function

diocesan priest

creed

Latin (Roman Catholic) Church RCmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.09.21]

diocese / province

Gniezno and Poznań archdiocese (aeque principaliter)more on
www.archpoznan.pl
[access: 2012.11.23]

date and place
of death

20.02.1946

Baranówtoday: Baranów gm., Kępno pov., Greater Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.07.18]

alt. dates and places
of death

21.02.1946

details of death

cause of death

murder

perpetrators

Russians / Poles

sites and events

06.10.1941 arrests (Warthegau)Click to display the description, Reichsgau WarthelandClick to display the description, Ribbentrop‐MolotovClick to display the description, Pius XI's encyclicalsClick to display the description, Greater Poland UprisingClick to display the description

date and place
of birth

07.02.1875

Sławsk Wielkitoday: Kruszwica gm., Inowrocław pov., Kuyavia‐Pomerania voiv., Poland
more on
pl.wikipedia.org
[access: 2020.09.18]

parents

HUNDT Joseph
🞲 ?, ? — 🕆 ?, ?

WOŹNIEWSKA Josefa
🞲 ?, ? — 🕆 ?, ?

presbyter (holy orders)
ordination

01.12.1902

Gnieznotoday: Gniezno urban gm., Gniezno pov., Greater Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.12.18]
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary RC archcathedral churchmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2025.03.14]

positions held

sites and events
descriptions

06.10.1941 arrests (Warthegau): On 13.09.1941 Germ. Gauleiter (Eng. regional leader) of German province Germ. Reichsgau Wartheland (Eng. Wartheland Reich district), in German‐occupied Greater Poland (where German standard law was in force), Artur Greiser, implementing „Ohne Gott, ohne Religion, ohne Priesters und Sakramenten” — „without God, without religion, without priest and sacrament” — policy issued a decree formally dissolving Catholic Church and forming in its place a Roman Catholic German National Church in Germ. Warthegau, an organization subject to a German private law. The ordinance was issued backdated to 01.09.1939, i.e. the date of the German invasion of Poland, which sanctioned the later robbery of the property of the Catholic Church acting for the benefit of the Polish population by the Germans. All the contacts with Vatican were forbidden. All the religion congregations were also dissolved. Soon after, on 06‐07.10.1941, mass arrests of Polish Catholic priests took place — c. 352 were detained. All were herded into DL Konstantinow in Konstantynów or IL Lond in Ląd on Warta river transit camps or KL Posen concentration camp (in this case, the detainees were first registered, photographed and examined in the infamous Poznań headquarters of the German political police, the Gestapo, in the former Soldier's House). On 30.10.1941 most of them were transported to KL Dachau concentration camp.

Reichsgau Wartheland: After the Polish defeat in the 09.1939 campaign, which was the result of the Ribbentrop‐Molotov Pact and constituted the first stage of World War II, and the beginning of German occupation in part of Poland (in the other, eastern part of Poland, the Russian occupation began), the Germans divided the occupied Polish territory into five main regions (and a few smaller). The largest one was transformed into Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate), intended exclusively for Poles and Jews and constituting part of the so‐called Germ. Großdeutschland (Eng. Greater Germany). Two were added to existing German provinces. From two other separate new provinces were created. Greater Poland region was one of them, incorporated into Germany on 08.10.1939, by decree of the German leader Adolf Hitler (formally came into force on 26.10.1939), and on 24.01.1940 transformed into the Germ. Reichsgau Wartheland province, in which the law of the German state was to apply. The main axis of the policy of the new province, the territory of which the Germans recognized as the Germ. „Ursprünglich Deutsche” (Eng. „natively German”), despite the fact that 90% of its inhabitants were Poles, was Germ. „Entpolonisierung” (Eng. „Depolonisation”), i.e. forced Germanization. C. 100,000 Poles were murdered as part of the Germ. „Intelligenzaktion”, i.e. extermination of Polish intelligentsia and ruling classes. C. 630,000 were forcibly resettled to the Germ. Generalgouvernement, and their place taken by the Germans brought from other areas occupied by Germany (e.g. the Baltic countries, Bessarabia, Bukovina, etc.). Poles were forced to sign the German nationality list, the Germ. Deutsche Volksliste DVL. As part of the policy of „Ohne Gott, ohne Religion, ohne Priesters und Sakramenten” (Eng. „No God, no religion, no priest or sacrament”) most Catholic priests were arrested and sent to concentration camps. All schools teaching in Polish, Polish libraries, theaters and museums were closed. Polish landed estates confiscated. To further reduce the number of the Polish population, Poles were sent to forced labor deep inside Germany, and the legal age of marriage for Poles was increased (25 for women, 28 for men). The German state office, Germ. Rasse‐ und Siedlungshauptamt (Eng. Main Office of Race and Settlement) RuSHA, under the majesty of German law, abducted several thousand children who met specific racial criteria from Polish families and subjected them to forced Germanization, handing them over to German families. After the end of hostilities of World War II, the overseer of this province, the Germ. Reichsstatthalter (Eng. Reich Governor) and the Germ. Gauleiter (Eng. district head) of the German National Socialist Party, Arthur Karl Greiser, was executed. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2024.06.21])

