The guillotine was used thousands of times during the Second World War in Germany to
take the heads of those who opposed Hitler and the Nazis.
Anyone who spoke out against the Third Reich and the regime was likely to be executed and
during the war there were many different people from different walks of life who inside of
Nazi prisons were sent to the guillotine.
It was ruling by fear and ensuring that there was no dissent, the crime that many lost their
heads for was defeatism which the Nazis believed would harm the war effort.
But there were three Catholic priests and a Lutheran Pastor who on the same day in November
1943, and within 3 minutes from each other all were executed on the guillotine inside
of a prison in Hamburg.
But what is the story of the executions of the priests guillotined by Hitler?
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The Catholic Priests who were executed became known as the Lubeck Martyrs, and they all
worked at the Sacred Heart Church there.
One was a chaplain, another was a vicar and the third was a vicar.
Karl Friedrich Stellbrink was the Lutheran Priest, and he was the pastor of the city’s
Luther Church.
The four men had been very close friends and they would exchange ideas and beliefs and
they shared sermons amongst each other.
Stellbrink was the son of a customs official and he served in the First World War until
he was injured with a bad wound on his hand.
He then became ordained as a priest, and in the earl days he was to begin with swept up
in the Nazi beliefs and causes, and he was initially a support of Hitler.
But he then realised that it was horrific and was not in teaching with the Christian
beliefs and was steeped in persecution.
He would be taken in front of a Nazi Party investigation board when he refused to break
off the friendships he had with Jews.
But in 1937 he would quit the Nazis.
Johannes Prasser was another man involved, and he was a Catholic priest but one who came
to the priesthood in 1937.
Father Prassek worked at the Herz-Jesu Church with Muller and Lange, and he would during
his preaching warn soldiers and youngsters against the Nazi beliefs and the antisemitism
which was occurring across the nation.
He would also speak out against the executions of prisoners and jews, and during this time
under German law, words such as these were considered treasonous, and they were subjected
to the death penalty if he was reported to the SS or the Gestapo.
Father Prassek would also learn Polish so he could speak to polish workers who were
forced to work in the region around his church, and this was illegal also as it was portrayed
that he was sympathetic to the enemies of the nazis.
Eduard Muller also worked at the church, and he grew up destitute and very poor.
He would work as a joint before he studied in the priesthood, and he became a Catholic
priest in 1940.
He worked also at the same church, and he would work with youngsters and he was a very
popular man.
However he would speak to them about the dangers of the Nazis, but he had a special relationship
with the people that he worked with, and the discussions he had with the youngsters was
also treasonous in the eyes of the Nazis.
Hermann Lange was a preacher who would tell young soldiers that participating in a war
was strongly against Christianity.
He would write a letter from prison later saying about his sufferings and he would say
that those who suffered like he was historic, and he believed he was one of those who had
been persecuted for centuries before.
He said, ‘The common sufferings of the past few years have brought about a rapporachment
of the Catholic and Lutheran church, the imprisonment of the Catholic and Protestant clergy is a
symbol both of their joint suffering and of rapprochement.’
With this, Lange stated that the two churches who in the past had been at war with each
other in the centuries before, but they were now uniting against the threat of Hitler and
the Nazis.
So these four men were involved in speaking out against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
On the 29th March 1942, Stellbrink said that ‘in the misery of our home city we hear
God’s voice,’ and some interpreted this that God’s judgement on the city was made
with the effects of a British air raid on Lubbock that had happened the night before.
During this raid over 300 people were killed, and at the time in the war this was the worst
civilian casualties in an allied bombing raid that had been carried out.
Because of this, people believed that Stellbrink was preaching defeatism, and he was saying
that God was against the Nazis and that the judgment against the Nazis was the British
bombers reigning down.
Because of this Stellbrink was then arrested a week later on the 7th April 1942, and the
arrests continued as the Gestapo looked at the activities of the church.
Prassek was arrested on the 18th May, and then Lange was arrested on the 15th June along
with Muller a week later on the 22nd June.
These four clerics were taken into interrogation, as were 18 other people who attended the church,
and they were also questioned heavily.
The priests would be held for a year and then on the 22nd June 1943 the trial of the four
men occurred inside of the Second Chamber of the People’s Court.
Overseeing the case was judge Wilhelm Crohne, and he had been sent to Lubeck for this trial.
Joseph Goebbels had instructed the judges of the People’s court that, ‘they must
base their decisions less on law and more on the basic idea that the law breakers be
removed from the national community.’
After the two day hearing had taken place, the four men were sentenced to death for ‘broadcasting
crime,’ and listening to enemy broadcasts.
They were also condemned for ‘treasonous support for the enemy and demoralisation of
the Armed forces.’
Some of the attenders of the church were given long prison sentences, and the trial became
infamous for the persecution of the christians of Lubeck.
The four priests were following their death sentence transferred to Hamburg’s Holstenglacis’
prison, and this had at the time became a regional hub for executions in 1936 under
the Nazi rule.
Later a guillotine was added which remained in the prison at all times.
The priests asked for clemency but this was rejected, and no support was offered to them.
Stellbrink was even ousted from his position as a priest for his conviction.
But the device which would take the heads of the priest was the German guillotine or
the falbeil.
This was a guillotine which was made from metal and across Germany there were a number
of executioners who had became rather skilled with the guillotine.
They had perfected the execution method using the device to the point where they could execute
someone in a matter of seconds and this is what happened with the Lubeck martyrs.
On the 10th November 1943, the four priests were one by one taken from their prison cells
to their date with the executioner.
One by one the priests were executed and the executions were done in very very quick time.
It was said that all four of the men were executed by beheading on the guillotine less
than 3 minutes apart from each other.
So from the moment the first condemned man entered the execution chamber, until when
the blade fell on the neck of the court man, there had only been three minutes.
This left no time for the blade to be cleaned.
IT was said that the blood of the four clergymen ran together on the guillotine and on the
floor.
The Lübeck martyrs were four priests who spoke out about the Nazi regime and the third
reich, and they urged others to turn their back on it.
But ultimately they paid a brutal price for their denunciation of Hitler and his government.
All four of them deserve their story to be told, and they would maintain in prison that
they were like brothers.
But it is a harrowing story of execution, ruthless justice and people who tried to stand
up for themselves.
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