Aloysius Muench

Aloysius Muench (center) when he left Bonn, 1959

Coat of arms of Aloysius Joseph Cardinal Muench

Aloysius Joseph Cardinal Muench (born February 18, 1889 in Milwaukee , Wisconsin , † February 15, 1962 in Rome ) was a Vatican diplomat and first apostolic nuncio in the Federal Republic of Germany .

Life

Aloysius Muench was born in 1889 as the son of the German immigrants Joseph Muench and Theresa Kraus. After graduating from Saint Francis Seminary in Milwaukee, he studied at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and completed his studies in 1919 with a master's degree. He completed his doctoral studies at the University of Friborg , where he is also a member of the Catholic student association KDSt.V. Teutonia Friborg in the CV . He later studied at the Catholic University of Leuven , the University of Oxford , the University of Cambridge and the Sorbonne . He successfully completed his doctoral studies in 1921. In 1922 he became professor of dogmatics and social sciences at Saint Francis Seminary and in 1929 dean of the theology faculty and Regens of the seminary .

Muench was on June 8, 1913 by Archbishop Sebastian Gebhard Messmer for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee for priests ordained. After August 10, 1935, Bishop of Fargo was appointed, he received on 15 October 1935 by the apostolic delegate in the United States , Amleto Giovanni Cicognani , the episcopal ordination . Co-consecrators were the auxiliary bishops Christian Hermann Winkelmann from Saint Louis and William Richard Griffin from La Crosse . On November 6, 1935, he was enthroned as bishop.

Commemorative plaque for his activity as Apostolic Visitator in Kronberg 1946–1949

From 1946 Aloysius Muench worked as Apostolic Visitator and head of the Papal Mission for Refugees in Germany, based in Kronberg im Taunus . His pastoral work included looking after the refugees and displaced persons from Eastern Europe. By the summer of 1949 he organized the transport of around 950 freight cars with papal relief supplies to Germany. He also found support from the US government; Before he started working in Kronberg, he received a certificate of appointment from the US Secretary of Defense Robert P. Patterson as liaison officer for religious affairs with the US military government in Germany . Through his contacts in the USA, Muench conveyed a considerable flow of donations to destroyed Germany. After the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Kronberg Apostolic Mission was dissolved in 1951.

Muench is counted among the influential critics of the conviction of National Socialist war criminals in the Nuremberg follow-up trials . He advocated generous peace conditions for Germany, which for him included pardoning the convicts. Münch was non-publicly committed, for example, to the release of Alfried Krupp , but not to Otto Ohlendorf , who was involved in the mass murders of the Einsatzgruppen . Several times he came into conflict with the American military authorities; In One World in Charity , he compared the Allied occupation policy with the National Socialist regime. Muench's view of the world is portrayed as being shaped by sharp anti-communism and anti-fascist and anti-Semitic convictions.

Muench had been the administrator of the Apostolic Nunciature , which had been vacant since the death of Nuncio Orsenigo, since 1949 and was given the title of Archbishop by Pope Pius XII. on October 28, 1950 transferred to the office and dignity of a nuncio. The official assumption of office as Apostolic Nuncio in the Federal Republic of Germany took place on March 9, 1951 with the official seat in the Turmhof in Bad Godesberg - Plittersdorf . During this time, he retained his Fargo diocese in the USA .

In 1959 Muench not only left Germany as a nuncio, but also renounced the Fargo diocese on December 9, 1959, whereupon he was appointed titular archbishop of Selymbria on the same day . On December 14, 1959, Pope John XXIII took him . as a cardinal priest with the titular church of San Bernardo all Terme in the college of cardinals . Muench was the first American to have a seat and vote in the Roman Curia .

Cardinal Muench died in Rome in 1962 and was buried in his home in Fargo, North Dakota.

Honors

In 1950 he was made an honorary citizen of Kemnath . Later a street in Kemnath was named after him.

After he had already become an honorary member of the KStV Askania-Burgundia Berlin in the KV in 1953 - like his predecessor Eugenio Pacelli in 1928 - , in 1957 the K.St.V. Markomannia zu Münster the honorary membership.

The then Federal President Theodor Heuss awarded Cardinal Muench the Grand Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957 .

Works

• Theological basic ideas for the Catholic rural people movement. Publishing house Regensberg / Münster 1948
• with Oswald von Nell-Breuning : Social Catechism: Aufriss einer kath. Social Studies / International Social Studies Association. Verlag Kath. Kirche in Bayern, Augsburg and Winfried-Werk Augsburg 1949
• with Albert Hartmann: The moral order of the international community: Outline of an ethics of international relations / International Social Study Association. Winfried factory Augsburg 1950 (1948)

literature

in order of appearance

• Colman Barry: American nuncio. Cardinal Aloisius Muench. St. John's University Press, Collegeville 1969.
• Herbert Alsheimer: The Vatican in Kronberg. A unique item in German post-war history . Verlag Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-7829-0539-3 .
• Ekkart Sauser :  Muench, Aloisius Joseph. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 21, Bautz, Nordhausen 2003, ISBN 3-88309-110-3 , Sp. 1044.
• Suzanne Brown-Fleming: The Holocaust and Catholic Conscience: Cardinal Aloisius Muench and the Guilt Question in Germany, 1946-59 . University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame 2006, ISBN 0-268-02187-2 .

Web links

Commons : Aloysius Muench  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Aloysius Muench in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Aloysius Muench in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Muench, Aloisius Joseph. In: Salvador Miranda : The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. ( Florida International University website), accessed July 20, 2016.
• Entry on Aloisius Joseph Muench on catholic-hierarchy.org ; Retrieved July 20, 2016.
• Descriptions of Manuscript Collections L - Z. American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives, accessed February 1, 2016 . 
• Nunciature in Germany: Aloysius J. Muench
• Cardinal Muench Seminary. Diocese of Fargo, accessed February 1, 2016 . 
• Aloysius Muench with Pius XII. ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• Cardinal Alois Muench - “Father of the displaced and needy” - A contribution by the church historian Prof. Dr. Rudolf Grulich

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Frank M. Buscher: Punish and educate. »Nuremberg« and the US war crimes program. In: Norbert Frei (ed.): Transnational politics of the past. How to deal with German war criminals in Europe after the Second World War. Wallstein, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 978-3-89244-940-9 , pp. 94-139, here pp. 103f.
2. ↑ Josef Zaglmann: Don't forget your roots in Kemnath. In: The new day - Oberpfälzischer Kurier. June 22, 2013. Retrieved October 28, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Michael F. Feldkamp : 150 years of the Askania-Burgundia Catholic Student Association in the Cartel Association of Catholic German Student Associations (KV) in Berlin 1853–2003 . A festschrift published for the K.St.V. Askania-Burgundia. Berlin 2006, p. 83.

predecessor	Office	successor
Cesare Orsenigo ( Apostolic Nuncio in the German Empire )	Apostolic Nuncio in Germany 1951–1959	Bruno Bernhard Heim (executive)
James O'Reilly	Bishop of Fargo 1935–1959	Leo Ferdinand Dworschak