Michael Gamper (priest)

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Michael Gamper (born February 7, 1885 in Prissian , † April 15, 1956 in Bolzano ) was a priest and publicist as well as canon of the Bolzano collegiate chapter . His commitment to the German-speaking ethnic group in South Tyrol and his attitude towards fascism and National Socialism is particularly important .

Life

One of the first editions of the Volksbote edited by Michael Gamper , No. 4, October 2, 1919

Gamper was born in Prissian, municipality of Tesimo , as the son of the blacksmith Michael Anton Gamper (1848–1929) from Deutschnonsberg and his wife Elisabeth, née Sulzer. He was the second oldest of six siblings (another child had died young). Influenced by the German national cleric Franz Xaver Mitterer, exponent of the "German Protection Association", he attended the Benedictine grammar school in Merano and , after graduating from high school , enrolled at the University of Innsbruck (which later made him an honorary member in 1951) to study theology . There he soon joined AKV Tirolia . After graduation he attended the seminary in Trento .

Gamper initially worked as a pastor in Girlan , Altrei , Leifers and Barbian . In 1914 he was appointed canon ( canon ) in the collegiate chapter of the provost church in Bolzano. During this time he also made the acquaintance of Prelate Aemilian Schöpfer , who soon recognized Gamper's journalistic skills and urged him to take over the editing of the new South Tyrolean Volksbote (after the annexation of South Tyrol by Italy in 1919, the sale of the Tiroler Volksbote was banned) , to which he as editor quickly gave a sharply anti-social-democratic and anti-Semitic direction. In 1921 Gamper also became president of the South Tyrolean section of Tyrolia Verlag .

Headline of the Dolomites of October 29, 1932 with open homage to the 10th anniversary of Mussolini's reign

After all German print media had been banned in South Tyrol as part of the Italianization in 1925/26, he managed, with the support of the Vatican , in particular the Jesuit Pietro Tacchi Venturi, who was close to Mussolini , that the German-language daily newspaper Dolomiten and other Catholic print media could appear again in 1925, albeit around Price of pro-government reporting. In addition, in response to the Italian School Prohibition Act of October 1923 ( Lex Gentile ), he was one of the driving forces behind the re-admission of German religious education and - together with Josef Noldin , Eduard Reut-Nicolussi and Rudolf Riedl - the organization of the catacomb schools .

Gamper maintained excellent relationships with the Volksbund für das Deutschtum abroad (VDA), a Nazi cultural organization, thanks in part to his friendship with its director, Hans Steinacher . The association supported Gamper's emergency school program with considerable financial donations, and Steinacher described Gamper as the "best German man in South Tyrol", especially since he adhered to a policy that was extremely friendly towards the NSDAP until 1937 , as he gave it a ethnic background, but also shared the striking anti-communism and anti-Semitism of Hitler's Germany. In 1932, Gamper condemned Eduard Reut-Nicolussi's anti-Nazi propaganda that he had sparked because of Hitler's reluctance to respond to the South Tyrol issue. Gamper's newspaper articles in the period 1933/34 were “clearly aimed at a National Socialist Germany”, which prompted the Merano clergy conference to formally protest against the Nazi-friendly orientation of Gamper's media with Bishop Celestino Endrici from Trent . It was not until 1935 that the suppression of German Catholicism , which began to intensify, brought about his gradual departure from National Socialism.

During the option period in 1939, he campaigned for the population to remain in South Tyrol (see Andreas-Hofer-Bund ). In December 1940, Gamper took over extracts from a newspaper article previously published in the Osservatore Romano about the murder of the sick and disabled in Germany in Action T4 by the National Socialists under the title Ein terrible Suspicion .

After the Wehrmacht invaded South Tyrol in 1943, Gamper had to flee from the Gestapo and initially hid in Wangen am Ritten and later - thanks to the help of "men of the German Abwehr" - in a monastery in Tuscany . There he used the time to draw up a memorandum for the Allies , in which he described the history of South Tyrol from the end of the First World War until the 1940s .

He rejected the Paris treaty concluded between Austria and Italy in September 1946 after the end of the war as a “failure” and “horse-trading” because it made the longed-for self - determination impossible. Now he took over the management of the daily newspaper Dolomiten and rebuilt Athesia , which emerged from the Tyrolia publishing house . He remained its president until 1956. Gamper continued to campaign for the interests of the German-speaking ethnic group in South Tyrol and, with his leading article on the “ Death March of the South Tyroleans” of October 28, 1953, provided a basic motif for the struggle for the autonomy of South Tyrol .

