Hildegardis Wulff

Hildegardis Wulff (* 8. September 1896 in Mannheim as Liselotte Wulff ; † 20th October 1961 in Freiburg ) was co-founder of the women's Order of Benedictine OSB of St. Lioba in Freiburg Günterstal and founder and prioress of the monastery of the Benedictine nuns of the Saint Lioba in the Strada Coroana de Oțel in the III. Elisabetin district in Timisoara . After the Communists came to power in Romania , she was arrested on August 18, 1950 and sentenced by the Bucharest Military Court on February 19, 1952 to a total of 25 years in prison and forced labor for treason , espionage for the Vatican and for the United States of America .

Education

Hildegardis Wulff was born in Mannheim as the oldest of three children of an industrial family. She was brought up in the spirit of liberal Protestantism and graduated from the Liselotte School in 1914 . Then she studied German , medieval history and canon law in Heidelberg and Bonn . During her studies in Heidelberg she had her first access to religious life. Hildegardis Wulff learned from her Catholic fellow students about newly founded orders and secular institutes that gave women the opportunity to be apostolic outside of school and hospital . The studies and these encounters led Hildegardis Wulff to the Catholic faith. She was baptized a Catholic on January 17, 1918.

Foundation of the Lioba Sisterhood

Benedictine convent of St. Lioba in Freiburg-Günterstal

After completing her studies, Hildegardis Wulff entered the Cistercian convent Lichtenthal . Here she met Maria Föhrenbach and, together with her and Elisabeth Steinbacher, co-founded the Benedictine Sisters of St. Lioba . Together they drafted the first statutes from 1920–1921, which were submitted to Rome . They spent the novitiate in St. Hildegard, Eibingen . On May 1, 1921, they were dressed and given the names Maria-Benedicta and Hildegardis .

After the establishment of the sisterhood of St. Lioba was initially rejected by Rome on August 23, 1921, they first founded the secular association “St. Lioba eV “The Beuron Monastery dressed the sisters as oblates and professed them . Thanks to the intervention of the Archbishop of Freiburg , Karl Fritz , the founding of the order was approved by Rome and on March 21, 1927 the church was established in Günterstal .

The nuns had dedicated themselves to nursing the sick, pastoral care, upbringing and education, vocational training, care for the elderly and general welfare. In addition to the branches in Germany , the order had priories in Denmark , India , Belgium , and Timișoara (Romania).

Prioress in the Banat

Hildegardis Wulff had a teaching position at the newly established “Social Women's School” in Freiburg. She taught psychology , social education , history and women's issues . Here she got her first contact with the Banat German Catholics through members of the "Banat Mission Society" . In 1927 she was invited to Timișoara by two of her students. At Christmas she visited them in the Banat , where she gave six lectures in the Christmas octave. Her success there led to another invitation to Timișoara, which she followed in 1928 with a series of lectures.

From January 3 to 7, 1928, she came to Timișoara at the invitation of the diocese and the “Society for Social Works” to hold public educational lectures in the Banatia . Franz Kräuter , professor at the "Catholic German Teacher Training Institute" and member of the Romanian Parliament, received the approval of the lectures from Interior Minister Ion Duca . The sponsors of the new order in the Banat were Prelate Franz Blaskovics , Franz Kräuter and Bishop Augustin Pacha .

After Sister Hildegardis had made two lecture tours to the Banat in 1927 and 1928, Augustin Pacha, Bishop of the Timișoara diocese , commissioned her to do lecture tours in his diocese in order to work apostolic there among the Banat Swabians . In the Banat Swabian villages she gave lectures on religious topics such as the liturgy , the church year , as well as questions of education , customs and folk dance , literature and questions of everyday life .

In 1931 Sister Veronika and Sister Ruperta joined them. It was with this little convent that monastic life began. With the help of the diocese , especially the prelate Franz Blaskovics, Sister Hildegardis was able to manage the property with the house in Kronengasse (Romanian: Strada Coroana de Oțel ) and the subsequent smaller area in Königsgasse (Romanian: Strada Regelui ) in September 1931. in the Elisabethstadt (Romanian: Elisabetin ) in Timișoara from the motherhouse in Freiburg. A hospital was set up and girls' work was done, which was a focus right from the start.

