![1502 Leisner](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/1502_Leisner.jpg)
Karl Leisner (28 February 1915 in
Rees – 12 August 1945 in
Planegg
Planegg is a municipality in the district of Munich, in Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the river Würm, 13 km west of Munich (centre).
Economy
Koch Media has its head office in Planegg. It also hosts many biotech-companies, like ADVA ...
, Germany) was a
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...
interned in the
Dachau concentration camp. He died of
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...
shortly after being liberated by the
Allied forces. He has been declared a
martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
and was
beatified
Beatification (from Latin ''beatus'', "blessed" and ''facere'', "to make”) is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their nam ...
by
Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
on 23 June 1996.
Life
Leisner was born on 28 February 1915, the oldest of five children. When he was six years old, the family moved to
Kleve
Kleve (; traditional en, Cleves ; nl, Kleef; french: Clèves; es, Cléveris; la, Clivia; Low Rhenish: ''Kleff'') is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century ...
, a city on the lower Rhine, where his father worked as a civil servant. He attended school and completed his
gymnasium studies in 1934. During his youth, he became an
altar boy
An altar server is a lay assistant to a member of the clergy during a Christian liturgy. An altar server attends to supporting tasks at the altar such as fetching and carrying, ringing the altar bell, helps bring up the gifts, brings up the book ...
and, at the suggestion of the high school chaplain, formed a Catholic youth group, the Saint Werner Group. These youth groups combined prayer with outdoor activities, such as camping and cycling. Leisner turned out to be a natural leader and became a youth leader in the 1930s, during the era in which the Nazis were beginning to take control of all youth organizations. In order to avoid Nazi interference, Leisner would often take his group on camping trips to Holland or Belgium.
["Blessed Karl Leisner", Heroes of the Holocaust, Catholic Heritage Curricula]
/ref>
In 1934, when he was nineteen, Leisner entered the seminary in Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
,[Phillips, Francis. "The incredible story of the priest ordained amidst the horrors of Dachau", ''Catholic Herald'', 17 July 2017]
/ref> and was named Diocesan Youth Leader by Clemens August von Galen, Bishop of Münster. He spent six months in compulsory agricultural work during which, despite Nazi opposition, he organized Sunday Mass for his fellow workers. His home was raided by the Gestapo, who seized his diaries and papers. These meticulously preserved documents tell how the spiritual young man became a religious leader.
On 25 March 1939, Galen ordained Leisner a deacon
A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Chur ...
.[ Shortly after his ordination, during a medical examination, the doctor told the new deacon that he had contracted ]tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...
. In those days, the sole treatment available for the disease was good food and fresh air. These were to be found at a sanitorium
A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal, make healthy'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, are antiquated names for specialised hospitals, for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments and convalescence. Sanatoriums are often ...
in St. Blasien, in the Black Forest
The Black Forest (german: Schwarzwald ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is t ...
, where he was sent and began to recover. It was during his recovery that a fellow patient heard him criticize Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
. The Gestapo arrested him as a political prisoner on 9 November 1939, when he was twenty-five. He was interned first in Freiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...
and later in Mannheim
Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's ...
. Leisner was initially imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoner ...
, but was moved to the Dachau concentration camp on 14 December 1940, where he became prisoner No. 22,356. Since he was a deacon, Leisner was assigned to the priests' block.[
Prisoners often had to work outside in snow or rain and then had to sleep in their wet prison clothes. Cold weather, poor rations and harsh treatment proved a dangerous combination for someone already suffering to tuberculosis. Such conditions
caused Leisner's condition to become active. Then, during an inspection, two ]Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
guards beat him unconscious and he spent several hours on the floor of his hut. By March 1942, he was spitting blood and was forced to report to the infirmary where medical experiments were known to be performed. He was put in a room that was crowded with over 100 tuberculosis patients. In Dachau, there was never any attempt to cure a disease and very little care was given to the sick. During inspections of the infirmary, any patient
thought to be incurable was executed.[
On 17 December 1944, ]Gaudete Sunday
Gaudete Sunday ( ) is the third Sunday of Advent in the liturgical calendar of Western Christianity, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, Lutheran Churches, and other mainline Protestant churches. It can fall on any date fr ...
, a fellow prisoner, French Bishop Gabriel Piguet, secretly ordained him a priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...
.[ The necessary paperwork with the authorization for the ordination, as well as other necessary items, were smuggled into the camp by "''Mädi''", the "Angel of Dachau", a young woman named Josefa Mack. (Mack went on to become a School Sister of Notre Dame in Munich, called Sister Maria Imma.) Some imprisoned Protestant pastors helped organize the event and a Jewish violinist played music near the barracks to create a diversion.][
The newly ordained priest only celebrated a single Mass and was so ill that he had to postpone his first Mass for over a week.][ When Dachau was liberated on 4 May 1945, Leisner was taken to a sanatarium in ]Planegg
Planegg is a municipality in the district of Munich, in Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the river Würm, 13 km west of Munich (centre).
Economy
Koch Media has its head office in Planegg. It also hosts many biotech-companies, like ADVA ...
, near Munich. He died there a few months later, on 12 August 1945.
Leisner's body was taken to Kleve and buried in a local cemetery on 20 August 1945. His remains were exhumed and re-interred in the crypt of the Cathedral of Xanten in 1966.
Beatification
On a visit to Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
in 1996, Pope John Paul II recognized Leisner as a martyr for the Catholic faith and beatified him, together with Bernhard Lichtenberg
Bernhard Lichtenberg (; 3 December 1875 – 5 November 1943) was a German Catholic priest who became known for repeatedly speaking out, after the rise of Adolf Hitler and during the Holocaust, against the persecution and deportation of the Jews ...
, another Nazi resister. His feast day is 12 August.
The canonization process for Leisner has not yet been completed.
Media
Some works have been published in English about Leisner. One is ''The Victory of Father Karl'' by Otto Pies, published in 1957. It was a translation of ''Stephanus heute; Karl Leisner, Priester und Opfer''. A radio drama adaptation was produced for "The Hour of St. Francis" with the same title. A half-hour docudrama on videotape was released by the Daughters of St. Paul in 1984, also with the same title.
Leisner and Schoenstatt
Karl Leisner got to know the Schoenstatt movement
The Apostolic Movement of Schoenstatt (german: Schönstatt-Bewegung) is a Catholic Marian movement founded in Germany in 1914 by Fr Joseph Kentenich, who saw the movement as a means of spiritual renewal for the Catholic Church.
The movement i ...
as a teenager and belonged to a Schoenstatt group - which included the future Bishop of Münster, Heinrich Tenhumberg - up till his final days. Throughout his life, the few but intense times of personal encounter with Our Lady in the Original Shrine in Schoenstatt remained the decisive milestones for Karl Leisner on his path of calling. "Christ, my passion" - led by this ideal
Ideal may refer to:
Philosophy
* Ideal (ethics), values that one actively pursues as goals
* Platonic ideal, a philosophical idea of trueness of form, associated with Plato
Mathematics
* Ideal (ring theory), special subsets of a ring considere ...
, he worked in the diocesan youth and wrestled his way to a decision for a celibate life as a priest. In the Dachau concentration camp he founded, together with Josef Fischer, the first Schoenstatt group in Dachau, which had to end its meetings in the 1942 starvation year. From 1943 Karl Leisner belonged to the group "Victor in vinculis Mariae" (victor in the shackles of Mary) and thus to the circle of Schoenstaetters around the founder Josef Kentenich
Peter Joseph Kentenich, SAC (16 November 1885 – 15 September 1968) was a Pallottine priest and founder of the Schoenstatt Apostolic Movement. He is also remembered as a theologian, educator, and pioneer of a Catholic response to an array of m ...
. From the ideal and the fraternity of this group, Karl Leisner drew the strength to accept his fate, which was burdened by the tuberculosis of the lung as well as the difficult conditions in the concentration camp, as the will of God and to offer his life as a martyr.
See also
*Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration Camp
The Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration (in German Pfarrerblock, or Priesterblock) incarcerated clergy who had opposed the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. From December 1940, Berlin ordered the transfer of clerical prisoners held at other camps, ...
References
Sources
* Hermann GEBERT, ''Geschichte einer Berufung. Karl Leisner (1915-1945).'' Vallendar, Patris Verlag, 2001.
* Arnaud Join-Lambert, Karl Leisner. Bruyères-le-Chatel : Nouvelle Cité, 2009 (collection Prier 15 jours avec, n° 132) 128 p. ; Idem, Ganz und ungeteilt. 15 Tage mit Karl Leisner. Übersetzung von Josef Barmettler – Jutta Krugmann – Oskar Bühler, Vorwort Robert Zollitsch, Patris Verlag, Vallendar 2010, 176 p. .
* René Lejeune, Comme l'or passé au feu. Carl Leisner 1915-1945. Éditions du Parvis, Hauteville / Suisse, 1989, 285 p.
* Hans-Karl SEEGER, Karl Leisners letztes Tagebuch. In Handschrift, in Druckschrift und kommentiert. "Segne auch, Höchster, meine Feinde !". Dialogverlag, Münster, 2000.
* Pies, Otto, The Victory of Father Karl. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1957. Translation of Stephanus heute; Karl Leisner, Priester und Opfer.
External links
Home page of the Karl Leisner Kreis
(in German)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leisner, Karl
1915 births
1945 deaths
20th-century deaths from tuberculosis
20th-century venerated Christians
Beatifications by Pope John Paul II
Burials at Xanten Cathedral
Catholic saints and blesseds of the Nazi era
German people who died in Dachau concentration camp
German beatified people
Tuberculosis deaths in Germany
People from Rees, Germany
Roman Catholics in the German Resistance
20th-century German Roman Catholic priests