Otto Hlawitschka O.Cr.

Otto Hlawitschka joins the "Chivalric Order of the Crusaders with the Red Star" after graduating from high school in 1909. He studied theology in Prague and became a member of the student fraternity Ferdinandea in 1910. He began his pastoral work in 1914, initially as chaplain in Maria-Kulm; other positions included chaplain in Ellbogen, Eger, Tachau/Egerland, co-operator in the Karlskirche in Vienna and chaplain and administrator in Brüx. From 1933, he worked as a priest in Königsberg an der Eger.

After the annexation of the Sudetenland to the German Reich in 1938, Otto Hlawitschka was repeatedly threatened and slandered by opponents of the National Socialist Church. The Gestapo summoned him to Karlsbad several times. Otto Hlawitschka remained silent about these interrogations. Since then, however, he lived in constant fear of being picked up and arrested by the Gestapo. As a result, he increasingly fell into a persecution mania, which ultimately drove him to suicide after a nervous breakdown. He hanged himself in the attic of the church.