Joseph Martin Nathan

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Joseph Martin Nathan
Memorial plaque in Branitz .

Joseph Martin Nathan (* 11. November 1867 in Stolzmütz (since 1945 Tłustomosty ) County Leobschütz ; † 30 January 1947 in Opava ) was Commissioner for the in Silesia lying Prussian share of the Archdiocese of Olomouc and from 1943 auxiliary bishop in Olomouc and titular bishop of Arycanda . He earned special services through the construction and operation of the Branitz sanatoriums and nursing homes, in which up to 2000 patients were treated at times. 1913–1918 he was a member of the Reichstag for the constituency of Leobschütz .

Life

His parents were the teacher Joseph Nathan and Antonie, née Odersky. When Joseph was two years old, his father was transferred to Ludgierzowitz in the Hultschiner Ländchen as school principal . There Joseph attended elementary school and then the grammar school in Leobschütz . After graduating from high school in 1887 at the grammar school in Ratibor , he studied theology for one semester in Freiburg . There he joined the Brisgovia Catholic Student Union. After a year of military service, he continued studying theology at the University of Breslau , which he completed in 1890 with the second state examination. On June 23, 1891, in Breslau , he received the sacrament of ordination through Prince-Bishop Georg von Kopp . After a brief activity as chaplain in Sabschütz (today Zawiszyce ) near Leobschütz, he was transferred to Branitz (today Branice ) in July 1892 , where he was appointed pastor in 1899. From the beginning he turned to the sick and needy in Branitz. After he had built a house there in 1897 for the Sisters of Mary, who were to be entrusted with the care of the sick, he laid the foundation stone for the Branitz sanatoriums and nursing homes in the same year. In 1902/03 the house for the mentally ill was put into operation. The building complex, which is surrounded by parks, was laid out in a pavilion style. On the ten hectare site there was also a large ballroom, a central kitchen, a craftsman's yard with its own workshops, as well as a steam laundry, a bakery, a mill, a butcher's and a gardening shop. The sick and needy were fed by the acquisition of the manors Burg-Branitz and Krug (today Dzbańce ). In 1908 Joseph Martin Nathan acquired the Rochusbad near Neisse , which later served as a novitiate for the Sisters of Mary. For the recovery of the Sisters of Mary, he acquired in Ladek the house Caritas and for the doctors of the mental hospital he built homes. For orphaned and endangered children, he founded the St. Raphael monastery at Branitz Castle (now Branice-Zamek ). The construction of a research institute for brain and nervous diseases planned by him could not be realized because of the takeover of power by the National Socialists .

In addition to his extensive pastoral and charitable tasks, Joseph Martin Nathan was a member of the Reichstag for the Leobschütz constituency from 1913 to 1918 .

As early as 1916 he was appointed commissioner for the Prussian portion of the Archdiocese of Olomouc located in Silesia. The commissariat was established as early as 1742, when large parts of the duchies of Opava and Jägerndorf fell to Prussia after the First Silesian War . It consisted of the deaneries Leobschütz , Branitz , Katscher and Hultschin . In 1924 Joseph Martin Nathan was appointed Vicar General in Olomouc for this share and at the same time by Pope Benedict XV. to his house prelate . In 1926 Pope Pius XI. promotion to apostolic protonotary .

After the Munich Agreement , with which the Sudetenland was annexed to the German Reich in 1938, the Archbishop of Olomouc, Leopold Prečan, transferred the management of the Sudeten German areas of the Archdiocese of Olomouc to Joseph Martin Nathan. Thus 26 deaneries with 735,558 Catholics were subordinate to him. To cope with this task, Nathan set up a pastoral office to which he called clergymen from the areas under his control.

On April 17, 1943 he was appointed auxiliary bishop in Olomouc and titular bishop of Arycanda . The episcopal ordination by Maximilian Kaller , whose father came from Branitz, took place on June 6th of the same year in the Branitz asylum basilica built under Nathan; Co-consecrators were the coadjutor of Meissen , Henry Wienken , and the Breslau Bishop Joseph Ferche .

