Blessed Bernard Lichtenberg was born on the 3rd of December, 1875,
in Ohlau in the Prussian province of Silesia, near Breslau, where he was
ordained in 1899. In 1900, he began his priestly service in Berlin. He
was appointed parson of the Sacred Heart parish in the quarter of Charlottenburg
in 1913, where he laid the foundation for five parishes and a monastery
as a pioneer in the building of Catholic communities in the ever growing
metropolis and capital of the German Empire; he also was a member of the
local parliament for the German Catholics’ party, called The Centre. In
1931, the first bishop of the newly erected diocese of Berlin, the Most
Reverend Dr. Christian Schreiber, made him a member of the Cathedral Chapter
and, in 1932, appointed him parson of St. Hedwig’s Cathedral. He became
Cathedral Provost of St. Hedwig’s in 1938. Since the excesses against the
jews on the 9th of November, 1939, he held evening prayers at St. Hedwig’s
- thousand meters from Hitler’s Reich chancellery - interceding publicly
and emphatically for them. Having protested again in August 1941 against
the euthanasia programme of the Nazi government, he was arrested
in October due to the denuciation of two visitors of his evening prayers
and, on the 22nd of May, 1942, already gravely ill, was sentenced to two
years’ imprisonment, which he endured in Christian patience as a „prisoner
in the Lord“. Because the authorities judged Lichtenberg to be „incorrigible“,
they ordered his further detention and the transport to the concentration
camp of Dachau. On the way there, blessed Bernard collapsed in Hof on the
River Saale and gave up his soul to the Lord on the 5th of November, 1943.
In April 1965 the process of his beatification was instituted; on the 23rd
of June, 1996, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, elevated blessed Bernard
to the honour of the altars at a solemn Pontifical Mass in the Olympic
stadiumn of Berlin. His tomb is situated in the crypt of St. Hedwig’s Cathedral
in Berlin. His Feast is celebrated in the archbishopric of Berlin on the
5th of November as a Memorial..