Erich Klausener
Part of a series on |
Modern persecutions of the Catholic Church |
---|
Dachau concentration camp, Nazi Germany.
Of around 2,720 clergy imprisoned in the Clergy Barracks, about 95 % were Catholic. |
Catholicism portal |
Erich Klausener (25 January 1885 – 30 June 1934) was a German Catholic politician who was killed in the "Night of the Long Knives", a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from June 30 to July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders.
Biography[edit]
Born in Düsseldorf to a strict Catholic family, Klausener followed his father's career in public service, serving for a time in the Prussian Ministry of Commerce. Klausener served as an artillery officer in Belgium, France and the This front of World War I; was awarded the Iron Cross second class in 1914 and with the Iron Cross First Class in 1917. The share of Klausener in boycott during the French occupancy Ruhr in 1923 and 1924 earned him a sentence of two months in prison.
From 1924, Klausener served in the Prussia n the Ministry of Welfare, and later headed the police division Ministry of Interior of that state. From 1928, Klausener became head of 'group' 'Katholische Aktion "(Catholic Action). Before 1933, Klausener strongly supported the police battle against illegal Nazi activities. After Adolf Hitler and Nazis came to power in 1933, Hermann Göring became minister-president of Prussia. Klausener is displaced from the ministry of transport of Prussia when Göring started its Nazify the Prussian police.
A close associate of Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen, Klausener contributed to his Marburg speech delivered on 17 June 1934. The speech, though moderate in tone, criticized the violence and repression that had followed since Hitler became Chancellor. Klausener spoke at the Catholic Congress in the Berlin's Hoppegarten, on 24 June 1934. His passionate criticism of the repression was viewed by the Nazis as an open challenge.
Six days later, during the "Night of the Long Knives", SS officer Kurt Gildisch was ordered by Reinhard Heydrich to go to Klausener's office at the Ministry of Transport to shoot him. After the killing, Gildisch was promoted in rank to SS-Sturmbannführer.[1]
After the end of the Nazi regime and after World War II, a monument was erected to Klausener in Berlin. Since 1963, his ashes are buried in a grave in the Catholic Church Maria Regina Martyrum, in commemoration of the martyrs of the Nazi era.
Klausener's relationship with the future Pope Pius XII has sometimes been controversial. While authors like Guenter Lewy have expressed criticism of Pius for not intervening more forcefully in the case, other authors like Joseph Bottum and David G. Dalin have presented a more positive assessment of the attitude of Pius XII during that time.
Memory[edit]
-
Una parte de una placa conmemorativa en recuerdo de los católicos de la Arquidiócesis de Berlín asesinado durante la guerra, en una cripta de la St. Catedral de Hedwig en Berlín.
References[edit]
- ^ Hoffmann, Peter (2000) [1979]. Hitler's Personal Security: Protecting the Führer 1921-1945, p. 49, ISBN 978-0-30680-947-7.
- ^ The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, by Guenter Lewy
- ^ The Pius war: responses to the critics of Pius XII, by J. Bottum, David G. Dalin
External links[edit]
- Brief biography of Erich Klausener – from the German Resistance Memorial Center
- Martin Persch (1992). "Erich Klausener". In Bautz, Friedrich Wilhelm. Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German) 3. Herzberg: Bautz. cols. 1570–1573. ISBN 3-88309-035-2.
See also[edit]
|
- 1885 births
- 1934 deaths
- German politicians
- People from Düsseldorf
- People from the Rhine Province
- German Roman Catholics
- Roman Catholics in the German Resistance
- Victims of the Night of the Long Knives
- Recipients of the Iron Cross (1914), 1st class
- German military personnel of World War I
- 20th-century Roman Catholic martyrs
- 20th-century venerated Christians
- People from North Rhine-Westphalia executed by Nazi Germany
- Executed German people
- People executed by Germany by firearm
- Prussian Army personnel
- Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church