page_title: Joseph Kentenich
section_title: Sent to the Dachau concentration camp
hierarchical_section_title: Joseph Kentenich / Fight against Nazism / Sent to the Dachau concentration camp
caption_attribution_description: Español: Padre Kentenich en Dachau
context_page_description: Peter Joseph Kentenich was a Pallottine priest and founder of the Schoenstatt Apostolic Movement. He is also remembered as a theologian, educator and pioneer of a Catholic response to an array of modern issues, whose teachings underwent a series of challenges from political and ecclesiastical powers. He attempted to teach Christians how to live out their faith.
  Considered by many of those who came into contact with him to have been a saint, his case for sainthood is currently at the diocesan level in the diocese of Trier, pending the compilation of his writings and correspondences.
context_section_description: In March 1942, Kentenich was sent to the Dachau concentration camp at a moment when the living conditions there were worsening. Of the 12,000 prisoners, there were 2,600 priests. He was inmate number 29392. The Germans were grouped in a block where they have the right to attend daily Mass celebrated by one of them; it is only on 19 March 1943 that  Kentenich would finally celebrate his first Mass at the camp. He gave a nightly spiritual conference to his fellow prisoners thanks to the protection of the "capo" (inmate block chief) Guttmann, a Communist with a rather violent temper, but fascinated by the behavior of the Father. Guttman saw Kentenich sharing his meager daily bread and soup with a detainee in need. Guttmann will save the priest who is destined to die in the gas chamber because of his poor health. On the day of the selection visit by an S.S. physician, the capo hides Father Kentenich; assigned to the disinfection commando, he can now circulate in the camp.
caption: Kentenich at the Dachau concentration camp (second from the right)
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