Lothar König (1906-1946) was a German Jesuit priest and member of the
Kreisau Circle
The Kreisau Circle (German: ''Kreisauer Kreis'', ) (1940–1944) was a group of about twenty-five German dissidents in Nazi Germany led by Helmuth James von Moltke, who met at his estate in the rural town of Kreisau, Silesia. The circle was com ...
of the
German Resistance 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
Natural law ( la, ius naturale, ''lex naturalis'') is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law (the express enacte ...
. 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 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
Popes Pius XI (1922–1939) and Pius XII (1939–1958) led the Catholic Church during the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. Around a third of Germans were Catholic in the 1930s, most of them lived in Southern Germany; Protestants dominated the no ...
*Kirchenkampf
''Kirchenkampf'' (, lit. 'church struggle') is a German term which pertains to the situation of the Christian churches in Germany during the Nazi period (1933–1945). Sometimes used ambiguously, the term may refer to one or more of the follo ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Konig, Lothar
Roman Catholics in the German Resistance
German resistance members
1906 births
1946 deaths
20th-century German Roman Catholic priests