Carl Ulitzka

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Carl Ulitzka around 1920

Carl Ulitzka , also Karl (born September 24, 1873 in Jernau , Leobschütz district in Silesia ; † October 12, 1953 in Berlin-Friedrichshagen ) was a Roman Catholic priest, Central Silesian politician and member of the Reichstag (1920-1933). He was the chairman of the Upper Silesian Center for the History of Upper Silesia.

Life

Ulitzka was born in Jernau in the Upper Silesian district of Leobschütz . In 1893 he passed the Abitur examination in Ratibor , then studied Catholic theology at the University of Wroclaw and the University of Graz , successfully completed this course in 1896 in Wroclaw and received Georg Cardinal Kopp in the Breslauer on June 21, 1897 after the alumni year Kreuzkirche the ordination of priests . During his studies he became a member of the non-Catholic student associations KDStV Winfridia (Breslau) Münster and K.Ö.HV Carolina Graz in the CV and ÖCV . Ulitzka made his first pastoral experiences in the Catholic diaspora in Kreuzburg , Upper Silesia , where he spent years as a chaplain from 1897 to 1901 . In September 1901 he became a parish administrator in Bernau near Berlin , at that time part of the diocese of Breslau. Here he made a special contribution to the construction of the Sacred Heart Church in Bernau in 1907/08 and the St. Mary's Church in Biesenthal in 1908/09, which at that time belonged to the parish of Bernau.

In 1910 Ulitzka went back to his Upper Silesian homeland, became pastor of St. Nicholas' Church in Ratibor-Altendorf and was involved in the local politics of the Catholic Center Party in Ratibor. After the end of the First World War , Ulitzka was a Center Member of Upper Silesia in the Weimar National Assembly - then from 1920 to 1933 a Center Member in the Reichstag - and initially advocated an independent Upper Silesia as a federal state of the German Empire. But then, when the newly established Poland wanted to incorporate all of Upper Silesia , he campaigned for the preservation of the status quo. During the three Polish uprisings in Upper Silesia and the votes that led to the separation of Eastern Upper Silesia, Ulitzka was a staunch representative of the pro-German movement and thus an opponent of Wojciech Korfanty , but, unlike Korfanty , refrained from using force. After the by-election in Upper Silesia, he was briefly a member of the Prussian state parliament from November 19 until his resignation on December 18, 1922 .

Carl Ulitzka 1931

His political commitment ended on March 9, 1933, when he was driven out of the hall by SA groups after the last major center event in Gleiwitz and was subsequently abused. Nevertheless, on March 24, 1933, he voted for the adoption of Hitler's Enabling Act out of concern for the preservation of church freedoms .

In 1939 Ulitzka was expelled from Silesia for advocating the use of the Polish language and was appointed hospital chaplain in St. Antonius Hospital in Berlin-Karlshorst . As part of the grid action , Ulitzka was arrested by the Gestapo on October 28, 1944 and taken to the Dachau concentration camp on November 21, 1944 . Here he was able to take part in the priestly ordination of Karl Leisner, beatified in 1996, by the bishop of Clermont-Ferrand Gabriel Piguet (the only ordination in a German concentration camp). After the liberation from Dachau in March 1945, he went back to Ratibor via Berlin, where he arrived on August 5, 1945, but had to flee again on August 12, 1945 after he received unmistakable death threats from the Polish side. In Berlin he resumed his work as the hospital chaplain of the St. Antonius Hospital and came to Berlin-Friedrichshagen with this medical facility, which had to vacate its buildings for the benefit of the Soviet occupation forces . He not only looked after the patients of the hospital in the provisional house chapel, but also conducted services for the Catholic residents of Friedrichshagen together with Pastor Erhard Golisch because the St. Franziskus chapel was destroyed. Ulitzka continued his political commitment by joining the newly founded CDU and advocating the concerns of his compatriots who were displaced from their homes.

Grave slab for Carl Ulitzka in the Karlshorster cemetery

On October 12, 1953, Carl Ulitzka died in Berlin-Friedrichshagen and was buried in the Protestant Karlshorster and New Friedrichsfelder Friedhof in Berlin-Karlshorst.

His greatest political achievement was his commitment to building an independent province of Upper Silesia after the First World War and the three Polish uprisings in Upper Silesia (1919–1921).

literature

  • Guido Wärme : Carl Ulitzka (1873–1953) - Upper Silesia between the World Wars , Droste Verlag Düsseldorf 2002, ISBN 3-7700-1888-5
  • Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: Resistance in Friedrichshain and Lichtenberg . Published by the German Resistance Memorial Center 1998. Page 253: Prelate Carl Ulitzka in Karlshorst, St. Antonius Hospital, Köpenicker Allee.
  • Konrad Glombik: Carl Ulitzka (1873-1953). Duszpasterz i polityk trudnych czasów (2010) .

Web links

Commons : Carl Ulitzka  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Herbert Hömig : The Prussian center in the Weimar Republic. Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 1979 (Publications of the Commission for Contemporary History, Series B: Research, Volume 28), ISBN 3-786-70784-7 . P. 305.
  2. ^ Parish chronicle of the Catholic parish Friedrichshagen; handwritten in the archive of the St. Joseph community in Köpenick. Pages 34, 35, 38.