Georg Meixner

Georg Meixner (born July 26, 1887 in Ebensfeld , † October 28, 1960 in Bamberg ) was a German Catholic clergyman, Bavarian politician and papal house prelate. As a member of the Bavarian People's Party and later the CSU , he was a member of the Bavarian State Parliament from 1932–1933 and 1946–1958 .

Life

Georg Meixner came from a family of small farmers and craftsmen and from 1897 attended the new grammar school in Bamberg. After graduating from high school, he studied Catholic theology and philosophy in Bamberg from 1906 to 1910 . On October 31, 1910, he was ordained a priest and from then on was active in pastoral care. On September 1, 1910, he became a chaplain in Röthenbach an der Pegnitz and on October 1, 1911, he moved to Bamberg St. Gangolf, on November 16, 1913 to Nuremberg , St. Anton and then to the parish church of Our Lady as the owner of the fifth chaplain. On July 1, 1917, he became curate at St. Martin in Nuremberg and held this post until February 28, 1919. On March 1, 1919, he became state secretary of the Catholic press association in Bavaria and editor of the Sunday newspaper , Sunday Peace , published in Nuremberg . May 1923 head of the St. Otto publishing house and editor of the Bamberger Volksblatt published by this publishing house . Meixner expanded the St. Otto publishing house into a large graphic company, in which, in addition to the church newspaper for the Archdiocese of Bamberg, numerous magazines and printed matter were published and which was connected to a bookstore.

Meixner has always been fond of KV , when in 1930 the KStV Mainfranken was founded at the University of Bamberg in KV , Meixner was its founding member and in 1931 "old man" of this association.

Georg Meixner was involved in numerous social projects in the Holy Land . He was a member of the German Association of the Holy Land . In 1950 he was accepted into the Knightly Order of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem by Cardinal Grand Master Nicola Cardinal Canali and invested in the Papal Lay Order on December 7, 1950 in Cologne Cathedral by Archbishop Lorenz Jaeger , Grand Prior of the German Lieutenancy. He belonged to the Bamberg Commandery. Meixner was instrumental in rebuilding the German Lieutenancy in the 1950s.

Persecution under National Socialism

On June 26, 1933, Meixner was arrested with all active members of the BVP in Bamberg and taken into " protective custody ". Due to the intervention of the archbishop, Meixner and his party friend, Prelate Johann Leicht, were transferred from prison to the retreat home Vierzehnheiligen .

In 1937 he was relieved of his offices for political reasons and was therefore no longer able to take care of a parish independently. However, he continued to work illegally in pastoral care. From June 16, 1937 he worked as a parish administrator in Bamberg St. Gangolf . During this time the parish hall was purchased and the church was restored. In order to avoid arrest, he could only weaken or symbolize his sermons.

On July 5, 1938, Georg Meixner and three other employees of the Bamberger Volksblatt , including Georg Rattel , had to face a court hearing for allegedly delaying the bankruptcy of the Christian publishing house.

He was threatened with a longer prison term for his work against the Nazi regime. For his protection, the Metropolitan Chapter elected him on February 6, 1941, with effect from March 1, 1941, as Cathedral Chapter ; on April 28, 1941 he took up his new job.

With the reappearance of the Bamberger Volksblatt he was editor-in-chief and publisher. He was the founder of the Katholisches Werkvolks e. V. , a forerunner of the Catholic Workers' Movement (KAB). Through his mediation, the secularized Church of St. Christoph became the cultural space of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra .

Politician

From 1932 to 1933 Meixner was a member of the Bavarian state parliament as a member of the Bavarian People's Party (BVP) in the fifth electoral term . With the self-dissolution of the BVP and his arrest after 1933, he withdrew from active politics.

After the Second World War , he was a founding member of the CSU in 1945 and played a key role in ensuring that the concept of the CSU as a non-denominational party prevailed in Bavaria, although the traditional Catholic milieu, embodied by the BVP, initially continued to dominate in many places.

From 1946 to 1959 Meixner was an elected member of the Bavarian state parliament for the constituency of Bamberg-Land ; from August 1951 to December 1958 he was chairman of the CSU parliamentary group. He was also a member of the CSU regional executive committee.

Meixner was the last “political prelate” of political Catholicism in Germany. This type of politician has given parliamentarianism in Germany, especially in Bavaria, important impulses.

honors and awards

• 1936: Appointment as papal secret chamberlain by Pope Pius XI.
• 1939: Appointment as papal house prelate by Pope Pius XII.
• 1950: Commander (officer) of the Order of Knights of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem
• 1957: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1958: Bavarian Order of Merit

Publications

• Festive report along with a history of the Catholic communities in Nuremberg and Fürth . Katholikentag 1921 Nuremberg, Sebaldus-Verlag, 1921
• 25 Years Archbishop - Festschrift for the Silver Bishop's Jubilee Sr. Excellency of the Most Revered Archbishop of Bamberg Dr. Jacobus Ritter von Hauck . St. Otto, Bamberg 1937

literature

• Werner K. Blessing:  Meixner, Georg. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , p. 735 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Lothar Braun in Siegfried Koß, Wolfgang Löhr (Hrsg.): Biographisches Lexikon des KV. 6th part (= Revocatio historiae. Volume 7). SH-Verlag, Schernfeld 2000, ISBN 3-89498-097-4 , pp. 66-68.
• Barbara Fait, Alf Mintzel (ed.): The CSU 1945–1948. Protocols and materials on the early history of the Christian-Social Union. Vol. 3: materials, biographies, registers (= texts and materials on contemporary history, 4), Munich 1993, p. 1905.

Web links

• Georg Meixner in the parliamentary database at the House of Bavarian History
• Literature by and about Georg Meixner in the catalog of the German National Library
• Stefan Hüttner: Georg Meixner - From the life of a political prelate . In: Fränkische Heimat am Obermain , H. 34
• Volkmar von Zühlsdorff: prelate and politician . In: Die Zeit , No. 5/1954

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans Jürgen Brandt: Jerusalem has friends. Munich and the Order of Knights of the Holy Sepulcher, EOS 2010, page 78
2. ↑ The chairmen of the CSU parliamentary group in the Bavarian state parliament ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . His predecessor in this office was Alois Hundhammer , his successor Franz Heubl .