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Joanna Maria Katharina “Hanna” Decker was born in Nuremberg, Germany on June 19, 1918. Her father, Ignaz Decker, was a tax and customs official, and her Bavarian mother, Maria Anna Jäger was a homemaker.
As a child, Hanna showed outstanding talent, not only in academics, but also in extracurricular activities such as drawing and playing the piano.
In October 1937, Hanna began studying to become a physician in Munich. In addition to studying in Munich, she was active in her parish’s youth ministry, and in 1939, she signed up with the Missionary Medical Institute in Würzburg. In 1942, Hanna received her doctorate in medicine.
Because of World War II, she was conscripted by the government to work in various hospitals and clinics as a physician. Among the branches of medicine in which she served were obstetrics, internal medicine, and psychiatry.
In 1949, Hanna established a psychiatric practice in Mainz. This was short-lived, however, because thanks to a vow she made to herself that she would one day devote at least ten years of her life as a Catholic missionary, she was sent by the Missionary Medical Institute to Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1950.
Southern Rhodesia would be Dr. Hanna’s home from 1950 to her death in 1977. During those years, Hanna served the poor as a missionary physician. She divided her missionary experiences in Africa into two phases. The first phase was getting organized or the “build-up” phase. Not only did she have to learn what the major healthcare needs of the population were, she had to continually do non-medical work searching for supplies, money, and spaces in which to work. The second part of her missionary life was the relatively stable years when she was able to devote more time to practicing medicine rather than practicing business administration.
One group that was particularly helpful to Hanna was the CMM (Mariannhill) Missionaries. She also developed staff for the clinics and hospitals which she developed, staff such as nurses, midwives, and assistants. The West German government also provided help in the way of money.
Unfortunately, during the Rhodesian Bush War, on August 9, 1977, two men entered the hospital where Dr. Hanna was working. The men, described as “drunken terrorists” or “nationalist guerillas,” forced their way into the hospital beating up patients and killing one of the staff. When they came to Dr. Hanna and a Austrian-born colleague, Sister Fernanda Ploner, the men demanded money. Hanna told the men she had more money in the house, and she and Sister Fernanda went to get it. However, the men shot and killed Dr. Hanna and Sister Fernanda as they were walking to the house.
Today, Hanna is known in the Catholic Church as Servant of God Johanna Decker. One of the schools that she attended as a youth was renamed in her honor as the Dr. Johanna Decker School.”
