Bernhard Huss

Bernhard Alexander Huss (born February 24, 1876 in Oedheim ; † August 5, 1948 in Mariannhill) was a German Catholic missionary and social reformer in South Africa .

Life

Huss was born the son of a cabinet maker in Oedheim and was blind in the right eye. Shortly before graduating from high school , he became an orphan . A little later he entered the Mariannhill Missionary Monastery in South Africa. There he was ordained a priest in 1900 . He was a missionary with the Bantu in the Hardenberg mission station below the Drakensberg , where he made a contribution to agriculture by setting up trial fields and introducing crop rotation in the field. He also built schools and leprosy stations. In 1915 he became rector of the teachers' college in Marianhill. In addition to religion, his subjects also included psychology, music and agriculture. In 1930 he moved to the Mariazell mission station in Transkei , where he founded a second teacher training college. His concerns included the improvement of the economic and social conditions of the local population and the improvement of agriculture, for which he also wrote a textbook for the South African agricultural schools.

Bernhard-Huss-Strasse is named after him at his birthplace in Oedheim.

literature

• Bernhard Lott: The cooker from the source to the mouth. Swiridoff, Künzelsau 2002, ISBN 3-934350-80-1
• Eric Steinhauer :  Huss, Bernhard (Alexander). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 19, Bautz, Nordhausen 2001, ISBN 3-88309-089-1 , Sp. 751-752.
• Adalbert Ludwig Balling : “He had a heart for black people: Father Bernhard (Alexander) Huss (1876–1948); Social reformers in southern Africa ”. In: Cistercienser Chronik 107 (2000), pp. 329–333