Heinrich Leupke

Heinrich Leupke (born June 30, 1871 in Barienrode ; † May 16, 1952 in Haus Kannen near Amelsbüren ) was a German Catholic theologian , provost , dean and opponent of National Socialist church policy .

Life

Heinrich Leupke studied Catholic theology from 1893 to 1896 in Münster at the university there and in Würzburg at the Julius Maximilians University . Having in from Easter 1896 Hildesheim the Hildesheimer seminary attended, he received his in the following year on March 28, 1897 ordination .

Also in 1897 Leupke took over the position of chaplain at the St. Ludgeri Church in Helmstedt , from 1900 then that in Goslar and from 1903 the chaplain at the Church of St. Engel in Peine .

Towards the end of the German Empire, Leupe first worked as a pastor himself from 1911 , initially in Obernfeld . There he initiated the establishment of the journeyman's association on April 27, 1913 , from which the local Kolping family was formed, which later had a bell tower with the old bell and a memorial plaque erected in the churchyard of St. Blasius Church for the 100th anniversary of the foundation .

At the time of the First World War and from 1916, Leupke worked as a pastor again in Peine.

The former church of St. Clemens in the Hanover district of Calenberger Neustadt , here on the moat of the former city ​​fortifications , which was already filled in in Leupke's time, and still without a dome and bell towers, which were only modernized during the reconstruction after 1945;
Wood engraving by George Wilmot Bonner , circa 1830s

At the time of the Weimar Republic and at the height of the German hyperinflation , Leupke was elected President of the KAB Diocesan Association of Hildesheim , an association of the Catholic workers' movement .

On March 1, 1932, Leupke became both provost and dean at what was then St. Clemens Church in Hanover . But just one year later, in 1933, the seizure of power and the beginning of the National Socialist era , during which the Nazis also carried out the abolition of denominational schools in the course of the Gleichschaltung , took place. Just like his colleague Wilhelm Offenstein , who worked at the church of St. Benno in the (today's) district of Linden-Nord , such as Wilhelm Maxen , Bernhard path and Friedrich Kochheim , Leupke was a courageous and determined opponent of Adolf Hitler . He publicly opposed the abolition of denominational schools. Already on January 22, 1934, Leupke was sentenced to a fine of 1,200 RM by the Hanover Special Court under Section 3 of an "Ordinance to Avoid Insidious Discrediting of the National Government" (the predecessor of the " Heimtückegesetzes ") and came on August 8 of the same year in “ protective custody ” for two days because he had opposed the regime's instructions to ring the bells on the occasion of the death of President Paul von Hindenburg . In the following years - also according to the memories of contemporary witnesses - Leupke hardly dared to speak publicly against the Nazi regime, especially since in September 1936 the then district president of Hanover, Rudolf Diels , withdrew his permission to give religious education in public schools would have.

During the Second World War Heinrich Leupke voluntarily renounced the Hanoverian pastoral position in the still undamaged St. Clemens Church on March 11, 1941. On the following day, instead, he was named Dome of Honor at the High Cathedral in Hildesheim on March 12th of that year .

After the liberation from National Socialism and still under the British military authority , Bishop Joseph Godehard Machens , who preferred men's clubs over workers' associations, re-established the KAB Diocesan Association of Hildesheim in February 1947 - with the former KAB Diocesan President Leupke at the head, at that time still as a diocesan association of men's and workers' clubs .

Heinrich Leupke died in 1952 in the Kannen house near Amelsbüren.

Archival material

An archival by and about Heinrich Leupke be found, for example,

• in the Lower Saxony State Archives (Hanover location) the special report on Leupke's arrest of August 10, 1934, in which investigations against the theologian are reported, who had already repeatedly disdained the Reich government; Archive signature Hann. 180 Hanover, No. 798, f. 323 .

literature

• Hans-Georg Aschoff : For the sake of people. The development of the Catholic Church in the Hanover region , ed. from the Catholic Committee for the greater Hanover area , Hildesheim: Bernward Verlag, 1983, ISBN 978-3-87065-295-1 and ISBN 3-87065-295-0 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Leupke, Heinrich in the database of Niedersächsische Personen (new entry required) of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library - Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek , last accessed on October 7, 2016
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Jens Schmidt-Clausen: Leupke, Heinrich. In: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon , p. 232; online through google books ; same content also in the City Lexicon Hannover
3. ↑ Compare the information under the GND number of the German National Library
4. ↑ Ulrich Ehbrecht (responsible): Kolping family. Obernfeld municipality, last accessed on October 7, 2016.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Alexander Dylong: Important stages of the KAB - Diözesanverband Hildesheim. Website of the association kab-hildesheim.de , last accessed on October 7, 2016.
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Klaus Mlynek : Kirchenkampf , in Waldemar R. Röhrbein , Klaus Mlynek (ed.): History of the City of Hanover , Vol. 2: From the beginning of the 19th century to the present , Hanover: Schlütersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1994, ISBN 3-87706-364-0 , pp. 543ff .; online through google books
7. ↑ ^{a b c} Detlef Schmiechen-Ackermann : Cooperation and demarcation. Bourgeois groups, Protestant parishes and Catholic social milieu in the confrontation with National Socialism in Hanover (= Lower Saxony 1933–1945 , Vol. 9), Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung und Verlag, 1999, ISBN 978-3-7752-5819-7 and ISBN 3 -7752-5819-1 , pp. 350, 396, 408 and others; Preview over google books
8. ^ Klaus Mlynek: Diels, Rudolf . In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 134.
9. ↑ Klaus Mlynek (arrangement): Gestapo Hanover reports ... Police and government reports for central and southern Lower Saxony between 1933 and 1937 (= Lower Saxony 1933 - 1945 , vol. 1), Hildesheim: Lax, ISBN 978-3-7848 -3151-0 and ISBN 3-7848-3151-6 , pp. 82, 211f .; Preview over google books