Augustin Rösch

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Augustin Rösch SJ (born May 11, 1893 in Schwandorf ; † November 7, 1961 in Munich ), Provincial , was a German Jesuit priest who was active in the resistance against the National Socialists . Rösch was active in the Kreisau Circle , had connections to the assassins of July 20, 1944 and contacts to the Catholic resistance.

Life

Rösch attended elementary school in Schwandorf from 1899 to 1903, then the Royal Humanistic Gymnasium in Rosenheim until 1908. After his family moved to Freising, he attended the archbishop's boys' seminar there until he finished school. At the age of 18, Rösch then joined the Jesuit order. During the First World War he was drafted into the infantry and was used, among other things, in the Battle of Verdun . After the war, Rösch studied philosophy and theology and was ordained a priest in 1925 .

In the Jesuit School Stella Matutina (Jesuit College) in Feldkirch , he was Prefect General from 1928 and later Rector . From 1935 he held the office of Provincial of the Upper German Province of the Jesuits. Due to the anti-denominational orientation of the National Socialists, Rösch repeatedly came into conflict with them. He tried unsuccessfully to prevent the closure of Catholic houses such as the St. Blasien College by the Nazis. He regularly stood up for persecuted friars, particularly looked after priests imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp and demanded that church rights be preserved.

In 1941 he met Helmuth James Graf von Moltke and thus joined the Kreisau Circle. He brought two Jesuits -  Alfred Delp and Lothar König  - to this group in 1942. In the Kreisau district, Rösch worked out denominational and cultural-political concepts in order to put the planned reorganization of Germany after the overthrow of the rulers on the broadest possible Christian-bourgeois basis.

After the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944, he went into hiding, first in Moosen Monastery , then with a farming family in Hofgiebing . After being discovered by the Gestapo , Rösch was arrested on January 11, 1945. The farmer Wolfgang Meier , who housed him, was - as well as his two sons and his daughter - deported to the Dachau concentration camp . Rösch himself was arrested in the Lehrter Strasse cell prison in Berlin and was severely mistreated there. He was released on April 25, 1945 shortly before the Red Army stormed Berlin .

After the end of the war he was regional director of Caritas in Bavaria from 1947 to 1961 . As a representative of the charities, he was a member of the Bavarian Senate from its foundation in December 1947 until his death .

Honors

literature

  • Augustin Rösch, Roman lead stone (ed.): Fight against National Socialism. Knecht, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-7820-0516-3 .
  • Hans Niedermayer: Augustin Rösch: a man of resistance in the Third Reich. Annual report Dom-Gymnasium, Freising, 1994/95, pp. 8–24.
  • Roman lead stone: Augustin Rösch. Life in resistance. Biography and documents. 1998. In: Theologische Literaturzeitung , Edition 125, Frankfurt a. Main 2000, ISBN 3-7820-0794-8 , pp. 182-184.
  • Albrecht A. Gribl / Dieter Vogel (eds.), Das Isental , Vilsbiburg 2008.
  • Roman lead stone:  Rösch, Augustine. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 737 ( digitized version ).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rösch, Augustin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rösch, Augustin Josef; Rösch, Augustine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jesuit priest, active in the resistance against National Socialism (Kreisau Circle)
DATE OF BIRTH May 11, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwandorf
DATE OF DEATH November 7, 1961
Place of death Munich