Hilfrich, Antonius

Catholic clergyman, Bishop of the Diocese of Limburg

Born: 03.10.1873 in Lindenholzhausen

Died: 02.02.1947 in Limburg an der Lahn

Hilfrich entered the German-Hungarian College (Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum) to study at the Pontifical University in Rome (Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana), completed his studies in 1898 with a doctorate and was ordained a priest.

Initially chaplain in Weilburg in 1899 and transferred to St. Bartholomew's Cathedral in Frankfurt am Main in 1900, he was in charge of the episcopal boys' convent in Hadamar from 1902-11. In 1911, he was appointed rector and titular pastor of the Maria-Hilf Church in Wiesbaden and took up the parish post there in 1914. In 1919, he founded the Antoniusheim. After his appointment as a procurator and synodal judge, he also worked as a part-time parish administrator at St. Boniface Church from 1927. In 1927, Hilfrich became dean of the Wiesbaden district chapter and, in the same year, parish priest at St. Boniface. After his appointment as an ecclesiastical councilor in 1929, he was appointed titular bishop of Sebastopol (Armenia/USSR, today Ukraine) and coadjutor of the diocese of Limburg by Pius XI in 1930.

On 5 June 1930 (feast day of St. Boniface), he was consecrated bishop in St. Boniface's Church and enthroned in St. George's Cathedral in Limburg in December 1930 following the death of the Bishop of Limburg, Augustinus Kilian. His time in office was marked by the anti-clerical measures of the Nazi regime. From 1935, the regime intensified these activities. Numerous religious institutions were first subjected to foreign currency and then to so-called morality trials in order to undermine the material security and spiritual integrity of the communities. Hilfrich objected to these measures (as well as to the confiscation of diocesan property and the dissolution of monastic institutions by the Gestapo) in petitions, sermons and letters.

In a letter to the Reich Ministry of Justice dated 13 August 1941, he strongly protested against the so-called euthanasia measures being carried out on mentally ill patients in the state sanatorium and nursing home in Hadamar as part of Action T 4. After the previous practice of gassing patients had been abandoned in December 1941, the killing was resumed in the summer of 1942 by administering medication and refusing food and continued until March 1945.