The German Catholics' Peace Association (Friedensbund Deutscher Katholiken) was a Catholic peace association founded in
Weimar Germany in 1919 by Fr.
Max Josef Metzger
Max Josef Metzger (3 February 1887 – 17 April 1944) was a Catholic priest and leading German pacifist who was executed by the Nazis during World War II. , a Roman Catholic priest.
Metzger had served as military chaplain, in the German Imperial Army during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Metzger became convinced that “future wars have lost their meaning, since they no longer give anybody the prospect of winning more than he loses.” At war's end, Metzger established the German Catholics’ Peace Association. He sought links to the international pacifist movement, strongly advocated the ecumenical idea of peace, and soon became known as a leading German pacifist.
Metzger was targeted by the Nazi authorities and arrested on several occasions by the Gestapo. He was arrested for the last time in June 1943 after being denounced by a mail courier for attempting to send a memorandum on the reorganisation of the German state and its integration into a future system of world peace to
Erling Eidem
Erling Eidem (23 April 1880 – 14 April 1972) was a Swedish theologian who served as archbishop of Uppsala 1931–1950.
Eidem was son of Anders Magnus Andersson, a merchant in Gothenburg, and his spouse Pauline Eidem, whose maiden name h ...
, the Swedish Archbishop of Uppsala. Sentenced to death, he was executed on April 17, 1944. Social worker
Gertrud Luckner
Gertrud Luckner (; born 26 September 1900 in Liverpool – died 31 August 1995 in Freiburg im Breisgau) was a Christian social worker involved in the German resistance to Nazism.
A member of the banned German Catholic Peace Movement, she organi ...
was another high profile member of the Association. For her work aiding Nazi victims including the Jews and foreign prisoners of war, Luckner was arrested in 1943 and only narrowly escaped death in the concentration camps.
Gertrud Luckner
German Resistance Memorial Centre, Index of Persons; retrieved at 4 September 2013
See also
* Catholic Church and Nazi Germany
*Catholic resistance to Nazism
Catholic resistance to Nazi Germany was a component of German resistance to Nazism and of Resistance during World War II. The role of the Catholic Church during the Nazi years remains a matter of much contention. From the outset of Nazi rule in ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:German Catholics' Peace Association
Catholic resistance to Nazi Germany