Adam Berenz

Adam Berenz , Hungarian Adam Berenc (born September 19, 1898 in Apatin , Kingdom of Hungary , Austria-Hungary ; † October 21, 1968 in Kalocsa , Hungary ) was a Roman Catholic clergyman , journalist and resistance activist in the Batschka during the National Socialist era .

Life

Spiritual career

Adam Berenz's father Adam was a basket weaver. Berenz attended elementary school in Apatin with the principal teacher Josef Kleiner . He completed high school with the Jesuit brothers in Kalocsa , and between 1918 and 1921 he studied theology at the Archbishop's Lyceum there.

Berenz worked temporarily as a chaplain in Bačka Palanka (German Plankenburg ) and Mladenovo (German Bukin ). In September 1922 he moved to Nova Gajdobra (German Wekerledorf ) as an administrator . He later worked as a chaplain in Kupusina , Stanišić (German Donauwachenheim or Stanischitsch ) and Apatin. In 1932 he worked as a chaplain in Kljajićevo (German Kernei ), then again in Apatin, where he was also vicar of the Sacred Heart Church . Here he was responsible for pastoral care , retreats for the preparatory institute in Vrbas (German Werbass ), lectures at the retreats for Catholic German girls in Bačka Palanka, Apatin and Bácsalmás (German: Heimerskirchen ), as well as ideological education lectures in Čonoplja (German Tschonopel ). For one year he was President of the Catholic Fishermen's Association in Apatin.

Berenz gave sermons at the settlement celebrations of Germans in Čonoplja, Srpski Miletić (German Berauersheim ) and Ratkovo (German Parabutsch ). For several years he also gave the festive sermons at the pilgrimages in Doroslovo . In 1933 Berenz was appointed chaplain at the main church in Apatin and parish vicar of the Sacred Heart Church in Apatin. He headed the vicariate until May 1, 1944. After that, he took over the main parish of Apatins as administrator .

Resistance to the Nazi regime

In the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , and especially in the western Batschka, the propagation of the “new German worldview” by the National Socialist- oriented innovators (also the renewal movement ) triggered a strong Catholic counter-movement among the Yugoslav Germans . Their theological-political spokesman was the resistance activist Adam Berenz, who fought against National Socialist ideology from 1935 until March 1944 in his weekly newspaper “Die Donau”. As early as 1942, Berenz warned of the impending expulsion and collective expulsion of the Danube Swabians. The newspaper in which the resistance movement is documented was a "mouthpiece for the Nazi opponents" and was banned in 1944 by the Hungarian occupation authorities to which the Batschka was subordinate between 1941 and 1944 at the instigation of the German Reich . The last edition before the paper was discontinued was 6100 copies.

The word “traitor of the people” was painted on his doorstep with oil paint. The wall of the parsonage house was scratched with swastikas and mocking caricatures. The organ of the innovators, "The Wasp", was called by Berenz in its edition of February 21, 1937 because of its corpulence "van Dick". Berenz was attacked sharply in the first edition of the paper. After Hungary had been occupied by the German military on March 16, 1944, Berenz was arrested by the Gestapo on May 22, 1944 at 9:30 p.m. as the editor in charge of the “Danube”. He was taken to Sombor and locked in a prison cell. From here he was transferred to the Gestapo prison in Szeged a week later . After his conviction as a "resistance fighter against National Socialism" he was imprisoned in the Bačka Topola concentration camp . The Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Kalocsa-Kecskemét , József Grősz , spoke to the Hungarian Minister of the Interior for Berenz and was given permission to release Berenz from the camp and bring him to Kalocsa. On May 23, Grősz brought Berenz to Kalocsa by car.

After the end of the Second World War in Yugoslavia, Berenz protested against the " collective guilt of the Danube Swabians", on the basis of which large parts of the German population in the country were expropriated and expelled . In 1957 Adam Berenz was appointed preacher in the cathedral of Kalocsa. He joined the Franciscan Order . Berenz died lonely on October 21, 1968 and was buried in a crypt in Kalocsa.

Quote

Adam Berenz wrote about the foundation of the "Danube":

" When, after the National Socialists came to power in the German Reich, the neo-pagan worldview was first secretly (especially in holiday camps), and later through the so-called 'renewal movement' through its campaign sheet 'Volksruf', it became more and more clear that the urgent need for a press organ - no matter how modest it may be - would be founded, which, taking into account the special mentality of the Germans in the Batschka and Banat, would pay particular attention to its ideological concerns. This is how the Catholic weekly 'Die Donau' came into being. This was followed by an ideological explanation of Germanness in the Batschka and in the Banat and a bitter, uncompromising struggle between the representatives of the National Socialist neo-paganism and the representatives of the Catholic camp. The Hungarian Stojay government put an abrupt end to this fight in April 1944 by banning the 'Danube' from appearing.

During the entire period of the struggle, the 'Danube' never lost its unconditional loyalty to the ancestral folk tales, to the mother tongue, and was aware of its participation in German cultural work. Only he lives in the spirit of the ancestors, only he brings honor to their memory, only he ensures the local Germanness a peaceful life in the space that our ancestors created, which our local Germanness is not only German, but also thoroughly Catholic and loyal educates and wants to preserve homeland and fatherland. "

- Adam Berenz

Citizens' Association "Adam Berenz"

The German association "Adam Berenz" Apatin represents the German minority in the Apatin community and sees itself as the keeper of Berenz's estate. The rectory , which has been converted into a cultural center, also houses his personal items, books and volumes of the “Donau” magazine. The association has its own building, which the Catholic Church makes available to the association, as well as a large library with a large collection of church records .

literature

• Alfred Manz: Adam Berenz and his newspaper "The Danube": a resistance against National Socialist influences in the Batschka; 1935-1944 , 1984, p. 63

Individual evidence

1. ^ German National Library : Adam Berenz
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Michael Merkl: Vision of a Danube Swabian. Resistance to National Socialist influences among the Danube Swabians of Yugoslavia and Hungary 1935–1944 , Dieterskirch , 1968 (→ excerpts from the life picture of a Danube Swabian fighter against neo-paganism and National Socialism )
3. ^ ^{A b} Society for Serbian-German Cooperation, Carl Bethke : The Image of the German Resistance to Hitler in (Ex-) Yugoslavia ( Memento of March 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 139 kB), 1991
4. ^ ^{A b} Danube Swabian Working Group : Three Hundred Years of Danube Swabian History at a Glance , Section: The Yugoslav Germans and National Socialism
5. ^ Zoran Janjetović : The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. P. 219.
6. ^ Slobodan Mirić: S one strane rata , German Jenseits des Krieg , Sombor, 2004, ISBN 978-86-902167-9-6 , p. 203
7. ↑ Mihajlo Stojković: Grobarka: anatomija jednog ratnog morala , German The anatomy of a war morale , Pančevo, Grafos Internacional, 2004, ISBN 978-86-83893-15-7
8. ^ Johann Böhm : The German ethnic group in Yugoslavia 1918–1941: Domestic and foreign policy as symptoms of the relationship between the German minority and the Yugoslav government , Peter Lang, 2009, p. 256
9. ↑ Apatiner Gemeinschaft e. V .: Adam Berenz
10. ↑ ^{a b} Danube Delta: German association "Adam Berenz"
11. ^ INV Ljubljana, Samo Kristen: The identity management of the German cultural associations in Slovenia, Slavonia and in Vojvodina. Data for transnational comparison based on a study carried out in summer and autumn 2005