Ribbentrop‐Molotov: Genocidal Russian‐German alliance pact between Russian leader Joseph Stalin and German leader Adolf Hitler signed on 23.08.1939 in Moscow by respective foreign ministers, Mr. Vyacheslav Molotov for Russia and Joachim von Ribbentrop for Germany. The pact sanctioned and was the direct cause of joint Russian and German invasion of Poland and the outbreak of the World War II in 09.1939. In a political sense, the pact was an attempt to restore the status quo ante before 1914, with one exception, namely the „commercial” exchange of the so‐called „Kingdom of Poland”, which in 1914 was part of the Russian Empire, fore Eastern Galicia (today's western Ukraine), in 1914 belonging to the Austro‐Hungarian Empire. Galicia, including Lviv, was to be taken over by the Russians, the „Kingdom of Poland” — under the name of the General Governorate — Germany. The resultant „war was one of the greatest calamities and dramas of humanity in history, for two atheistic and anti‐Christian ideologies — national and international socialism — rejected God and His fifth Decalogue commandment: Thou shall not kill!” (Abp Stanislav Gądecki, 01.09.2019). The decisions taken — backed up by the betrayal of the formal allies of Poland, France and Germany, which on 12.09.1939, at a joint conference in Abbeville, decided not to provide aid to attacked Poland and not to take military action against Germany (a clear breach of treaty obligations with Poland) — were on 28.09.1939 slightly altered and made more precise when a treaty on „German‐Russian boundaries and friendship” was agreed by the same murderous signatories. One of its findings was establishment of spheres of influence in Central and Eastern Europe and in consequence IV partition of Poland. In one of its secret annexes agreed, that: „the Signatories will not tolerate on its respective territories any Polish propaganda that affects the territory of the other Side. On their respective territories they will suppress all such propaganda and inform each other of the measures taken to accomplish it”. The agreements resulted in a series of meeting between two genocidal organization representing both sides — German Gestapo and Russian NKVD when coordination of efforts to exterminate Polish intelligentsia and Polish leading classes (in Germany called «Intelligenzaktion», in Russia took the form of Katyń massacres) where discussed. Resulted in deaths of hundreds of thousands of Polish intelligentsia, including thousands of priests presented here, and tens of millions of ordinary people,. The results of this Russian‐German pact lasted till 1989 and are still in evidence even today. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.09.30])

Pius XI's encyclicals: Facing the creation of two totalitarian systems in Europe, which seemed to compete with each other, though there were more similarities than contradictions between them, Pope Pius XI issued in 03.1937 (within 5 days) two encyclicals. In the „Mit brennender Sorge” (Eng. „With Burning Concern”) published on 14.03.1938, condemned the national socialism prevailing in Germany. The Pope wrote: „Whoever, following the old Germanic‐pre‐Christian beliefs, puts various impersonal fate in the place of a personal God, denies the wisdom of God and Providence […], whoever exalts earthly values: race or nation, or state, or state system, representatives of state power or other fundamental values of human society, […] and makes them the highest standard of all values, including religious ones, and idolizes them, this one […] is far from true faith in God and from a worldview corresponding to such faith”. On 19.03.1937, published „Divini Redemptoris” (Eng. „Divine Redeemer”), in which criticized Russian communism, dialectical materialism and the class struggle theory. The Pope wrote: „Communism deprives man of freedom, and therefore the spiritual basis of all life norms. It deprives the human person of all his dignity and any moral support with which he could resist the onslaught of blind passions […] This is the new gospel that Bolshevik and godless communism preaches as a message of salvation and redemption of humanity”… Pius XI demanded that the established human law be subjected to the natural law of God , recommended the implementation of the ideal of a Christian state and society, and called on Catholics to resist. Two years later, National Socialist Germany and Communist Russia came together and started World War II. (more on: www.vatican.vaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.05.28], www.vatican.vaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.05.28])

Greater Poland Uprising: Military insurrection of Poles of former German Germ. Posen Provinz (Eng. Poznań province) launched against German Reich in 1918‐1919 — after the abdication on 09.11.1918 of the German Emperor William II Hohenzollern; after the armistice between the Allies and Germany signed on 11.1.1918 in the HQ wagon in Compiègne, the headquarters of Marshal of France Ferdinand Foch — which de facto meant the end of World War I — against the German Weimar Republic, established on the ruins of the German Empire, aiming to incorporate lands captured by Prussia during partitions of Poland in XVIII century into Poland. The Republic of Poland, reborn on 11.11.1918, initially formally included only the so‐called Germ. Königreich Polen (Eng. Kingdom of Poland), i.e. the territory that had been under Russian rule until 1915 and then under the control of Central States (Germany and Austria–Hungary), but did not include the Prussian partition. Started on 27.12.1918 in Poznań and ended on 16.02.1919 with the armistice pact in Trier, forced by the victorious Entente states, which included provisions ordering Germany to cease operations against Poland and, importantly, recognizing the Polish insurgent Greater Poland Army as an allied armed force of the Entente. De facto it turned out to be a Polish victory, confirmed in the main peace treaty after World War I, the Treaty of Versailles of 28.06.1919, which came into force on 10.01.1920 and in which most of the lands of the Prussian partition were recognized as Polish. Many Polish priests took part in the Uprising, both as chaplains of the insurgents units and members and leaders of the Polish agencies and councils set up in the areas covered by the Uprising. In 1939 after German invasion of Poland and start of the World War II those priests were particularly persecuted by the Germans and majority of them were murdered. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.08.14])

sources

personal:
www.wtg-gniazdo.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], www.baranow.ug.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.05.30], www.kepnosocjum.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.05.30]
bibliographical:
„Lexicon of the clergy vicimised in prl in 1945‐1989”, collective work edited by Jerzy Myszor, Warsaw, 2002
„Social Activist Priests in Greater Poland”, collective work, Biographical Dictionary, vol. 1 A‐H, 2007
original images:
www.wtg-gniazdo.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], kepnosocjum.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2020.07.31], kepnosocjum.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2020.07.31], mpn.poznan.uw.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.11.28]