Karl Leisner – Wikipedia

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‘ Bless, very high, even my enemies . »

( From a annotation of Karl Leisner written on July 25, 1945 on his diary )
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Karl Leisner (Rees, February 28, 1915 – Planegg, 12 August 1945) was a German presbyter, who died following the captivity in the concentration camp of Dachau where he had been interned because of his faith. It was beatified by the Catholic Church.

Leisner’s house

Karl Leisner was born on February 28, 1915 in Rees, Vestphalia (west of Germany). In 1921, his family moved to Kleve, a town not far away. The father, Wilhelm Leisner, chancellor of the court, is a very methodical man, deeply attached to the Catholic faith handed down by his ancestors, and has an energetic and impetuous character. The mother, Amalie Falkanstein, is instead kind and understanding, calm and conciliatory.

The young Karl initially attended the elementary school, then, in 1927, the state high school. Following a sin, he writes: «I fell again … enough! I lower the sin! … remain calm and courageous, despite all the futility and all the voracity of the senses! I want to have the utmost esteem for myself: they are an image of the Trinitarian God who is only one God. Restabilize the unity between the will and to act in me “.

He comes into contact with the high school catechist, Don Walter Vinnenberg, who offers him to collaborate with an association for youth, the San Werner group. He receives the task of drawing up the reports of the meetings and activities carried out. Relationships become, starting from May 1928, the diary of his soul.

San Werner editor [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

Among the activities of the San Werner group, a prominent place occupy bicycle trips. The departure is preceded by a mass that constitutes the most spiritual moment of the day. Karl and his companions have fun mounting the tent, to discover cities and landscapes. The flute and guitar are played, popular songs are antonymous, we participate in acts of tribute to the Virgin Mary. Soon, Karl is appointed responsible for the movements of the Catholic youth of the Kleve district; These are the years in which he also interested in civil and political life.

Historical-social context [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

In January 1933, National Socialism came to power in Germany. On the following July 2, the authorities close the premises of the Catholic organizations and confiscate their assets. [first] The young man is identified very quickly for his articles in Catholic magazines [2] and scheduled by the Gestapo. He strives to be more prudent in speaking, without however hiding his Christian faith, and without giving up the commitment taken in the city. Every day, he makes the effort to get up early enough to go to Mass and make communion. The seriousness of its application at school prevents high school managers from expelling it. Passes the high school exam with the “good” mention, despite its literary qualities.

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Training [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

At Easter of 1933, before entering the third high school, Karl went to Schönstatt for a spiritual retreat. He notes in his diary that he begins to examine his life project. In December 1933, after a period spent in discernment, he decided for ecclesiastical life [3] On May 5, 1934, he thus entered the Borromäum seminary of Münster. He studies philosophy and theology at the University of Münster. Bishop Clemens von Galen, [4] , the diocesan responsible for Catholic youth appointed him.

At Easter of 1936 he went to the University of Freiburg in Brisgovia. The following year he will have the opportunity to visit Rome and to be received at the hearing by Pope Pius XI, who has condemned National Socialism with the encyclical With burning concern , [5] and communism with encyclical Divine Redeemer , [6] .

At the beginning of 1938, Karl passed the admission exam to the major seminary; On March 4, 1939 he was ordained sopdiacono and on March 25 he received the diaconate from the hands of Monsignor von Galen.

As usual, a few months later he should have received priestly ordination, but the pulmonary tuberculosis, who suddenly manifested himself, forces him to go to the sanatorium of St. Blasien, in the black forest, to cure himself.