In 1934 Hildegardis Wulff acquired Romanian citizenship in order to fulfill the Concordat , which stipulated that monastic settlements may not be dependent on foreign countries. On December 17, 1934 the church establishment of the independent priory in Timișoara was signed. At the beginning 13 sisters from Germany worked here. In 1938, 17 local sisters had already joined the convent. The sisters were sent to Germany to study. On Liobatag 1941, the first Perpetual Profession was celebrated in Timisoara Priory . On the same day the first priory chapter began , which adopted the Romanian priory's own statutes and elected Hildegardis as prioress.

Interwar period

Hildegardis Wulff first lived with the Social Sisters in Timișoara and went to the villages to give lectures. In May 1929 alone she gave 21 lectures at various locations, in October there were 22 and in December 33 public lectures.

She spoke on the topics:

• Religion : catechesis , doctrine of saints, liturgy and church year
• Education and social issues: Caritas, marriage and family
• Tradition : origin, folk song and folk dance

Women's club and girls' wreaths

The first area of ​​work was the officially approved and state-recognized "Catholic-German Women's Association" and the girls' wreaths in 1930. In 1933 there were 90 local groups with over 5,000 girls and women as members. In 1938 the women's association had 15,000 members with 138 subdivisions.

In 1929 Hildegardis Wulff organized the first girls' day in Lenauheim . With officially approved statutes, the first women's association and girls' wreath was founded in Triebswetter in 1930 . In 1931 the girls' day took place in Maria Radna and in 1932 on the Piața Unirii in Timișoara.

In 1930 there were around 500 participants at the annual women's festival in Deta and more than 4,000 participants at the last festival in 1938.

Community College

Hildegardis Wulff organized series of lectures on religious, social and general educational topics. Books came into circulation, reading groups were set up, theater was played, music was made, sung, folk dances were rehearsed, various kinds of sports were practiced, handicrafts were made, board games, excursions and celebrations were organized. The group lessons in the girls' wreaths were concentrated in the winter half of the year, since field work had priority in summer. Nevertheless, summer camps were also organized.

In 1932, the establishment of a girls' adult education center was made possible by adding another storey . The courses started on All Saints' Day and ended on Easter. 40 girls at a time could take part in a course. The lecturers were Prioress Hildegardis, Josef Nischbach , director of the Banatia, and the sisters Dominica and Theodora.

St. Anna Hospital

In 1933 an adjacent piece of land was bought and in 1935 the "St. Anna Hospital" and the maternity hospital were built. From 1939 onwards, the sisters had to fight violently against state intervention. The hospital had 25 beds and the maternity home 20. 500 to 600 births took place annually, along with the same number of treatments and operations.

Sister Hildegardis also founded a harvest kindergarten , youth centers and the Norbertinum Catholic school home in Sibiu .

The sisters had taken care of the elderly at home since the monastery was established. After the home was expanded, a retirement home with initially 10 places was set up in the St. Anna home in 1943.

post war period

On March 16, 1938, Hildegardis Wulff was appointed German consul Kuhna because she is said to have spoken out publicly against the annexation of Austria . From then on began the problems with the NSDAP of the German ethnic group in Romania (DViR). From then on there were also regular summons for talks with Fritz Fabricius at the German embassy in Bucharest .

After the outbreak of war in 1939, all connections to the parent company in Freiburg were broken. In 1940 all Catholic women and girls' associations were banned by the German ethnic group in Romania. Sister Hildegardis countered this by founding the “Veronikawerk”, which continued women's work under difficult conditions.

In 1941 Hildegardis Wulff founded the two-year school for pastoral assistants and initiated courses for catechists and cantors . From this school there was the possibility for individual sisters to participate in the Bonifatiuswerk . In 1941 Sister Hildegardis was refused a trip to Germany to the mother house for political reasons.

After the coup on August 23, 1944, when the communists seized power in Romania, there came times of persecution of the churches and monasteries. When the Red Army marched in in September 1944, the sisters from Germany were interned. They came back in December 1945 and from then on were severely restricted in their work by the state authorities.

Children's charity

When in January 1945 all German men and women between the ages of 18 and 45 were deported to Russia for forced labor , the monastery people were spared thanks to French and American help. Many abductees had to leave their children behind.

With the help of Bishop Augustin Pacha and Canon Josef Nischbach , Sister Hildegardis was able to set up a children's home for 80 children; thus the children's aid organization was founded. Workers of various denominations and nationalities from Timișoara built an annex free of charge to accommodate the children.

