Georg Rompel

Georg Rompel (born September 5, 1897 in Lindenholzhausen (near Limburg an der Lahn ), † April 26, 1982 in Wiesbaden ) was papal house prelate and honorary canon of the Limburg diocese .

Life

Rompel was born as the eldest son of the eponymous mayor of Lindenholzhausen. After graduating from high school , he was a soldier in World War I from August 1916 , and from 1919 he studied theology and philosophy in Fulda. In 1923 he was ordained a priest and, since the then Limburg bishop had no use of his own, initially worked as a chaplain in Dahlhausen / Ruhr. Then he was briefly chaplain in Lorch , from 1925 he worked as chaplain in the parish of St. Bernhard in Frankfurt am Main. The Limburg bishop Antonius Hilfrich - his great uncle - appointed him as pastor in Bremthal in 1935 and in Höhr-Grenzhausen in 1941 . In 1953 Rompel became a clergyman . Since January 1, 1954, he was pastor of the parish of St. Bonifatius in Wiesbaden. In 1960 he was awarded the honorary title of “Papal House Prelate”, and in 1966 he was appointed Honorary Canon of the Diocese of Limburg. In 1968 he retired. He died on April 26, 1982 in Wiesbaden.

Activities as a chaplain

During his ten years as a chaplain in Frankfurt, he intensively promoted Catholic youth work as a conscious antithesis to the growing Hitler Youth . He tried to live and convey the values ​​of the youth movement - such as loyalty, bravery and truthfulness. As district president of the Catholic Young Men’s Association in Frankfurt, he ensured the union of Catholic youth work in the supra-parish institution "Catholic Youth Frankfurt" in the 1930s. During this time he maintained a close relationship with Prelate Ludwig Wolker (1887–1955), a leading figure in the Catholic youth movement. As a religion teacher at the model school in Protestant Frankfurt, his word had weight in the college. While in 1933 Rompel was still hoping (also due to the Reich Concordat and also a conception of the God-willed state system according to Pauline thinking ) that the new totalitarian state could be shaped by Christianity, he saw himself increasingly disappointed in this.

Activities as pastor

Prelate Georg Rompel as pastor of Wiesbaden

At his first pastor's position in Bremthal, Rompel built up a well-functioning youth work with altar servers and the young men’s association. After 1937 (in connection with the publication of the papal encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge ), Rompel was no longer allowed to hold religious education, and church youth work was forced into illegality. Rompel was harassed on the street. In 1941 he became pastor in Höhr-Grenzhausen, where he quickly came into conflict with the NSDAP and NSV . Because of the ringing of bells during a Führer speech, in 1941 the Gestapo interrogated, issued a warning, threatened him with concentration camp imprisonment and was sentenced to pay 3000 RM security money . With his open and courageous opposition, Rompel was largely alone there. After 1945, during the years of reconstruction - including intellectual - Rompel was transferred to Wiesbaden in 1954. In the state capital, Rompel initiated important developments at various levels. In May 1961 Rompel spoke, u. a. next to the psychiatrist Albert Görres at the third Limburg diocesan synod on the subject of "Problems in the professional world". Rompel supported the concerns of the Second Vatican Council with inner conviction . Rompel did not only oppose a “church as a museum” in sermons. For him, the church was a “church in Advent”, in the expectation of becoming. The liturgical reform was implemented by him as early as 1964. In 1966 the "Roncallihaus" was founded as the central building of the Wiesbaden church. In the new building of the St. Josefs Hospital , as city dean, he introduced a completely new care concept from the USA for the first time in Germany. Rompel had an important partner in the then Limburg Bishop Wilhelm Kempf , Undersecretary of the Second Vatican Council and born in Wiesbaden. After his retirement he devoted himself to the pastoral care of the sick in the new building of the St. Josefs Hospital, which he largely operated, where he also lived with his sister Elisabeth and died in 1982.

swell

• Georg Rompel, Sermons 1964 handwritten, unpublished
• Speeches on the golden jubilee of Georg Rompel, unpublished in 1973
• Frankfurt, linden wood houses and Wiesbaden contemporary witnesses

literature

• Marc Fachinger:  Rompel, Georg. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 32, Bautz, Nordhausen 2011, ISBN 978-3-88309-615-5 , Sp. 1163.
• Egon Eichhorn: St. Jakob Lindenholzhausen , 1967
• Our common path. 150 years of the Diocese of Limburg , 1977
• Klaus Schatz: History of the Diocese of Limburg , 1983
• Ulrich v. Hehl: Priests under Hitler's terror. A biographical and statistical survey. On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference with the participation of the diocesan archives , 1984
• 300 years cath. Parish Höhr-Grenzhausen , 1988
• Ulrich Krebs: Festschrift for the 100th anniversary of the parish church of St. Margareta Bremthal. 1889-1989 , 1989
• Helmut Mann, Bernhard Becker: Catholic youth leader and victim of the Gestapo terror , in: Archive for Middle Rhine Church History 49/1977, 259–291