23 Facts About Jakob Gapp

Jakob Gapp was an Austrian Roman Catholic priest and a professed member from the Marianists.

Jakob Gapp was born on 26 July 1897 in Wattens as the seventh child to Martin Gapp and Antonia Wach; he received his baptism on 27 July in the local parish church of Saint Lawrence.

Jakob Gapp received a basic education in his hometown and in 1910 entered the high school that the Order of Friars Minor ran at Hall.

Jakob Gapp served as a soldier on the Italian front from May 1915 until 1916 when he was wounded during a battle; he received the Silver Medal of Courage Second Class as a result of his actions on the battlefield.

Jakob Gapp later entered the Marianists at Greisinghof on 13 August 1920 for a formation program and began his novitiate on 26 September before being assigned to Graz as a teacher and sacristan from 1921 until 1925.

Jakob Gapp joined that order after learning about them from a relative.

Jakob Gapp made his profession in Antony in France on 27 August 1925.

Jakob Gapp began his studies for the priesthood in September 1925 at Fribourg in Switzerland and was ordained a priest by Bishop Marius Besson at the Saint Nicholas Cathedral in Fribourg on 5 April 1930.

Jakob Gapp often gave up his own heating coal to the poor and collected food and other necessities for them.

Jakob Gapp preached against the errors of Nazism and how it was incompatible with fundamental Christian ethics; he called it "irreconcilable with the Catholic faith".

Jakob Gapp was forced to flee Graz in March 1938 when German troops entered into Austria.

Jakob Gapp's superiors sent him to Tyrol in September 1938 and served as an assistant pastor at Breitenwang-Reutte until October 1938 when the Gestapo ordered him not to teach religion.

Jakob Gapp refused to wear a swastika badge and to greet people with the "Heil Hitler" out of conscience, and once in public rebuked a fellow teacher who told students to "hate and kill Czechs and Jews".

Jakob Gapp taught his students that love for all people irrespective of race or religion was crucial and taught that people ought to be worshipping God and not Adolf Hitler; this got him suspended.

Jakob Gapp settled for reading British newspapers like The Tablet in order to find uncensored news that would tell him the truth about World War II, and he learned of the Holocaust genocide.

Jakob Gapp received word of two Jewish males who fled from Berlin and were at the French border desiring his assistance after learning of him.

Jakob Gapp further learned these two were brothers who wanted baptism, and so he left Spain to retrieve them.

Jakob Gapp's resolve while being interrogated prompted Heinrich Himmler to review all interrogation transcripts and even comment on his steadfast dedication to Catholicism.

Himmler said if the Nazis had one Jakob Gapp dedicated to the cause as the priest was to the faith the Nazis would have won the war at that stage.

Jakob Gapp was beheaded at 7:08 pm and his remains were used for research at the Anatomical-Biological Institute at the Berlin college.

Jakob Gapp's surviving remains were moved to Innsbruck in 2002.

The beatification process opened in Vienna in a diocesan process under Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer on 26 June 1987 and concluded on 20 October 1987, when Jakob Gapp was titled as a Servant of God; a total of 37 witnesses were interviewed including Jakob Gapp's niece Marianne.

Jakob Gapp's cause received approval from Pope John Paul II on 6 April 1995 after the pope determined that the late Marianist priest was killed "in odium fidei" or "in hatred of the faith".