Johannes Prassek (13 August 1911 – 10 November 1943) was a German

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

priest, and one of the

Lübeck martyrs The Lübeck Martyrs were three Roman Catholic priests – Johannes Prassek, Eduard Müller and Hermann Lange – and the Evangelical-Lutheran pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink. All four were executed by beheading on 10 November 1943 less than ...

, guillotined for opposing the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler in 1943.Three priest-martyrs of Nazis beatified in Germany
Catholic News Agency; 25 June 2011Biography of Johannes Prassek
at

German Resistance Memorial Centre The German Resistance Memorial Center (german: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand) is a memorial and museum in Berlin, capital of Germany. History It was opened in 1980 in part of the Bendlerblock, a complex of offices in Stauffenbergstrasse (fo ...

; retrieved 30. Sep. 2013 Prassek was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011.

Biography

Born in

Barmbek Barmbek (), until 27 September 1946 ''Barmbeck'', is the name of a former village that was absorbed into the city of Hamburg, Germany. In 1951 it was divided into the quarters '' Barmbek-Süd'', '' Barmbek-Nord'' and '' Dulsberg'' in the borough ' ...

, Prassek came from a working class Hamburg family, and financially struggled through his studies in theology. Ordained a priest at

Osnabrück Osnabrück (; wep, Ossenbrügge; archaic ''Osnaburg'') is a city in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a population ...

in 1937, he became a chaplain at

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...

in 1939. A popular pastor, Prassek, impressed his congregation with his sermons, and work with young people. Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime was governing Germany, and in his theological discussion groups, Prassek often openly spoke of irreconcilable contradictions between Catholicism and

Nazi ideology 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 Na ...

. He also established contact with forced labourers, and learned the Polish language in order to assist in his ministry work with them. Aged 30, in 1941, Prassek met

Karl Friedrich Stellbrink Karl Friedrich Stellbrink (28 October 1894 – 10 November 1943) was a German Lutheranism, Lutheran pastor, and one of the Lübeck martyrs, guillotined for opposing the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. Biography Born in Münster, Germany in 1894, son ...

, a pastor at the nearby

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

Church. They shared disapproval of the Nazi regime, and Prassek introduced Stellbrink to his Catholic colleagues,

Hermann Lange Hermann Lange (16 April 1912 – 10 November 1943) was a Roman Catholic priest and martyr of the Nazi period in Germany. He was guillotined in a Hamburg prison by the Nazi authorities in November 1943, along with the three other Lübeck martyr ...

and Eduard Mueller. The four priests spoke publicly against the Nazis – initially discreetly – distributing pamphlets to friends and congregants.Beatification Of WWII Martyrs Divides Lutherans, Catholics
Huffington Post; By Omar Sacirbey; 20/6/2011 They copied and distributed the anti-Nazi sermons of Bishop

Clemens August von Galen Clemens Augustinus Emmanuel Joseph Pius Anthonius Hubertus Marie Graf von Galen (16 March 1878 – 22 March 1946), better known as ''Clemens August Graf von Galen'', was a German count, Bishop of Münster, and cardinal of the Catholic Church ...

of Münster. Then, following the 28 March 1942 RAF air raid, after which Stellbrink tended wounded, he delivered a Palm Sunday sermon which attributed the bombing to divine punishment. Stellbrink was arrested, followed by the three Catholic priests. Prassek had been denounced by a Gestapo informer. Arrested in May 1942, he was sentenced to death by the People's Court in June 1943, in the "Lübeck Christians’ Trial", and executed on 10 November 1943 in Hamburg, alongside the other priests. Resigned to martyrdom, Prassek wrote to his family: "Who can oppress one who dies". The mingling of the blood of the four guillotined martyrs has become a symbol of German

Ecumenism Ecumenism (), also spelled oecumenism, is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjec ...

. Prassek is remembered in his home city of Hamburg by having a park named after him.Stadtentwicklung: Hamburg bekommt den Johannes-Prassek-Park. Hamburger Abendblatt, 22 June 2011

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Prassek, Johannes 1911 births 1943 deaths German anti-fascists Martyred Roman Catholic priests German beatified people Catholic saints and blesseds of the Nazi era Beatifications by Pope Benedict XVI Executed German people People from Hamburg executed by Nazi Germany People from Hamburg-Nord People executed by Nazi Germany by guillotine 20th-century German Roman Catholic priests

Biography

See also

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