Lichtenberg Bernhard

Lichtenberg, Bernhard Bernhard Lichtenberg, the only Catholic priest in Nazi Germany to protest publicly against the persecution of the Jews, was born on December 3, 1875 at Ohlau, Lower Silesia (today Oława, Poland). He was the second oldest of five siblings. The small merchant family of the Lichtenbergs belonged to the Catholic minority in a predominantly Protestant city. There was also a tiny community of 123 Jews. Bernhard Lichtenberg graduated from the local gymnasium and decided to dedicate himself to the priesthood. He studied theology in Breslau and Innsbruck and in 1899 was ordained as a priest. Thereafter, Lichtenberg pursued a career in the Church. After serving for more than a decade as priest of the Heart of Jesus community in Charlottenburg, he was called in 1932 to be Rector of the St. Hedwig Cathedral. In 1931, Lichtenberg's signing of a call inviting Catholics to watch a performance of the film version of Erich Maria Remarques' anti-war novel, ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, brought upon him a vicious attack by Goebbels' paper, Der Angriff. On March 31, 1933, two months after the Nazi takeover, Lichtenberg arranged for the Jewish banker Oskar Wassermann to meet Cardinal Bertram, Archbishop of Breslau and President of the German Episcopal Conference, in a vain attempt to convince him to intervene to prevent the anti-Semitic boycott of Jewish businesses planned for the next day. Bertram typically regarded the whole issue as lying outside the Church's purview. In marked contrast to the majority of the Catholic and Protestant Church establishment during the Holocaust, Lichtenberg thought from the beginning that as a priest he was bound to help while the Jews were being robbed of every vestige of their civil and human rights. The situation reports of the Potsdam State Police for February 1936 tell of a religious meeting held in Berlin between Lichtenberg, two rabbis, two ministers of the Confessing Church and a number of “non-Aryan” laymen. “Themeeting reportedly reached the conclusion that the German people will have much to atone for with regard to the Jews“. In August 1938, Lichtenberg, who had been elected Cathedral Provost the previous year, was put in charge of the Relief Office of the Berlin Episcopate, which assisted many Catholics of Jewish descent in emigrating from the Third Reich. In the wake of the Kristallnacht pogrom of 9-10 November 1938, while the German churches – including the dissident Confessing Church– kept their silence in face of the vicious attack upon the Jews, Lichtenberg was the only Church leader to raise his voice publicly and fearlessly against Nazi brutality. “We know what happened yesterday, we do not know what lies in store for us tomorrow. But we have experienced what has happened today: “Outside burns the temple. This is also a place of worship”. Lichtenberg continued to pray daily from his pulpit in the St. Hedwig Cathedral for both Jews and Jewish Christians as well as other victims of the regime. After the outbreak of war, Lichtenberg protested in writing against the racial segregation in air shelters decreed on December 14, 1939. Lichtenberg’s anti-Nazi stance and his continued protests against the persecution of the Jews brought him into direct conflict with the oppression machinery of the National Socialist State. Two female students who had heard him pray publicly for the Jews and concentration camp inmates denounced him to the police. In the search that the Gestapo carried out in Lichtenberg’s home on October 23, 1941 they found a pulpit proclamation that Lichtenberg had meant to be read on the upcoming Sunday. The proclamation was crafted in response to a Nazi leaflet circulated by Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry in which German national-socialists were warned not to offer help to Jews, not even by friendly gesture. In the declaration, Lichtenberg wrote: “An anonymous slanderous sheet against the Jews is being distributed to Berlin homes. This leaflet statesthat every German who supports Jews with an ostensibly false sentimentality, be it only through friendly kindness, commits treason against his people. Let us not be misled by this un-Christian way of thinking but follow the strict command of Jesus Christ: ‘You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself’”. During his interrogation, Lichtenberg refused to retract his words and even went further intensifying his statements. When he was questioned regarding an annotated copy of Mein Kampf found in his possession, Lichtenberg stated that since the Weltanschauung (world view) portrayed in Mein Kampf contradicted Christianity, he as a Catholic priest was bound to oppose it. He was also prepared to bear all the consequences that his opposition to state policies would incur for him personally: “This is because I reject with my innermost being, the evacuation [of the Jews] with all its side effects, because it is directed against the most important commandment of Christianity, ”You shall love your neighbor as much as you love yourself”. And I recognize the Jew too as my neighbor, who possesses an immortal soul, shaped after the likeness of God. However, since I cannot prevent this governmental measure, I have made up my mind to accompany the deported Jews and Christian Jews into exile, in order to give them spiritual aid. I wish to use this occasion to ask the Gestapo to give me this opportunity.” In May 1942, the Berlin District Court sentenced Lichtenberg to two years imprisonment on account of abuse of the pulpit and insidious activity. Asked if he had anything to add, Lichtenberg said - according to the trial transcript - “I submit that no harm results to the state by citizens who pray for the Jews.” Towards the end of Lichtenberg’s two-year prison term, Bishop Preysing of Berlin visited him at the Tegel prison and delivered to him the proposal of the Gestapo that they would allow him to remain free if he promised to refrain from preaching for the duration of thewar. However, Lichtenberg asked instead to be allowed to join the deported Jews and Christian Jews to Łódż, Poland, in order to serve there as a pastoral minister. Preysing, who was deeply worried about Lichtenberg’s failing health, tried in vain to dissuade him from the idea. In view of Lichtenberg’s unyielding opposition, the Nazi security service ordered his transfer from prison to the Dachau concentration camp. While waiting to be deported, the 67 year-old fell gravely ill and died on November 5, 1943. On July 7, 2004, Yad Vashem recognized Bernhard Lichtenberg as Righteous Among the Nations.