Nikolaus von Lutterotti

Memorial plaque on the cemetery in Kaltern

Nikolaus von Lutterotti OSB (born July 22, 1892 in Kaltern , Austro-Hungarian monarchy as Markus von Lutterotti , also Marco von Lutterotti ; † October 28, 1955 in Stuttgart ) was a Benedictine, prior , archivist and librarian of the Benedictine Abbey of Grüssau in Lower Silesia . He was also a popular preacher and made a name for himself as an author of biographical, art history and genealogical writings. His pastoral care gained special importance after 1945 with the transition of Silesia to Poland, which soon developed into a communist country. From 1946 he also worked as a spiritual director for the Polish Benedictine women who were expelled from Lemberg .

Life

Nikolaus von Lutterotti , whose ancestors were in 1737 by Emperor Charles VI. received the hereditary imperial nobility , was born as Markus von Lutterotti in the Red House in Kaltern. His parents were the Venice-born later notary Markus ( Marco ) von Lutterotti (1843–1898) and Marie geb. von Hepperger zu Tirtschenberg and Hoffensthal (1848–1914). From 1902 he attended the Franciscan high school in Bolzano , which he graduated with the Matura in 1910. Since he intended to become a priest, he enrolled in the winter semester 1910/11 at the Catholic Theological Faculty of the Leopold-Franzens University in Innsbruck, where he was an alumne at the Canisianum . In the fourth semester he dealt with the idea of ​​becoming a religious. In September 1912 he attended the World Eucharistic Congress in Vienna and took the opportunity on the way back to visit his two older sisters in Prague, who had lived as novices in the Benedictine Abbey of St. Gabriel in Smíchov since 1910 and 1911 respectively . In Prague he got to know the Benedictine Abbey of Emaus , which was settled in 1880 with imperial approval by German Benedictines from the Abbey of Beuron , who had been expelled from Prussia during the Kulturkampf . On October 5, 1912, von Lutterotti entered there as a novice and took the religious name of Nicholas . He took his religious vows on January 15, 1913.

After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, von Lutterotti had to interrupt his training, as Abbot Albanus chess leader in the monastery rooms various charitable institutions, u. a. had set up a soup and soup kitchen as well as a hospital. Von Lutterotti and other younger members of the order were deployed as paramedics on the Austro-Hungarian PK 45 patient train, which consisted of sixteen ambulances that led to all theaters of war. During a brief stay in Emaus he received on 22 July 1916 by the Prague Bishop Franz Brušák the diaconate .

When the Austro-Hungarian monarchy broke up and Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918, the German convention of the Beuron congregation had to leave Prague in 1919. The former Cistercian monastery Grüssau in Lower Silesia, which fell victim to secularization in 1810 , became the new home . There Nikolaus von Lutterotti, who had completed his theological training in the Abbey of Beuron after the end of the war, was ordained a priest on October 10, 1920 by the Wroclaw Auxiliary Bishop Valentin Wojciech . In addition to his work as a pastor and preacher in Grüssau and the former monastery villages, he was given the position of librarian and archivist. This made it possible for him to research and shed light on the history of the abbey and the historical legacy of the Grüssau Cistercians as well as the associated Stiftsland. He gave lectures on the knowledge he gained and published numerous publications that still make valuable contributions to the Silesian cultural and church history. As early as 1923 he wrote the “Guide to the Shrines of the Grüssau Abbey”. From 1922 to 1924 he was also a spiritual director in the Magdalen convent in Lauban . In 1926 he became a full member of the Historical Commission for Silesia appointed and nurses of the monuments of the 1931 Lower Silesia province , as well as a church archive keepers for the deanery Landeshut appointed. In addition, he worked temporarily as a novice master and as a leader of retreats and retreats. From 1926 to 1946 he was also rector of the Oblate Community . During this time the community grew to about 250 members. In contrast to Abbot Albert Schmitt , von Lutterotti rejected the National Socialist policy because he saw it as a contradiction to Christian teaching. Nevertheless, he was appointed prior by Abbot Albert in 1943. On September 9, 1943, von Lutterotti was informed by a politically well-informed person that he was threatened with arrest. He then went to a hospital in the Bohemian town of Trautenau for a treatment that had been planned for some time .

After Grüssau, like most of Silesia, fell to Poland in 1945 after the Second World War, in 1946 almost the entire convent was expelled along with most of the local population. Abbot Albert Schmitt had left Grüssau together with the older or sick monks in January 1945 and founded the Grüssau Abbey in Bad Wimpfen in the Diocese of Mainz in 1947 for his convent .

