Joseph Godehard Machens

Joseph Godehard Machens

Joseph Godehard Machens (born August 29, 1886 in Hildesheim ; † August 14, 1956 there ) was a German Roman Catholic clergyman and from June 22, 1934 until his death, Bishop of Hildesheim .

Life

Machens attended the Episcopal Gymnasium Josephinum and was top of the class there except in singing and sports. After graduating from high school, he studied theology in Innsbruck , Münster and Bonn . On 19 March 1911 he received by Adolf Cardinal Bertram , the ordination . As a chaplain , he wrote a doctoral thesis on church history and then came to the Vicariate General , where he attracted attention for his diligence, but made few friends. Nevertheless, the Hildesheim Cathedral Chapter elected him in 1934 to succeed Bishop Nikolaus Bares , who had been appointed to the Berlin bishopric. On June 22, 1934 he was appointed by Pope Pius XI. appointed Bishop of Hildesheim and on July 25, 1934 he received the episcopal ordination by Cardinal Bertram; Co- consecrators were the Bishop of Osnabrück Hermann Wilhelm Berning and the Münster Bishop Clemens August von Galen .

As a bishop, Machens initially behaved cautiously towards state power. In the Second World War , he initially assumed a just war and a final victory . In a pastoral word of September 3, 1939, he wrote: “Do your duty to the leader, the people and the fatherland! Fulfill it in the field and at home! ”Later he viewed the effects of the war as a personal punishment for his patriotism and as a“ collective fine ”by the Germans for National Socialism . After Pope Pius XI. In 1937 he had published the encyclical With Burning Concern , he changed his policy fundamentally. He developed into an opponent of the National Socialist worldview, who sharply criticized the state power for violating human rights . Above all , he called for the right to life for all people. As a result, he was monitored by the Gestapo and summoned for interrogation in 1941. Members of the SA and SS as well as members of the NSDAP attempted to escalate in a targeted manner at church events in Hildesheim and the surrounding area by mobbing against Machens and his companions . The Gauführer recently threatened Machens openly on the Hildesheim market square, but this did not prevent him from continuing to campaign for Jews , " Gypsies ", people with disabilities and members of other persecuted groups. In 1956 the Jewish community called him a "friend and great Catholic bishop".

The bombing of Hildesheim on March 22, 1945, lived in the basement making the bishop house and then sat down soon to rebuild the city. In 1949 he spoke out vehemently against the dismantling of the former Reichswerke Hermann Göring in Salzgitter . He defended the Catholic denomination schools against the then Lower Saxony state government and thus earned the respect of the federal government . Shortly before his death he was appointed by Pope Pius XII. appointed archbishop . The exequies were headed by Cardinal Joseph Frings from Cologne .

Bishop Machens was buried in the southern arm of the transept of Hildesheim Cathedral near the Bernward column . In the course of the redesign of the cathedral, his remains were reburied in the newly created bishop's crypt on November 14, 2012.

literature

• Joseph Godehard Machens , in Internationales Biographisches Archiv 41/1956 of October 1, 1956, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
• Renate Kumm: The Diocese of Hildesheim in the post-war period. Investigation of a diaspora diocese from the end of the Second World War to the Second Vatican Council (1945 to 1965). Hahnsche Buchhandlung Verlag, Hannover 2002, pp. 23-25

Web links

Commons : Joseph Godehard Machens  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Joseph Godehard Machens in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry on Joseph Godehard Machens on catholic-hierarchy.org ; Retrieved April 23, 2017.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ “We greet you all as the SA of Jesus Christ and the SS of the Church!” - Quotes from leading clergy about Adolf Hitler and National Socialism
2. ↑ New burial place . ( Memento from January 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive )

predecessor	Office	successor
Nicholas cash	Bishop of Hildesheim 1934 - 1956	Heinrich Maria Janssen