Arrest and detention [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

On November 9, 1939, the news of an attack on Hitler in Munich spreads to the amnesty. To the news that the Führer came out unscathed Karl replies: “Too bad it hasn’t left” [7] Leisner is immediately denounced for subversive propaganda and, on the same day, he is locked up in the prison of Freiburg. [8]

On March 16, 1940, Karl was interned in the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen, near Berlin. He received the serial number 17520. With the hard life of the field, where they reign inhuman work, hunger and diseases, the young state of health worsens.
In December 1940, behind the insistence of the German episcopate, Himmler, supreme commander of the S.S., decided to group the ecclesiastics in one field, to Dachau, and to submit them to less inhuman conditions. [9] Leisner is then transferred to this field in which he is allowed to participate in the mass.

On the night of March 15, 1942, he was hospitalized in the infirmary of the field for a pulmonary hemorrhage. [ten] During the period of stay at the Dachau camp it will return three more times, after short stays in the barracks of the priests. Meanwhile, he makes himself known for the testimony of faith and for Christian charity that gives detainees. [11]

Sick, Karl is considered a “useless mouth”. In October 1942, a figure on the list of deportees who must be exterminated in a gas chamber. Two priests manage to erase his name from the list.

At the beginning of 1943, an exanthematic cheering epidemic spread about 6,000 victims in the field. Karl escapes the epidemic only because the tuberculosis section is isolated from the rest of the field. [twelfth] In the absolute abandonment to Providence Divine, he thanks God to have conformed him to his son’s passion, by means of those evidence.

Illegal ordination in Dachau [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

On September 6, 1944, a convoy of French deportees arrived in Dachau, including a bishop, Monsignor Gabriel Piguet. The possibility of completing his training course to the presbyterate, interrupted with the disease and arrest, is concretized. On September 23, Leisner asks with a letter to his bishop the authorization necessary for ordination. Towards the end of the year 1944, the situation for Germany had made it difficult: the third Reich lost land in front of the advance of the allies and in the fields the busy departments had been thinned, so the control of the mail by the SS was less rigorous fact. [13] At the beginning of December 1944, Karl receives a letter written by one of his sisters, who entails, in the midst of the text, the following words written with another calligraphy: «I authorize the ceremonies requested on condition that they can be validly and what Stay a safe test » – The signature of Monsignor von Galen follows.

The illegal ordination is prepared in secret. Thanks to the complicity of several prisoners, an episcopal rider of brass is packaged, a pastoral carved in oak wood, a silk machine gun with pearls and ornaments of purple cloth. Sunday Gaudete , on December 17, 1944 he was ordained a priest. From the recorded testimonies of the event it appears that nothing was omitted of the expected rites. [14] About three hundred witnesses participate in the ceremony, in which the 2,300 other priests of the field joined. During the ordination rite a Jewish deporteate plays the violin, outside, to divert the attention of the supervisors. At the end of the Mass, Monsignor Piguet and Karl find themselves for a breakfast prepared by the group of Protestant shepherds. [15]

On December 26th Memory of Santo Stefano celebrates his first mass. [16]

On April 29, 1945, the Americans release the Dachau field. At the beginning of May, Karl is transported to the Sanatorio di Planegg, near Munich. [17]

However, the disease has taken its course and will suffer an intense suffering, until the end. On June 29, 1945, Karl received the visit of his parents. [18] On July 25, Karl can assist, from the bed, to a mass celebrated by one of his friends. On the same day, he concludes his spiritual diary with these words: “or very high, bless my enemies too”.

It is no longer able to write. He will tell his mother: «Mom, I have to trust something; However, don’t be sad. I know I will die shortly, but I’m happy ». On the evening of August 8, with the visit of his three sisters he lives the last family joy. On August 12 he entered the agony and dies.

The solemn funeral took place in Kleve and was buried in the local cemetery; On August 30, 1966 he was exhumed and his mortal remains translated into the crypt of the martyrs of the Cathedral of Xanten, Germany. On March 15, 1980, the trial for the cause of beatification was introduced by the bishop of Münster.

Karl Leisner was beatified on June 23, 1996 by Pope John Paul II, during his apostolic journey to Berlin.