During the years of the National Socialist rule, Nathan tried to save as many of the patients entrusted to him from euthanasia as possible by sending them home - nevertheless, some of the patients in Sonnenstein were murdered. In the Troppau Gestapo he was therefore listed as a persona ingratissima . Due to the war, a hospital had to be set up in part of the Branitz institution building as early as 1941 . Since Branitz was fought over during the last weeks of the war, parts of the sanatorium and nursing home were destroyed in an air raid in the spring of 1945. Due to a military eviction order, all ambulatory sick people had to leave the institution on April 1, 1945. A total of 600 sick people and sisters left Branitz in the direction of Freudenthal . They were accompanied by Joseph Martin Nathan, who after the end of the war and the associated transition from Silesia to Poland returned to Branitz with the sisters on June 5, 1945 in order to save his life's work. Although he arranged for emergency roofing of the destroyed buildings, among other things, he was removed from office by Archbishop August Hlond in September 1945 and the administration of the Olomouc share now in Poland was transferred to the Apostolic Administrator of Opole , Bolesław Kominek . On December 21, 1946, Joseph Martin Nathan was expelled by the Polish authorities. Although he was ill and had a high fever, he was taken to the border between Wiechowice ( Wehowitz ) and Vávrovice ( Wawrowitz ) in a car and asked to go to Troppau . There he died six weeks later in the Marianum . With great sympathy from the population, he was buried on February 4, 1947 by the Auxiliary Bishop Stanislav Zela of Olomouc in the Opava municipal cemetery. In attendance were Cathedral Chapter Ulrich Karlik from the Olomouc Archbishop Consistory and other representatives of the Olomouc Cathedral Chapter, as well as the Apostolic Administrator for the Czech part of the Archdiocese of Wroclaw, Prelate Franz Onderek, representative of the Olomouc and Weidenau Seminary, the Collegiate Chapter of Kremspau as well as representatives of the City of Tropea. A transfer of the deceased to the institution cemetery in Branitz, as requested by him during his lifetime, was not possible for political reasons. After efforts by the Branice municipality, the remains of Nathan were brought back to his place of work in 2014.

In 2009 an exhibition about the life and work of Joseph Martin Nathan was shown in the District Museum of Głubczyce .

literature

  • Eduard Beigel: Leobschützer Heimatbuch . Munich 1950, pp. 113-118
  • Herbert Fritz: wearing colors - professing colors, 1938 - 1945. Catholic corporates in resistance and persecution . Austrian Association for Student History, Vienna 2013, pp. 441–442.
  • Wolfgang Grocholl: Joseph Martin Nathan . In: Schlesische Lebensbilder, 7th volume, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-7995-6198-6 , pp. 292-303.
  • Wolfgang Grocholl: Joseph Martin Nathan: caritas Christi urget nos: život a dílo muže překračujícího hranice . Matice slezská; Biskupství ostravsko-opavské, Opava; Ostrava 2002, ISBN 80-903055-1-2 .
  • Benedykt Pospiszyl: Bp. Joseph Martin Nathan: Fundacja NMP w Branicach w latach 1904-1949 . ID PROJECT, Branice 2012, ISBN 978-83-934702-0-4 .
  • Benedykt Pospiszyl: Józef Martin Nathan - biskup pogranicza i jego dzieło . Gmina Branice, Branice, 2005.
  • Benedykt Pospiszyl: Monografia parafii Wniebowzięcia Najświętszej Maryi Panny w Branicach 1248–2011 . ID PROJECT, Branice 2012, ISBN 978-83-934702-4-2 .
  • Hieronim Śliwiński, et al. Biskup Józef Marcin Nathan: Powrót do Branic . ZYGZAK Spec. No. 179 - listopad 2014. Samodzielny Wojewódzki Szpital dla Nerwowo i Psychicznie Chorych w Branicach & Wojewódzki Specjalistyczny Zespół Neuropsychiatryczny w Opolu, Branice, 2014.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ JERZY PIETRZAK - DZIAŁALNOŚĆ KARD. AUGUSTA HLONDA JAKO WYSŁANNIKA PAPIESKIEGO NA ZIEMIACH ODZYSKANYCH W 1945 R. ( Memento from July 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) In: tchr.org
  2. ↑ Branice CHCA sprowadzić for Czech Prochy biskupa Nathana. In: nto.pl. August 13, 2009, accessed January 8, 2015 (Polish).
  3. ^ Michael Rademacher: German administrative history from the unification of the empire in 1871 to the reunification in 1990. History of the Diocese of Olomouc. (Online material for the dissertation, Osnabrück 2006).
  4. ^ Konrad Hartelt: Ferdinand Piontek (1878-1963). Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar, 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-20143-2 , p. 231. Restricted preview in the Google book search
  5. ↑ http://branice.pl/811/biskup-jozef-nathan-po-67-latach-wrocil-z-opawy-do-branic.html (Polish)
personal data
SURNAME Nathan, Joseph Martin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nathan, Josef Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German clergyman and auxiliary bishop, builder of the Branitz sanatoriums and nursing homes and politician, MdR
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Stolzmütz (today Tłustomosty), Leobschütz district
DATE OF DEATH January 30, 1947
Place of death Troppau