Nazi victim is among the new blessed. (Germany).

Vatican--Among the seven candidates that John Paul II beatified on Sunday, October 7, 2001, was a German trade unionist and journalist, executed by the Nazis in 1945.

Nikolaus Gross, born in Niederwenigern in 1889, was enrolled as young worker in a Christian labour union, and founded the first youth group of the Miners' Christian Movement.

He enrolled in the Catholic Workers movement in 1918, where he was noted for his dedication and perserverance in seeing the organization's social claims implemented. Gross continued his studies until 1921, and then took a job at Essen's Der Knappen, a workers' newspaper. In 1927, Gross was appointed editor of the paper, until it was closed down by the Nazis in 1938.

Nikolaus Gross had become an active opponent of Nazism, precisely because of his Catholic faith. He acted on the principle that "God must be obeyed before men. "He wrote in 1943, "If we are asked to do something contrary to God or the faith, not only is it not our moral duty but it is also our absolute [obligation] to refuse to obey."

On May 24, 1923, Gross married Elizabeth Koch, with whom he had seven children. Some of them are still alive and attended their father's beatification in Rome on October 7, 2001.

Gross expressed his thoughts in two articles, which eventually fell into the hands of the Gestapo. He was arrested on August 12, 1944, in Cologne, and condemned to death on January 15, 1945. He was taken to Plotzensee prison in Berlin, where he received a visit from his wife three days later. He was hanged as a traitor on January 23.

In statements on Vatican radio, attorney Andrea Ambrosi, postulator of the cause of beatification, explained Gross' willingness to undergo martyrdom, quoting one of his last writings: "Only when we have given proof of faithfulness to God can we possess God forever and for all eternity."