Georg Friedrich Dasbach

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Friedrich Dasbach
Memorial plaque for Dasbach in Trier
Dasbach's grave at the Church of St. Gangolf in Trier

Georg Friedrich Dasbach (born December 9, 1846 in Horhausen im Westerwald , † October 11, 1907 in Bonn ) was a German Catholic priest, publicist , publisher and Center Party politician .

Life

Friedrich Dasbach was the son of a baker, businessman and innkeeper. He attended the grammar school in Brilon and the Jesuit grammar school in Trier , where he passed his Abitur in 1864 with top marks. His later field of activity was already indicated in his Abitur essay in German, for which he chose the title Die Macht des Wort . Dasbach then studied theology and philosophy at the seminary in Trier and at the Gregorian University in Rome . There he experienced the 1st Vatican Council , which, among other things, decided on the dogma of the Pope's infallibility in all questions of faith and morals. On March 24, 1871, he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in Trier . Then he was assigned a position as chaplain in the parish of St. Gervasius in Trier; this was and remained his only pastoral position in church service.

Georg Friedrich Dasbach died of stomach cancer on October 11, 1907. He was a wealthy man at the end of his life. He bequeathed most of his fortune to the parish of St. Hedwig in Berlin for the construction of a chapel and a student dormitory.

Kulturkampf

After Bismarck had banned the order from founding and operating branches on German soil with the Jesuit Law in 1872 , Dasbach began to use journalistic means to get involved in the culture war of that time . In his area of ​​activity in Trier, the culture war between the Catholic clergy and the Prussian state escalated to such an extent that the incumbent Bishop Mathias Eberhard was imprisoned in solitary confinement in Trier's city prison for 300 days in 1874. Dasbach itself was suspended from office by the Prussian state in 1875 and, by order of the Upper President of the Rhine Province, was no longer allowed to perform any religious activities or give religious instruction. This also blocked a career within the church , so he remained a chaplain throughout his life. Dasbach now shifted to work outside the church, but nevertheless characterized by church ethics and morals, and wrote committed articles for the Catholic regional press in the spirit of the German Center Party.

Catholic press

In 1875 he bought a printing company and founded the "St. Paulinus Printing Works by Friedrich Dasbach." The printing works produced the Paulinusblatt , which Dasbach founded in the same year, as a periodical newspaper. A short time later, the Katholische Volkszeitung followed , which was renamed the Trierische Landeszeitung in 1875 . Programmatically, he was entirely on an ultramontane line and politically clearly on the side of the center. In addition, a number of other periodicals with a similar political or denominational orientation appeared in the publishing house. This included the monthly Pastor Bonus . There were also six daily newspapers in the Middle Rhine and neighboring areas and even one in Berlin. These newspapers were specifically:

Publishing year title later name
1879 Rhein- und Wiedzeitung , Linz
1887 Metz press , Metz
1894 St. Johanner Volkszeitung , Saarbrücken -St. Johann St. Johann-Saarbrücker Volkszeitung
1888 Westpfälzische Zeitung , St. Ingbert
1896 Neunkirchener Zeitung , Neunkirchen (Saar)
1896 Märkische Zeitung , Berlin 1900: Germania

Dasbach played a leading role in founding the Augustinus Society . The aim of the organization was to support the Catholic press. Dasbach was the leading figure in the first period of the club's history. In order to be able to spread the politics of the Center Party more effectively and in a concentrated manner, the association founded the Centrums-Parlament-Correspondenz in 1879 as a central intelligence service.

Association

In the Trier area, Dasbach played a leading role in the formation of associations in the Catholic milieu . In 1884 he was the founder and president of the Trier Farmers 'Association, he participated in the local cooperative association and the winegrowers' association. Dasbach was active in the insurance association and the legal protection office to combat usury. By integrating social institutions into Catholic associations, he helped to bind certain sections of the population, such as the workers, to the Catholic milieu. Dasbach rigorously demarcated the Catholic camp from those who think differently. The historian Olaf Blaschke particularly emphasizes his anti-Semitic statements. In Dasbach's Paulinusblatt there had been a separate column since 1879, which denounced the "Jew usury". In a debate in the Prussian House of Representatives about Jewish religious textbooks, he excelled with anti - Talmudic speeches and justified a ban on “intercourse with Jews on some points” required by church law.

Labor movement

Dasbach felt his whole life as the advocate of the common people, for whom he campaigned journalistically in his papers. In his Paulinus , official insults and attacks against the state government increased. He wrote plain text in his articles, which resulted in state advertising boycotts, numerous lawsuits and numerous suspicions. On the part of the government, he was dubbed a “social democrat”, which at the time was taken as an abuse.

