Lorenz Pieper

Lorenz Pieper (born May 15, 1875 in Eversberg ; † January 30, 1951 in Meschede ) was a Catholic priest. He was an early supporter and propagandist of the Völkisch movement and National Socialism . As an institutional chaplain in Warstein , he rejected euthanasia as part of the T4 campaign and began to break away from National Socialism.

Life

Pieper came from a large family from Eversberg. His brother was August Pieper , the head of the People's Association for Catholic Germany .

Lorenz Pieper studied philosophy and theology at the Leokonvikt in Paderborn and in Freiburg im Breisgau . During his studies he became a member of the KDStV Teutonia Friborg in the CV in 1896 . In 1899 he was appointed priest ordained . He worked as a religion teacher in Wattenscheid . Around 1903, he studied economics in Berlin and Munich and received his doctorate at Lujo Brentano with the work The location of the miners in the Ruhr Dr. rer. pole. Already during his studies he came into contact with the direction of a national and anti-ultramontane Catholicism .

Because of his dissertation, he was considered an expert on miners' relationships and commented on related socio-political issues or during the great strikes in the Ruhr area in various magazine articles. Between 1903 and 1917 he worked for the Volksverein for Catholic Germany in Mönchengladbach .

He was vicar in Hüsten from 1917 to 1923 . He was also active on the right-wing political spectrum. He was a member of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund and was a leader in the local Young German Order . Not only the local Jewish community but also the mayor Rudolf Gunst lodged a complaint with the responsible vicariate against his anti- republic and anti-Jewish statements even from the pulpit .

Pieper joined the NSDAP in 1922 or 1923 . From Easter 1923 he lived in Munich and was in close contact with Adolf Hitler . He worked as a propagandist for the party. In the summer of 1923 in particular, he played an important role. He won new members in the Catholic regions in southern Germany with the use of a language inspired by Catholicism. Even after his return to Westphalia, he remained loyal to Hitler and described his release from prison in 1924 as a Christmas gift from God. Later he was in contact with Hitler by letter and was honored with the Golden Party Badge .

On October 23, 1923, Pieper took up the position of parish vicar in Wehrden (Weser) , initially as a deputy, and from April 3, 1924 on, full-time . In September 1928 he left Wehrden and became parish vicar in Menden-Halingen . There, too, he again agitated from the pulpit for his political views. This was all the more effective because otherwise he took his pastoral profession very seriously and was very popular with the population due to his charity and willingness to help. He made his economic knowledge available to those seeking advice and thus saved a few small landowners from bankruptcy.

He was in close contact with the folk writers Maria Kahle and Josefa Berens-Totenohl . He himself wrote for the Trutznachtigall of the Sauerland Heimatbund and had already written in 1920 about the Sauerlanders and their alleged tribal peculiarities in the folkish sense.

Because of his political positions, he repeatedly came into conflict with fellow officials and higher church authorities. Finally, on January 15, 1933, he was removed from his position as parish vicar in Menden-Halingen , and the Archdiocese of Paderborn forbade him from any political activity . He returned to Eversberg and in 1934 co-founded the Eversberger Heimatmuseum . After your brief activity as a school councilor in Arnsberg , he became an institutional pastor in Marienthal near Münster at the end of 1934 and from 1936 an institutional chaplain in Warstein.

Despite his National Socialist sentiments, in 1941 he wrote a protest to the Warsteiner clinic doctors, clergymen from other clinics and the German bishops against the T4 campaign. For this reason, he was again removed from office. He asked relatives of patients to take their relatives home. His use led to a party trial and in 1942 to his forced retirement. After the end of the war, he initiated the first investigations into the doctors and administrative officials responsible for euthanasia in Westphalia. Until his death he lived under the most modest of conditions in the local history museum in Eversberg. He was allowed to celebrate services at the side altars of the church in Eversberg; He was forbidden to preach, however.

literature

• Werner Saure: Dr. Lorenz Pieper, a personality in conflict. In: Sauerland , 4/1993 pp. 130-131.
• Reinhard Richter: National thinking in Catholicism of the Weimar Republic. Münster et al., 2000.
• Derek Hastings: Catholicism and the roots of Nazism: religious identity and national socialism. Oxford, 2010.
• Peter Bürger: The national wing of the Sauerland homeland movement. About Josefa Berens-Totenohl, Georg Nellius, Lorenz Pieper and Maria Kahle. In: daunlots. (PDF; 16.2 MB) Internet contributions from the christine-koch-mundart archive at the eslohe museum. No. 60. Eslohe 2013

Web links

• Literature by and about Lorenz Pieper in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Complete directory of the CV The honorary members, old men and students of the Cartell Association (CV) of the cath. German student associations. 1912, Strasbourg i. Els. 1912, p. 149.
2. ^ Rolf Neuhaus: Labor disputes, doctors' strikes. Social reformer. Berlin, 1986 p. 43.
3. ^ Derek Hastings: Catholicism and the roots of Nazism: religious identity and national socialism. Oxford, 2010 p. 169.
4. ↑ Willy Knoppe: Un bey alles is wuat - a search for orientation in a regional form of language . Göttingen 2005, p. 278.
5. ↑ Franz-Werner Kersting : The Nazi euthanasia as a challenge to the culture of peace. P. 6 Online version ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 50 kB).