Jean du Rivau

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jean-Louis-Marie du Rivau (born February 20, 1903 in Le Mans , † January 3, 1970 in Paris ) was a French Jesuit priest , resistance fighter and military chaplain . He was the founder of the German-language magazine “Documents” and its Francophone complementary partner “Documents” in 1945, both of which have been published to this day (since 2010 bilingual in one issue) for the benefit of the German-French dialogue. Rivau was one of the co-founders of the equally motivated Comité français d'échanges avec l'Allemagne nouvelle in 1948 , along with other French intellectuals .

Life

Du Rivau became a novice among the Jesuits on November 12, 1921 in Beaumont-sur-Oise . He was ordained a priest on August 24, 1936 in Lyon . During the Second World War , du Rivau became involved in the Resistance from the very beginning , was imprisoned and deported to the concentration camps of Mauthausen and Dachau .

In 1944 du Rivau was transferred to Offenburg as a chaplain of the French armed forces . Immediately after the end of the war in May 1945, he witnessed the French and German communists embracing and voicing their political goals together, even though there was a strict ban on fraternization at the time . In view of this scene, Du Rivau appeared asked the Christian-influenced French and Germans to initiate a dialogue aimed at reconciliation.

From this point on, he expanded his duties as a military chaplain to German prisoners of war and German civilians, and forwarded these letters and parcels via the military infrastructure of the French occupation zone .

For his magazines "Documents" and "Documents", founded in August 1945, Jean du Rivau did not rely on the structures of the French occupation organs in the French zone of Germany, but instead founded a civil organization at the end of 1945 that promised more self-sufficiency Society for supranational cooperation (GÜZ) with the Offenburg center Center d'études culturelles, économiques et sociales (CECES), from 1947 with its French counterpart, the Bureau international de liaison et de documentation (BILD). Without any knowledge of the German language, he also founded a study center in the same year. It was his intention not to write joint texts, but to translate the German and French texts 1: 1 in order to be able to convey the intellectual and socio-cultural content unaltered to the readers in the other country. In this way it should be made possible “to know the people, the actors in political life, and to understand them deeply”.

After the experiences with the war and the French resistance movement Resistance , the reconciliation with the respective war opponent should take place on the basis of mutual information and cooperation in order to enable the understanding of the neighboring countries.

In August 1947 he invited the first German-French authors' meeting to Lahr , in 1948 he placed the first German young people in French families and then young French people in German refugee camps . In October 1948, another Franco-German intellectual meeting took place in Royaumont .

In 1954, du Rivau was the first Frenchman to receive the Federal Cross of Merit for his services to German-French understanding . In France he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Legion of Honor (Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur) by Robert Schuman . In  1967, du Rivau held a mass in the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in memory of the late Konrad Adenauer .

Du Rivau remained president of the Society for Transnational Cooperation until his death.

Works

  • Paul Botta, Mario von Galli, Jean du Rivau, Society for Supranational Cooperation (ed.): France's economy. Publishing the documents. Cologne 1961.
  • Paul Botta, Mario von Galli, Jean du Rivau, Society for Supranational Cooperation (eds.): French culture 1961. Publishing house of the documents. Cologne 1961.
  • Paul Botta, Mario von Galli, Jean du Rivau, Society for Supranational Cooperation (eds.): French culture 1962. Publishing house of the documents. Cologne 1962.

literature

  • Franz Ansprenger, Louis Aragon : In the footsteps of Jean du Rivau: 40 years of German-French dialogue in articles and quotations. Edited by Europa-Union . Documents. Journal for the German-French dialogue. Special edition 1985
  • Martin Strickmann: L'Allemagne nouvelle contre l'Allemagne éternelle. The French intellectuals and the Franco-German understanding 1944-1950. Peter Lang. Frankfurt 2004 ISBN 3-631-52195-2
  • Institute for Foreign Relations , Inga Fischer: The Franco-German cultural relations from 1945 until today. online at the Institute for Foreign Relations
  • Wolfgang Bergsdorf, Manuela Spindler, Wolfram Vogel, Heinrich H. Kill, Sergej Lochthofen (eds.): Hereditary friends. Germany and France in the 21st century. Bauhaus University, Dessau 2007 ISBN 3-86068-304-7

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Documents / Documents - Geschichte / Histoire on: dokumente-documents.info
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Bergsdorf, Manuela Spindler, Wolfram Vogel, Heinrich H. Kill, Sergej Lochthofen (eds.): Erbfreunde. Germany and France in the 21st century. P. 13 (PDF; 890 kB) on: db-thueringen.de
  3. ^ Jean du Rivau on: konradblatt-online.de
  4. ↑ Comité Franco-Allemand de recherches sur l'histoire de la France et de l'Allemagne aux XIXème et XXème siècles (ed.): Bulletin No. 21 (October 2011) Revues franco-allemandes p. 18  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on: historikerkomitee.de@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.historikerkomitee.de  
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Bergsdorf, Manuela Spindler, Wolfram Vogel, Heinrich H. Kill, Sergej Lochthofen (eds.): Erbfreunde. Germany and France in the 21st century. P. 4 (PDF; 890 kB) on: db-thueringen.de
  6. ↑ Documents – Documents: An important contribution to German-French understanding on: de-fra.com
  7. ↑ Michel Gurvel: Le fondateur Jean du Rivau. In: Documents. No. 45 (1990) I, pp. 125-131
  8. ^ Robert Picht, Henrik Uterwedde: Shaping the European future - new tasks for the Franco-German Institute. (Dossier 50 years DFI) p. 199 (PDF; 1.6 MB) on: dokumente-documents.info
  9. ↑ Comité Franco-Allemand de recherches sur l'histoire de la France et de l'Allemagne aux XIXème et XXème siècles (ed.): Bulletin No. October 21, 2011: Revues franco-allemandes. A selection on p. 22 , at the Franco-German Historical Committee
personal data
SURNAME Rivau, Jean you
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rivau, Jean-Marie-Louis you
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French theologian and author
DATE OF BIRTH February 20, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Le Mans
DATE OF DEATH 3rd January 1970
Place of death Paris