Theodor Gunkel fought in World War I as a soldier. He began studying theology in 1919 and was ordained as a priest in 1926. He was one of the co-founders of the Oratory of Saint Philipp Neri. From 1931 to 1966, he worked at the Church of Our Lady in Leipzig-Lindenau as part of this community of priests. After Georg Elser’s failed attempt to assassinate Hitler on November 8, 1939, Gunkel and his fellow community members Heinrich Kahlefeld and Philipp Dessauer were arrested. Gunkel was released after around six weeks.
In 1942 he arranged a hiding place in Leipzig for Eva Rosenfeld, a Jewish doctor, and obtained identity papers from a Catholic woman in Berlin for her use. Tormented by the constant fear of putting her helpers at risk, Eva Rosenfeld committed suicide in January 1944. When a Jewish woman living in a “mixed marriage,” Karoline Scherf, was at threat of deportation to Theresienstadt in February 1945, Gunkel took her to the Catholic sisters Helene and Ottilie Spitzer, who lived very close to the church. Scherf survived the last weeks of the war in their home.
As of 2019, a memorial plaque in Leipzig commemorates the three oratory priests Theodor Gunkel, Werner Becker, and Josef Gülden.