Friedrich Ritter von Lama

Friedrich Ritter von Lama

Friedrich Ritter von Lama , even Friedrich Lama or Friedrich Georg Ritter Lama and Büchsenhausen (diploma according Pixenhausen ) (* 4. September 1876 in Salzburg , Austria; † 9. February 1944 in Munich ) was a Catholic author and journalist . Lama was a concentration camp prisoner in Dachau and was later murdered in the Munich- Stadelheim prison .

Life

Career as a journalist and publicist

One of the published books

Friedrich Ritter von Lama was born as the second eldest of four sons of the married couple Karl Joseph Lothar Theobald Ritter von Lama and Josepha. Joerg born. The father worked as a journalist and was a center member of the German Reichstag . The family came from an aristocratic South Tyrolean dynasty whose established line of blood begins with Thomas de Lama ( von der Kling ), † October 27, 1668. In 1708 the family was raised to the imperial and hereditary-Austrian knighthood, combined with an increase in the coat of arms and the additional name of Pixenhausen . In 1813 in the Kingdom of Bavaria the family was included in the nobility register as a knight . The boy grew up with his three brothers in a strictly Catholic family.

Friedrich attended grammar school in Burghausen in Lower Bavaria and in Regensburg , but dropped out of school and learned the trade of bookseller. In this profession he worked in Regensburg for the renowned Friedrich Pustet Verlag , one of the most important Catholic publishing houses in Germany. In 1901 Friedrich von Lama came to Rome as a representative of his publishing house , where he especially ensured good contacts with the Vatican . In September 1908 he married the daughter of the landowner Hedwig Agnes Maria Bernhardt from Lower Silesia . He had two children with her.

The family lived in Rome, where Lama ended up working as a freelance journalist and well-informed reporter for German newspapers. From 1910 he also translated works by the Englishmen Robert Hugh Benson and Gilbert Keith Chesterton, who had converted to Catholicism, as well as books by the Irish priest Patrick Sheehan .

In 1915 the Austrian had to flee Rome because Italy had declared war on the Central Powers . Lama therefore moved to Lugano in Switzerland, where the Holy See operated a kind of diplomatic branch on neutral ground in order to be able to maintain the connection with Germany and Austria. According to his nephew Karl von Lama, his uncle was also in the service of Austrian secret espionage during this time. Among other things, he had succeeded in informing the Austrian command of the exact time a few hours before the Italians blasted an undermined Dolomite summit, which saved the lives of hundreds of soldiers. When the espionage activity was discovered, Friedrich von Lama was arrested in 1917, prosecuted and expelled from Switzerland .

Lama moved with his family to Füssen in the Allgäu; his wife Hedwig died there on May 8, 1923. In August 1929 he married again, the bride's name was Christine Josephine Maria Stieler. The couple remained childless and from 1930 lived in Gauting , Upper Bavaria.

Friedrich von Lama was very interested in the current events in Konnersreuth (Upper Palatinate), where Therese Neumann, born in 1898, was seriously ill after an accident, relived the Passion of Christ every Friday and showed supernatural phenomena such as stigmatization . At that time, there was a strong public discussion about whether the occurrences were believable and supernatural, or just fraudulently fabricated. Ritter von Lama made himself a picture on site and has been one of the staunch supporters and defenders of the stigmatized since his first trip to Konnersreuth at the end of August 1927. He published a number of writings on the case and the person, which have also been translated into English, French, Spanish, Dutch and other languages. In addition, between 1929 and 1936 he published a yearbook under the title “Konnersreuther Chronik”, which recorded everything that had happened in the respective year with regard to the matter.

In 1930 the author published a biography of Pope Pius XI. , on the occasion of his golden jubilee as a priest. His historical-critical publication in 1932 caused a sensation: “The Mediation of Peace Pope Benedict XV. and their thwarting by the German Chancellor Michaelis (August-September 1917) ”. In a meticulous search for traces of almost twelve years, Lama followed up on all original sources and files from home and abroad to assess the peace mediation initiated by the Pope in 1917. He tried to prove that the then Chancellor Georg Michaelis had thwarted the opportunities for peace offered by the Holy See in a downright criminal manner.

Nazi Victims and Murder

The decidedly Catholic writings, some of which also played into the political arena, his permanent publications in church gazettes such as B. in the Pilger , the diocesan newspaper of the diocese of Speyer , as well as his absolutely church-loyal attitude let Ritter von Lama come into the sights of the Nazi regime.

At the beginning of 1937 he was banned from any further writing and journalistic activity. From 1938 the nobleman was arrested several times, imprisoned for months - u. a. in Dachau concentration camp - and from then on monitored by the Gestapo . He was accused of “fighting against the ideology of National Socialism ”. Another charge was his loyalty to the monarchy , especially to the House of Habsburg .

At the beginning of 1944 Lama was arrested again for listening to " Radio Vatican " and imprisoned in Munich's Stadelheim prison. He was already dead on February 9th. According to official statements, he had died of "heart failure". A doctor who had access to the prison explained to the relatives that Friedrich Ritter von Lama had clearly visible signs of physical abuse and that he was apparently murdered. The body had bruises and strangulation marks on its neck. The opponent of the regime was quietly buried in the Gauting community cemetery.

