Lothar König (1906-1946) was a German Jesuit priest and member of the
Kreisau Circle of the
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 ...
during the Nazi period. Though multi-denominational, the Kreisau group's opposition to the Hitler regime had a strongly Christian orientation, and looked for a general Christian revival, and reawakening of awareness of the transcendental. Its outlook was rooted both in German romantic and idealist tradition and in the Catholic doctrine of
natural law. König would become an important intermediary between the Circle and bishops Grober of Freiberg and
Preysing of Berlin. After the failure of the 1944
July Plot
On 20 July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia, now Kętrzyn, in present-day Poland. The ...
to assassinate Hitler, König was pursued by the Gestapo and sought refuge in a coal cellar, where he lived in hiding until the end of the war. König died shortly after the war from the effects of his time in hiding.
Lothar König
German Resistance Memorial Centre, Index of Persons; retrieved at 4 September 2013
See also
* Catholic Church and Nazi Germany
* Kirchenkampf
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Konig, Lothar
Roman Catholics in the German Resistance
German resistance members
1906 births
1946 deaths
20th-century German Roman Catholic priests