Alexander Gross

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Alexander Gross 2014

Alexander Groß (born April 1, 1931 in Cologne ; † September 24, 2019 in Cologne) was a German educator and academy director .

Life

Alexander ("Alex") Groß was the son of the Christian trade unionist Nikolaus Groß from Cologne , who was executed in the Nazi regime and beatified by the church . He was born the fifth of seven children. In the summer of 1944, he and a friend were sent to a family in Baienfurt near Ravensburg for security reasons , where they stayed until the spring of 1945. Back in Cologne he attended the Dreikönigsgymnasium and then trained as a banker . He worked for about a year at the Cologne Bank for Agriculture and then attended an “annual course for employees” for prospective social secretaries, which was carried out by the Catholic Social Institute of the Archdiocese of Cologne in Bad Honnef . In 1956 he married Irene Gerhards. From 1956 to 1959 he worked in Münster as a KAB secretary ( Catholic workers' movement ), then for about a year in Cologne with the Christian trade unions and then as a consultant at the Federal Ministry of Defense in Bonn. In 1969, Groß took over the educational management of the Walberberg youth academy from Stephan Pfürtner and in 1973 took over the management of this extracurricular youth education center in the Archdiocese of Cologne, which was founded in 1964 . In 1992 he handed over the management of the youth academy to Reinhard Griep. In the last years of his life he suffered from Parkinson's disease . Alexander Groß died on September 24, 2019; his grave is in the Cologne-Longerich cemetery.

Act

Under the direction of Alexander Groß, the guidelines of the educational program of the Walberberg youth academy were, on the one hand, the creation of a European peace order based on the experiences of fascist rule and internationality; on the other hand, the integration of the impulses of Vatican II and the theology of liberation as well as the new social movements . In addition, the extracurricular educational options and seminars for disadvantaged and educationally disadvantaged young people in the Walberberger Academy almost became a unique selling point among church youth education institutions. In the commemorative publication for Alex Groß's 60th birthday, it says:

“The educational work should serve to build a comprehensive peace order in the world; In particular, it should help adolescents and young adults to shape their own and human world and to be responsible for society and the church, for the state and the international community. "

This pedagogical claim of emancipation and global responsibility found its conceptual basis in the pedagogy of Paulo Freire . In 1973 Alex Groß invited committed educators and members of grassroots groups to a seminar on the liberation pedagogy of Paulo Freire at the youth academy; several Freire seminars and workshops followed in the years that followed. In Walberberg, the foundation stone was laid for what would later become the "European Consciousness Building Working Group", which in 1994 founded the Paulo Freire Society. In his contribution to the commemorative publication on "Fifteen years of educational work in the spirit of Paulo Freire", Manfred Peters makes it clear how much Alex Groß was influenced by this liberation pedagogy. In his opinion, this was evident not only in practice in the youth academy but also in the essays by Alex Groß, z. B. on "Peace Education in the Concept of Paulo Freire".

As pedagogical director and managing director, Groß campaigned for the independence of this educational establishment for 23 years. For its educational concept, youth and contemporary seminar topics and the option for action-oriented pedagogy , which intended to link personality development with political and religious education, were characteristic; This also applied not least to young people who were distant from the Church. One of these former seminar participants wrote in an obituary for Alexander Groß:

"In the years that followed, I came to this tiny Gallic village, easily accessible from Bonn and Cologne, where Alexander Groß was the chief of the small left-wing Catholic enclave in the otherwise less edifying Archdiocese of Cologne. Weekend seminars were offered on topics that moved me at the time: Paulo Freire and his pedagogy of the oppressed, literary seminars with Anatol Feid OP, theological seminars at Easter and Whitsun, which meant a lot to me, and soon I was able to act as a co-teamer myself, e.g. at a seminar on Wolf Biermann .

In the opinion of the theologian Stephan Pfürtner, who was honored as Righteous Among the Nations , Alex Groß played a central role for the entire academy.

