The Priest Barracks: Dachau, 1938-1945

by Guillaume Zeller

At the Nazi concentration camp Dachau, three barracks out of thirty were occupied by clergy from 1938 to 1945.  The overwhelming majority of the 2,720 men imprisoned in these barracks were Catholics—2,579 priests, monks, and seminarians from all over Europe. More than a third of the prisoners in the "priest block" died there.

The story of these men, which has been submerged in the overall history of the concentration camps, is told in this riveting historical account. Both tragedies and magnificent gestures are chronicled here--from the terrifying forced march in 1942 to the heroic voluntary confinement of those dying of typhoid to the moving clandestine ordination of a young German deacon by a French bishop. Besides recounting moving episodes, the book sheds new light on Hitler's system of concentration camps and the intrinsic anti-Christian animus of Nazism.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Catholic, Biography, World War II, Religion, Christian

276 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 22, 2015

Reviews

[Charles Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Roman Catholic Church has often been accused of being in league with Nazi Germany. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, there were some priests and some bishops who supported the Nazis early on. That's hardly forgiveable. But it can be explained. Germany was being squeezed by the Communists and the Nazis and the one thing everyone knew about the Reds is that they were hated religion. But despite some early aliances between Rome and Berlin it only took a very short time until Catholic leaders understood they were dealing with Satan and his legions. This books is about the 2,500 priests who were crammed into Dachau. They underwent all sorts of awful deprivations including being used as guinea pigs for crazed medical experiments. No one should think the suffering of Catholics equaled that of the Jews or Slavs for that matter. But the suffering described in The Priests Barracks was just as real. A writer whose name I can't recall once said that even in the Holocaust people die one by one. In that way, these priests joined themselves to the suffering of the world and the suffering of Christ.

[Diane M · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me awhile to get through this book due to the nature of the topic. The translation is well done, but there is so much information that I also had to go back and re-read segments to be sure I was getting a complete and accurate understanding of events. The importance of faith in the survival of those arrested and sent to Dachau comes through loud and clear. One statement resonated with me more than any other. Bishop Kazimierz Majdanski, a key figure for me in this book, once said, "Neither life nor death can be subjected to the hegemony of technology or deprived of their purely human characteristics, if society is to preserve a just and social order, the fundamental principle of which is the inviolability of the human being in his sacred right to life, from conception in the mother's womb to natural death."

[Mary Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating. Every time I read a book about this time in our history, I can’t help thinking about my mother’s friend who grew up in Germany and lived through this horrendous time. She shook Hitler’s hand when she was about 9 years old and remembers all the people in the crowd around her telling her to never wash her hand, that he was “God.” She was taken away from her own family to be “educated” and lived with a strange family who were not very nice to her, and then watched as school friends disappeared not knowing why. I wish she would write a book while it is all still in her head. We must not forget history.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time.

[Grace Hind · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay so I only read the last section of this book but it was amazing 😍

[Steven R. McEvoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find that as much as I appreciate books about the Holocaust, and wars, I seldom love them. These are books that we need to read, they are books that we should read, but other than the triumph of the human spirit in these horrendous situations these books are often very hard to read. Prior to reading this book I was aware of some stories of some Christians, specific Catholics who had spent time in the concentration camps, but I was not aware of the extent of it. I was unaware of how many Catholic Priests were interned in the camps. I was unaware of the persecution they suffered, how they were singled out by the SS for extra punishment and torture.

Reading this book by no means diminishes the atrocities that the Jewish people and others suffered at the hands of Nazi Germany. But it tells another piece in that larger story. There are some incredible stories of sacrifice, service and true Christ like character in this chronicle.

The sections in this book are:
Map of the Dachau Concentration Camp
Introduction
I. A Camp for Priests
1. The Precursors
2. Centralization
3. The Largest Diocese in Europe
4. Organization of the Camp
5. Zugänge
6. Blocks and Commandos
7. Jobs
II. “O Land of Distress”
8. Hunger
9. Dying in Dachau
10. Typhus
11. Anti-Christian Hatred
12. Medical Experiments
13. Himmelsfahrts Transport
III. A Spiritual Home
14. A Chapel in Dachau
15. The Eucharist
16. Sacramental Life
17. Liberation
18. The Fruits of Dachau
19. Witnesses and Blesseds
Conclusion
Appendices
Glossary
Abbreviations
Chronology
The Priests in Dachau: Statistics
Bibliography

Some of the stories that really hit home for me were those about specific Pallotine fathers. The parish we attend and that is associated with my children’s school is served by priests from this order. The example the priests lived in the camps is character I have seen in the half dozen members of this order I have known over the years.