Since von Lutterotti, being a South Tyrolean, had to take on Italian citizenship in 1918, he and four other confreres of other nationalities were allowed to stay in Grüssau, which had been renamed Krzeszów after the end of the war in 1945 . To the monastery and the precious interior decoration of the churches, the library, the archive, the paraments, etc. a. In consultation with Abbot Albert Schmitt, he subordinated the Grüssau Abbey to the Polish Benedictine Abbey of Tyniec near Cracow. For this he obtained the approval of the Wroclaw Apostolic Administrator Karol Milik .

After almost 20,000 German factory and mine workers were not driven out in the Waldenburger Bergland and in the vicinity of Landeshut , but initially held back as urgently needed skilled workers, von Lutterotti took over pastoral care for some of these Germans, for whose interests he campaigned and for whom he was in every way backed. His pastoral care district included Grüssau u. a. Gottesberg , Rothenbach and Schwarzwaldau as well as from July 1947 the large community Friedland on the border with Czechoslovakia. In addition, from 1946 he worked as a spiritual director for the Polish Benedictine nuns who had recently settled in Grüssau and who had been expelled from Lemberg's All Saints' Abbey . At the same time he tried to improve the coexistence between Germans and Poles. Since the children of the Germans who stayed behind were not allowed to attend schools until 1949, von Lutterotti sponsored privately organized, secret religious instruction that took place in private apartments. He often gave them tutoring in German and mathematics as well as knowledge of history and geography. It was only after the GDR recognized the Oder-Neisse Line in 1951 that schools with German as the language of instruction were allowed for German children in some places in Lower Silesia.

Difficulties and persecutions began in 1951 under the vicar of the capitular Kazimierz Lagosz , who was appointed by the communist regime . In accordance with the state, this u. a. the prohibition of religious education, the dissolution of diocesan and religious convents and women's convents, and the nationalization of monastic property. On May 5, 1953, a commission from the Breslau diocesan curia came to Krzeszów / Grüssau unannounced , which submitted a decree by the vicar of the capitular Lagosz and was supposed to visit the monastery. Despite Lutterotti's objection and reference to the exemption of the monastery, they searched the sacristy, archive, library and other rooms. Some time before that, the secret security police had searched the house. On Whit Monday, May 25, 1953, a commission appeared that afternoon consisting of six canons appointed by Lagosz and a secular officer of the Curia. They confiscated most of the valuable baroque paraments and liturgical implements from the Cistercian period . Since von Lutterotti was in Gorce ( Rothenbach ) because of a high mass fixed at 5 p.m. , he was picked up there by car by a communist-minded dean. Because he insisted on holding the service, the confessional jurisdiction that Archbishop Adolf Bertram had given him was removed from him after his return to Krzeszów / Grüssau . Likewise, the approval granted by the Apostolic Administrator Karol Milik for German pastoral care in 16 parishes or curatia. When von Lutterotti was at the Curia in Wroclaw in October 1953, where he had to take an exam in the Polish language, the monastery, the churches and the gardens were searched by the secret security police. After his return, von Lutterotti was under police surveillance day and night, as he was suspected of transmitting messages to the Vatican using a secret transmitter. At the same time, the valuable monastery library, the monastery archive and most of the art and cultural-historical exhibits were transported to Wroclaw, as these had not been registered or delivered by the state.

Despite the ongoing political pressure in the Stalinist era , von Lutterotti continued his pastoral work conscientiously. When Lagosz forbade him to preach in German at Christmas 1953, he tried, with the help of the Italian embassy, ​​to leave the country in January 1954, which was approved in November 1954. Via Vienna and Innsbruck he reached his relatives in Kaltern, where his health initially recovered. There he wrote a memorandum for the Vatican on January 1, 1955 , in which he described the conditions in the Archdiocese of Breslau and the Diocese of Katowice from the end of the war in 1945 to November 1954. On Good Friday 1955 he arrived at his convent in Wimpfen. On October 28, 1955, he died in the Marienhospital in Stuttgart as a result of a serious infectious disease that had not been recognized in time in Silesia. Following the requiem in the Wimpfen abbey church, his body was buried in the Cornelien cemetery there with great sympathy and concern. A requiem was also held in the Abbey Church of Krzeszów / Grüssau, in which, in addition to the Polish Benedictine nuns, German and Polish believers from all over the area took part. On September 2, 1970, a commemorative plaque for Nikolaus von Lutterotti was installed at the Lutterotti family grave in the Kaltern cemetery and inaugurated with speeches by church historian Hubert Jedin and art historian Günther Grundmann .

