Leonhard Adler

Leonhard Maria Adler (born August 4, 1882 in Milan , Italy ; died December 16, 1965 there ) was an Austro-German engineer , politician and religious priest .

Life

Leonhard Adler in the gondola of the airship LZ 127 , 1928

Leonhard Adler was born into a large Jewish-Austrian industrial family. After the father's death, the family moved to Vienna , where Adler studied mechanical engineering and electrical engineering . In 1905 he became an assistant at the Technical University in Brno . In 1906 he entered the Evangelical Church . After his promotion to Doktoringenieur he married in 1911 Adelheid Poppy and in 1912 chief engineer at the Directorate General of AEG in Berlin. He converted to the Catholic faith in 1917 and was married in Berlin in December according to the Catholic rite.

At the suggestion of the Center Party , he became a non-party urban planning officer for traffic in 1920; Adler was the first Catholic to be a paid member of the magistrate . With the appointment he became a Prussian and German citizen at the same time . As a visionary, Adler was the driving force behind the realization of a new airport on Tempelhofer Feld . From 1923 he was responsible for the expansion of Tempelhof Airport ; He was appointed as the first chairman of the supervisory board of the newly founded Berliner Flughafen-Gesellschaft mbH (BFG) in 1924. He also played a key role in founding the Berliner Verkehrs-AG (BVG) in 1928. In December 1932 the family moved to Oberammergau as a precautionary measure for political reasons . Adler himself initially stayed in Berlin, but went underground in Westphalia after the Röhm Putsch in 1934 .

After the revocation of his naturalization in 1935, which also applied to his wife and three children, he emigrated to Italy in 1936, where he worked as a consultant for Fiat in Turin and Alfa Romeo in Milan. In 1937 Adler went to Libya , where he was busy building up and expanding the city bus service in Tripoli until his release in 1938 .

In the following years he hid with a Catholic pastor and worked illegally as the chairman of the Catholic Action . After the end of World War II , Adler remained in the service of the British occupying forces in Libya until 1947. From 1948 until his retirement in 1952, he was Milan City Councilor for Transport and General Director of Transport.

Pope Pius XII Leonhard Adler approved admission to the Franciscan order in 1953, after his wife Adelheid had agreed to this project , although Adler was married. On October 4, 1956, he was ordained a priest in the Franciscan Church in Milan , and Adler held his priesthood with the workers of the company, of which he was the general manager, in a depot of the Milan tramway .

literature

Reichs Handbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft - The handbook of personalities in words and pictures. First volume, Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1930, p. 8, ISBN 3-598-30664-4

Ferdinand Tönnies (Vorr.): Reichs Handbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft - The handbook of personalities in words and pictures (Volume 1, A – K). Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1930, ISBN 3-598-30664-4 , pp. 8–9.

Dieter Schmidt: Leonhard Adler (1882-1965). In: Wolfgang Knauft (ed.): Co -builder of the Diocese of Berlin - 50 years of history in character images . Morus-Verlag, Berlin 1979, ISBN 3-87554-176-6 , pp. 23-33.

Christine Fischer-Defoy : Leonhard Adler - local politician, traffic expert, emigrant, priest. In: Yearbook for the Archdiocese of Berlin (volume 2007). Verlag Christliche Familie, Cologne 2006, ISBN 978-3-939168-07-2 , pp. 36-40.

Heiko Schützler: The BVG is founded . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 6, 2000, ISSN 0944-5560 , p. 118-123 ( luise-berlin.de ).

Hans Aschenbrenner: Parade ground becomes airport . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 2, 1998, ISSN 0944-5560 , p. 78-81 ( luise-berlin.de ).

Web links

Literature by and about Leonhard Adler in the catalog of the German National Library
Literature list in the online catalog of the Berlin State Library
Biography of Leonhard Adler at exilarchiv.de; Retrieved February 7, 2013
Biography Leonhard Adler: From engineer for mechanical engineering and electrical engineering to Franciscan priest ( memento from July 15, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) at flughafen-berlin-tempelhof.de

Individual evidence

↑ Anna Stein: Home Search in Faith. Leonhard Adler. In: Konradsblatt , December 15, 2013, p. 17.
↑ According to Schmidt, he also celebrated his first class here, which was followed by another first class ceremony in the tram depot.
↑ Quoted from Verkehrsgeschichtliche Blätter (Edition 6/2006), p. 153. There: as a slightly edited text from: Vor die Türsitz. Berlin city councilors and members of the magistrate persecuted during National Socialism from 1933 to 1945. Brochure for the exhibition in the Berlin House of Representatives, Active Museum Association, Berlin 2006.

personal data
SURNAME	Adler, Leonhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Adler, Leonhard Maria (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Austro-German engineer, politician and worker priest
DATE OF BIRTH	4th August 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH	Milan , Italy
DATE OF DEATH	December 16, 1965
Place of death	Milan , Italy

[1] Anna Stein: Home Search in Faith. Leonhard Adler. In: Konradsblatt , December 15, 2013, p. 17.

[2] According to Schmidt, he also celebrated his first class here, which was followed by another first class ceremony in the tram depot.

[3] Quoted from Verkehrsgeschichtliche Blätter (Edition 6/2006), p. 153. There: as a slightly edited text from: Vor die Türsitz. Berlin city councilors and members of the magistrate persecuted during National Socialism from 1933 to 1945. Brochure for the exhibition in the Berlin House of Representatives, Active Museum Association, Berlin 2006.