Michael Gamper died on April 15, 1956 in Bolzano at the age of 71. Before that, a serious illness made itself felt, which a stay in Martinsbrunn near Merano and radiation at the University Clinic in Munich could not counteract. In February 1956, Gamper was diagnosed with a liver tumor from Max Lebsche. However, the spread was too far advanced for surgery. He himself organized his successor in the company and with the newspaper and his funeral. With a funeral procession through Bolzano on April 19, 1956, this took on the size of a major event; over 30,000 people attended the funeral.

His niece Martha Flies and her husband Toni Ebner inherited his journalistic and financial legacy . Today the Athesia publishing house is largely owned by their children Michl and Toni Ebner .

reception

After Gamper's death, his work was mythically glorified by the Athesia press and by authors closely related to it, or by clerical and right-wing conservative circles, and stylized as the “loyal Eckart of the South Tyrolean people” and the “man of Tyrol”. On the other hand, recent research has highlighted Gamper's partially contradicting attitude towards dictatorships, his clerical claim to dominance and the systematic blending of church and politics.

In Altrei , Bozen , Innsbruck , Klobenstein , Leifers , Lienz and Olang streets were named after Canon Gamper.

The Kanonikus-Michael-Gamper-Werk , which has operated several school homes in South Tyrol since the 1960s , bears his name.

Quotes

“If the Jews in Italy already have the money in their hands, then of course the state is also at their mercy, in other words, the Jews are increasingly seizing political power as well. (1921) "

“Better still a fascist government than one that, like the last one, repeatedly assures us of its protection and then finally doesn't lift a finger to protect our rights. (1922) "

“What should happen now? Should we lose the German nationality with the loss of the German school? (...) Now we have to imitate the first Christians. (...) When they were no longer safe from the persecutors (...), they took refuge with the dead in the underground burial chambers, in the catacombs. (1923) "

“For me, the National Socialist Party is just as bad or as good as any other party. (1927) "

“The national character of the Tyrolean is fundamentally different from that of the Italian. (...) The whole of South Tyrol is united in the ardent wish to forever separate its fate from that of Italy. (1944) "

“It is a death march that we South Tyroleans have been on since 1945, unless rescue comes at the last hour. (1953) "

“A people who do not fight for anything other than their natural and documented rights will have the Lord God as their ally. (1956) "

Works

  • Athanasius (ie Michael Gamper): The distress of an oppressed people. From national to religious oppression in South Tyrol. Innsbruck: Marianische Verlag-Buchhandlung 1927.
  • South Tyrol in the jubilee year of its association . Report on the 150th anniversary of the Tyrolean Sacred Heart Association in 1946. Brixen: Verlaganstalt Athesia 1946.
  • The German ethnic group in South Tyrol yesterday and today. In: People and State. Festschrift Karl Maßmann . Kiel-Munich 1954, pp. 220-227.

