Zbrodnia sądowa na księdzu Gebhardzie Heyderze i odpowiedzialność karna jej sprawców
A judicial crime against Father Gebhard Heyder and criminal liability of its perpetrators

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the article is to present the criminal conviction of Gebhard Heyder, a catholic priest, who said during a mass in 1944 that “War is God’s criminal court for the nations”, and “Germany must return to Christ again”. During the trial, he added that: „The faith of the German people in National Socialism is the most erroneous path that the German people have ever followed”. Sentenced to death, he miraculously survived, and after the war he unsuccessfully applied to the prosecutor’s office and the court to establish the criminal liability of his perpetrators. The judiciary of the Federal Republic found that the prosecutor and the judge who collaborated in the priest’s conviction had not committed a crime because they were applying the law in force at the time and were not aware that they were illegal. In the Third Reich and in the territories occupied during World War II, over 4,000 Catholic priests were murdered. Most of the victims were murdered without trial in executions and concentration camps. In the Old Reich, Catholic priests were sentenced to death by the National Tribunal (Volksgerichtshof).

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