Three months later, he was sent to Dachau, the first of the concentration camps established by the Nazis, where he was imprisoned with other priests in what was known to camp authorities as the “priests’ barracks.” After six months in one concentration camp, he was transferred to another, Buchenwald, at which the infamous “Hangman of Buchenwald,” Martin Sommer, routinely tortured prisoners.
The “crime” for which Fr. Neururer would ultimately be sentenced to death was the baptizing of a fellow prisoner. He was ordered to be taken to the punishment block where he was effectively tortured to death. He was stripped naked and then hanged upside down. It would take him 34 hours to die. A fellow prisoner, Alfred Berchtold, who witnessed Neururer’s final torture, reported that he never complained, mumbling prayers until he lost consciousness.
Blessed Otto Neururer died and earned his martyr’s reward on May 30, 1940. He was 59 years old. He would be the first priest to be martyred by the Nazis but by no means the last. Over the next five years, more than 2,600 Catholic priests would be killed on the orders of those who owed their allegiance to the new Caesar. Unlike St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, St. Maximilian Kolbe, and Blessed Otto Neururer, they have not been officially recognized by the Church.
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