literature

  • Anna Esposito: Stampa cattolica in Alto Adige tra fascismo e nazismo. La casa editrice Vogelweider-Athesia e il ruolo del canonico Gamper (1933–1939). Rome: Aracne editrice 2012, ISBN 978-88-54854215 .
  • Alois M. Euler: Michael Gamper: Shepherd and Herald of South Tyrol. A documentation. Vienna: South Tyrol Documentation Center of the People's Movement for South Tyrol 1976.
  • Karin Goller: Canon Michael Gamper and its significance for the German language group in South Tyrol at the time of Italianization . Dipl.-Arb., University of Vienna 2011.
  • Leo Hillebrand: Media power & national politics: Michael Gamper and the Athesia publishing house. Innsbruck-Vienna: Studienverlag 1996, ISBN 978-3-7065-1133-9 .
  • Walter Marzari: Canon Michael Gamper: a fighter for faith and home against the fascist ax and swastika in South Tyrol (= From Christianity and Culture , 3). Vienna: Hollinek 1974, ISBN 3-85119-113-7 .
  • Franz H. Riedl: South Tyrol: land of European probation. Canon Michael Gamper on his 70th birthday (= Schlern-Schriften 140). Innsbruck: Wagner 1955.
  • Rolf Steininger (Ed.): A life for South Tyrol. Canon Michael Gamper and his time. Bolzano: Athesia 2017, ISBN 978-88-6839-257-4 .
  • Leopold Steurer : Propaganda in the "liberation struggle". In: Hannes Obermair et al. (Ed.): Regional civil society in motion - Cittadini innanzi tutto. Festschrift for / Scritti in onore di Hans Heiss. Folio Verlag, Vienna / Bozen 2012, ISBN 978-3-85256-618-4 , pp. 386-400.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Leo Hillebrand: Medienmacht & Volkstumsppolitik: Michael Gamper and the Athesia publishing house. Studienverlag, Innsbruck-Vienna 1996, p. 15.
  2. ^ Leo Hillebrand: Medienmacht & Volkstumsppolitik: Michael Gamper and the Athesia publishing house. Studienverlag, Innsbruck-Wien 1996, pp. 36–51.
  3. ↑ Carl Kraus , Hannes Obermair (ed.): Myths of dictatorships. Art in Fascism and National Socialism - Miti delle dittature. Art nel fascismo e nazionalsocialismo . South Tyrolean State Museum for Cultural and State History Castle Tyrol, Dorf Tirol 2019, ISBN 978-88-95523-16-3 , Mythos Führer, p. 54 (with ill.) .
  4. ^ Winfried Adler: The cultural policy of Italian fascism in South Tyrol . In: Sources and research from Italian archives and libraries 61, 1981, pp. 305–361, here pp. 357–358.
  5. ^ Anna Esposito: Stampa cattolica in Alto Adige tra fascismo e nazismo. La casa editrice Vogelweider-Athesia e il ruolo del canonico Gamper (1933–1939). Rome: Aracne editrice 2012.
  6. ↑ On this Jürgen Charnitzky: The school policy of fascist Italy in South Tyrol (1922-1943). Tübingen 1994, p. 73ff.
  7. ↑ Karin Goller: Canon Michael Gamper and its significance for the German language group in South Tyrol at the time of Italianization. Dipl.-Arb., University of Vienna 2011, p. 62.
  8. ↑ Karin Goller: Canon Michael Gamper and its significance for the German language group in South Tyrol at the time of Italianization. Dipl.-Arb., University of Vienna 2011, p. 63.
  9. ^ Leo Hillebrand: Medienmacht & Volkstumsppolitik: Michael Gamper and the Athesia publishing house. Studienverlag, Innsbruck-Wien 1996, pp. 57–63; also Alex Lamprecht: Between Pastoral Care and Propaganda. South Tyrol's church during the Nazi era. Bozen: Athesia 2019, p. 249.
  10. ↑ Volksbote , edition of December 19, 1940, p. 1. For the Vatican authorship, cf. Leo Hillebrand: Media power & national politics: Michael Gamper and the Athesia publishing house. Studienverlag, Innsbruck-Wien 1996, p. 74.
  11. ↑ According to Toni Ebner: The Flight of the Canon . In: Dolomiten , edition of February 7, 1985, supplement, p. IX; quoted by Leo Hillebrand: Medienmacht & Volkstumsppolitik: Michael Gamper and the Athesia-Verlag. Studienverlag, Innsbruck-Wien 1996, p. 75.
  12. ^ Leo Hillebrand: Medienmacht & Volkstumsppolitik: Michael Gamper and the Athesia publishing house. Studienverlag, Innsbruck-Wien 1996, p. 88.
  13. ^ Wiener Zeitung, November 17, 2007
  14. ^ Windegger, Flies, Oberleiter, Ebner, Seifert: Canon Michael Gamper - A life for South Tyrol . P. 142
  15. ^ Euler: Gamper and Marzari: Gamper , but also Steininger: Life for South Tyrol . See also Otmar Parteli: Der Mann von Tirol. On the 40th anniversary of the death of Canon Michael Gamper . In: Südtirol in Wort und Bild 1996, H. 2, S. 8-10.
  16. ↑ Hillebrand: Medienmacht & Volkstumsppolitik , esp. P. 7ff.
  17. ^ Website of the Kanonikus-Michael-Gamper-Werk , accessed on July 18, 2019.
  18. ↑ The Kingdom of Israel in Italy , in: Der Volksbote , March 3, 1921, p. 1.
  19. ↑ Die Fascistenregierung , in: Der Volksbote , November 2, 1922, p. 2.
  20. ↑ Quoted from Marzari: Gamper , p. 39.
  21. ^ Letter to Wilhelm Rohmeder dated April 1, 1927; quoted by Leo Hillebrand: Medienmacht & Volkstumsppolitik: Michael Gamper and the Athesia-Verlag. Studienverlag, Innsbruck-Wien 1996, p. 60.
  22. ↑ From the memorandum South Tyrol - a problem of peace ; quoted from Steininger: A life for South Tyrol , p. 240 u. 263
  23. ^ Dolomites , edition of October 28, 1953.
  24. ^ Leopold Steurer: Propaganda in the "liberation struggle". In: Hannes Obermair et al. (Ed.): Regional civil society in motion - Cittadini innanzi tutto. Festschrift for / Scritti in onore di Hans Heiss. Folio Verlag, Vienna / Bozen 2012, p. 394; accordingly the quote was used by the Liberation Committee of South Tyrol in the course of the so-called fire night of 1961 on a leaflet.
personal data
SURNAME Gamper, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Priest and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH February 7, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Prissian
DATE OF DEATH April 15, 1956
Place of death Bolzano