“It was Alexander Groß's charming charisma to be able to connect the most diverse people and familiarize them with the cause of the youth academy. Here - and not only here - something like a natural came to light. ... The very unpretentious nature of his Rhenish Catholicism helped Alexander Groß to preserve his denominational identity as well as to practice ecumenical openness with people of other denominations and religions. "

Alex Groß was involved in the solidarity work in Chile and for many years in maintaining and expanding the EL-DE building in Cologne , which as a Gestapo office and prison between 1935 and 1945 became the epitome of the National Socialist reign of terror. He was a member of the Bensberg Circle, Pax Christi, the Paulo Freire Society and was involved in various work contexts for disabled people.

Protest against the beatification of the father

His father, Nikolaus Groß, had been involved in the resistance against National Socialism since 1927. The Cologne circle, which included Jakob Kaiser and Bernhard Letterhaus , worked closely with the Berlin circle around Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and was involved in the planning of alternatives to the Nazi regime. Nikolaus Groß was arrested in connection with the July 20 assassination attempt, sentenced to death and murdered in Plötzensee in January 1945 .

When his father was beatified in October 2001, Alexander Groß saw it as an inadmissible appropriation of the resistance fighter against National Socialism by the church because, in his opinion, it not only wanted to pay tribute to the "strong believing Christian" and to divert attention from its own failure, but also tried to make oneself appear as a “place of resistance”.

Against this assessment by Alex Groß, two of his siblings, Bernhard and Berny, distinguished themselves in an article in the Kölner Kirchenzeitung in 2000 because, in their opinion, there was no place in their father's letters from prison for “feelings of abandonment by bishops” would have. You do, however, admit that it is his personal affair to the extent that he is “concerned with the role of the German bishops in National Socialism”.

The fact that Catholics, who took the risks of active resistance, had to make their conscientious decision not only alone, but often even against the church leadership, was proven not only by Alex Groß in his book Obedient Church - Disobedient Christians under National Socialism , but also beforehand through other publications.

Alexander Groß's assessment has also been confirmed by more recent research; B. 2016 by the American historian David Kertzer . His book “The First Deputy. Pope Pius XI and the secret pact with fascism "poses - as the church historian and Leibniz Prize winner Hubert Wolf writes in the foreword -" once again the question of the guilt of the church that John Paul II raised in the Holy Year 2000 ".

Just as the women and men of the resistance against the Nazi dictatorship were concerned with peace and justice in our country and among the peoples, in the opinion of Alexander Groß we should not give up hope and courage despite everything. Since this is the context of "holiness" and his father stood in this context, Alex Groß finally made his peace with his beatification. For him:

"Above all, my father should be and remain a stumbling block wherever human dignity is trampled, where torture reacts and where people have to die because they stand in the way of the interests of those in power."

Fonts

  • Peace education in the concept of Paulo Freire , in: AG SPAK (ed.) Freire-Brief 17/18, 1983
  • Demythologizing as a request to pedagogy , in: Radius (1984/3) December 1984.
  • “Against whitewashing”. Disappointment, sadness, anger and indignation: What the word of the German bishops at the end of the Second World War triggers on relatives of murdered resistance fighters , in: Publik-Forum No. 13, July 14, 1995, p. 24f
  • Obedient Church - disobedient Christians under National Socialism . With a foreword by Heinrich Missalla . Mainz 2nd edition 2000
  • Rome beatifies - and falsifies a life. The resistance fighter Nikolaus Groß, murdered by Hitler's Germany, is raised to the honor of the altars. His son protests . In: Publik-Forum. 17/2001, pp. 24-27

literature

  • Share a vision. Pedagogical Practice for Peace and Justice. Contributions to the work of the Walberberg Youth Academy . Ed. by Klaus Fengler, Martin Singe, Heinz Schulze and Hermann van de Spijker. Festschrift for Alex Groß, Walberberg 1992
  • Gernot Facius: Left alone, executed, beatified. On October 7th the Nazi resistance fighter Nikolaus Groß was beatified. His elevation once again raises the question of the guilt of the Catholic bishops. In: The world. August 30, 2001, https://www.welt.de/print-welt/article471073/Allein-lassung-hingerierter-selig-gesoked.html
  • Bernhard Groß / Berny Marohl: Nikolaus Groß - our father. Clarifications and demarcations to a brother. In: Church newspaper Cologne. Volume 33, 2000, p. 4
  • Bernd Kassner: Trouble about the honor. Nikolaus Groß's son criticizes the church. In: WAZ. June 16, 2000
  • Christiane Kohl: Earthly dispute about a beatified. In: SZ. October 5, 2001
  • Michael Kuderna: Martyr who left the official church in the lurch. In: Publik-Forum. No. 19, 2000
  • Antonia Leugers: Against a wall of episcopal silence. The committee for religious affairs and its concept of resistance 1941 to 1945. Knecht, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-7820-0746-8 .
  • Paul Gerhard Schoenborn: Active partiality for the victims. L. Weckel's study on a theology of martyrdom. In: Orientation. 65 (2001) pp. 54-57
  • Hubert Wolf: Foreword. In: David I. Kertzer: The first deputy. Pius XI. and the secret pact with fascism. Darmstadt 2016, p. 13f and z. B. 268-275

