Johannes Prassek (13 August 1911 – 10 November 1943) was a German

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

priest, and one of the

Lübeck martyrs The Lübeck Martyrs were three Roman Catholic priests – Johannes Prassek, Eduard Müller and Hermann Lange – and the Evangelical-Lutheran pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink. All four were executed by beheading on 10 November 1943 less t ...

guillotine A guillotine ( ) is an apparatus designed for effectively carrying out executions by Decapitation, beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secur ...

d for opposing the

Nazi regime Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

of Adolf Hitler in 1943.Three priest-martyrs of Nazis beatified in Germany
Catholic News Agency; 25 June 2011Biography of Johannes Prassek
at

German Resistance Memorial Centre The German Resistance Memorial Center () is a memorial and museum in Berlin, capital of Germany. History It was opened in 1980 in part of the Bendlerblock, a complex of offices in Stauffenbergstrasse (formerly Bendlerstrasse), south of the Groß ...

; retrieved 30. Sep. 2013 Prassek was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011.

Biography

Born in

Barmbek Barmbek (), until 27 September 1946 ''Barmbeck'', is the name of a former village that was absorbed into the city of Hamburg, Germany. In 1951 it was divided into the quarters ''Barmbek-Süd'', ''Barmbek-Nord'' and ''Dulsberg'' in the borough ''Ha ...

, Prassek came from a working class Hamburg family, and financially struggled through his studies in theology. Ordained a priest at

Osnabrück Osnabrück (; ; archaic English: ''Osnaburg'') is a city in Lower Saxony in western Germany. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a population of 168 ...

in 1937, he became a chaplain at

Lübeck Lübeck (; or ; Latin: ), officially the Hanseatic League, Hanseatic City of Lübeck (), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 220,000 inhabitants, it is the second-largest city on the German Baltic Sea, Baltic coast and the second-larg ...

in 1939. A popular pastor, Prassek, impressed his congregation with his sermons, and work with young people. Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime was governing Germany, and in his theological discussion groups, Prassek often openly spoke of irreconcilable contradictions between Catholicism and

Nazi ideology Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was freque ...

. He also established contact with forced labourers, and learned the

Polish language Polish (, , or simply , ) is a West Slavic languages, West Slavic language of the Lechitic languages, Lechitic subgroup, within the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family, and is written in the Latin script. It is primarily spo ...

in order to assist in his ministry work with them. Aged 30, in 1941, Prassek met Karl Friedrich Stellbrink, a pastor at the nearby

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

Church. They shared disapproval of the Nazi regime, and Prassek introduced Stellbrink to his Catholic colleagues, Hermann Lange and Eduard Mueller. The four priests spoke publicly against the Nazis – initially discreetly – distributing pamphlets to friends and congregants.Beatification Of WWII Martyrs Divides Lutherans, Catholics
Huffington Post; By Omar Sacirbey; 20/6/2011 They copied and distributed the anti-Nazi 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 ...

of Münster. Then, following the 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. Prassek had been denounced by a Gestapo informer. Arrested in May 1942, he was sentenced to death by the People's Court in June 1943, in the "Lübeck Christians’ Trial", and executed on 10 November 1943 in Hamburg, alongside the other priests. Resigned to martyrdom, Prassek wrote to his family: "Who can oppress one who dies". 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 ...

. Prassek is remembered in his home city of Hamburg by having a park named after him.Stadtentwicklung: Hamburg bekommt den Johannes-Prassek-Park. Hamburger Abendblatt, 22 June 2011

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Prassek, Johannes 1911 births 1943 deaths German anti-fascists Martyred Roman Catholic priests German beatified people Catholic saints and blesseds of the Nazi era Beatifications by Pope Benedict XVI Executed German people People from Hamburg executed by Nazi Germany People from Hamburg-Nord People executed by Nazi Germany by guillotine 20th-century German Roman Catholic priests Roman Catholic priests executed by Nazi Germany

Biography

See also

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