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| Inscription reads: 'Bless also, O Most High, my enemies' |
Karl Leisner (1915-1945) was a German priest who died shortly after being held as a prisoner in Dachau concentration camp outside Munich. Dachau was the proto-type concentration camp conceived by the Nazis at the very beginning of their tyrannical reign in 1933. During his formative years as a young man he was active in the Schoenstatt movement.
I recall visiting
Dachau and seeing the cells and barracks where priests were imprisoned. The
camp contained a special section, the so-called 'Priests' Block', in which many
Catholic clergy were confined.
Leisner was possibly
only known to the Nazis as a catholic activist arrested for articulating
anti-Nazi views.
Leisner was showed extraordinary leadership and courage in the period leading up to his arrest in 1939. He encouraged young people to remain faithful to Christ and not to submit to Nazi ideology.
