Farewell Letters of the Lübeck Martyrs

Testifications of faith

For years they were considered to be lost: The farewell letters of the Lübeck Martyrs Johannes Prassek, Hermann Lange, Eduard Müller and Karl Friedrich Stellbrink. November 2004, these letters reemerged. Lübeck historian Prof. Dr. Peter Voswinckel detected a great many of documents about the martyrs in the Berlin Federal Archives.

Peter Voswickel could reconstruct the letter's history: The Volksgerichtshof (People's Court) banned their delivery founded on the martyr's confidence and delight before their death. The national socialist Volksgerichtshof considered them to be dangerous: "With this remarks the convicts expressed appararently that commiting their crimes was all in good cause and they risked their lives as martyrs." After the war, they ended up in the GDR archives which became part of the Federal Archives after the "Wende" (German reunification).

• Chaplain Johannes Prassek to his family

  „What is waiting for me is joy and good fortune“

  Chaplain Johannes Prassek to his family: „Tonight, this day, the time has come when I will be allowed to die. I am so happy, I can hardly explain, how happy. God is so good to have given me several beautiful years in which to be his priest.“

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• Chaplain Johannes Prassek to Bishop Berning

  „There is within me the great Joy of Expectation“

  Chaplain Johannes Prassek to Bishop Berning: „Today I shall be allowed to die. It is so in reality, that I think of it as a huge advantage and much luck to be allowed to die under these circumstances. Do not worry about it, I beg of you.“

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• Vicar Hermann Lange to bishop Berning

  „With a sentiment of total sacrifice for Him“

  Vicar Hermann Lange to bishop Berning: „I believe that I may, in these solemn hours when I stand at the threshold of death, address You in this cordial fashion. Is it not only just now that I begin to realise the beautiful relationship between a bishop and his priests.“

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• Vicar Hermann Lange to his parents

  „Today will be the great return to the Father’s house“

  Vicar Hermann Lange to his parents: „When you hold this letter in your hands, I shall no longer be among the living. That, which has for the last many months been in our thoughts and would not pass from our conscience, will now come about.“

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• Vicar Hermann Lange to his siblings

  „Do not grieve for me“

  Vicar Hermann Lange to his siblings: „As the first of us five children I shall be the first to place his life back into God’s hands. I also know that this blow will hit you, one more than the other. It is not in my power to change the course things have taken.“

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• Adjunct Eduard Müller to Bishop Berning

  „To Him, whom we served as priests“

  Adjunct Müller to Bishop Berning: „It gives me great pleasure to be able to write a few lines to you in this, my last hour. Whole-heartedly, I thank you first of all for the greatest gift which you gave me as a successor of the apostles, when you placed you hands on me and ordained me as God’s priest.“

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• Adjunct Eduard Müller to his sister Lisbeth

  „While up there I shall forget no-one“

  Adjunct Eduard Müller to his sister Lisbeth: „Now the time has come. Within a few hours I shall have come to the end of my life’s path. The Lord over Life and Death, Christ my King, will call me home to himself. You shall have these my last lines from this earth.“

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• Pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink to his wife Hildegard

  „Truly, it is not hard to have to die“

  Pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink to his wife Hildegard: „Now all the waiting has come to an end, the way ahead is clearly laid out in front of me, and the destination is well known to us Christians. How often have I talked about it in my sermons, and now it will be reached soon.“

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