Some of his works, which were no longer published due to the Nazi era , appeared posthumously after 1945 ; various earlier books have been reprinted. In total, Ritter von Lama published over 30 books and a nowhere near ascertainable number of newspaper articles, to which the Konnersreuth yearbooks and regular reports “From the Catholic World” in most German-language Catholic newspapers are added. In the 1920s and 1930s Friedrich Ritter von Lama was one of the best-known and most active Catholic journalists and publicists in the German-speaking area.

children

Friedrich von Lama had two children from his first marriage, but they died relatively young:

• Elisabeth Hedwig Maria (1909–1937) was a painter.
• Franz Xaver (1911–1945), like his father journalist, received his doctorate from the University of Munich in 1937 , was also arrested during the Nazi era and imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp . After his release, he soon died as a result of the inhumane prison conditions.

Appreciation

The Catholic Church accepted Friedrich Ritter von Lama as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century .

A plaque commemorates him in the foyer of Gauting town hall.

Works (selection)

• A sheet from the history of the mission in Alaska's gold fields, Freiburg / Breisgau 1912;
• Eskimo and Indian mission on the snowfields of Alaska. Pages from the life of Father Wilhelm Judge, Freiburg / Breisgau 1914;
• Pope and Vierverband, Augsburg 1918;
• Pope, World War and Peace of Nations. A look back, Hagen 1919;
• Don Bosco. Life and work of a god-favored priest, childhood friend and educator, Freiburg / Breisgau 1922;
• The religious situation of the Catholics in the Nordic countries, Munich 1924;
• The papacy and Germany according to truth and justice, Illertissen 1925,
• Pope and Curia in their Politics after the World War. Shown with special consideration of the relationship between the Vatican and Germany, Illertissen 1926;
• The ruined peace. My indictment against Michaelis and the Evangelical Union, Augsburg 1926;
• Tiara and Keys, Illertissen 1926;
• Therese Neumann von Konnersreuth. A Stigmatized Our Time, Bonn 1927 (2nd edition 1928);
• The cross under the Soviet star. Moscow's religious face in October 1925, Illertissen 1927;
• "I am with you ..." Christ among us in his miracles of the present through his supernatural participation in the expansion of the Catholic Church, Munich 1928;
• Pastoral care trips in Soviet Russia, Illertissen 1929;
• Anna Schäfer from Mindelstetten. An unknown stigmatized woman from our time, Innsbruck 1930;
• Pope Pius XI His life and work, Bonn 1930;
• Words from the beyond or how Therese Neumann walked the short path of spiritual childhood and was led by St. Theresa of the Child, Waldsassen 1930;
• A journalist's novel by Patrick Sheehan . Edited from the estate, Augsburg 1930;
• Across Africa across the Congo State, Augsburg 1930;
• Cecilius. Novel from early North African Christianity, Augsburg 1930;
• The mediation of peace Pope Benedict XV. and their thwarting by the German Chancellor Michaelis (August-September 1917). A historical-critical investigation, Munich 1932;
• Marian apparitions in Belgium, Innkreis 1934;
• The apparitions of the Mother of God in Belgium, Karlsruhe 1934;
• The apparitions of the Mother of God in Marpingen . A victim of the Kulturkampf, Karlsruhe 1934;
• The blessed and saints of the Holy Year 1933-1934 depicted in short life pictures, Karlsruhe 1934;
• The way of Therese Neumann von Konnersreuth 1898-1935, Karlsruhe 1935 (3rd edition 1936);
• A little book from the angels. According to the information from Ancilla Domini, Karlsruhe 1936 (newly published Stein am Rhein, 1993);
• To clarify about Konnersreuth, Leipzig 1938,

(Posthumously)

• Profiting from the future of the West, Bonn 1953;
• Views of the world situation from a supernatural point of view, Wiesbaden 1953;
• “Germany wake up!” The famous prophetic sermon of penance to Germany by the holy dean of Bingen, Bartholomäus Holzhauser (1613-1658), Wiesbaden 1953;
• The great imperative of the hour. Prayer, sacrifice, trust. A legacy for the time of trial and danger, Bonn 1961;
• Of great events, Bonn 1962.

literature

• The great Herder. Reference work for knowledge and life. Fifth volume, Freiburg im Breisgau 1954, p. 986.
• Helmut Moll (Ed. On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference): Witnesses for Christ. Das deutsche Martyrologium des 20. Jahrhundert , Paderborn et al. 1999, 7th revised and updated edition 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , Volume I, pp. 496-499.
• Wilhelm Kosch: Catholic Germany. Biographical-bibliographical lexicon. Augsburg n.d., pp. 2446-2447.
• B. Kreutz: Friedrich Georg Ritter von Lama from and to Büchsenhausen. Life and Work of a Little Known Conservative Catholic. Cologne 2002. (Diploma thesis)
• Manfred Berger:  LAMA, Friedrich Georg Ritter from and to Büchsenhausen. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 23, Bautz, Nordhausen 2004, ISBN 3-88309-155-3 , Sp. 883-893.

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Ritter von Lama  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Friedrich Ritter von Lama in the catalog of the German National Library
• Article about Christian journalists as victims of National Socialism, Ritter von Lama on p. 5.
• Estate in the Bavarian State Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Johannes Madey:  SHEEHAN, Patrick Augustin. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 9, Bautz, Herzberg 1995, ISBN 3-88309-058-1 , Sp. 1598.
2. ↑ Manfred Berger:  LAMA, Friedrich Georg Ritter von and zu Büchsenhausen. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 23, Bautz, Nordhausen 2004, ISBN 3-88309-155-3 , Sp. 883-893.