Franz Herbs

Franz Herbs (* May 12, 1885 in Temesvukovár , Banat , Kingdom of Hungary , Austria-Hungary ; † March 21, 1969 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a Romanian-German politician, doctor of philology, professor at the Catholic German Teachers' Training Institute and member of the Romanian Parliament . He was a conservative politician and is considered a staunch opponent and critic of the supporters of National Socialism in Romania.

He is not to be confused with the Romanian-German archivist of the Timișoara diocese, Franz Herbs (1920–1986).

Life

Family, studies and work as a teacher

Franz Kräuter was born as the son of the small farmer Johann Kräuter and his wife Franziska in Temesvukovár. There his parents, who lived in Niczkyfalva ( German  Nitzkydorf ), owned a grocer and an inn. Franz Kräuter was a distant relative of the Archdechant of Neupanat Johann Kräuter (1884–1953).

After attending secondary schools at the Piarist High School in Timișoara and at the State High School in Lugoj , where he graduated, he studied linguistics and obtained his doctorate at Budapest University in 1907. After his teaching qualification and a study visit to Paris, he taught at various secondary schools in Budapest from 1908 until the First World War , most recently as a professor at the secondary school in the 8th district.

After the First World War, the Banat was no longer part of Hungary and its Magyarization policy . Herbs campaigned for the German-speaking school system in the Banat. He was supported by the bishop of the diocese of Csanád Julius Glattfelder in the creation of Catholic German-speaking schools.

During his wedding in 1918, Franz Kräuter met Augustin Pacha as his bride's uncle and best man. Stefan Pacha , Augustin Pacha's older brother, was the preacher of the marriage ceremony.

Entry into politics

Franz Kräuter was elected to the Romanian House of Representatives in 1920. Until the founding of the People's Republic of Romania , he was confirmed in this position eight times. As a member of parliament, Franz Kräuter was able to push through the opening of the Catholic German Teachers' Training Institute in Timișoara in the same year, of which he himself headed the first year. Under the canon and later Bishop Augustin Pacha, Kräuter became his advisor on school issues, as well as honorary director of the Catholic German-speaking school system in the diocese.

Despite resistance from the German and Hungarian ethnic groups in the Romanian parliament, several regulations were passed in 1926 aimed at the Romanization of the Catholic school system in Romania. With the help of the Catholic Church, Franz Kräuter succeeded in persuading the legislature to compromise in the draft concordat . As a result, the Romanization of a girls 'high school of the girls' high school of the poor school sisters Notre Dame and the Piarist high school in Timișoara was accepted, but the mother tongue of the pupils was retained as the language of instruction in the remaining schools.

In recognition of his successes and efforts to maintain the Catholic German-speaking schools, Franz Herbs was received by Pope Pius XI in 1929 . the knight with the Grand Cross of the Papal Order of St. Sylvester appointed.

Beginning of the ideological battle

In 1933, Franz Kräuter was informed by his successor as the head of the Catholic German Teachers Training Institute, Josef Nischbach, about German nationalist, anti-Semitic and anti-church propaganda that some younger teachers from the Catholic German National Schools spread among their students and held rallies and sometimes nightly meetings with them .

Since the supporters of National Socialism threatened to take over the German-language school system in the Banat and this had been directed by the German Reich , the German Consul General Brother-in-law, together with Bishop Augustin Pacha, as the school authority of the Catholic German-language schools in Romania, advised to go to Berlin and the National Socialist ones To make party leadership aware of the dangers. An emerging takeover would have caused the Romanian government to close the German-speaking schools.

Audience with Adolf Hitler

On February 8, 1934, Kräuter and Pacha drove to Berlin. There they met the canon and secretary of the Reich Association of Catholic Germans Abroad Dr. Scherer, who introduced her to the Foreign Minister of the German Reich Konstantin von Neurath . Herbs and Pacha were able to convince him so that he had them reserved for an audience with Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler .

The reception with Hitler took place on February 22, 1934 in the Reich Chancellery. During the 20-minute audience, Hitler first demanded from Kräuter detailed information about the conditions in which the Germans live in the Banat. Pacha told the Chancellor about the history of the settlement of the Banat Swabians and from which areas the Germans had immigrated to the Banat.

Herbs and Pacha tried to convince the Chancellor to stop the anti-church attitude of the supporters of National Socialism in Romania, as it only harms the development of German culture. Hitler agreed to their arguments and promised that he would investigate the case and comply with the request.

The reception by Bishop Pachas was then used by the German news agency to create the impression that the National Socialist government was not against the Catholic Church. The German press also spread the information that Kräuter and Pacha had gone to Berlin to pay homage to Hitler. The audience turned out to be a propagandistic strategy and the activities of the supporters of National Socialism in the Banat were not restricted.