From the Roman martyrology:

«In Planegg locality near Munich, Blessed Carlo Leisner, priest and martyr, who, still deacon, was deported to a prison for his public profession of faith and the assiduous service rendered to the souls and, ordained a priest in the field of Prison of Dachau, returned to freedom, died of the torture suffered during detention. ”

  1. ^ Karl writes in his Diary : «At school, the clashes are increasingly tough … they flogue us as Catholic activists, enemies of the state … we are even more proud of it. Despite many Foschi moments that arouse fear, we keep the Catholic sign of the youth movement very high ».
  2. ^ In the June 1934 issue of a Catholic monthly for young people, Karl writes: «Ariamo d’amore for Christ and for any human being, with a stronger reason for every brother and sister of our German people! We throw all the hatred into the fire … that from the flames of love, the eternal nostalgia of the German heart is levified: a great and powerful people, Christianly united by love and mutual respect “.
  3. ^ He writes in his Diary : “Solitude has fortified me, it gave me the definitive courage to dare to take the burden of the priestly vocation”.
  4. ^ Monsignor von Galen will be nicknamed the “Leone of Münster”, due to his heroic resistance to National Socialism.
  5. ^ Karl visits the Pope after the publication of the encyclical, which took place on March 14, 1937.
  6. ^ Published on March 19, 1937.
  7. ^ These are the words reported by the friend of the Sanatorio room who will then report him to the police
  8. ^ The prisoner’s delivery report reads the motivation: “Excluded from the community of the German people”.
  9. ^ The Dachau camp, near Munich, initially expected for 8,000 prisoners, will welcome up to 50,000; 15,000 prisoners will die every year. The number of priests inmates will rise to more than 2,600, of which a thousand will die on the spot.
  10. ^ Results from the admission minutes to the infirmary. It will remain there for two months.
  11. ^ In one of his writings drawn up to Dachau we read: «Every day, I offer myself to the Holy Virgin, my mother. It has wonderfully guided me in three years of imprisonment ».
  12. ^ On June 4, 1943, he wrote to a friend: «Looking back, I am very grateful to the Lord and his Holy Mother. If I listened to the smallness of the human heart, I would like to hope a ready return to find you. But the Lord knows what is convenient ».
  13. ^ A 20 -year -old girl had long been engaged, at risk of life, in the connection between the prisoners and the outside of the field. It was she who delivered the letter and the subsequent response.
  14. ^ The bishop dressed in pontifical ornaments and Karl wore the white dawn and the diaconal stole. On the left arm he had the praised planet and the candle in his right hand.
  15. ^ “The priestly ordination of Karl Leisner has constituted a great event for the group of Protestant shepherds,” will write their dean, Dr. Ernst Wilm.
  16. ^ He writes remembering the emotion of the first mass: “With more than five years of prayers and waiting, days filled with great happiness … that God could, out of intercession of Our Lady, fulfill us in such a beautiful and unique way , I still can’t conceive it. ”
  17. ^ So he notes in his diary: «Tracing happiness! Thank you, thank you … alone, in a room all to me, what happiness! … In silence, God speaks, although I feel exhausted ».
  18. ^ In his diary he expresses joy by writing: “We are together!”
  • Wilhelm Haas, Christ my passion. Karl Leisner. His life in pictures and documents , Kevelaer, Butzon and Bercker, 1985. ISBN 3-7666-9425-1
  • René Lejeune, Like gold in fire. Carl Leisner 1915-1945 , Hauteville/Switzerland, Éditions du Parvis, 1989
  • Hans-Karl Seeger, Karl Leisner’s last diary: “Bless, the highest, my enemies!” ; in handwriting, in print and commented, Münster, Dialogverlag, 2000
  • Hermann Gebert, History of an appeal. Karl Leisner (1915-1945) , Vallendar, Patris Verlag, 2001
  • Arnaud Join-Lambert, Pray 15 days with Karl Leisner , Bruyères-le-Chatel, new city, 2009. ISBN 978-2-85313-582-5

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