Erwin Kreuzer

Erwin Kreuzer (born February 24, 1878 in Berlin ; † August 20, 1953 in Bonn ) was the fifth bishop of the Old Catholic Church in Germany . For publications he often used the pseudonym E. K. Zelenka , which was composed of his initials and his mother's maiden name.

Life

Church career

Kreuzer was born as the youngest son of a total of six children of the royal Prussian accountant Hermann Oswald Anton Kreuzer and Franziska Kreuzer, née Zelenka. His parents were both old Catholics. From 1897 he studied Old Catholic theology in Bonn , where he was ordained a priest on April 1, 1900 . Then he was briefly vicar in Cologne , parish administrator of the Passau community and parish administrator in Kempten . In Kempten he was elected pastor in 1903 and remained in this position until 1915 when he was elected pastor in Freiburg im Breisgau . In 1919 he became chairman of the Baden regional synod, in 1922 a member of the synodal representation and in 1924 vicar general for the state of Baden. On March 20, 1934 he became vicar general for the diocese and diocese administrator . With 119 of the 121 votes he was elected on March 20, 1935, the fifth Old Catholic bishop in Germany and received on May 8 in Mannheim by Adolf Küry with the assistance of the bishops Henricus van Vlijmen ( Haarlem ) and Johannes Hermannus Berends ( Deventer ), the episcopal ordination .

In 1945, bombing raids forced him to relocate to Kempten. But in December 1945 he was able to return to Bonn. Despite a severe heart attack in September 1946 and clear symptoms of Parkinson's disease , he remained in office until his death in 1953, but was largely represented by Auxiliary Bishop Otto Steinwachs .

Erwin Kreuzer died on August 20, 1953 at the age of 77 and was buried in Kempten at his request.

Political

From 1919 to 1922, Kreuzer was committed to the German National People's Party in Freiburg and was a member of the Deutschbund , a national association. In some statements, from which he did not refrain even later, he spoke of "unhealthy racial mixing" and the "Jewish influence on German culture", which he assessed negatively.

His attitude towards National Socialism is ambivalent. In April 1930, in a letter to Johann Josef Demmel, he mockingly referred to the National Socialists as “ the swastika gentlemen ” and wrote to Demmel a few days later: “ We will not allow ourselves to be painted black, white and red. Especially not to smear them with swastikas like the walls of the Piszbuden [sic!]. ”On the other hand, until the end of National Socialist rule, he stuck to the idea that Germany was“ run by a morally high government ”. He always attributed restrictions on church life to “subordinate positions” and thereby played down the ideology of the rulers.

“In a pastoral letter from 1946 he confesses his complicity and writes that one was blinded by the 'high aims' of the National Socialists:' ... from the beginning there were words and apparitions that were shameful and that should have made us more alert ... '"

- Matthias Ring

Personal

Kreuzer married Elisabeth Umbreit on June 19, 1906, who died on September 28, 1906, and in 1920 the widow Clothilde Leichtle nee. Aurenhammer († 1976). He had two daughters and a stepdaughter from the first marriage of his second wife Clothilde.

literature

• Walther Killy (Ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia. Volume 6, Saur, Munich [u. a.] 1997.
• Werner Küppers:  Kreuzer, Erwin. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 31 ( digitized version ).
• Matthias Ring:  Erwin Kreuzer. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 18, Bautz, Herzberg 2001, ISBN 3-88309-086-7 , Sp. 824-827.
• Matthias Ring (Ed.): "... that we too have become complicit". Old Catholic pastoral letters and episcopal words in the Third Reich. History and Theology of Old Catholicism. Series of publications of the Old Catholic Seminar of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. Edited by Angela Berlis , Günther Eßer and Matthias Ring, Series A (sources), Volume 1, Bonn 2002, p. 15f.

Web links

• Literature by and about Erwin Kreuzer in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Matthias Ring : "Catholic and German". The Old Catholic Church in Germany and National Socialism. Series of publications of the Old Catholic Seminar of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. Edited by Angela Berlis, Günther Eßer and Matthias Ring, Series B (Representations and Studies), Volume 3, Bonn 2008, ISBN 978-3-934610-35-4 , p. 80.
2. ↑ Kreuzer an Demmel, April 3, 1930, quoted from Matthias Ring: "Catholic and German". The Old Catholic Church in Germany and National Socialism. P. 165.
3. ↑ Kreuzer an Demmel, April 12, 1930, quoted from Matthias Ring: "Catholic and German". The Old Catholic Church in Germany and National Socialism. P. 165.

predecessor	Office	successor
Georg Moog	German Old Catholic Bishop 1934–1953	Johann Josef Demmel