Hermann Bücking (missionary)

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Father Hermann Bücking SVD

Hermann Bücking SVD (born November 7, 1863 in Borbeck , † June 10, 1931 in Münster ) was a Roman Catholic religious priest of the Steyler missionaries . From 1894 to 1907 he worked as a missionary in what was then the German colony of Togo and from 1896 was the first Apostolic Prefect for Togo.

Life

Bücking was the son of a blacksmith and worked in his father's company in Borbeck until he was 17. After making the decision to become a priest, he went to the St. Michael Mission House in Steyl , where he graduated from high school and studied philosophy and theology, and was ordained a priest on May 11, 1890 . He then worked for several years as a teacher in Steyl and in the St. Gabriel Mission House near Vienna . In 1894 he was sent by the Order to do missionary work in Togo.

After his arrival he became pastor of the Catholic parish in Lomé and Superior for all Steyler missionaries in Togo, and two years later, in July 1896, the Holy See appointed him Apostolic Prefect for Togo. The workload that he put on himself in this office was so great that the founder of the order and Superior General Arnold Janssen urged him to moderate.

There was a systematic expansion of mission stations with schools and health centers. In addition to the Christian doctrine, this also meant conveying European ideas of civilization and incorporating it into the colonial economic and distribution system. A constant area of ​​conflict with indigenous traditions was widespread polygamy .

At the same time, a conflict arose with the German colonial officials and plantation owners, who, for their part, did not correspond to the morality represented by the missionaries. At Bücking, the self-evident requirement of racial segregation was mixed with the commitment to the human dignity of the “ negroes ”. He protested sharply against the excessive and degrading use of corporal punishment as well as against the sexual exploitation of local women, to whose “mixed race children” the German fathers rarely confessed. In a report from 1899 he wrote: “Whores and concubines now come across on every road, and the mixed race soon sprouts like weeds. [...] Is it the wish and will of the emperor and the colonial council that those to be beaten should be given the punishment of being completely bared down to the last thread in front of everyone who wants to watch? "

The conflict escalated after the 30-year-old Geo Schmidt took over the colonial administration in the Atakpamé district in 1900 and kept numerous underage girls as sex slaves. The mutual accusations between him and Bücking and the head of the mission station in Atakpame, Franz Müller SVD, drew such circles from 1903 that they employed the Steyler order leadership and the Archdiocese of Cologne as well as the government and the Reichstag in Berlin and became a media event in the Reich . In addition, against the will of the colonial administration, Bücking planned mission stations in the predominantly Muslim north of Togo. In 1906 the imperial government turned directly to the Holy See and enforced the recall of Bücking. At the end of 1907 he, Müller and several other Steyler missionaries had to leave Togo.

After his return to Germany, Bücking was given responsible tasks in the administration and education of the order, most recently in Münster, where he died.

literature

  • Baldur Hermans : “And a 'for emperors”. A colonial-political blackmail: The recall of the Apostolic Prefect Hermann Bücking from Togo in 1907 . In: Michaela Bachem-Rehm, Claudia Hiepel , Henning Türk ( eds .): Overcoming divisions: European and international history in the 19th and 20th centuries. Festschrift for Wilfried Loth . Oldenbourg, Munich 2014, ISBN 3-486-71574-7 , pp. 679-696 ( partially digitized )
  • Rebekka Habermas : Scandal in Togo: A Chapter of German Colonial Rule . Frankfurt am Main 2016 ( partial digitization )
  • Karl Müller : History of the Catholic Church in Togo . Steyler publishing house, Kaldenkirchen 1958.
  • Johannes Thauren: The missions of the Society of the Divine Word in the heathen lands . Row 3: In the service of the black and red races , Vol. 1: The missions in the former German colony of Togo . Mission printing, Kaldenkirchen 1931.

Web links

Commons : Hermann Bücking  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ quoted from cvafrikahilfe.de
  2. ^ Georg Albert Ferdinand Schmidt (1870-1943); he was transferred to Cameroon in 1904 (Habermas).
  3. ^ Rebekka Habermas, Scandal in Togo. A chapter of German colonial rule, p. 31.
personal data
SURNAME Bucking, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Catholic clergyman, Steyler missionary in Togo
DATE OF BIRTH November 7, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Borbeck
DATE OF DEATH June 10, 1931
Place of death Muenster