Bernhard Mecklenburg

Bernhard Mecklenburg goes to Innsbruck to study theology. Here he joined the student fraternity Unitas-Norica Innsbruck in 1925 and was a founding member of the student fraternity Unitas-Greifenstein Innsbruck in 1927. He was ordained a priest in 1930. After pastoral work as chaplain in Hagen near Osnabrück and Flensburg, he was appointed pastor of the newly established Herz-Jesu parish in Bremen. In 1941, he was given pastoral care in the diaspora parish in Güstrow. This work "in the quarry of the Lord" overtaxed his physical strength. At his request, Bishop Wilhelm Berning (1914-1955) of Osnabrück transferred him to the parish of the Assumption of Mary in Hamburg-Rahlstedt in August 1942.

On February 2, 1942, he was arrested by the Gestapo for making critical remarks about the Jewish question and sent to Fuhlsbüttel police prison [established as a concentration camp in 1933-1936]. On July 2, he was then transferred to the Dachau concentration camp until the end of the war.