This is the Chronology of priests at Dachau:
March 22, 1933: The camp in Dachau opens.
1938: Arrival of the first priests from Austria.
December 1940: Priests are grouped together in Dachau.
December 14, 1940: 525 priests arrive from Mauthausen.
January 21, 1941: First Mass at the chapel.
February 1, 1941: Severe punishments for the priests of the snow commando.
March 10, 1941: Start of the “privileges”.
September 1941: End of the “privileges”, except for the German priests gathered in Block 26. Father Ohnmacht replaces Father Prabucki as chaplain of the priests.
October 30, 1941: Arrival of a convoy of 487 Polish priests.
January 9, 1941: Fathers Pawłowski and Grelewski are hanged.
March 28, 1942: Beginning of the “Holy Week” persecutions.
April 19, 1942: Non-German priests without a work assignment join the plantation commandos.
Spring 1942: Beginning of the “transports of the disabled”.
September-December 1942: Medical experiments conducted at peak operation.
October 28, 1942: The priests, except for the Germans, are deprived of Brotzeit for four weeks.
November 1942: Start of large-scale experiments on phlegmons.
End of 1942: Individual packages are allowed.
December 19, 1942: Priests of all nationalities are regrouped in Block 26, except for Poles and Lithuanians.
December 1942: Epidemic of typhus and quarantine.
January 26, 1943: Death of Bishop Michał Kozal.
March 14, 1943: Quarantine lifted.
March 16, 1943: Father Schelling replaces Father Ohnmacht as chaplain.
Spring 1943: Start of “leisure activities” and sports events.
March 14, 1944: Priests are dismissed from the postal commandos.
March 30, 1944: Priests must leave all infirmarian positions at the Revier.
Summer 1944: French priests arrive in great numbers. Polish priests are tolerated at the chapel.
November 12, 1944: The camp in Dachau is raised to the rank of deanery by the Archbishop of Munich.
December 1944: Beginning of the typhus epidemic.
December 17, 1944: Priestly ordination of Karl Leisner.
April 26, 1945: Partial evacuation of the camp: some German priests join the “death convoy”.
April 29, 1945: Liberation of the camp.

From early on until the end of the war there were two barracks dedicated to housing catholic priests, at the peak there were three full barracks dedicated to these men.

This was a very important book to read. I am thankful that it came across my desk. I have been inspired by many of the stories. I have been encouraged by the faith these men lived and that over a third gave their life for. The research and writing was excellent, and I hope that someday Zeller’s other books are translated into English as well. I recommend this book, read it so that we do not forget, read it so we are challenged, and read it so that we may be inspired.

Read the review on my blog Book Reviews and More.

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2017 Catholic Reading Plan!

[Peter Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please give my review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/review/R353MYC...


Dachau could have been imagined by Dante, if Dante could have imagined hell being brought to Earth and staffed by Germans rather than demons. The author of this book, Guillaume Zeller, powerfully presents the facts of the daily existence of the inmates of Dachau. Zeller presents in detail the multitudes of torture, suffering, and humiliations concocted by the Nazis to strip human dignity from detainees. Thus, we hear about how prisoners were starved, worked to exhaustion, used for hideous experiments that infected prisoners with gangrene, and sent away to Hartheim Castle for euthanasia when they were considered unable to work.

The focus of the book is on the three blocks – out of thirty – that were dedicated to housing Catholic priests and some Protestant ministers, Orthodox priests and even two Muslim clerics of Albanian descent. 2,720 clergymen were sent to Dachau, including 2,579 Catholics, 109 Protestant ministers, 22 Greek Orthodox and 2 Muslims. 1,034 priests died in Dachau. Most of the priests were Polish, but there were 447 German priests and a number of other priests from occupied Europe.

The priests were brought together in Dachau because of the intervention of the papal legate who sought to consolidate priests in a single location, presumably so that their treatment could be monitored. Dachau was treated as a parish itself and had the bishops necessary to secretly and legally ordain a Catholic seminarian.

