Father Friedrich Erxleben, SJ (27 January 1883,

Koblenz Koblenz (; 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 military post by Drusus around 8 B.C. Its nam ...

– 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" German Resistance 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 Elisabeth Adelheid Hildegard von Thadden (29 July 1890 – 8 September 1944, executed) was a German progressive educator and a resistance fighter against the Nazi régime as a member of the Solf Circle. She was sentenced to death for conspiri ...

'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 Augustin Rösch (11 May 1893 – 7 November 1961) was a German Jesuit, Provincial, and significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism. Active in the Kreisau Circle German Resistance group, he was arrested in connection with the 1944 July Plot ...

, 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 language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

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