Dasbach was also involved in the workforce on the Saar , primarily among the miners. Great dissatisfaction with the meager wages and with the arbitrariness of the mining officials and their corruption led to a miners' strike in the Saar coal area in 1889. Together with like-minded clergy, Dasbach provided the miners with journalistic and practical help. On his initiative, the miners, under the leadership of miner Nikolaus "Eckstein" Warken, founded the "Legal Protection Association for the Mining Population in the Upper Mining District Bonn", the first union-like movement on the Saar.

Political mandates

Against sustained internal opposition, Dasbach had been a member of the Prussian House of Representatives since 1890 . In a by-election in 1889 he was elected as a member of the constituency of Kassel 11 (Hünfeld - Gersfeld). He represented this constituency until 1898, when he was elected in the constituency of Trier 3 administrative district (city and district of Trier) and was a member of the House of Representatives for this constituency until his death. Since 1898 he was also a member of the Reichstag , where he was from 1898 to 1903 a member of the constituency Aachen 2 (Eupen - Aachen Land) and from 1903 to 1907 of the constituency Trier 1 (Daun - Prüm - Bitburg). In the Reichstag he stood up for the farmers, winemakers and miners from his region of origin. Because he often went his own way, Dasbach did not always agree with the majority of the parliamentary group.

Afterlife

Logo of the weekly magazine Paulinus

The Paulinus , founded by Dasbach, still appears today as the official weekly diocese gazette of the diocese of Trier.

Dasbach exists as a literary figure in the play Eckstein ist Trumpf by Gerhard Bungert and Klaus-Michael Mallmann . The popular play about the beginnings of the unions in the Saar was premiered on April 23, 1977 in the former Saarland State Theater. The book version was published in September 1979, including a biography of Georg Friedrich Dasbach.

Honors

A memorial plaque on the former Raiffeisenhaus in Trier's Glockenstrasse commemorates him. A fountain named after him has been located in the same street since 1984. A street in the industrial area in Trier-Nord has been named after Dasbach since 1948.

Individual evidence

  1. Local historian Werner Herrig illuminates Dasbach's life and work ; in: Homepage Horhausen.
  2. ^ Paulinus Archive: Georg Friedrich Dasbach .
  3. Saarland University: Theology, History .
  4. Honors for the media tsar and anti-Semites as well as Catholicism and anti-Semitism in the German Empire. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1999, p. 295.
  5. ^ Albert HV Kraus: priest, publicist, politician - Georg Friedrich Dasbach . In: Saarbrücker Zeitung from 4./5. February 2012, p. G8.
  6. Bernhard Mann (edit.): Biographical manual for the Prussian House of Representatives. 1867-1918 . Collaboration with Martin Doerry , Cornelia Rauh and Thomas Kühne. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1988, p. 102 (handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties, vol. 3); for the election results see Thomas Kühne: Handbook of elections to the Prussian House of Representatives 1867–1918. Election results, election alliances and election candidates (= handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 6). Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5182-3 , pp. 662-664 and pp. 777-780.
  7. ^ Fritz Specht, Paul Schwabe: The Reichstag elections from 1867 to 1907. Statistics of the Reichstag elections together with the programs of the parties and a list of the elected representatives. 2nd edition supplemented by an appendix. Addendum. The Reichstag election of 1907 (12th legislative period). Carl Heymann Verlag, Berlin 1908, pp. 177 and 182.
  8. Biograpisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon Volume XV (1999) columns 463–464 Author: Martin Persch Verlag Traugott Bautz www.bautz.de/bbkl.

literature

  • Ulrich Fohrmann: Trier Kulturkampfpublizistik im Bismarckreich, life and work of the press chaplain Georg Friedrich Dasbach, Trier 1977.
  • Wilmont Haacke:  Dasbach, Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 518 ( digitized version ).
  • Wilfried Loth: Georg Friedrich Dasbach - cultural fighter and builder of Catholicism. In: Saarland University, Institute for Catholic Theology (Hrsg.): Theologie. History ; Saarbrücken, year 2007, no. 2
  • Martin PerschDASBACH, Georg Friedrich. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 15, Bautz, Herzberg 1999, ISBN 3-88309-077-8 , Sp. 463-464.
  • A. Plate: Handbook for the Prussian House of Representatives. Edition for the 20th legislative period . Berlin, 1904 p. 301
  • Karl Josef Rivinius: Chaplain Georg Friedrich Dasbach and the legal protection association for the miners in the Saar district, in: Yearbook for Christian Social Sciences 26 (1985), pp. 221-250.
  • Edgar Schwer: The Kulturkampf on the edge of the high forest. In: Hochwälder Hefte on local history. Otzenhausen, 1999 / H. 38
  • Edgar Schwer: Georg Friedrich Dasbach. Priest, publicist, politician and anti-Semite? In: imprimatur of March 24, 2012, pp. 93–96
  • Hubert Thoma: Georg Friedrich Dasbach - priest, publicist, politician . Trier: Paulinus-Verlag, 1975.

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