Heinrich Wienken

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Heinrich Wienken (born February 14, 1883 in Stalförden near Molbergen , Cloppenburg district ; † January 21, 1961 in Berlin ) was Bishop of Meissen from 1951 to 1957 .

Life

Heinrich Wienken received in the June 6, 1909 Münster the priesthood . He then worked as a chaplain in Münster. In 1912 he moved to Berlin and worked until 1916 as chaplain and youth chaplain of the Parrei St. Sebastian in Wedding. From 1916 he was initially deputy head of the Berlin Caritas and from 1922 to 1946 director of the Berlin representation of the German Caritas Association .

In 1930 he was appointed papal secret chamberlain and in 1934 house prelate of His Holiness .

In 1937 he was appointed coadjutor bishop of the diocese of Meissen and titular bishop of Arethusa due to the forced absence of Meißner bishop Petrus Legge by the Nazi regime . On April 11, 1937, Wienken received the episcopal ordination from the later Cardinal Clemens August Graf von Galen in Münster Cathedral ; Co- consecrators were Joseph Godehard Machens , the bishop of Hildesheim , and Heinrich Roleff , auxiliary bishop in Münster. His motto was Vitam impendere vero (" Consecrating life to truth"). He worked in Bautzen until November 1937 .

After the Bishop of Meissen returned from Nazi imprisonment, Wienken returned to Berlin, where he led the negotiations between the Catholic Church and the National Socialist government as head of the Episcopal Commissariat of the Fulda Bishops' Conference .

Relief for Catholic clergy in the pastors' block of the Dachau concentration camp

Through his efforts, Wienken achieved a number of reliefs for the clergy prisoners in the pastors' block of the concentration camp in Dachau

  • Bringing together the clergy from Hitler's sphere of influence.
  • Permission to build a chapel in the priests' block.
  • Time off work.
  • Breviary donation for the priests.
  • Cocoa and wine donation by the German bishops.
  • Dismissal of 90% of the priests shortly before the end of the war.

In addition, he protected numerous persecuted persons by the Nazi regime and stood up for those in need and prisoners during the war years. He paid special attention to Christians who were threatened because of their Jewish descent. On October 16, 1941, Wienken and the Schöneberg pastor Adolf Kurtz called on Adolf Eichmann ; Kurtz was able to continue the “Family School Oranienburger Strasse” set up in 1939 for Christian children of Jewish origin who had been expelled from the public school system as “Jews” and had already been ordered to close. In particular, he took care of the school here, wrote textbooks, but was also active in theology.

After the end of the Second World War he led the negotiations between the Catholic Church and the Soviet military administration and was a contact for the Allied Control Council . From 1949 to 1951 he was the representative of the Catholic Church in the GDR government.

On March 9, 1951, he took over the office of Bishop of Meissen. After his resignation due to illness, he returned to Berlin on August 19, 1957. He was appointed titular archbishop of Mocissus on the same day .

literature

  • Martin Höllen: Heinrich Wienken, the “non-political” church politician. A biography from 3 epochs of German Catholicism. Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, Mainz 1981, ISBN 3-7867-0887-8 ( Publications of the Commission for Contemporary History. Series B: Research 133), (At the same time: Berlin, Freie Univ., Diss., 1981).
  • Hermann Scheipers : A tightrope walk. Priest under two dictatorships. Benno-Verlag, Leipzig 1997, ISBN 3-7462-1221-9 .
  • Bernd Schäfer:  Wienken, Heinrich . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Anna Maria Zumholz: Heinrich Wienken (1883–1961) - youth chaplain, Caritas director, head of the commissariat of the Fulda Bishops' Conference and Bishop of Meissen. In: Yearbook for the Oldenburger Münsterland 2017, Cloppenburg 2016, pages 41–56, ISBN 978-3-941073-21-0 .
  • Peter Reinicke : Wienken, Heinrich , in: Hugo Maier (Ed.): Who is who of social work . Freiburg: Lambertus, 1998 ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 , p. 631

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Adolf Kurz's report on the visit to Adolf Eichmann, submitted on June 24, 1960, cited above. n. Eberhard Röhm, Jörg Thierfelder: Juden-Christen-Deutsche , Volume 4 / I: 1941–1945. Annihilated ; Calwer Verlag Stuttgart 2004; ISBN 3-7668-3887-3 : “We decided, as we had often done before, to go to the lion's den and negotiate with the person in charge in the Gestapo. [...] We were urgently warned to go to Eichmann. [...] The wildest rumors were circulating about him, even worse than about Himmler. He was generally referred to as the 'murderer of the Jews'. "
predecessor Office successor
Petrus Legge Bishop of Meissen
1951–1957 		Otto Spülbeck
personal data
SURNAME Wienken, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bishop of Meissen (1951–1957)
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Stalförden near Cloppenburg
DATE OF DEATH January 21, 1961
Place of death Berlin