Josef Gliebe

Josef Gliebe (born February 3, 1873 in Kukendorf , community Ebental near Gottschee , Austria-Hungary , † July 14, 1960 in Dolenja vas / Niederdorf, Yugoslavia ) was a Gottscheer Catholic priest . He did not only resistance to the resettlement of the German-speaking ethnic group of the Gottschee minority from Yugoslavia by the Nazis , but also supported the partisans.

Life

Josef Gliebe was born on February 3, 1873 in Kukendorf in the Gottscheer Land. He was later a Catholic pastor in the community of Göttenitz for many years .

After the Balkan campaign in April 1941, the Gottschee was occupied by the Italian army and became part of the Italian province of Ljubljana . The National Socialists relocated the Gottscheers from their homeland to Lower Styria , which was occupied by the Wehrmacht. The Diocesan Bishop of Ljubljana released the priests from the oath of loyalty. However, Gliebe and other Gottscheer clergymen ( Josef Eppich , Ferdinand Erker, Josef Erker, August Schauer , Josef Kraker, Josef Kreiner and Alois Perz) took a public position against the planned resettlement. Together his fellow priests Josef Kraker and some other Gottscheers collected Josef Gliebe late September and early October 1941 in Göttenitz , Rieg and measles signatures against the relocation and handed the German Consul in Ljubljana input. The National Socialist leadership of the Gottscheers under Wilhelm Lampeter , Richard Lackner , Herbert Erker and Ludwig Kren reacted, among other things, with the threat that the Italians would relocate the Gottscheers who remained at home to southern Italy or Abyssinia . This explains the failure of the campaign to stay. In the end, apart from Pastor Gliebe, only a few Slovenian families remained in Göttenitz.

During the Italian offensive in the summer of 1942, the Italian army surrounded the village of Göttenitz and rounded up the male population to find out where partisans were hiding. When the Italian officers threatened to shoot the prisoners the next time the partisans shot, Gliebe stood up for the villagers and vouched for them with his life. So he was able to obtain her release.

Gliebe ran a beekeeping in Göttenitz during the Second World War. Although the Italians had a base in Göttenitz, Gliebe supported the partisans with honey, among other things.

After Josef Kraker's departure from Rieg to Veldes on April 14, 1943, Gliebe was also responsible for the municipality of Rieg.

In 1949 all the remaining residents of Göttenitz had to leave their homes and were relocated to other villages to make way for a military restricted area. The intact Sankt-Oswald-Kirche in Göttenitz was demolished as was the Johanniskirche in Rieg. Gliebe was now pastor in Niederdorf / Dolenja vas near Reifnitz , from where he was formally responsible for the parishes in the abandoned Göttenitz and in measles / Grčarice. He succeeded in secretly moving the golden chalice and the monstrance from 1571, which is said to be the oldest in the Gottscheer Land, from Göttenitz to Dolenja vas.

Memorial plaque for Josef Gliebe on the wall of the Church of St. Peter in Prigorica

The church of St. Primus and Felician in Measles was sold under Pastor Gliebe to the LIP Ribnica timber company, who used the ruins as material for road construction, while the rectory and farm buildings were prepared for forestry purposes. In the chapel in Masereben (Grčarske Ravne) there were services for some time with a handful of participants, although other residents were hostile to them. At the time of the sale, the Masern Church was in a state of disrepair and no longer had any bells.

At his new place of work, Dolenja vas, only a few people had supported the partisan struggle, so that some referred to Gliebe as a “partisan priest”. Gliebe was awarded the Golden Badge for his collaboration with Osvobodilna Fronta . He died in Dolenja vas at the age of 87. Villagers had a plaque put up for him on St. Peter's Church.

literature

• Hans Hermann Frensing: The resettlement of the Gottscheer Germans . Oldenbourg, Munich 1970. 180 pages.
• Erich Petschauer: Century Book of Gottscheers , 1980 ( online PDF ; 1.7 MB).
• Zdravko Troha: Kočevski Nemci - partizani ('The Gottscheers - Partisans'), Kočevje, Arhiv Slovenije. Slovensko kočevarsko društvo Peter Kosler, Ljubljana 2004, ISBN 961-91287-0-2 (Slovenian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The parishes of the Gottscheer Land . Yearbook of the Diocese of Laibach, 1932 ( online )
2. ↑ Frensing (1970), p. 19
3. ↑ Erich Petschauer: Jahrhundertbuch der Gottscheer, 1980  ( 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. (PDF; 1.7 MB). P. 124.  
4. ↑ Viktor Michitsch on July 15, 1965, in Frensing (1970), p. 84.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Zdravko Troha (2004), pp. 76–79.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Mitja Ferenc (2001): Povojna usoda sakralnih objektov na nekdanjem nemškem jezikovnem območju na Kočevskem . Kronika: časopis za slovensko krajevno zgodovino 49 (1/2), pp. 123-139 ( online  ( 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 it this notice. ).  
7. ↑ Erich Petschauer: Jahrhundertbuch der Gottscheer, 1980  ( 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. (PDF; 1.7 MB). P. 110.