berlin, Jean-Paul II béatifié Bernhard Lichtenberg, at the same time as Karl Leisner, young priest, who had been ordered clandestinely in the camp of Dachau by Mgr Gabriel Piguet, bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, also held to him.

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