Publications

• Guide through the sanctuaries of the Grüssau Abbey . Grüssau 1923
• Abbot Dominicus Geyer von Grüssau (1696–1726 ). In: Schlesisches Pastoralblatt, No. 9, September 1926, pp. 129–132 ; Continuation of issue 10, October 1926 pp. 145–150 ; Continued in issue 11, November 1926, pp. 161–165
• Altgrüssau monastery stories . Breslau 1927, reissued by P. Ambrosius Rose, Wolfenbüttel 1962
• From the unknown Grüssau . 1928
• The 'Bohemian Villages' of the Cistercian monastery Grüssau in Silesia . In: Yearbook of the German Riesengebirgs-Verein 16, 1927, pp. 47–59
• Bernhard Rosa . In: Schlesische Lebensbilder. Volume 3, Breslau 1928, pp. 89-95
• Grüssau Abbey. A leader . Grüssau 1930
• Michael Willmann's painting in the castle chapel in Lobris , Jauer district . In: Silesian history sheets. Announcements of the Association for the History of Silesia , 1930, No. 2, pp. 25–30
• The Grüssauer Willmannbuch . 1931
• The Archdean Church for the Birth of Our Lady of Trautenau. Building history and description . Catholic Press Association for East Bohemia, Trautenau 1932
• Abbot Innozenz Fritsch (1727–1734), the builder of the Grüssau abbey church . Bergland-Verlag Schweidnitz, 1935
• From the unknown Grüssau . In: Hirtenliebe und Heimattreue, ed. by P. Ambrosius Rose, Brentanoverlag Stuttgart 1957
• Abbot Bernardus Rosa von Grüssau , posthumously ed. by P. Ambrosius Rose, Stuttgart 1960

literature

• Inge Steinsträßer: Wanderer between the political powers. Father Nikolaus von Lutterotti OSB (1892–1955) and the Grüssau Abbey in Lower Silesia . Böhlau Verlag 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20429-7
• Inge Steinsträßer: P. Nikolaus von Lutterotti, OSB (1892–1955) . In: Schlesische Lebensbilder Volume X, Verlag Degener & Co, 2010, ISBN 978-3-7686-3508-0
• Inge Steinsträßer: Father Nikolaus von Lutterotti (1892–1955) Benedictines in Prague and Grüssau - wanderers between the political powers . In: Beuroner Forum 2011, pp. 79–94
• P. Ambrosius Rose: Pastoral love and loyalty to the home . Brentanoverlag, Stuttgart 1957

Web links

• Exhibition 2014 House of Silesia

Individual evidence

1. ↑ M. Haase: Our Father Nikolaus . In: Pastoral love and loyalty to the home . Brentanoverlag Stuttgart, 1957, p. 35.
2. ^ Brigitte Lob: Albert Schmitt OSB - Abbot in Grüssau and Wimpfen. His ecclesiastical action and work in the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich . Böhlau, Cologne 2000, ISBN 978-3412042004 , p. 329
3. ↑ M. Domitilla Veith OSB , P. Ambrosius Rose OSB: Participate patiently in the sufferings of Christ . Life picture of senior teacher Ruth Thon (1905–1981). In: Archives for Silesian Church History, ed. by Joachim Köhler , Volume 43, pp. 29–53
4. ↑ Various indications suggest that the informant was the Landeshut District Administrator Otto Fiebrantz .
5. ↑ Inge Steinstrasse: Wanderer between the political powers. Father Nikolaus von Lutterotti OSB (1892–1955) and the Grüssau Abbey in Lower Silesia . Böhlau Verlag 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20429-7 , p. 170
6. ↑ There were the two Czech confreres Fr Bruno Studený (1893–1977) and Br. Gunther Veit (1901–1982) and the Austrians Br. Florian Windisch (1884–1960) and Br. Florian Unterluggauer (1900–1980)
7. ↑ Conference report
8. ^ Kazimierz Dola: The German Catholics in Silesia after 1945 . In: Winfried König (Ed.): Legacy and Mission of the Silesian Church - 1000 Years of the Diocese of Breslau , Dülmen 2001, ISBN 3-87466-296-9 , pp. 338–355.
9. ↑ Nikolaus von Lutterotti: In constant distress . In: Hirtenliebe und Heimattreue , ed. by P. Ambrosius Rose, Brentanoverlag, Stuttgart 1957, p. 216ff.