Bruno Wüstenberg

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Bruno Thomas Wilhelm Wüstenberg (born March 10, 1912 in Duisburg ; † May 31, 1984 in Freiburg ) was a German archbishop and Vatican diplomat .

Origin and education

Wüstenberg's father was the manager of the Krupp works in Rheinhausen . After high school studied Bruno Catholic theology , first as a resident of the Collegium Albertinum at the University of Bonn , in between for two semesters at the University in Freiburg , where he became a member of the Catholic Fraternity Bavaria in KV was then in the seminary in Bensberg , now cardinal Schulte-house , and received on March 3, 1938 at the Great Cathedral in Cologne , together with 71 other candidates by Auxiliary Bishop Joseph wether the priesthood .

Three weeks after his ordination, the Archbishop of Cologne , Karl Joseph Cardinal Schulte , put him on leave for pastoral care in the Diocese of Rottenburg , where Wüstenberg took over chaplain positions on March 31, 1938, first in Ulm - Wiblingen and then in Ulm-Soflingen. On April 1, 1939, he was released to study canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome , which he obtained with the doctorate to Dr. iur. can. completed. At the same time he completed an education at the Pontifical Diplomatic Academy , which he finished in 1942 with the achievement of the diploma .

Act

Then Wüstenberg officiated from 1945 to 1949 as head of the German-speaking department for prisoners of war of the Vatican State Secretariat , before Pope Pius XII. appointed head of the department for German-speaking countries in the State Secretariat. In this function, Wüstenberg - unnoticed by a wider public - contributed significantly to a reconciliation between the Roman Catholic Church in Germany and the German Social Democrats , which became a prerequisite for the formation of the grand coalition between the CDU / CSU and the SPD in December 1966 .

On October 24, 1966, Wüstenberg was the first German in recent church history by Pope Paul VI. Appointed Titular Archbishop of Tire and Apostolic Pro-Nuncio in Japan . He received his episcopal ordination on December 21, 1966 in Cologne Cathedral by the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joseph Frings . Cocon screechers were the Apostolic Nuncio in Germany, Archbishop Corrado Bafile , and the Cologne Auxiliary Bishop Wilhelm Cleven . Federal President Heinrich Lübke , who had a special friendship relationship with Wüstenberg , also took part in the consecration liturgy .

After seven years in Japan, Pope Paul VI appointed Wüstenberg on December 19, 1973 as Apostolic Delegate of the Ivory Coast , Benin , Togo and Guinea . On January 17, 1979 he was appointed Apostolic Nuncio of the Netherlands . In 1984 Wüstenberg died in Freiburg as a result of a brain embolism . He found his grave in the canon cemetery at Cologne Cathedral.

Wüstenberg was in contact with Otl Aicher in the late 1930s .

The "Hochhuth Affair"

After the world premiere of Rolf Hochhuth's play Der Stellvertreter on February 20, 1963, in which the author Pope Pius XII. accuses his silence about the National Socialist persecution of the Jews , there have been repeated speculations that Hochhuth was provided with internal information from the Vatican while researching his play in Rome. Bishop Alois Hudal was initially mentioned as an informant . In contrast, Hochhuth revealed in 1998 that in addition to the Pope's private secretary, Robert Leiber , Bruno Wüstenberg was his most important informant. This was taken up a little later in a reply by the publicist and historian Hansjakob Stehle and referred to the year 1986, in which Hochhuth named Wüstenberg and Hudal as his “main and key witnesses” during a personal encounter . In October 1999, Frank Ager affirmed that Wüstenberg had actually been the informant, as he was “angry about his Pius XII. prevented career, wanted to 'avenge' ” . The historian Michael F. Feldkamp also took up this topic a year later, but pointed out that Ager had provided no evidence for his claim. In 2007, however, Feldkamp himself expanded the thesis of Wüstenberg's informant capacity: “Others suspected the German priest in the papal state secretariat, Bruno Wüstenberg, who wanted revenge because Pius XII. never promoted him because of his homosexual tendencies. "

Honors

Fonts

  • The Pope says: Teachings of Pius XII. German edition by Bruno Wüstenberg / Pius XII. Compiled from the Vatican Archives by Michael Chinigo, Frankfurt am Main ³1956.
  • The Pope to the Germans: Pius XII. as apostolic nuncio and as pope in his German-language speeches and letters from 1917 to 1956. According to the Vatican archives, ed. by Bruno Wüstenberg and Josip Žabkar , Frankfurt am Main ²1957.
  • Prayers of the Holy Father Pius XII. Edited by Bruno Wüstenberg and Josip Žabkar, 4th expanded edition, Munich 1959.
  • The Vatican and the War , by Alberto Giovannetti. Translated from Italian by Antonius Funke. With a foreword by Bruno Wüstenberg, Cologne 1961.

literature

  • Handbook of the Archdiocese of Cologne, 24th edition 1954, ed. from the Archbishop's General Vicariate, Cologne 1954, pp. 1013 and 1028.
  • Michael F. Feldkamp : The Relations of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Holy See 1949-1966. From the Vatican files of the Foreign Office. A documentation. Cologne u. a. 2000, ISBN 3412033995 , p 64f. passim.
  • Michael F. Feldkamp: Pius XII. and Germany. Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3525340265 .
  • Siegfried Koß: Wüstenberg. In: Siegfried Koß, Wolfgang Löhr (Hrsg.): Biographisches Lexikon des KV. 6th part (= Revocatio historiae. Volume 7). SH-Verlag, Schernfeld 2000, ISBN 3-89498-097-4 , p. 102f.
  • Sandra Sassone: diplomat in the cassock. Rome's new nuncio in Tokyo: Bishop Bruno Wüstenberg . In: Die Zeit of December 9, 1966.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Josef Enssen: The mission forces active overseas from the diocese of Essen. Diocesan Office for World Mission in the Diocese of Essen, Essen 1970 , p. 9.
  2. ↑ Barbara Beuys, Sophie Scholl. Biography, Munich 2010, p. 220f.
  3. ^ Rolf Hochhuth: The "representative" and his key witnesses. In: Focus , Vol. 6, No. 31, from July 27, 1998, p. 82f.
  4. ↑ Hansjakob Stehle: Why Pius XII. was silent. . . . In: Focus , Volume 6, No. 35, from August 24, 1998, p. 96f.
  5. ↑ Frank Ager: Hochhuth's old hats. In: Rheinischer Merkur , 54th year, No. 41, from October 8, 1999.
  6. ↑ Michael F. Feldkamp: Pius XII. and Germany. , P. 178, and note 556, p. 214.
  7. ↑ Michael F. Feldkamp: Hochhuths sources. In: Vatican Magazin , 1st vol., 3/2007, pp. 26–28.
  8. ↑ Das Ostpreußenblatt , 19th vol., Volume 42 of October 19, 1968, p. 6.
personal data
SURNAME Wüstenberg, Bruno
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wuestenberg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German archbishop
DATE OF BIRTH March 10, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Duisburg
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1984
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau