Father Friedrich Erxleben, SJ (27 January 1883,

Koblenz Koblenz (; Moselle Franconian language, Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz''), spelled Coblenz before 1926, is a German city on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle, a multi-nation tributary. Koblenz was established as a Roman Empire, Roman mili ...

– 9 February 1955,

Linz am Rhein Linz am Rhein (in English ''Linz on the Rhine'') is a municipality in the district of Neuwied, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the river Rhine near Remagen, approx. 25 km southeast of Bonn and has about ...

) was a

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

priest and member of the "

Solf Circle The Solf Circle (german: Solf-Kreis) was an informal gathering of German intellectuals involved in the resistance against Nazi Germany. Most members were arrested and executed after attending a tea party in Berlin on 10 September 1943 at the resid ...

German Resistance German resistance can refer to: * Freikorps, German nationalist paramilitary groups resisting German communist uprisings and the Weimar Republic government * German resistance to Nazism * Landsturm, German resistance groups fighting against France d ...

group. The purpose of the Solf Circle was to seek out humanitarian ways of countering the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

regime. It met at either Frau Solf or Elizabeth von Thadden's home. Von Thadden was a Christian educational reformer and Red Cross worker. The activities of " Frau Solf Tea Party" were discovered by Himmler and most of the group were executed.William L. Shirer. ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich''; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; pp 1025-26 Erxleben, along with fellow Jesuit, Augustin Rösch, was among the resistance survivors who narrowly escaped execution in the dying days of the war by convincing the governor of the Lehrter Strasse prison that they should be set free by telling the governor that he was likely to be executed by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

if he did not release them. The governor relented on 25 April 1945.Peter Hoffmann. ''The History of the German Resistance 1933-1945''; McDonald & Jane's; London; 1977; pg. 533

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Erxleben, Friedrich 1883 births 1955 deaths 20th-century German Jesuits Roman Catholics in the German Resistance German resistance members Members of the Solf Circle Clergy from Koblenz

See also

References