Zimmermann, Johannes

Father Johannes Zimmerman, son of Andreas Zimmermann, was born in 1885 in the Volga German colony of Seelmann. After completing his studies at the seminary in Saratov to 1908 he was ordained a priest and began serving the parishes in Astrakhan and then Tsaritsyn (Volgograd).

He served the parish in Liebental from 1910-1913; the parishes in Dehler and Brabander from 1913-1918; the parishes of Rothammel and Seelmann from 1918-1923; and finally, the parishes of Dehler and Brabander again from 1923-1925. In January 1929 he was again serving parishners in Brabander.

When he was arrested the final time, he was serving as the Dean of the parish in Saratov.      

Between 1918 and 1924, he was arrested several times by the secret police under the pretext of "counter-revolutionary activities." Due to lack of evidence, he was released each time. Finally, in 1925 he was arrested again and banished for two years to Siberia. In 1927, he returned from exile took up residence in Stalingrad (Volgograd). On 2 February 1930 he was arrested again by the secret police arrested and accused of conspiring with "a group of German clergy conspirators in the Volga region."      

On 6 June 1931, he was convicted by a secret court and sentenced to three years of concentration camp imprisonment. He was released in 1934 and returned to Brabander where he was arrested once again on 20 April 1935, convicted, and sentenced to another 3 years in a labor camp. In 1937, he was arrested there and put in prison. There he was convicted of anti-government activities by the NKVD on 13 August 1937 and received a sentence of capital punishment. He was executed by gun fire on 17 August 1937.