The children's aid organization, which initially worked in Timișoara, set up aid centers in the villages in the following months. Necessary food was collected from the population. Help also came from Rome through the Nunciature in Bucharest .

Refugee Agency

In the summer of 1944 rail transports with Germans from Bessarabia and Transnistria arrived at the border with Hungary . Expelled from their homeland, driven from Poland , the Romanians kept them in a guarded camp without the slightest care. This gave the Lioba sisters a new task. Patricia Zimmermann collected groceries on behalf of the prioress and brought truckloads to Arad .

The refugees from autumn 1944 came back on the Hungarian-Romanian border in summer 1945. They were refused entry to Romania. The Lioba sisters established an aid organization in New Arad to help the arriving refugees. A daily soup kitchen and medical care were set up with great effort.

Sister Hildegardis and Sister Patricia helped prisoners of war and former German soldiers across the border, which was later heavily blamed on both of them.

Homecoming charity

In December 1949 the German men and women who had been deported from forced labor in 1945 returned from the Soviet Union. Their food, clothing, medical care, and transportation home had to be provided. This work was also strictly checked by the authorities.

On behalf of the bishop and the prioress, Sister Patricia Zimmermann went to Maramuresch and set up the first branch of the homecoming relief organization there. Another aid agency followed in Großwardein with the assistance of Pastor Sundhauser . At the train stations in Bucharest, Iași , Focșani , Sighet and Timișoara, further aid centers for returnees from Russia have been set up.

Yugoslavia aid

From 1946 the first refugees from Yugoslavia came to the Romanian Banat. They reported terrible things from Tito's death camps . In 1947 the number of refugees from Yugoslavia grew, so that the establishment of Yugoslavia aid became necessary. The refugees were helped with food and clothes. Travel papers were obtained for many so that they could go further west. Many were helped across the border into Hungary. Sister Gottharda and Sister Hildegardis helped with the Yugoslavia aid.

High treason trial

Grave in the monastery cemetery of St. Lioba in Freiburg-Günterstal

The communist government in Romania terminated the Concordat with Rome in 1947. The church persecution began. In 1948 the Norbertinum in Sibiu was nationalized. On November 1, 1948, the St. Anna Hospital in Timișoara was expropriated . On August 1, 1949, all women's and men's orders were banned. The St. Lioba sisters were evicted from the monastery on August 20th. Sister Hildegardis made her living as a cantor in the Marienkirche in Mehala and as a catechist in the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Elisabethstadt.

In 1948 all church institutions were nationalized. In June 1949 the monasteries were expropriated until the Greek Catholic Church was finally banned on August 3, 1949. All sisters had to leave the monastery within a few days, take off their religious dress and notify the authorities in writing of their new address. The sisters from Germany received an exit permit. Sister Hildegardis and Sister Veronika also hoped for an exit permit because of their German origins, but their passports were lost at the German consulate.

1950 began a wave of arrests. On July 17, 1950, Bishop Augustin Pacha was arrested by the Romanian secret police Securitate and sentenced in 1951 to 18 years in prison in a show trial. A number of Catholic clergymen followed him to the Securitate prisons. You have been charged with treason and espionage for the Vatican and the United States.

Hildegardis Wulff was arrested on August 18, 1950, and Patricia Zimmermann a year later. Their show trial took place in the notorious Jilava prison. After a year and a half in custody, Sister Hildegardis was sentenced by the rulers to 25 years in prison, 18 years in prison and seven years in prison as part of the high treason trial against Bishop Pacha and the Catholic Church leadership. Hildegardis Wulff was incarcerated in the Popa Șapcă prisons in Timișoara, Bucharest, Jilava , Mislea , Miercurea Ciuc , Brașov and Văcărești .

She spent nine years in the prisons of the Romanian Securitate. On June 1, 1959, the Sisters Hildegardis Wulff and Patricia Zimmermann and the prelates Franz Kräuter and Josef Nischbach were exchanged for two Romanian spies at Glienicke Bridge in West Berlin . Hildegardis Wulff returned to the mother monastery of St. Lioba in Freiburg-Günterstal via Friedland .

After a short recovery period, Sister Hildegardis set out on the mission to Canada , but in the spring of 1961 she had to return to the mother house, seriously ill: the cancer that had broken out in prison forced her to stop working. She died at the age of 65 on October 20, 1961. On October 25, she was buried in the monastery cemetery of the Benedictines of Saint Lioba in Freiburg-Günterstal. The funeral was done by the Limburg auxiliary bishop Walter Kampe .