The audience for herbs and pacha was received negatively in the Romanian public as well as in parliament. You have been criticized by some MPs as well as by the Romanian press for the alleged tribute. The Romanian Prime Minister Gheorghe Tătărescu , who was convinced of the loyalty of Herbs and Pacha to the Romanian state, was able to prevent further criticism .

General inspector of the German-speaking school system

From 1938 the influence of right-wing parties, both of the German ethnic group and throughout Romania, grew. In the same year, Franz Kräuter initially retired to his chair, but was appointed General Inspector of the German School System by the Romanian Minister of Education in 1939. In this function he tried to keep the schools as Catholic denominational schools, which he succeeded in only for a few schools due to the pressure of the German national minority leadership on the schools.

On November 7, 1940, with the founding of the NSDAP Romania, the Germans in the Banat took full power and thus also over all German schools. On November 21, 1940, Franz Kräuter resigned from his post as general inspector of the German-speaking school system on the grounds that he did not want to collaborate with the National Socialists. He started working as a teacher again. In view of the shortage of teachers, he continued to teach after his actual retirement.

Deportation of the Romanian Germans

In August 1944 Romania was occupied by Soviet troops. The communists took control of the country. On the orders of Stalin , the deportation of Romanian Germans to the Soviet Union was ordered.

Franz Kräuter quartered himself in Bucharest in the apartment of Senator Hans Otto Roth and tried to stop the deportation with a few other Romanian-German politicians. On January 14, 1945, he presented the Soviet Legation Council with a memorandum in which he and Hans Otto Roth, on behalf of the Banat Swabians and Transylvanian Saxons, offered to work for the Romanian German population if it were to take place in their Romanian homeland. The request was rejected.

Arrest and death

After the arrests of Augustin Pacha, Josef Nischbach and several other clergymen, Franz Kräuter was arrested on the night of July 21-22, 1951. He was accused of spying for the Vatican together with Bishop Pacha. In addition, the alleged homage to Adolf Hitler during his visit to Berlin in 1934 was his undoing.

On January 14, 1952, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for "high treason, within the meaning of Section 192 of the Criminal Code", 10 years in prison for "economic sabotage" and 10 years for "denial of civil rights" and confiscation of his "movable and immovable property "condemned.

While he was in custody in Jilava , he was transferred from there to the Aiud Penitentiary on February 9, 1952 . There were some clergymen there, such as B. Franz Kräuter's relative Johann Kräuter imprisoned. He died there in 1953. From autumn 1953 to autumn 1954 Franz Herbs spent his imprisonment in Ocnele Mari , then in Piteşti and from April 18, 1955 to April 30, 1959 in Făgăraş . There he was diagnosed with dystrophy and poor cardiac activity.

After negotiations between the People's Republic of Romania and the Federal Republic of Germany, herbs were flown to Berlin and, together with the nuns Hildegardis Wulff and Patricia Zimmermann , as well as the Canon Josef Nischbach, exchanged for two Romanian spies and released. Until his death he lived in Freiburg im Breisgau , where he wrote books about his memories.

literature

• Dr. Franz Kräuter: Memories from my Christian-Democratic service, Freiburg 1967.
• Dr. Franz Herbs: My "guilt" and my atonement, Karlsruhe 1995.
• William Totok : Episcopul, Hitler și Securitatea (I), in: Observator cultural, No. 252-253 / 21 decembrie 2004 - 3 January 2005; (II) in: No. 254–255 / 4 ianuarie 2005 - 17 ianuarie 2005.
• William Totok: The Bishop, Hitler and the Securitate. The Stalinist show trial of the so-called "Vatican spies", 1951 in Bucharest. 4 parts. In: Half-yearly publication for Southeast European history, literature and politics (HJS). (I): Vol. 17, No. 1, 2005, ISSN  0939-3420 , pp. 25-41; (II): Vol. 17, No. 2, 2005, pp. 45-62; (III): Vol. 18, No. 1, 2006, pp. 23-43; (IV): Vol. 18, No. 2, 2006, pp. 21-41.
• Ders., The forgotten Stalinist show trial against the "Vatican spies" in Romania 1951 , in: Yearbook for Historical Research on Communism 2005 , ed. by Hermann Weber, Ulrich Mählert a. a., Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2005, pp. 233-259.
• Ders., Aspecte secundare ale procesului intentat 'spionilor Vaticanului' in 1951. Materiale inedite din arhivele aparatuluirepriv , in: Timpul, anul VII, No. 7-8 / July-August 2006, pp. 14-16.
• Franz Herbs: Memories of Bishop Pacha. A piece of Banat local history. ADZ, Bucharest 1995.

Web links

• Website about the Pachas trial: The Bishop, Hitler and the Securitate
• Herbs, Franz . In: East German Biography (Kulturportal West-Ost)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Herbs, Franz . In: Ostdeutsche Biografie (Kulturportal West-Ost), accessed on October 17, 2010