Priests were treated harshly by the Nazis. There is a popular canard that the Catholic Church supported the Nazis. This is entirely false, of course. Zeller notes:

“Christians quickly became the targets of the authorities and their police. Fifteen thousand establishments were closed. Religious associations were gradually suppressed.14 While Catholic youth associations were compelled to disband because of repeated harassment, enrollment in the Hitlerjugend was made obligatory in 1936. The omnipresent Gestapo kept everything under surveillance,15 from processions to sermons from the pulpit. Several leading figures in German Catholicism were assassinated on June 30, 1934, during the Night of the Long Knives, such as Erich Klausener, director of Catholic Action; Fritz Beck, director of the Aid for Catholic Students in Munich; and the journalist Fritz Gerlich. The Church’s reactions multiplied in response.”

Priests were also vulnerable to the cruelties of the common criminals and the Communists, who controlled the camp and vented their hatred on priests.

Prior to the election, the Church had opposed the Nazis:

“incompatibility. During the elections that followed, the results in favor of the Nazi Party (or NSDAP)4 were inversely proportional to the percentage of Catholics in the population.5 The conference of German bishops in Fulda made the Church’s defiance official in August 1932: “It is inexcusable that many Catholics should join the National Socialist Party as long as the latter adheres to a religious and cultural program that is incompatible with Catholic doctrine”, we read in its conclusions.6 The Church feared the threat of the NSDAP looming over the youth activities, clubs, and professional organizations for which she was responsible. The memory of the Kulturkampf was still alive, and Catholics wanted to avoid a repetition of that episode.”

Zeller also offers some examples of the resistance of individual Catholic clergy to the Nazis. There is another canard where internet atheists will show pictures that they claim are Catholic priests and bishops giving the Hitler salute. Although these pictures are actually Lutheran bishops, the truth is that not giving the Hitler salute could result in a trip to Dachau. Zeller observes:

“Father Gustav Gôrsmann, dean in Gellenbeck in the Diocese of Osnabrück, was sent to Dachau on October 3, 1941, for having spoken to French prisoners.28 He had already had a police record for having recommended, on a card posted at the entrance to his rectory, the use of the traditional greeting Grüss Gott—which literally means, “May God greet you”, the equivalent of “Hello, good day”—instead of the obligatory Heil Hitler!”

Other examples of individual resistance leading to internment in Dachau include:

“In the months following the Anschluss, fourteen priests were arrested and sent to the camps.14 Among them were Matthias Spanlang, a priest in Sankt Martin im Innkreis, a village about twenty kilometers [twelve miles] from Braunau am Inn, the town where Hitler was born. Spanlang was from the countryside, a bit rough around the edges, and was a longtime opponent of Nazism, which he had denounced in his sermons and newspaper articles ever since the first militant Nazis burst into his parish in 1931. Arrested on May 24, 1938, he was imprisoned and then taken to Dachau. Father Otto Neururer, the twelfth child of a miller, was a priest serving in Gôtzens, to the west of Innsbruck, who met with a similar fate. His gentle gaze, supported by round wire-rimmed glasses, was combined with a temperament of steel. After persuading a young woman to decline a marriage proposal to a Nazi thirty years her senior, he was arrested on December 15, 1938, for “the desecration of Germanic marriage” and taken to Dachau in March 1939. He and Father Spanlang were transferred to Buchenwald on September 26, 1939. The two men converted a prisoner there, which got them convicted and hauled away to the disciplinary bunker. Although the circumstances surrounding the death of Father Spanlang remain unclear—he is said to have died on June 5, 1940, at the age of fifty-three—those surrounding the death of Father Neururer are well known: he was hanged by his feet and died after thirty-six hours of suffering on May 30, 1940, at the age of fifty-eight.”

Korbinian Aigner, a Bavarian priest, was arrested in November 1939 for having preached about the Fifth Commandment (“Thou shalt not kill”). Likewise:

