Bernhard Praxmarer

Bernhard Praxmarer completed his theological training at the Collegium Canisianum in Innsbruck and was ordained a priest in 1937. Familiar with the Scouts since his student days, he was elected provincial secretary in 1937.

On December 15, 1938, he began his service as a cooperator (chaplain) for Pastor Otto Neururer in Götzens when he was arrested by the Gestapo. [Pastor Otto Neururer does not return to Götzens; he dies a violent death in the Buchenwald concentration camp and is beatified in 1996]. The young Bernhard Praxmarer takes over the pastoral care of the parish as parochial vicar. He also got into trouble with the National Socialists. He was imprisoned for some time in 1939 for "incitement" following a sermon and interrogated seventeen times because of his courageous sermons and church celebrations. In 1940, he was expelled from the Gau because of an obituary for his pastor Otto Neururer, who had died in a concentration camp. He then moved to Lienz/East Tyrol (then part of the Carinthian district) as a youth pastor, but was also expelled from the district there because of his church youth work. Until the end of the war, he worked as a monastery and hospital chaplain in Gablitz, Lower Austria.

After the war, Bishop Paulus Rusch of Innsbruck (1938/1964-1980) appointed him provincial youth chaplain and in 1957 appointed him parish priest and dean of Hall/Tyrol.