Franz von Galen

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Franz von Galen (born December 11, 1879 at Dinklage Castle ; † October 9, 1961 at Darfeld Castle ) was the estate administrator and politician of the Center Party .

Life

Franz Joseph Emanuel Augustinus Antonius Hubertus Maria von Galen was from the Münsterland family of Galen . The parents were Ferdinand Heribert and Elisabeth von Galen (née von Spee ). One of his numerous siblings was Cardinal Clemens August von Galen . He himself married Antonia von Weichs zur Wenne in 1907 . He had ten children with her.

He received his first lessons from a tutor. From 1890 he attended the Jesuit boarding school in Feldkirch with his brother Clemens August . They passed their Abitur in Vechta in 1896 . In 1897 he studied philosophy in Freiburg im Üechtland . He then served in the Prussian military. He joined the Westphalian Jäger Battalion No. 7 in Bückeburg as a flag boy . Subsequently he served in Münster , Berlin , Hanover and again in Münster. During the First World War he commanded a squadron on the Western Front . Most recently he was on the General Staff . His last rank was that of a major.

After the First World War he took over the family's property at Dinklage as the guardian of Christoph-Bernhard von Galen . After he was of legal age, Franz von Galen first lived in Münster. There he was a member of the city council for the Center Party.

At the time of the Weimar Republic he was chairman of the Association of the Catholic Nobility of Rhineland and Westphalia . He relied on the revival of Catholic and conservative values, was critical of the republic, but came under pressure from more resolute opponents of the Weimar Republic around the brothers Ferdinand and Hermann Freiherr von Lüninck . He gave up his position as chairman and resigned from the association in 1928.

From 1930 he lived in Haus Merfeld . Franz von Papen had heard this before . As a member of the Center Party, he was a member of the Prussian state parliament from 1932 to 1933 . He was the only member of the Center who did not want to approve the Enabling Act in the state parliament and therefore resigned from his seat. Until the center dissolved itself, he was deputy chairman of the party alongside Heinrich Brüning for a few months.

In the following years he was a close advisor to his brother Clemens August. He was seriously injured in a car accident in 1934. In 1939 he refused to join the NS-Volkswohlfahrt , saying he had been a member of the Catholic Caritas for a long time . He was arrested in 1944 in connection with the Operation Grid . He was initially held in the Coesfeld police prison . He was hospitalized because of illness. From there he was taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp , where he was imprisoned until the end of the war. After the war he spoke out in favor of founding the CDU . He spent his last years at Darfeld Castle.

literature

  • Joseph von Weyhe: Franz Graf von Galen (1879–1961). A "Miles Christianus" in the field of tension between Catholicism, nobility and nation , Aschendorff, Münster 2020, ISBN 978-3-402-24647-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Horst Conrad class and denomination. The Association of Catholic Nobles
  2. ↑ Beth A. Griech-Polelle: Bishop von Galen: German Catholicism and National Socialism. Yale, 2002, p. 21.
  3. ↑ Marcin Goaszewski: Clemens August Graf von Galen: A Political preachers in National Socialism. Frankfurt am Main 2010, p. 101.
  4. ^ Joachim Kuropka: Franz Graf von Galen as a politician.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.muenster-termine.de  
  5. ^ The fall of Count Franz von Galen. In: Léon Poliakov, Josef Wulf (ed.): The Third Reich and its thinkers. KG Saur, Munich / New York / London / Paris 1978, ISBN 3-598-04601-4 , pp. 220-225.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Galen, Franz von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Galen, Franz Joseph Emanuel Augustinus Antonius Hubertus Maria von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (center)
DATE OF BIRTH December 11, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Dinklage Castle
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 1961
Place of death Darfeld Castle