Maximilian Kaller

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Bust of Maximilian Kaller in the Cathedral of Frombork
Signature Maximilian Kaller.svg

Maximilian Josef Johann Kaller (born October 10, 1880 in Beuthen , Upper Silesia , † July 7, 1947 in Frankfurt am Main ) was Bishop of Warmia in East Prussia .

Life

Maximilian Kaller was the second of eight children from an Upper Silesian merchant family. In 1899 he passed the Abitur. He then began his theological training in Breslau , where he studied with Clemens Baeumker , Aloys Schäfer and Max Sdralek , among others . In 1903 he was ordained priest there . At first he was a chaplain in Groß Strehlitz , and he took up his first pastor as a mission pastor of the St. Boniface parish on Rügen .

From 1917 he was pastor of the parish of St. Michael (Berlin-Mitte) . In 1926 he was appointed administrator of the Apostolic Administration Schneidemühl .

Kaller was an honorary member of the Catholic student associations Normannia in Greifswald and Ermland (Warmia) in Munich in the KV .

Bishop of Warmia

1930 Maximilian Kaller was appointed Bishop of Warmia consecrated . The episcopal ordination donated him on October 28, 1930, the then Apostolic Nuncio to the German Empire , Cesare Orsenigo ; Co- consecrators were Edward Aleksander Wladyslaw O'Rourke , Bishop of Danzig , and Johannes Hillebrand , Auxiliary Bishop in Paderborn . As the episcopal motto, he chose a verse from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians ( 2 Cor 5:14  EU ): Latin “Caritas Christi urget me” (“Christ's love urges me”). His bishopric was Frauenburg . In 1932 he carried out a diocesan synod , not least to familiarize the Warmia clergy with his goals and methods in pastoral care .

A few months after the NSDAP came to power in January 1933, the Reich Concordat was signed in the Vatican on July 20 . Kaller's work during the Nazi period paints a differentiated picture. In the initial phase of the Nazi state , Kaller came into opposition to the regime several times: he organized diocesan pilgrimages a. a. to Dietrichswalde , the Marian pilgrimage site of the Polish-speaking minority in Warmia. However, Kaller's predecessors Thiel and Bludau had always avoided participating in such pilgrimages. In September 1934, Kaller gave the church consecration sermon in German and after the mass in Polish. A sermon in Polish in November 1934 that began with the words “Beloved Polish People” brought him a complaint from the East Prussian Gauleiter Erich Koch in Berlin.

In a pastoral letter from Kaller dated April 1935 it says: “The Catholic Church in East Prussia is currently in dire straits. [...] A storm order from the SA calls for resignation from the Catholic associations under threat of immediate dismissal. Our Catholic action is accused of high treason. "

The dispute continued in 1937 when, on the one hand, Kaller's pastoral word was confiscated during Lent and, on the other hand, the printing plant of the Ermländische Zeitung was expropriated after 30,000 copies of the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge by Pope Pius XI. had been printed.

In the further course of 1937 there were arrests and convictions of clergy and lay people in the diocese. All Catholic associations were banned. In the pastoral letter of 1938, Kaller says: “We are outlawed; others may mock and blaspheme us. We cannot utter a word of reply. There is no longer any question of freedom of conscience. ”The episcopal secretary Gerhard Fittkau was interrogated by the Gestapo in Frauenburg and his typewriter was confiscated for publishing and copying pastoral letters . After several interrogations by the Gestapo in Königsberg , he was expelled from Warmia in 1939 as an "enemy of the state".

Since 1939, however, a change in Kaller's line can be seen. The Olsztyn regional council demanded a reduction in the Polish church services in the Olsztyn Sankt-Jakobus-Kirche , whereupon Kaller instructed the archpriest Hanowski accordingly in August 1939: “In view of the uneasy, tense time conditions in all cities of the diocese, for the time being, from Polish sermons and Polish singing are to be refrained from. "

On January 25, 1941, he declared in a pastoral word, very faithful to the regime: “We joyfully profess the German national community and feel inseparably connected with it in good and dreary days [...] In this genuinely Christian spirit, we now also live through our participation with all my heart the great struggle of our people to secure their life and their status in the world. We look with admiration at our army, which has achieved and continues to achieve unprecedented success in heroic wrestling under excellent leadership. We thank God for his assistance. As Christians in particular, we are determined to use all our strength to ensure that the final victory of our fatherland is secured. Just as believing Christians, glowing with God's love, we stand faithfully to our leader, who guides the destinies of our people with a sure hand. "

