Beatification of Engelmar Unzeitig

Mariannhill Missionary Father Engelmar Unzeitig (1911-1945) was sent to Dachau for opposing Nazi teaching and defending Jews from the pulpit. At the concentration camp, he ministered to the other prisoners. They began calling him the “Angel of Dachau.” In noting the beatification before praying the midday Angelus on Sunday, September 25, 2016, Pope Francis spoke of Father Unzeitig as a priest who “opposed hate with love and cruelty with meekness.” He prayed that his testimony might help us to be “testimonies of charity and hope, even in the midst of tribulations.”

Born Hubert Unzeitig on March 1, 1911 in lands that today are part of the Czech Republic, he was professed a priest in the Congregation of Missionaries of Mariannhill, ordained in 1939 and taking the name Engelmar. He was named parish priest in Glöckelberg. Arrested by the Gestapo on April 21, 1941 for the crime of being a priest and preaching against the teachings of the Nazis, he was sent to the Dachau concentration camp where he ministered to other prisoners. He learned Russian so he could minister to prisoners from Eastern Europe. He volunteered to tend to prisoners suffering from typhoid and died of the disease himself on March 2, 1945.

From prison, he wrote to his sister: "Whatever we do, whatever we want, is surely simply the grace that carries us and guides us. God's almighty grace helps us overcome obstacles ... love doubles our strength, makes us inventive, makes us feel content and inwardly free. If people would only realize what God has in store for those who love Him!"

Pope Benedict XVI recognized the heroic virtues of Unzeitig in 2009. Pope Francis recognized the fact that Unzeitig died "in odium fidei" (in hatred of the faith) in January 2016 and that served as the prerequisite for his beatification that was celebrated on 24 September 2016.