Michael Buchberger

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Bishop Buchberger (1928)
Buchberger's coat of arms as Bishop of Regensburg from 1950 after his appointment as Archbishop
Buchberger (far right in the picture) in 1916 during a visit to the front with Cardinal Franziskus von Bettinger (center) to the Bavarian division pastor Jakob Weis (far left)

Michael Buchberger (born June 8, 1874 in Jetzendorf ; † June 10, 1961 in Straubing ) was the 74th bishop of the Diocese of Regensburg since it was founded in 739.

Life

Buchberger received on June 29 in 1900 in Archdiocese of Munich and Freising , the ordination . In November 1923, Pope Pius XI appointed him titular bishop of Athribis and appointed him auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising. The episcopal ordination donated to him on January 20, 1924 Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber ; Co-consecrators were Johann Baptist Hierl , auxiliary bishop in Regensburg , and Adam Senger , auxiliary bishop in Bamberg . From March 12, 1928 until his death, he headed the diocese of Regensburg . Buchberger, well versed in church history , was involved in the publication of several church encyclopedias, for which he also worked as an author. From 1907 to 1912 he published the Kirchliche Handlexikon , from 1930 to 1938 the successor, the Lexicon for Theology and Church . The ten-volume work started with 80,000 articles.

Anti-Judaist positions can be found in the Kirchlicher Handlexikon, which he was responsible for as editor, and in a similar way also in the first edition (1930) of the Lexicon for Theology and Church , which he published . He also expressed understanding for this position in his own writings. When the social climate in Regensburg was already very poisoned in 1931, Buchberger expressed himself anti-Semitic with regard to the local economic conditions and thus reinforced the widespread anti-Semitism in the population. In his book Is There Still Salvation , Buchberger claimed that “the press [HiO], which continuously undermines the religious and moral life of the people” and “which in part literally lives from the struggle against Christian belief and customs”, for good Part is in Jewish hands.

“Many Jewish feathers sinned and continue to sin until today through lax and shallow, anti-religious and anti-Christian literature thrown among the people en masse, which gnaws at the moral marrow of our people, especially our youth. [...] Overpowering Jewish capital dominates economic life and especially trade in a way that is damaging to the common good and yet very dangerous, so that the smaller German businessman, craftsman and entrepreneur simply can no longer keep up and therefore has to perish . In all cities, large Jewish department stores attract business and turnover because the larger capital always brings the smaller to a standstill. It must be stated quite openly that this means an injustice to the people as a whole, severely harms the common good and the people's welfare, destroys thousands of livelihoods and must accumulate an awful lot of bitterness. To defend oneself against these excesses in a right and measured way is a kind of just self-defense. "

Buchberger defamed, other social groups and minorities as a church enemies "as peddlers and agents year after year moving the whole world." They are "always meet in meetings of communists, socialists, freethinkers , Adventists , serious Bible students , fire undertakers and all possible sects . “The Regensburg theologian Andreas Angerstorfer criticizes that Buchberger's anti-Semitic book Is There Still a Rescue from 1931 was published again in a second unchanged edition after the war.

When the Regensburg cathedral preacher Johann Maier , who on April 23, 1945 publicly called for the city of Regensburg to be handed over to the US troops without a fight, was arrested by police officers and sentenced by a court martial that evening for undermining military strength and immediately hanged , Buchberger remained silent and stopped hiding in an air raid shelter .

After the war, Buchberger tried to rebuild his diocese. Immediately after the end of the war in 1945, 95 new charitable institutions were founded. In the following years 175 new church buildings were built.

In the holy year 1950 he received from Pope Pius XII. the personal title of archbishop .

Evaluation of Buchberger's work in NS

The well-known Nazi researcher Wolfgang Benz sees the “Work of the Regensburger Domspatzen” supported by Buchberger as an example “of the everyday Catholic compromise between church and state, piety and commerce”. Buchberger had “had good relations with the Reich Chancellery for a long time.” This was “a story of adaptation and conformity that characterizes church life in the National Socialist state.”

A series of articles geared towards urban history comes to the conclusion that Bishop Michael Buchberger welcomed National Socialism like no other church hierarch and exploited victims of the Nazi regime after the end of the war.

For the theologian Klaus Unterburger , who teaches Catholic church history in Regensburg , there is no doubt that "in abstracto Buchberger's view of the world and politics shows considerable areas of divergence from National Socialism" and that his concrete attitude towards National Socialism was "consistently negative and oppositional". Nevertheless, there was "consensus or at least points of contact" in other areas, for example in massive anti-communism, "but also certain anti-Jewish stereotypes that it developed especially in 1931".

Honors

literature

Web links

Commons : Michael Buchberger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Buchberger (Ed.): Kirchliches Handlexikon. A reference book on the entire field of theology and its auxiliary sciences. 2 volumes, Allgemeine Verlags-Gesellschaft, Munich 1907 and 1912.
  2. ↑ Olaf Blaschke : The “pianic” century as the heyday of Catholic anti-Semitism (1846–1945) - and the blossoms of Catholic apologetics today. In: Hans Erler, Ansgar Koschel (ed.): The dialogue between Jews and Christians: Attempts at the conversation after Auschwitz. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-593-36346-1 , pp. 115–126 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  3. ↑ Olaf Blaschke: Catholicism and anti-Semitism in the German Empire. 2nd Edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-52535785-0 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  4. ↑ Thomas Breuer: The attitude of the Catholic Church to the persecution of the Jews in the Third Reich. (2003)
  5. ↑ Othmar Plöckinger: History of a book: Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" 1922-1945. Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-486-57956-8 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
  6. ↑ Antonia Leugers : The German Bishops and National Socialism (II). 2005
  7. ^ Andreas Angerstorfer: The Jewish business world . In: Kunst und Gewerbeverein Regensburg eV (ed.): It is a pleasure to live! The 20s in Regensburg . Dr. Peter Morsbach Verlag = Regensburg, 2009, ISBN 978-3-937527-23-9 , pp. 59 .
  8. ^ Michael Buchberger, Is there still a rescue , Pustet Verlag Regensburg, oJ [1931] pp. 97-98.
  9. ↑ Michael Buchberger, Is There Still a Rescue , p. 63.
  10. ↑ Angerstorfer, 2009, p. 61.
  11. ↑ Werner Johann Chrobak: Cathedral preacher Dr. Johann Maier - a martyr for Regensburg. New research and studies on the 40th anniversary of death. In: Negotiations of the historical association for Upper Palatinate and Regensburg Volume 125 (1985), ISSN  0342-2518 , pp. 453-484 ( urn : nbn: de: bvb: 355-ubr00050-0455-7 ).
  12. ↑ Wolfgang Benz: In the Resistance: Size and Failure of the Opposition to Hitler , Munich 2019, p. 167.
  13. ↑ Robert Werner: "With God for Germany": Notes on Bishop Michael Buchberger , Regensburg 2017 (report on regensburg-digital from 2017).
  14. ↑ Klaus Unterburger: “Is there still a rescue?” Michael Buchberger 1874–1961, Bishop of Regensburg 1927–1961 , in: Maria Anna Zumholz, Michael Hirschfeld (ed.): Between pastoral care and politics. Catholic bishops in the Nazi era , Münster 2018, p. 576f.
personal data
SURNAME Buchberger, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German clergyman, 74th Bishop of Regensburg
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Jetzendorf
DATE OF DEATH June 10, 1961
Place of death Straubing