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Walberberg Youth Academy mourns the loss of Alex Groß, in: Publik-Forum No. 19/2019 p. 33
  2. ↑ Eva-Maria Antz, Alois Finke, Christa Fußhöller, Martin Singe: Education is never neutral. The peculiarity of the Walberberg Youth Academy , in: Sharing a vision. Pedagogical Practice for Peace and Justice. Contributions to the work of the Walberberg Youth Academy . Ed. by Klaus Fengler, Martin Singe, Heinz Schulze and Hermann van de Spijker, Walberberg 1992, 178–187, 178
  3. ↑ cross section. 50 Years of the Youth Academy 16 (2013) p. 2, https://www.jugendakademie.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/querschnit_14.pdf
  4. ^ History of the youth academy, cross section 16 (2013) p. 15, https://www.jugendakademie.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/querschnit_14.pdf
  5. ↑ Manfred Peters: The European Working Group on Consciousness Building (EAB) Fifteen years of educational work in the spirit of Paulo Freire, in: Sharing a vision. Pedagogical Practice for Peace and Justice. Contributions to the work of the Walberberg Youth Academy . Ed. by Klaus Fengler, Martin Singe, Heinz Schulze and Hermann van de Spijker, Walberberg 1992, 15–35
  6. ↑ Alexander Groß: Peace Education in Concept Paulo Freire, in: AG SPAK (ed.) Freire-Brief 17/18, 1983 and Ders .: Demythologization as a request to pedagogy, in: Radius (1984/3) December 1984.
  7. ↑ https://www.jugendakademie.de/ueber-uns/geschichte/alexander-gross/
  8. ↑ http://juenger.koeln/
  9. ↑ Stephan H. Pfürtner: In the Name of Faith: Peace or Violence? On the basic order of the Walberberg Youth Academy , in: Sharing a vision. Pedagogical Practice for Peace and Justice. Contributions to the work of the Walberberg Youth Academy . Ed. by Klaus Fengler, Martin Singe, Heinz Schulze and Hermann van de Spijker, Walberberg 1992, 36-46, 39, 41
  10. ↑ Rome beatifies - and falsifies a life. The resistance fighter Nikolaus Groß, murdered by Hitler's Germany, is raised to the honor of the altars. His son protests. In: Publik-Forum 17/2991, 24–27
  11. ↑ Nikolaus Groß - our father. Clarifications and demarcations to a brother, in: Kirchenzeitung Köln 33/00, p. 4
  12. ↑ Alexander Groß: Obedient Church - disobedient Christians under National Socialism. With a foreword by Heinrich Missalla , Mainz 2000
  13. ↑ cf. z. B. Antonia Leugers: Against a wall of episcopal silence. The committee for religious affairs and its concept of resistance 1941 to 1945. Knecht, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-7820-0746-8 .
  14. ↑ David Kertzer: The Deputy. Pope Pius XI and the secret pact with fascism, Darmstadt 2016
  15. ↑ Cf. Alexander Groß: Obedient Church - disobedient Christians in National Socialism, Mainz 2000, pp. 84f
  16. ↑ https://gemeinden.erzbistum-koeln.de/st-agnes-koeln/kirchen/st_agnes/nikolaus_gross/

https://gemeinden.erzbistum-koeln.de/st-agnes-koeln/kirchen/st_agnes/nikolaus_gross/

personal data
SURNAME Great, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Great Alex
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German educator and academy director
DATE OF BIRTH April 1, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH September 24, 2019
Place of death Cologne