Gerhard Fittkau

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Gerhard Fittkau (born May 11, 1912 in Tollnigk , Heilsberg district ( Warmia ), † March 6, 2004 in Essen-Werden ) was a German Catholic theologian , dogmatist , author and publicist.

Youth and education

Gerhard Fittkau was the eldest son of the village teacher Hugo Fittkau and had seven siblings; a younger brother was Ernst Josef Fittkau (1927–2012). He attended grammar school in Rößel , a high school graduated with the highest marks and studied Christian theology and philosophy at the collegium germanicum et hungaricum in Rome , at the University of Innsbruck who, University in Friborg (Switzerland) and at the Lyceum Hosianum in Braunsberg . During his studies in Innsbruck in 1930 he became a member of the Union of Scientific Catholic Student Associations . At the end of 1933 he was in a sanatorium in Arosa (Switzerland). He was ordained a priest in March 1937 by the Bishop of Warmia Maximilian Kaller in Frauenburg . He served as spiritual director in 1939 the Carmelite convent in Pawelwitz-Wendelborn (now Wrocław-Pawłowice) in Wroclaw . In 1944 he completed additional studies in Wroclaw and received his doctorate from the University of Wroclaw as Doctor theologiae with the dissertation The Concept of the Mystery in John Chrysostom . An examination of the concept of cult mystery in the teaching of Odo Casels . In addition to German, Church Latin and Greek, he also learned French and English.

Live and act

First he worked as bishop secretary to the bishop of Warmia Maximilian Kaller in Allenstein . He was interrogated by the Gestapo in Frauenburg and his typewriter was confiscated because of the publication and copying of pastoral letters . After several interrogations by the Gestapo in Königsberg , he was expelled from the Warmia as an enemy of the state . In 1939 he found refuge in the Carmelite convent in Pawelwitz-Wandelborn near Breslau , where he worked as a chaplain .

On September 8, 1944, he became the pastor of Nativity of Mary - parish in Süßenberg (now Jarandowo) in the district Heilsberg ordered. After the Wehrmacht withdrew, the Red Army came to the village on February 3, 1945, followed by the NKVD militia.

Displaced in 1945

As a result of the East Prussian offensive , Warmia was captured by the Red Army in the spring of 1945 and a commandant's office was established in Süßenberg . Gerhard Fittkau was registered with other prisoners, locked in the cellars in Heilsberg for two weeks and interrogated by NKVD commissioners. A few days later they were loaded onto trucks and transported to the prison in Bartenstein , then to the prison building in Insterburg .

On March 6, 1945, the train traveled east in a cattle wagon through Vilna , Minsk , Smolensk , Moscow , Gorky, Kotlas to a gulag column seven on the rivers Ishma and Pechora in the taiga . With the permission of Politruks Hellwig and the battered Schott (Missal) Gerhard Fittkau organized on 1 April 1945 Easter prayer for the displaced persons in the camp barrack .

On May 25, 1945, he was transferred to the Vorkuta convalescent camp behind the Arctic Circle. He was released from Vorkuta camp in mid-August 1945 because of Pellagra and exhaustion. With a freight train through the Ischma Bridge , Kotlas, Gorki, Moscow, Orscha , Minsk, Brest and the south of the People's Republic of Poland, he arrived in Frankfurt an der Oder in the Soviet occupation zone after 28 days .

Germany 1945–1948

On September 24, 1945, we went to Berlin-Koepenick to the Gertraudenhospital (Berlin) of the Warmia Katharinernisters . As a contemporary witness , he wrote down his deportation , experiences and memories from 1944–1945 in the autobiographical book Mein 33. Jahr . The book first appeared in five editions in New York and has been translated into twelve languages ​​worldwide and reprinted many times.

On October 7, 1945, the chaplain Wolski delivered him the letter from his mother, who arrived with her husband in the Osnabrück region after fleeing from Warmia . A few weeks later, he sat down at night on an empty coal train, which in the British zone of occupation rolled and met his parents and Bishop Maximilian Kaller, the last secretary he since mid-1946, while staff at the Pontifical Special Office for native displaced German was. After the death of Bishop Kaller on July 7, 1947 in Frankfurt am Main, Gerhard Fittkau stayed in his apartment to settle the necessary estate matters. Then he took over the care of the compatriots from Warmia, especially the members of the Süßenberg Church of the Birth of the Virgin Mary .

