Lothar Groppe

Lothar Groppe SJ (born July 30, 1927 in Münster ; † November 17, 2019 in Berlin ) was a German Jesuit and military pastor as well as a publicist .

Life

Lothar Groppe was the son of the resistance fighter Theodor Groppe . He was demoted as Lieutenant General of the Wehrmacht in 1942, expelled from the Wehrmacht and arrested by the Gestapo in August 1944.

After the war, Lothar Groppe studied law , entered the Jesuit order in 1948 and was ordained a priest on July 31, 1959 . He taught at grammar schools, worked in the military chaplaincy from 1962 and from 1963 to 1971 as a lecturer and military dean at the command academy of the Bundeswehr in Hamburg, which trains officers general and admiral staff . From 1973 to 1987 he held lectures and seminars for the Austrian general staff courses. For a while he headed the German section of Vatican Radio . From 1982 to 2006 he worked as a hospital chaplain in Berlin and Bad Pyrmont , then until the end of 2007 as a chaplain in Berlin. In the meantime he lived in Cologne-Mülheim and as a pastor in the mother-child clinic “Maria Meeresstern” in Niendorf . Since August 2015 he has lived in the Peter-Faber-Haus, the senior citizens' home of his order in Berlin-Kladow , where he died in November 2019. His grave is in the burial place of the Jesuits in the Catholic cathedral cemetery St. Hedwig in Berlin-Reinickendorf .

Act

Groppe was active as a journalist and mainly dealt with religious, historical and political topics. He published a variety of articles, including a. in Theological , Catholic Education , Young Freedom and Soldier in the People .

Until they were discontinued, he often wrote for the Catholic youth magazine Komm Mit and in the calendar or yearbook of the same name, as he was a close friend of the publisher Günter Stiff , who died in 2002 . Later Groppe often published on questions of faith in the church review . A focus of his work were contributions to the church struggle in the Third Reich and comments on the criticism of Pope Pius XII.

With Caspar von Schrenck-Notzing , Gerhard Löwenthal , Christa Meves and Hans Graf Huyn ( CSU ) he was in charge of the “Conservative Office” in Bielefeld .

In the Ostpreußenblatt , the Märkische Zeitung and in lectures, Groppe stood up for the cause of the expellees and took a position against what he believed to be the instrumentalisation of Auschwitz . Together with Franz Uhle-Wettler and the State and Economic Policy Society (SWG), he supported the criticism of the Wehrmacht exhibition .

Positions

In 1980 Groppe worked out a study on combating terrorists “with soldiers from the troops and the general staff” . This study advocates the use of the Bundeswehr against terrorists. Furthermore, it is u. a. considered reintroducing the death penalty for terrorists or using the threat of the execution of imprisoned terrorists as leverage in the event of terrorist hostage-taking, as well as refusing or discontinuing (medical) aid for injured terrorists.

Publications

• Theodor Groppe (1882–1973) - The »Black General«. A German soldier fighting for law and morality , Vienna 1977
• The Archbishop's Aid for Non-Aryan Catholics in Vienna , Vienna 1978
• The position of the Catholic Church on war and peace , Vienna 1981
• Theodor Groppe, the “black general” as a resistance fighter , Vienna 1985
• Friedrich von Spee . Priest, poet, fighter for human rights (on the 350th anniversary of death) , Vienna 1986
• P. Michael Pro SJ (1891-1927). A Mexican rascal becomes a priest and martyr , Munich 1988
• Was Pius XII. Anti-semite? In: Theologisches , Vol. 32, Issue 3 / 4–2002, pp. 115–118 ( online )
• On the beatification of Cardinal Graf von Galen (1878–1946) on October 9, 2005 , Catholic Education, special edition, Essen 10/2005
• The “black general” struggle for justice and morals. In: New Magazine for Hanau History 2008, pp. 193–222
• Anti-Semitism must not remain without contradiction. In: Theologisches , Heft 1 / 2–2009
• Church work for persecuted Jews in the Third Reich. The Archbishop's Aid for Non-Aryan Catholics in Vienna. The documentation of Father Ludger Born SJ edited and supplemented by Father Lothar Groppe SJ. Bad Schussenried 2016, ISBN 978-3-87336-582-7

Posts in:

• Klaus Motschmann (Ed.): Farewell to the West? The modern in crisis. Leopold Stocker Verlag , Graz ISBN 978-3-7020-0798-0 .
• Dieter Stein (Ed.): A life for Germany. Commemorative letter for Wolfgang Venohr 1925–2005. Berlin 2005, Verlag Junge Freiheit, ISBN 978-3-929886-24-5 .
• Georg Ratzinger , Roger Zörb (Hrsg.): Festschrift of the Society for the Promotion of Public Responsibility e. V. for the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI. - For my 80th birthday. Lünen 2007.
• Klaus Motschmann (Ed.): Testimony and Resistance - The Christian in the cultural and church struggles of our time. Uhldingen-Mühlhofen 2007.
• Thomas Marin (ed.): Theodor Groppe - the "Black General" - A Catholic soldier fighting for law and morals. Bad Schussenried 2008, ISBN 978-3-87336-909-2 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Lothar Groppe in the catalog of the German National Library
• Lothar Groppe: The Pope from Germany: From Guardian of Faith to Shepherd of the Church. In: catholic.info. April 25, 2007 . 
• Lothar Groppe: media fight against religion and church. (mp4 video, 279 MB, 55:24 minutes) In: Gloria.tv . October 22, 2009 . 

Individual evidence

1. ^ Obituary notice Lothar Groppe SJ , FAZ from November 21, 2019
2. ↑ Hamburger Abendblatt of February 2, 1971, p. 6.
3. ↑ Felizitas Küble: We mourn for Father Lothar Groppe SJ. In: Charismatism Blog. November 17, 2019, accessed November 17, 2019 . 
4. ^ Father Lothar Groppe SJ died in Berlin. In: Jesuiten.org. November 18, 2019, accessed November 28, 2019 . 
5. ↑ "Only a dead terrorist cannot do any harm". In: Der Spiegel 43/1980. October 20, 1980. Retrieved November 19, 2019 .