Eduard Müller (20 August 1911 – 10 November 1943) was a German Catholic priest and martyr. He was guillotined in a Hamburg prison by the Nazi authorities in November 1943, along with the three other
Lübeck martyrs. Müller was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011.
[Three priest-martyrs of Nazis beatified in Germany](_blank)
Catholic News Agency; 25 June 2011
Life
Born in
Neumünster
Neumünster () is a city in the middle of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. With more than 79,000 registered inhabitants, it is the fourth-largest municipality in Schleswig-Holstein (behind Kiel, Lübeck and Flensburg). The ''Holstenhallen'' and ...
, his family were shoemakers. Müller grew up in poverty. After leaving school, he learned the trade of joiner and became a member of the Catholic youth movement. Members of Neumünster Parish assisted him to attend high school and study theology and he was ordained in Osnabrück in 1939, and appointed as a minister for young people at the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Lübeck. The Nazis had banned Church federation work with young people, but Müller took care of youth groups and led a discussion circle whose topics included National Socialism, political events and the military situation. Müller used information from British radio in his discussion and provided leaflets including copies of the sermons of Bishop
Clemens August von Galen
Clemens Augustinus Emmanuel Joseph Pius Anthonius Hubertus Marie Graf von Galen (16 March 1878 – 22 March 1946), better known as ''Clemens August Graf von Galen'', was a German count, Bishop of Münster, and cardinal of the Catholic Church ...
, which he duplicated with the prelate
Hermann Lange and chaplain
Johannes Prassek.
Eduard Müller
German Resistance Memorial Centre, Index of Persons; retrieved at 6 January 2025
Müller, along with Prassek and Lange and the Lutheran pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink, spoke publicly against the Nazis – initially discreetly – distributing pamphlets to friends and congregants.[Beatification Of WWII Martyrs Divides Lutherans, Catholics](_blank)
Huffington Post; By Omar Sacirbey; 20/6/2011 Then, following a 28 March 1942 RAF air-raid, after which Stellbrink tended wounded, he delivered a Palm Sunday sermon which attributed the bombing to divine punishment. Stellbrink was arrested, followed by the three Catholic priests, each of whom were sentenced to death. The mingling of the blood of the four guillotined martyrs has become a symbol of German Ecumenism
Ecumenism ( ; alternatively spelled oecumenism)also called interdenominationalism, or ecumenicalismis the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships ...
.
See also
* Lübeck martyrs
*Kirchenkampf
''Kirchenkampf'' (, lit. 'church struggle') is a German term which pertains to the situation of the Christianity in Germany, Christian churches in Germany during the Nazi Germany, Nazi period (1933–1945). Sometimes used ambiguously, the term ma ...
*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 whom lived in Southern Germany; Protestants dominated the n ...
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Muller, Eduard
German anti-fascists
Martyred Roman Catholic priests
German beatified people
1911 births
1943 deaths
Catholic saints and blesseds of the Nazi era
People from Neumünster
Beatifications by Pope Benedict XVI
People from Schleswig-Holstein executed by Nazi Germany
People executed by Nazi Germany by guillotine
20th-century German Roman Catholic priests
Roman Catholic priests executed by Nazi Germany