Josef Steinberg

Josef Steinberg (born November 24, 1904 in Cologne , † May 7, 1981 in Cologne) was a German Catholic priest , student chaplain and academy director .

Life

Apprenticeship and first years of employment

Josef Steinberg grew up in the historic old town of Cologne, after graduating from high school he studied theology at the University of Bonn and in the seminary in Cologne. In 1929 he was ordained a priest. Years as a chaplain in Düsseldorf ( St. Peter parish ) and repetent in Bonn followed. In 1935 he received his doctorate. theol. He then went on to study at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome for two years , specializing in research into the Old Testament. In 1934 Josef Steinberg published together with the theologian and cultural historian Hermann Platz (1880–1945) and the church historian Wilhelm Neuss, with episcopal authorization, the "Antmythus", a counterpart to Alfred Rosenberg's best-known work entitled "Studies on the Myth of the 20th Century". These studies were distributed in 200,000 copies and distributed throughout Germany by Catholic and Protestant parishes. Although the Gestapo searched for the authors, they were not recognized. Josef Steinberg was a member of a resistance group. 1936–1938 he participated in the development of "Herder's Laienbibel".

Student pastor

In 1943 he was called to Cologne as a student pastor. From 1945 he continued to work as a student chaplain in Bonn . He began to gather around students who were returning from the war and disaffected by Nazi ideology. His apartment at Riesstrasse 22 became a center for hundreds of people looking for advice and accommodation, hungry and cold. He helped students in need by providing food and housing, and he gave support and spiritual orientation to young people who were shaken and unsettled by war and imprisonment. In favor of student pastoral care, he renounced the originally intended habilitation in 1945/46 .

As a student pastor in Bonn, together with the student community, he played a decisive role in the decisive decisions for the Catholic student body in Hardehausen in the spring and October of 1946 and in bringing about the first General Catholic Students' Day in Limburg in 1947 . He took on central functions in the Catholic German Student Union (KDSE), e.g. For example, the long-term administration of their finances, the management of the student pastors' conference and the management of the Office for Foreign Affairs in the KDSE, which organisationally summarized the entire supraregional efforts to contact Catholic students abroad, at a time when German students abroad were not were readily welcome guests. His religious conversations, which he offered in the student cafeteria , among other places, had a convincing effect . In the student community he created biblical working groups, organized a choral school , the madrigal choir, student Caritas groups, and the student St. Vincent's Conference.

Academy Director

In 1957, Joseph Cardinal Frings appointed him director of the Thomas More Academy, founded in Honnef in 1953 . It is thanks to the negotiating skills of Josef Steinberg, who has meanwhile been appointed prelate , that the Academy was relocated to the Cardinal Schulte House in Bensberg in 1958 , which originally functioned as a seminary , but initially by the occupying power after the war was confiscated. He exercised his new role as director of the academy from 1957 to 1968 with great commitment and a wealth of ideas. "Open academy conferences" formed the core of his educational work. "The Church in Dialogue with Today's World", "On the Questionable Religious Language", "Youth in the Technical Age", "Overstretched School - Overstretched Children?" are some of the topics he took up in the 1960s. The Academy's offerings in his time also included special themed evenings for officers. He also sponsored primary and student meetings, which were organized and directed initially by Jan Jaroslav Novak, then in 1965 by Manfred Hermanns .

Even after leaving the office of director of the academy in 1968, he remained closely connected to the educational work of the academy and the archdiocese of Cologne as a clerical advisory board. The latter recognized his longstanding services by being appointed non-resident cathedral chapter .

A group of friends gave testimony to the charisma of his personality. Until his death in 1981, the former students from his Bonn student community, the "Old Bonners", met every year. For his 70th birthday, the district created a commemorative publication "Bonner Studentengemeinde mit Josef Steinberg 1945–1957", a clear historical document for the spiritual and religious awakening in the student generation after the Second World War.

Publications

• Josef Steinberg: The Catholic student youth. In: Festschrift for the jubilee year of Cardinal and Archbishop Joseph Frings. Verlag Wort und Werk, Cologne 1957, pp. 59–62.
• Bernhard Bergmann / Josef Steinberg (ed. In connection with the Central Committee of German Catholics): In Memoriam Wilhelm Böhler. Memories and encounters. Bachem-Verlag, Cologne 1965.
• Heinrich Lützeler / Josef Steinberg: Cheerful Christians on the Rhine. Already a miracle! Herder-Verlag, Freiburg i.Br. 1979, 5th ed. 1983.

literature

• Prelate Dr. Steinberg 60 years old. In: Catholic News Agency (November 23, 1964).
• Bonn Catholic student community with Josef Steinberg 1945–1957. Festschrift for the 70th birthday for Prelate Dr. theol. Josef Steinberg. Compiled by Maria Hansen, Hannegrete Limberger, Bruno P. Hoenig, Bruno Kaiser, Anton Michel, Kurt Plück, Cologne 1974 (320 pages).
• Old Bonners. Catholic student community around Josef Steinberg. Documents and texts. Compiled and with a foreword by Kurt Plück. Private printing, Bonn 1991.
• Manfred Hermanns : Prelate Dr. Josef Steinberg †. In: Die Heimstatt - Werkheft für Jugendsozialarbeit, Vol. 29 (1981), pp. 414-415.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Winfried Becker: Hermann Platz (1880-1945). In: Jürgen Aretz / Rudolf Morsey / Anton rauscher (eds.), Contemporary history in life pictures. Vol. 12. Münster: Aschendorff 2007, p. 31.
2. ^ Anton Michel: Introduction to the chronicle part. In: Bonn Catholic student community with Josef Steinberg 1945-1957. Cologne 1974, pp. 19-29.