Laurentius Siemer (; born Josef Siemer, 1888 in Elisabethfehn/

Barßel Barßel is a municipality in the district of Cloppenburg, in Lower Saxony, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, a ...

–1956 in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

) was a Dominican priest, and Provincial of the Dominican Province of Teutonia, Germany during the Nazi period. A significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism, he became a spiritual leader of the German Resistance movement and was imprisoned by the Nazis. Implicated in the July Plot, he survived the war in hiding and assisted in drafting Germany's post war constitution. In later life he became a TV celebrity.

Life

Born to a large family in northern Germany, Siemer was ordained as a priest of the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of ...

in 1914 and studied philosophy, theology, philology and history. He was appointed rector of the Order's high school in Vechta in 1921, and became Provincial of the Dominican Province of Teutonia (roughly, the whole of Germany north of Mainz) in 1932.Laurentius Siemer
German Resistance Memorial Centre, Index of Persons; retrieved at 4 September 2013Memory of Spiritual Leader in German Resistance Lives On
Deutsche Welle online; 21 October 2006 After initially being disengaged, Siemer came to oppose the Nazi regime. According to Deutsche Welle, Siemer called on German Catholics not to follow the cultural currents of the time, but rather, to live by the principles of the Catholic religion. The Gestapo arrested Siemer in Cologne in 1935, as part of the "Currency Fraud Cases" targeting Catholic clergy and held him in custody for several months. The fraud trials were attempt to undermine the influence of Dominicans on German Catholics. From 1940, the Gestapo launched an intense persecution of the monasteries - invading, searching and appropriating them. Siemer was influential in the Committee for Matters Relating to the Orders, which formed in response to Nazi attacks against Catholic monasteries and aimed to encourage the bishops to intercede on behalf of the Orders and more strongly oppose the Nazi state. Increasingly, Laurentius became involved in the resistance movement. He spoke to resistance circles on Catholic social teaching as a starting point for Germany's reconstruction, and worked with

Carl Goerdeler Carl Friedrich Goerdeler (; 31 July 1884 – 2 February 1945) was a monarchist conservative German politician, executive, economist, civil servant and opponent of the Nazi regime. He opposed some anti-Jewish policies while he held office and was ...

and others in planning for a post-coup Germany. Following the failure of the 1944 July Plot to assassinate Hitler, Siemer evaded capture by the Gestapo at his Schwichteler monastery, and hid out until the end of the war, thus remaining one of the few conspirators to survive the purge. After the war, Siemer assisted in the drafting of the German constitution. He established the Walberberg Institute as an educational institute for young people near Bonn. According to Deutsche Welle, Siemer was a strong advocate of Christian socialism, and became a popular TV talk show guest in Germany, known as the "TV Father".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Siemer, Laurentius 20th-century German Roman Catholic priests Roman Catholics in the German Resistance German Christian socialists Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church Catholic socialists 1888 births 1956 deaths

Life

See also

References