Franz Xaver Niedermayer

Franz Xaver Niedermayer SDB (born December 19, 1882 in Rinding near Ebersberg ; † September 4, 1969 in Benediktbeuern ) was a German Catholic religious priest and provincial of the Salesians of Don Bosco .

Franz Xaver Niedermayer decided to become a Salesian of Don Bosco and went to Penango in 1900 as a late- career worker . After joining the order in 1907, he was a cleric with those sixty German late- career workers who were hit by an electrical voltage of great force on a trip to the mountain village of Aurano . While two students died, Niedermayer was seriously injured and only recovered after four weeks. After ordination in 1912 in Turin that followed promotion to the doctor of theology at the University of Turin .

The first place of activity of Father Niedermayer in Austria was that of the administrative manager in the Salesian branch in the third district of Vienna. In 1914 he worked for a short time in Oświęcim (Auschwitz) as a theology lecturer. In 1916 he was appointed the first director of the first Salesian branch in what is now Germany in Würzburg . After August Hlond was appointed Apostolic Administrator for Eastern Upper Silesia in 1922 , Niedermayer succeeded him as Provincial of the German (Austrian) Hungarian Province. He established a branch in Sweden in 1930 and in the Netherlands in 1937. His tenure also included the acquisition of the Benediktbeuern monastery as a German student, today's Philosophical-Theological University of Benediktbeuern . In 1934, under the direction of Father Niedermayer, the celebrations for the canonization of Don Bosco took place on April 1, 1934 in German-speaking countries.

In 1935 the greater province was divided into a German and an Austrian province, so that Niedermayer's area of ​​responsibility was reduced. In 1941 his term of office as provincial ended, his successor was Theodor Seelbach . Until 1946 he retired to Bad Wörishofen as a sick chaplain , until Seelbach appointed him director in Benediktbeuern in order to guarantee a healthy rebuilding of the student body. After the end of his tenure in 1952, he worked there for several years as a lecturer in moral theology. He maintained a close friendship with the Augsburg Bishop Joseph Freundorfer . He and his brother Karl Mindera sponsored the first post-war exhibition of Franz Marc's paintings in the Benediktbeuern monastery.

literature

• Georg Söll : The Salesians of Don Bosco (SDB) in the German-speaking area 1888-1988 , Munich 1989
• Maria Maul: Provincial Fr. Dr. Franz-Xaver Niedermayer SDB (1882–1969) as "master builder" of the Don Bosco plant in the German-speaking area. A contribution to the history of the Salesian order , Linz 2009 Table of contents (PDF file; 95 kB)