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

11.08.1941

KL Posenconcentration camp
today: Poznań city pov., Greater Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.01.09]

details of death

cause of death

extermination

perpetrators

Germans

sites and events

KL PosenClick 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

09.06.1872

Zbąszyńtoday: Zbąszyń gm., Nowy Tomyśl pov., Greater Poland voiv., Poland
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2021.06.20]

parents

NIEDBAŁ Joseph
🞲 ?, ? — 🕆 ?, ?

LEHMANN Mary
🞲 ?, ? — 🕆 ?, ?

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

others related
in death

CEGIEŁClick to display biography Thaddeus Vladimir Cornelius, FLACHClick to display biography Julian, GRAMLEWICZClick to display biography Edward, HARASYMOWICZClick to display biography Vincent, JANICKIClick to display biography Stanislav, JANKOWSKIClick to display biography Alphonse, KUBIKClick to display biography Alexander, ŁUKOWSKIClick to display biography Steven, MAŁECKIClick to display biography Stanislav, MANITIUSClick to display biography Gustav, MIROCHNAClick to display biography Steven Marian (Fr Julian), MZYKClick to display biography Louis, NOWAKClick to display biography Francis Joseph, PIOTROWSKIClick to display biography Ignatius, POPRAWSKIClick to display biography Marian, SĘKIEWICZClick to display biography Mauritius Vaclav, STEINMETZClick to display biography Paul, SZREYBROWSKIClick to display biography Casimir, TYMAClick to display biography Joseph, WIŚNIEWSKAClick to display biography Mary, WOŹNIAKClick to display biography Albin

sites and events
descriptions

KL Posen: The German camp established at Fort VII of the former Prussian Germ. Festung Posen (Eng. Poznań Fortress), built in 1876‐1880 in Poznań, formally until mid‐11.1939 operating as the Germ. Konzentrationslager (Eng. concentration camp) KL Posen, a term used in «Liber Albus» also for the later period of the camp's operation. It was the first such camp established by the Germans on Polish soil — in the case of Greater Poland, incorporated directly into the German state in 1939. As early as 10.1939, at KL Posen, the Germans for the first time used gas to murder Polish civilians, particularly psychiatric patients. Its first commandant was the génocidaire SS‐Sturmbannführer Herbert Lange, who later used his acquired „experience” in murdering Poles to murder Jews, i.e. to establish the first — even before the start of genocidal program Germ. „Endlösung der Judenfrage” (Eng. „Final Solution of the Jewish Question") — Germ. Vernichtungslager (Eng. extermination camp) VL Kulmhof in Chełm on River Ner. From 11.1939, the camp functioned as a prison for the Germ. Geheime Staatspolizei (Eng. Secret State Police), i.e. Gestapo, and as the Germ. Übergangslager (Eng. transit camp), before dispatching prisoners to concentration camps such as KL Dachau or KL Auschwitz. On 28.05.1941, the camp was renamed a police prison and correctional slave labor camp, Germ. Arbeitserziehungslager (Eng. labor and education camp), i.e. AEL. At its peak, the camp carried out seven to nine executions daily, with prisoners being hanged en masse, and some being taken to executions outside the camp grounds. In total, the Germans murdered c. 20,000 residents of Greater Poland at KL Posen, including many members of the Polish intelligentsia, officials, landed gentry, participants in the 1918‐1919 Greater Poland Uprising, patients and staff of psychiatric hospitals, and more than a dozen priests. Hundreds of Catholic priests passed through the camp before being sent to concentration camps, primarily KL Dachau. From 03.1943, the period of transformation of the camp into industrial plants of the German armaments industry began (e.g. from 25.04.1944, the Telefunken Gesellschaft für drahtlose Telegraphie m.b.H. factory, manufacturing radio i.a. for submarines and aircraft). (more on: www.wmn.poznan.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.02.02], en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.12.27])

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]
bibliographical:
„Martyrology of the Polish Roman Catholic clergy under nazi occupation in 1939‐1945”, Victor Jacewicz, John Woś, vol. I‐V, Warsaw Theological Academy, 1977‐1981
„Social Activist Priests in Greater Poland”, collective work, Biographical Dictionary, vol. 2 I‐O, 2007
original images:
www.wtg-gniazdo.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23], www.wtg-gniazdo.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2012.11.23]