Field provost

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The field provost was the chief military chaplain . All field preachers and military pastors were subordinate to him. There was one Protestant and one Catholic field provost in the Royal Prussian Army . The Catholic incumbents mostly had episcopal ordination. In other German states there was also this title in some cases; In the Austrian Austro-Hungarian Army the top clergymen were called field vicars . There is still an independent Austrian military bishop there , whose office is similar to that of the Catholic Prussian field provost.

Prussia

Bishop Namszanowski
Field Provost Dr. Assmann

The Catholic field provost

By cabinet order of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. , Of February 4, 1848 and Apostolic Breve Pope Pius IX. On October 24, 1849, the Roman Catholic Army Bishop of the Prussian Armed Forces existed in Berlin, responsible for Catholic military pastoral care. The first incumbent was Cardinal Melchior von Diepenbrock , Prince-Bishop of Breslau, who carried out the function in addition to his regular duties. From 1852 he had to transfer his official business in this regard to the field provost , to be named by the king , who was under his jurisdiction.

In 1868 the Catholic Prussian field provosty was established as an independent, independent church office and it was directly subordinate to the Pope. In principle, the field provost received the dignity of titular bishop with the power to appoint the military chaplains with the consent of the state authorities and to exercise disciplinary power over them. He had jurisdiction over all members of the Prussian armed forces and their families; Berlin remained the official seat.

Since the founding of the empire in 1871, the Catholic Prussian field provost was also responsible for the same group of people in most of the small German states, in the realm of Alsace-Lorraine and in the colonies, provided that there was no separate regulation for field pastoral care there. The Prussian field provost was exempt - i.e. independent - of the local bishops until 1919 as the head shepherd of a personal diocese that extended over a certain group of people throughout the German Empire .

During the time of the Kulturkampf , the office of Catholic Prussian field provost remained vacant from 1873 to 1888.

The Weimar Constitution restricted the field provost's jurisdiction to the Prussian military again from 1919 onwards, and the office was ultimately no longer occupied after Heinrich Joeppen's resignation in 1920. In the Reich Concordat of 1933, military chaplaincy was also reorganized, and in 1936 a German military bishop was reinstated for the first time , a forerunner of the later military bishops of the Bundeswehr. However, the title and office of the Prussian field provost remained extinguished.

Catholic field provosts of Prussia:

Peter Thielen

The Protestant field provost

Other German states

Kingdom of Bavaria

Field Provost Bettinger, in front of Brussels Cathedral in 1916. On the left his secretary Michael Buchberger , on the right Baron Moritz von Bissing , Governor General of Belgium
Michael von Faulhaber as Bavarian Field Provost, 1917

The forerunner of the Bavarian field provost was the Palatinate-Bavarian court bishop, who automatically became field bishop in the event of war. Pope Pius VI had this court bishopric . , on December 15, 1789, at the request of Elector Karl Theodor . It only comprised the court chapel or court parish, which was responsible for all court servants in addition to the princely family and was dissolved again in 1805. In its short existence, the court bishopric had only 2 bishops, namely Joseph Ferdinand Guidobald von Spaur (1789–1793) and Kajetan von Reisach (1793–1805).

In the Kingdom of Bavaria - in contrast to Prussia - there was no fixed military chaplaincy. The army was not viewed as a “state within a state” and the soldiers were allowed to pastorate by regular civil chaplains. According to the royal resolution of February 27, 1809, so-called “field preachers” were only intended to look after the troops in the event of war.

A brief from Pope Gregory XVI. , issued on April 20, 1841, designated the respective archbishop of Munich and Freising to be the “grand chaplain” of the Bavarian armed forces in the event of mobilization . Based on the Prussian official title, the title of field provost also prevailed here. However, the function was linked to mobilization.

The papal breve was never confirmed by the state and so every Archbishop of Munich-Freising, after his appointment, obtained a separate power of attorney in Rome as a possible Bavarian field provost.

The office was only revived three times. In the wars of 1866 , 1870/71 and the First World War . The incumbent in 1866 and 1870/71 was Archbishop Gregor von Scherr . In 1914, during the First World War, Cardinal Franz von Bettinger, who was 64 years old and had a heart condition, took over the position of field provost. He visited the Western Front in 1916, which was very exhausting for him and probably caused his sudden death. His secretary Michael Buchberger published the small memorial booklet "Im Purpur bei den Feldgrauen". When Bettinger died, he was about to make another visit to the Eastern Front . His archbishop's successor Michael von Faulhaber also took over the office of Bavarian field provost in 1917, which expired forever with the demobilization in 1919.

Württemberg and Saxony

There was also the office of field provost in the Kingdom of Württemberg , as well as in the Kingdom of Saxony . Both medium-sized German states, together with Bavaria, had reserved independent military chaplaincy even after the establishment of the empire . In Württemberg, the Protestant field provost was also pastor of the Stuttgart garrison .

Field provost of Saxony:

literature

  • Robert Gernsheim: "The regulation of the Catholic military pastoral care in Prussia" , in "Archive for Catholic Church Law" , Volume 20, Verlag Kirchheim, Mainz, 1868 complete scan of the contribution
  • Michael Buchberger : "The Bavarian Field Pastoral Care in World Wars" , Kösel Verlag, Munich, 1916

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Source on Friedrich Felix Mencke (1811–1874), the first Prussian field provost
  2. ↑ At the end of the Catholic field provost in Prussia ( Memento of the original of March 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jubilaeum-militaerseelsorge.de
  3. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.grosser-generalstab.de
  4. ^ Karl Otmar von Aretin : Das Alte Reich (1648–1806) , Volume 3, Klett-Cotta, 1997, pages 288 and 289, ISBN 360891398X ; Excerpts from the source
  5. ↑ Data page on Bishop Joseph Ferdinand Guidobald von Spaur
  6. ↑ Data page on Bishop Kajetan von Reisach