Blessed Gerhard Hirschfelder

Gerhard Hirschfelder (17 February 1907 – 1 August 1942) was a German Roman Catholic priest. He was a vocal critic of Nazism and used his sermons to condemn Nazi propaganda and other aspects of Nazism which drew suspicion on him from the authorities who monitored him and even interrogated him on occasion. He was a staunch supporter of the role of adolescents in the life of the Church and made them a focus in his pastoral activities. In his imprisonment he became a member of the Schoenstatt Movement. Hirschfelder's beatification drew intense support after the priest died and 10,000 signatures were put to a petition in a request for his beatification; the formal cause began in the late 1990s and he became titled as a Servant of God. The beatification was celebrated on 19 September 2010 in Münster with Cardinal Joachim Meisner celebrating on the behalf of Pope Benedict XVI. Gerhard Hirschfelder was born on 17 February 1907 as an illegitimate child to the unmarried Maria Hirschfelder. He received his baptism on 19 February from Father Bertmann in the Assumption parish. He attended high school at the Glatz school (where he graduated in 1926) and then underwent his theological and philosophical studies at the University of Breslau. But his time there was often tarnished with the knowledge that he was an illegitimate child and he was sometimes ridiculed for that. Hirschfelder received his elevation into the diaconate on 29 December 1931 in the Breslau Cathedral from Cardinal Adolf Bertram. He received his ordination to the priesthood on 31 January 1932 from Cardinal Bertram. He celebrated his first Mass on 1 February 1932 in the church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Bad Langenau. He first served as a chaplain in a small parish until February 1939 when he was transferred to the Habelschwerdt parish.