Alban Haas

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Alban Haas 1927

Alban Haas (born January 29, 1877 in Diemantstein (Swabia), today Markt Bissingen ; † May 15, 1968 in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse ) was a German Catholic priest and prelate who became known as a local researcher and church historian as well as a book author .

Life

family

Title page of the Speyer Cathedral Festival

Alban Haas was born as the son of the teacher of the same name in Diemantstein, which today belongs to the market town of Bissingen in Bavarian Swabia.

His younger half-brother from his father's second marriage was the composer Joseph Haas , a student of Max Reger . He composed a. a. the Speyer Cathedral Festival to mark the 1930 anniversary of the cathedral in the diocese of Speyer , where his brother worked.

education

Haas attended high school near St. Stephan in Augsburg and graduated from high school in 1896. For a year he studied philosophy and education in Dillingen (Danube) , then theology in Munich . As a student at the Archbishop's Seminary Georgianum he received there on 11 July 1900 ordination .

job

Teaching staff of the Humanist Gymnasium Neustadt , 1930, with Alban Haas (seated, 2nd from right) and Karl Strauss (back right)

Haas initially worked as a chaplain for three years , then until 1913 as the city ​​preacher in Günzburg . He also taught at the monastic teacher training college of the English Misses . For this he passed the state examination as a teacher trainer in 1911 , for which he had prepared himself in self-study.

In the summer of 1913, the Bavarian state government transferred Haas to the Catholic Teacher Training Institute in Speyer . Here, until 1923, he taught the future educators mainly in the subjects of German , history and French ; on September 1, 1918, he became prefect of the institute , and in 1920 he became a professor. From December 8, 1923, Haas, who received his doctorate in theology in 1925 and was promoted to senior studies councilor in 1928, worked for 15 years as a religion teacher at the Humanistic Gymnasium in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, which has been called Kurfürst-Ruprecht-Gymnasium since 1964 . He was a colleague of the Jewish math and physics teacher Karl Strauss until he was removed from service by the Nazi rulers in 1935 .

At the age of 61, Haas took early retirement in December 1938, during which he worked as a local researcher for his place of residence Neustadt and its surroundings and as a church historian for the diocese of Speyer. For example, he dealt with the evaluation of the locally historically significant lake book of the Liebfrauenstift Neustadt. The monastery had been founded by the Wittelsbachers , the collegiate church served them as a burial place . Haas put the results of his research down in several books.

Works (selection)

  • The interdict according to current law with a historical overview . Schippers, Amsterdam 1963 (reprint of the Würzburg edition, Univ. Diss. 1925).
  • The Aegidien collegiate church in Neustadt an der Haardt . A popular guide looking at the ancient monuments in Neustadt's old city sanctuary. In: Festschrift to celebrate 90 years. Establishment of the parish council of Neustadt an der Haardt . Neustadt 1933, p. 51-128 .
  • From the Nüwenstat . About the life and development of the medieval Neustadt an der Haardt. 1st edition. Self-published by the Palatinate Society for the Promotion of Science, Neustadt / Weinstr. 1951.
  • Alban Haas and Annemarie Hogg (German translation and edition): The life of St. Francis of Assisi . Pilger-Verlag, Speyer 1952 ( French original edition by Omer Englebert: La Vie de St. François d'Assisi . Paris 1947).
  • The Lazarists in the Electoral Palatinate . Contributions to their history. Palatinate Publishing House, Neustadt / Weinstr. 1960.
  • From the Nüwenstat . About the life and development of the medieval Neustadt an der Weinstrasse. 2nd Edition. Palatinate Publishing House, Neustadt / Weinstr. 1964.

Honors

Memorial stone for Haas at the Josefskirche in Neustadt

On the ecclesiastical side, Haas bore the honorary title of Papal House Prelate with the official salutation Monsignor since 1940 . In 1953 he received the Cross of Merit (Steckkreuz) of the Federal Republic of Germany. Because of his services to local research, he was made an honorary citizen of Neustadt on September 20, 1960 and honored there, as in his place of birth, with a street dedication. In 1967 he was awarded the Great Gold Medal of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria .

Haas received late recognition almost 50 years after his death: A special issue published in 2016 on the end of the Second World War made public that in 1945 he had successfully engaged two Catholic bishops to secure the release of two brothers from French internment . The two young men from Germany were sons of a Catholic and a Jew , and Haas had taught them as a religion teacher at the grammar school. In April 1944 they were deported to France as so-called “ half-Jews ” to a concentration camp and had to do forced labor underground in the limestone quarries of Cravant-sur-Yonne . After their escape in August 1944, the French imprisoned them as supposed German spies for almost a year until they were released in the summer of 1945 at Haas' instigation. Later they donated a votive tablet in the small suburban church of Notre Dame d'Arbaud by Cravant .

literature

  • Golden Jubilee of Prelate Haas . In: The Christian Pilgrim . No. 31 . Speyer July 30, 1950.
  • Fritz Steegmüller: History of the teacher training institute Speyer, 1839-1937 . Pilger-Verlag, Speyer 1978.

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ At that time, historians considered 1030 to be the year the foundation stone was laid for Speyer Cathedral, so that in 1930 it was assumed that it had been 900 years since construction began.
  2. ↑ In 1942 Strauss died in a gas chamber at Auschwitz concentration camp .
  3. ↑ Gerhard Wunder: The Social Democracy in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse since 1832 . Neue Pfälzer Post, Neustadt 1985, ISBN 3-923505-02-7 , p. 106 .
  4. ↑ Federal Chancellor of the Republic of Austria : Inquiry response “Orders and decorations to former domestic and foreign members of the government and other personalities”. (PDF; 6.59 MB) April 23, 2012, accessed May 25, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Albert H. Keil: "Nobody came to help [us]." Mußbach and the "brown plague" . In: Marita Hoffmann and Bernhard Kukatzki (eds.): “At dawn on March 18, 1945, there was still dead silence.” At the end of the Second World War in the Palatinate . Special issue (=  Palatinate-Rhenish family history . Volume XVIII ). No. 8/9 . Verlag Llux, Ludwigshafen 2016, ISBN 978-3-938031-72-8 , p. 99, 100 ( online ).
  6. ^ Arbaud votive tablet. → Verlag PfalzMundArt , accessed on July 16, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Haas, Alban
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Catholic priest and prelate
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Diemantstein (Swabia), today Market Bissingen
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 1968
Place of death Neustadt an der Weinstrasse