In autumn 1948 he became general secretary of the Bonifatiuswerk in Paderborn and in February 1949 he left for New York as director of the American St. Boniface Society . From there he organized extensive diaspora aid .

Federal Republic of Germany

In 1953 Gerhard Fittkau was by Pope Pius XII. appointed papal secret chamberlain and in 1956 papal house prelate . On 28 December 1956 it appointed Capitular Arthur Katherine to Diözesankonsultor and Konsistorialrat entitled canon .

After returning from the United States in 1960, he was appointed pastor of the St. Ludgerus parish in Essen-Werden in 1962 and held lectures in dogmatics as an honorary professor at the seminary (now Cardinal Hengsbach House) in Essen-Werden from 1962 to 1983 . In 1961 he was one of the founding members of the Broadcasting Council of the shortwave station Deutsche Welle in Cologne. During the Second Vatican Council in Rome from 1962–1965, he was the head and spokesman for the German press department of the Council's press office.

Between July 17 and August 2, 1976, Gerhard Fittkau made a trip to the People's Republic of Poland in order to establish permanent contact with the local diocese administration in Olsztyn , Warmia . The Pope John Paul II appointed him Apostolic Protonotary in 1982 . The Polish Archbishop Edmund Piszcz appointed Gerhard Fittkau on Whitsun in 1989 as the first German clergyman to be Dome of Honor at the Polish Cathedral of the Assumption and St. Andrew of the Archdiocese of Warmia in Frombork . When Pope John Paul II visited Olsztyn in the summer of 1991, Gerhard Fittkau was one of the concelebrants at the solemn papal mass on June 6th. He lived to be eaten until the end of his life.

Fonts (selection)

Monographs

Essays

  • Report on the administration of the late papal special envoy Maximilian Kaller , Bishop of Warmia, on his wishes to the Fulda Bishops' Conference in 1947 . Letter of August 10, 1947 to Cardinal Joseph Frings .
  • Excelsa fidelitas. In memory of the Diaspora Bishop Maximilian Kaller . Priest yearbook of the Bonifatiusverein 1948, Paderborn 1948, pp. 19-23.
  • Ten years of Catholic action in the Diocese of Warmia 1929–1939. A report from 1939 by Gerhard Fittkau . Zeitschrift für die Geschichte und Altertumskunde Ermlands (ZGAE), Volume 33, Münster 1969, pp. 219-302.
  • Again: Field Bishop Franz Justus Rarkowski . In: Church newspaper for the diocese of Aachen . February 2, 1969, No. 5, 12/13.
  • Two critical reports on the 4th plenary assembly of the "Pastoral Council of the Dutch Church Province" in Noordwijkerhout from 9th to 12th April 1969. Responsible for the translation from Dutch, the notes and the edition: Gerhard Fittkau, Essen-Werden 1969 . In: Hubert van Dijk: Appearance and Reality .
  • Statement by young religious. On the submission “The Religious” of the 5th plenary assembly of the Dutch Pastoral Council in Noordwijkerhout (January 4-7, 1970) . Tiergarten 21, 1970.
  • A bad thing. Statement from Prof. Dr. Gerhard Fittkau on the "Commentary by Bisdom Roermond of October 5, 1971 on his article" The New Church "in the view of a Dutch candidate for bishopric, published in the supplement" Theological "of the" Offertenzeitung für die Catholic clergy " . Abensberg , September 1971 , Pp. 263-265.
  • Kaller, Maximilian . In: Erwin Gatz (Ed.): The bishops of the German-speaking countries 1785/1803 to 1945. A biographical lexicon. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-428-05447-4 , pp. 357-361.
  • Deported to Russia . In Herbert Reinoss (ed.): Last days in East Prussia. Memories of flight and displacement . Langen Müller Verlag , Munich 1986, ISBN 3-7844-1996-8 , pp. 277-279.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrich Paul Lange: Thank God that there are such priests!… Theologisches , 32/2002, May 30, 2002, pp. 130-133 , accessed on May 4, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Convent of the Carmelites “Mary, Mediator of All Graces”. Bell foundry Munte , September 27, 2015, accessed on May 4, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Fittkau, Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theologian, dogmatist, author and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH May 11, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Tollnigk , Heilsberg district ( Warmia )
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 2004
Place of death Eat-becoming