Robert Franze
Personalia
Born:
Died:
Profession:
Persecution:
Imprisonment 22.04.1941 - end of June 1941,
Sachsenhausen concentration camp end of June 1941 - 13.02.1942,
Dachau concentration camp 13.02.1942 - 04.06.1942
KZ Number:
Memberships
Curriculum Vitae
Robert Franze was born in Nixdorf in the Lusatian Highlands. After graduating from high school, he began his theological training in Litomerice and joined the student fraternity Ferdinandea Prague in 1933.
After his ordination to the priesthood on June 16, 1935, he worked in the diocese of Leitmeritz as chaplain in Neschwitz/Eibe and finally, from 1942 until his expulsion, as parish priest (as the last German priest) in Rosendorf [Ruzova] in the district of Tetschen.
After the annexation of the Sudetenland following the Munich Agreement in the fall of 1938, there was "friction" with the Nazis: at a funeral, the Nazi formation refused to walk behind the cross; on Palm Sunday, the children were told to bring "at least a single twig", which would not diminish the honey yield...
The Gestapo arrested Robert Franze on 22 April 1941 at the school. After interrogating him, they informed him that he had to be taken into "protective custody" in order to escape lynching. Reinhard Heydrich had an arrest warrant served on him in June 1941, stating as the reason for his arrest: "...because he had damaged the reputation of the party through his conversations and tried to destroy the Third Reich."
At the end of June, he was taken on a collective transport via Dresden and Berlin to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Initially housed in a block, he was transferred to "solitary confinement" on February 3, 1942 - for no apparent reason. A few days later, he was transferred on a transport via Leipzig, Plauen and Nuremberg to Dachau concentration camp. On June 4, 1942, he was unexpectedly released without giving any reasons, with the condition that he report to the Rosendorf municipal office for three months.
After his expulsion, Robert Franze was given new pastoral duties in the diocese of Augsburg from September 1, 1946. The Swabian district of Günzburg [Margraviate of Burgau in former Vorderösterreich] now became his new home. From 1967 to 1978 he was parish priest in Burgau. From 1978 emeritus in Ichenhausen-Hochwang
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Places
Persecution:
Citations
Fritz, Herbert/Krause, Peter (2013): Farbe tragen, Farbe bekennen 1938–45. Katholisch Korporierte in Widerstand und Verfolgung. (ÖVfStg, 2013) S. 286.