“The slightest hint of defiance toward the regime led to immediate sanctions—a nd for many, to Dachau. Four hundred forty-seven German clergymen went to, passed through, or died in Dachau from 1940 to 1945, thus forming the second-largest priestly contingent of that camp, far behind the Poles. Ownership of a forbidden book, clippings from tendentious newspapers, personal letters critical of the regime, signs of religious proselytism: the Gestapo used every possible means to justify the incarceration of priests on whom they had kept dossiers, sometimes for years. The reasons mentioned in the files are sometimes strikingly inconsistent. Father Heinrich Hennen, assistant pastor at Holy Spirit Church in Münster, was arrested on November 20, 1941, for having declared in a sermon that there was no longer any objective book on Church history.27 Father Gustav Gôrsmann, dean in Gellenbeck in the Diocese of Osnabrück, was sent to Dachau on October 3, 1941, for having spoken to French prisoners.28 He had already had a police record for having recommended, on a card posted at the entrance to his rectory, the use of the traditional greeting Grüss Gott—which literally means, “May God greet you”, the equivalent of “Hello, good day”—instead of the obligatory Heil Hitler! Father Ludwig Braun, from the parish in Freyung am Wald (Diocese of Passau) was apprehended on January 15, 1942, and sent to Dachau on March 21 for “defeatism”, because he had expressed the opinion in a conversation that the front could be weakened by the enemy.29 Father Anton Lenferding, a priest from Frankfurt am Main (Diocese of Limburg), found himself at the camp because he had refused to marry a divorced woman who belonged to the Nazi Party.30 The reasons most frequently cited against priests in the camp records are the following: “Conduct detrimental to the interests of the State, illicit exercise of pastoral care,. . . illicit exercise of pastoral care to foreigners, harboring deserters, incited children against the State [sic], friend of Jews, refusal to give the Hitlerian salute, protesting against the marriage law established by the State,. . . eternal enemy of Germany”.”

This book is also interesting in that it gives Alfred Rosenberg’s role in formulating Nazi anti-Christian ideology gets the attention it deserves:

“Nazi anti-Christian sentiment had its origins in more immediate sources too. The influence of Alfred Rosenberg was essential. Born in 1893 in Reval—present-day Tallinn, the capital of Estonia—he arrived in Munich in 1918 while fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution. There he met Hitler through the intermediary Dietrich Eckart,3 a kingpin of the Thule Society, which exerted a strong ideological influence on the DAP, the future Nazi Party. Rosenberg became a regular columnist and refined an ideology combining theories about Aryanism, an obsessive anti-Semitism, hatred of Marxism, a strong aversion to ecclesial institutions, and occultism. His theses were distilled in the Völkischer Beobachter, the official party organ of which he was the longtime editor-in-chief, and then formalized in The Myth of the Twentieth Century, a book that he completed around 1925 but was not published until 1930. According to the author, a people that came from the North, the Amorites, allegedly founded Jerusalem and “made up the Nordic stratum of future Galilee, in other words the ‘pagan circle’ from which Jesus was to arise”.4 The message delivered by this super-Nordic hero was supposedly corrupted by artificial attempts to anchor it in the Old Testament and by the interpretations of Paul of Tarsus. “The great personality of Jesus Christ was loaded, immediately after his death, with a jumble of Near Eastern, Jewish and African life”, a deplorable distortion, according to the theoretician.5 Rosenberg denounced the concept of original sin that appears in the Letters of Saint Paul and was formalized by Saint Augustine6 three centuries later. “The notion of original sin would have seemed incomprehensible to a people with an intact racial character. . . . Certainty that one is a sinner is a bastard’s attitude”, he thought.7 According to Rosenberg, Christ is a major but not central figure in the history of civilization. On the other hand, the Church, through its expansion, is responsible for the internationalization of the “Jewish national uprising”.8 If Judaism is (to use the Nazi metaphors) a “pathogenic bacillus” threatening civilization, the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches are the carriers of it. The institution of a “positive Christianity”, in this perspective, necessarily leads to the eradication of ecclesial institutions. Thus it is difficult to see what can remain of Christianity, even in the “positive” variety, in the Nazi Weltanschauung.”

The book ends with some interesting insights into the role that Dachau played in fostering ecumenism. Dachau forced the breaking down of the walls that had previously existed between Catholicism and other faith communities by the fact that common survival could not be found if Protestants and Catholics continued to isolate themselves from each other.

This is an interesting and educational book that treats the subject factually and fairly and serves to correct some false impressions that might exist.

[Marina Horner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very different perspective but no less harrowing account of man's inhumanity to man. The reason I only gave it 4 stars was because I found the translation rather cumbersome in places - that might be just me!

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the middle of reading this heart-wrenching account of life in the death camps of Dachau, I watched as some of my fellow "Americans" marched with swastikas, giving the Nazi salute. I literally got sick to my stomach. I know that many of them are young and uneducated but shame on each and every one of them and anyone to supports or justifies these means.

[Gregory Van Den Berg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beginning in 1938, the Nazis began interning Catholic priests at Dachau. These were priests who were warning their parishioners regarding the dangers of Nazism. The majority of priests who were imprisoned at Dachau were from Poland. Hitler believed he needed to eradicate the culture of the Polish people. He needed to do this in order to settle Germans into Poland. This eradication began with rounding up the priests. Later on, he began sending priests from other European countries who were predominantly Catholic. Out of the 2700 priests who were at Dachau, only 62% survived. The author describes to us the atrocities these priests endured because of their beliefs. This history needs to survive for us to comprehend the dangers of genocide.

