Wehrle, Herman Josef Maria Dionys.

Wehrle, Herman Maria Dionys, born 26-07-1899, in Nuremberg, was a German priest who was killed after the 20 July Plot. Herman Wehrle the son of Oskar Emil Wehrle and Amalie Sybille Gertrud Wehrle, born Breuer, and the great-grandson of the social pedagogue and journeyman’s association founder Johann Gregor Breuer. He had one sister:Gertrud Benzing (born Wehrle). In his early childhood, his family moved to what is now the Frankfurt district of Höchst, which at that time was still an independent city and district seat. Hermann Josef Wehrle grew up there and went to school. In 1917 he passed the secondary school diploma at the local humanistic grammar school, today’s Leibniz school. In the First World War he participated in the war from 1917, after which he studied Catholic theology in Fulda, but broke off his studies in 1922.

Wehrle was drafted into the German Army in World War I. On 10-12-1918 he joined the Catholic Priest seminary at Fulda but quit soon and began to study Philosophy and catholic philosophy in Frankfurt. He worked as a journalist and at the public library of Frankfurt.

In 1938 Wehrle worked at the public school of Marktbreit, but was forced to resign because of his lack of support for the Nazis. He then started to study catholic theology at the abbey of St Ottillen. After the monastery was dissolved in April 1941 Wehrle joined the priest seminary of Freising and was ordained on 06-04-1942. He worked at the catholic congregations of Planegg and in Heilig Blut, Munich, Bogenhausen and was in contact to Alfred Delp . Alfred Delp, born 15-09-1907 in Mannheim, Grand Duchy of Baden was a German Jesuit priest and a philosopher of the German Resistance. Part of the inner Kreisau Circle resistance group, he is considered a significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism. Implicated in the failed 1944 July Plot to overthrow the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, Delp was arrested, and sentenced to death. He was executed on 02-02-1945

On 13-12-1943 Ludwig Freiherr von Leonrod asked him under the seal of confession about the theological justification of a tyrannicide. Leonrod was involved in the 20 July plot and told the Gestapo about his confession. Ludwig Freiherr von Leonrod , born 17-09-1906 and executed age 37 on 26-08-1944. Wehrle was arrested on 18-08-1944 and examined as a witness in the trial against Leonrod.

Death and burial ground of Wehrle, Herman Josef Maria Dionys.

He was sentenced to death by the Volksgerichthof under Nazi jurist Ronald Freisler on 14-09-1944, age 45, for his knowledge of the plot and killed the same day in Plötzensee prison next to Major General and resistance fighter in the July 20 plot, age 61, Heinrich Graf zu Dohna-Schloitten , a German businessman who took part in the July 20 plot, age 67,.Niklaus von Üxküll-Gyllenband  and a German politician who took part, age 55,  Michael Graf von Matuschka . Hermann Wehrle is buried on the Bogenhausen Friedhof, Munich , Munchener Stadkreis. Plot K 10, niche on the outside of church wall. Hitler’s confident Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl   is buried on this cemetery too. In Frankfurt am Main, a bronze plaque with Wehrle’s  portrait and dates of his life was placed on the site of his temporary (bombed) house.  

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