On February 7, 1945 he was forcibly deported from the Warmia by the SS because the Red Army threatened to take the area . Bishop Kaller was first expelled to Danzig , later to Stendal and Halle an der Saale . There he found refuge in the hospital of the Gray Sisters of St. Elizabeth . In mid-April 1945, Halle was occupied by American troops . At the beginning of July 1945, the Americans withdrew from Saxony-Anhalt , and Halle became part of the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ). On December 16, 1945, he donated the sacrament of ordination to Gerhard Matern in Eisleben in the St. Gertrud Church.

post war period

Grave of Bishop Maximilian Kallers - together with that of Bishop Kindermann in the cemetery of the Catholic Church in Königstein im Taunus

Bishop Kaller and many civilians returned to Warmia after the military fighting subsided. However, Kaller was informed by the Polish primate Cardinal August Hlond that the Pope had withdrawn his jurisdiction . He then settled in West Germany.

Bishop of the expellees

1946 he was by Pope Pius XII. appointed as special commissioner for the displaced persons . On July 7, 1947, Bishop Kaller died suddenly of a heart attack in Frankfurt am Main . He was buried on July 10, 1947 next to the parish church of St. Marien in Königstein im Taunus .

50 years later, a commemoration ceremony in honor of Bishop Kaller was held with the current Polish Bishop of Warmia / Ermland and the congregation from Germany. One bust each of Bishop Kaller, which Erika Maria Wiegand created in 1980, was placed in the Cathedral of the Assumption and St. Andrew in Frombork and Germany.

Monument to Maximilian Kaller in Koenigstein im Taunus

Maximilian Kaller is one of the three figures on the monument to the Königstein church fathers in Königstein im Taunus. The monument was designed by Christoph Loch and inaugurated on September 1, 2011.

Beatification process

Since the 1990s the Bischof-Maximilian-Kaller-Stiftung e. V. to keep alive the memory of Bishop Kaller and to support the beatification process. On May 4, 2003, the beatification process was opened during the pilgrimage of the Ermländer in Werl .

literature

  • Johannes Smaczny: Our Bishop Maximilian Kaller. A contribution to his view of life . Hoheneck-Verlag, Büren in Westphalia 1949.
  • Barbara Wolf-Dahm:  Maximilian Kaller. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 3, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-035-2 , Sp. 974-978.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Hans-Jürgen Karp : The Apostolic Administrator Maximilian Kaller and the Polish minority in the border region of Posen-West Prussia . In: Zeitschrift für die Geschichte und Altertumskunde Ermlands , Vol. 53 (2009), pp. 35–76.
  • Thomas Flammer, Hans-Jürgen Karp (Ed.): Maximilian Kaller - Bishop of the Wandering Church. Flight and displacement - integration - bridge building. Aschendorff, Münster 2012 (= magazine for the history and antiquity of Warmia, supplement 20). ISBN 978-3-402-15711-4 .
  • Hans-Jürgen Karp, Rainer Bendel : Bishop Maximilian Kaller (1880-1947). Pastor in the challenges of the 20th century . Aschendorff Verlag, Münster 2017, ISBN 978-3-402-13260-9 .

Web links

Commons : Maximilian Kaller  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Karp, Rainer Bendel: Bishop Maximilian Kaller (1880-1947). Pastor in the challenges of the 20th century . Aschendorff Verlag, Münster 2017, pp. 24–28.
  2. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Karp, Rainer Bendel: Bishop Maximilian Kaller (1880-1947). Pastor in the challenges of the 20th century . Aschendorff Verlag, Münster 2017, pp. 37–41.
  3. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Karp, Rainer Bendel: Bishop Maximilian Kaller (1880-1947). Pastor in the challenges of the 20th century . Aschendorff Verlag, Münster 2017, pp. 159–170.
  4. ↑ https://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/rezbuecher-29993
predecessor Office successor
Robert Weimann
as Apostolic Protonotary 		Apostolic administrator
from 1930 Prelate von Schneidemühl
1926–1930 		Franz Hartz
as prelate
Augustinus Bludau Bishop of Warmia
1930–1947
from 1945 without jurisdiction rights 		Józef Drzazga
Sedis vacancy 1947–1972
Justina's Staugaitis
as a prelate 		Apostolic administrator of the Memel Prelature
1939–1947 		Petras Maželis
as prelate (Sedisvakanz 1947–1949)
personal data
SURNAME Kaller, Maximilian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kaller, Maximilian Josef Johannes (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bishop of Warmia in East Prussia
DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Beuthen , Upper Silesia
DATE OF DEATH July 7, 1947
Place of death Frankfurt am Main