Editor

In 1920 Hildegardis Wulff's dissertation “The Hohenstaufer Friedrich II and the Benedictines and Cistercians in Germany and Italy” was published. During her time in Canada she wrote the volume “Canadischer Brief”, which is addressed to the Benedictine Sisters of St. Lioba in Germany, Switzerland, Romania, Denmark, India and Belgium.

Hildegardis Wulff was also editorially active. In 1936 she brought out the magazine “Teppich” and the “Siegel” for youth work. She was a permanent employee of the Catholic printing works “Der Jugendfreund”, “St. Antoniusblatt "," Kirchenblatt "," Sonntagsblatt "," Das Herz "and" Der Ruf ". She took part in the publication of yearbooks and periodicals and edited a book for Catholic cantor teaching. Sister Hildegardis published the supplement “Women-Faith-Banat” for the magazine “Ruf”.

Hildegardis Wulff had relationships with important figures of Catholicism at the time. She maintained contacts with Ida Coudenhove , Edith Farkas , Margit Schlachta , Prelate Ignaz Seipel , Adalbert von Neipperg , who visited her in Timișoara.

beatification

On July 18, 2009, one year after the founding of the Prayer League in honor of Prioress Hildegardis Wulff in Stuttgart , the first Hildegardis Day was held in the St. Lioba Monastery in Freiburg-Günterstal, chaired by Pastor Peter Zillich .

There is a steadily growing group of Catholics from the Banat and Germany who strive for the beatification of Hildegardis Wulff “a servant of God between social engagement and monastic silence - a woman who often put her life in danger for others without ever being with her to worry about your own ".

literature

• Nikolaus Engelmann, Franziska Graf and Peter Krier: The Liobas sister Dr. Hildegardis Wulff: Way, Work and Legacy. From the work of a German religious woman in the Banat. A tribute to the prioress' 100th birthday. Self-published by the Landsmannschaft der Banat Schwaben , Landesverband Bayern, 1996
• Anton Peter Petri : Biographical Lexicon of the Banat Germans. Breit, Marquartstein 1992, ISBN 3-922046-76-2 .
• Hans Diplich : Contributions to the cultural history of the Danube Swabians. Homburg ad Saar, 1976
• Peter Krier : Sister Hildegardis Wulff: Life picture of a great religious woman. Symposium on the 50th anniversary of death, Verlag Hilfswerk der Banater Schwaben Ingolstadt 2013, ISBN 978-3-00-041763-4
• Günther Saltin: Sr. Hildegardis Wulff. The great nun from Mannheim on the 120th birthday. In: Annual report 2015/16 of the Liselotte-Gymnasium Mannheim, 2016
• Johanna Domek: Benedictine women move the world. 24 images of life . Vier-Türme-Verlag, Münsterschwarzach 2009, pp. 102-107

Web links

• www.jahrmarkt-banat.de (PDF file; 2.2 MB), exhibition Sr. Dr. Hildegardis Wulff
• Jahrmarkt-banat.de (PDF file; 87 kB), First Hildegardis Day in the Lioba Monastery Günterstal
• www.morgenweb.de , Christine Maisch-Straub: Life between monastery and dungeon , Mannheimer Morgen from April 1, 2010
• banatica.ro (PDF file; 313 kB), Claudiu Sergiu Călin: The Order of the Benedictine Sisters of “St. Lioba "and their activities in Timisoara (1929–1948)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} banatica.ro (PDF file; 313 kB), Claudiu Sergiu Călin: The Order of the Benedictine Sisters of “St. Lioba "and their activities in Timisoara (1929–1948)
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q} www.kloster-st-lioba.de ( Memento from February 18, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), Sr. Hildegardis co-founder of the St. Lioba Monastery
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q} www.jahrmarkt-banat.de ( Memento from February 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 2.2 MB), exhibition Sr. Dr. Hildegardis Wulff
4. ↑ ^{a b} www.hilfswerk-der-banater-schwaben.de ( Memento from March 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), exhibitions
5. ↑ www.leo-bw.de , First Hildegardis Day in the Lioba Monastery Günterstal
6. ↑ www.morgenweb.de , Christine Maisch-Straub: Life between monastery and dungeon , Mannheimer Morgen from April 1, 2010