[Melanie Rigney · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author (and, I assume, the translator) sensitively shares the struggles of the priests at Dachau. For someone like me who didn't know much about the imprisonment of priests in the concentration camp, the facts and figures and dates were most helpful. The sharing of the priests' stories of survival and of helping each other and other prisoners was well done without being overstated. I especially was touched by the story of the ordination that occurred. Definitely worth a read.

[Brother James Reiter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Captivating

I found the accounts riveting. I knew from past readings that Dachau housed many priests. As a young novice I had the privilege of living with one of the priests who was a guinea pig for Nazi experimentations. He was very reluctant to speak about his experiences. This is the first time that I have been gotten a bigger picture of what went on.

[John Cain · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Nazi war on Priests and other clergy waas unknown to me but not to the world. After the war many at Dachau were hung for their war crimes. This book describes in detail the brutality of the detention but also gives great insight into the courage of the men and the manner in qhich they remained true to their faith.

I am glad I read this book.

[kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great topic poor execution. In reading this there can be no doubt that after Hitler's planned mass extermination of the Jews that Christians would have been next. Lots of interesting information. However the writing was awkward and convoluted. I really had to struggle to get through it at times. So a very soft 4.

[Joseph Pearce · Rating 5 out of 5]

l did not know a priest barracks existed in Dachau until I read this book l never saw this in any historical account. Mr. Zeller's book gives an excellent account of the amazing lives of these priests in the midst of the brutality and horrors of the concentration camp. It is a history that should be wider known.

[Joseph Novak · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find especially revealing the similarities between the declarations of the Nazi-sympathizer clergy of the 1930s (in Germany and Austria) and of those in today’s Hungary, who married their churches with the temporary graces of political power.

[Candace Simar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives a fascinating look into a little known part of the Nazi holocaust--the priests and ministers who were arrested, tortured and murdered because they refused to preach the Nazi ideology. I wish this book would have gone into more detail about specific priests. A good read.

[Laxdaniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible

It was thought provoking and encouraging to read this story about the endurance, humility, and resistance of the various priests of Dachau. I never knew this piece of history and am grateful to the author for sharing it.

[Carolyn Strnad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating story

This is one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. I am not much of a reader of history books but this story pulled me in. I would recommend anyone interested in the history of the concentration camps include this book on your must read list.

[Anne Ochs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave this 5 stars because I found it interesting. It is a documentary and makes me want to know more about individual stories.
I am repeatedly astonished by the range of cruelty shown by some people, yet more amazing are those that display humanity in the midst of horror.

[Teresa Warner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible account of the lives and many sacrifices of the Catholic priests detained in Daschau. Lots of history and personal accounts…some bringing me to tears. If you are a fan of Holocaust history, I highly recommend this read.

[Joann Glasser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good reading. Makes you realize what heros these priest were in such a difficult time and place

[Bruce Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving Account of Grace

"The Priests Barracks" is a very moving account of the reality of grace in the midst of unspeakable human suffering.

[Stephen Boiko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disturbing but informative.

[Michal Paszkiewicz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shocking and disturbing, this book tells the lives of over a thousand martyrs in the not so distant past. a must-read

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic.

[Jeffrey Leonards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, for those interested in Dachau. I had never realized how zealous the Nazis were in persecuting Catholics.

[Avis Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never read anything about the clergy and their time spent in the Nazi concentration camps from 1938 to 1945, until I came across this book. My father had served in Patton’s 3rd army during that time and told us what they found and saw when they liberated some of those camps. He, also, had taken some pictures to prove what had happened, as people in the States told him he was crazy and didn’t know what he was talking about. I guess the pictures proved him right and I have them and will be passing them down to my adult children and grandson when I pass away. So this book reaffirmed what was going on during Hitler’s regime.
The story of these clerical men has been hidden in the overall history of the concentration camps. The riveting historical account of tragedies and events are told in this book. The forced marches in 1942 to the voluntary confinement of those dying of typhoid to the clandestine ordination of a young German deacon by a French Bishop. Once you start reading, it’s hard to put down. The lesson to be learned in these lives is graphic and leaves little to the imagination about what can happen because it did happen!
Recommend this book to those who are interested in this time period and in it’s historical events.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent!

I really enjoyed this book and learned from it. It is well written with a lot of inspiring stories about the priests.