Otto Groß (clergyman)

Otto Groß (born February 18, 1917 in Perleberg ; † August 15, 1974 in Berlin ) was a German Catholic priest and church functionary in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). He was later exposed as an unofficial employee of the Ministry for State Security (MfS).

Life

Groß, the son of a bricklayer, attended elementary school in Perleberg from 1923 to 1931 and then until 1937 a Catholic high school in Berlin-Charlottenburg . In 1937 he was temporarily obliged to serve in the Reich Labor Service . In the same year he began studying theology in Fulda , which he completed in 1942. In 1943 he was ordained a priest and was chaplain in Berlin-Lichtenberg until 1948 .

From 1948 to 1953, Groß Kurat was in Berlin-Adlershof and then moved to Berlin-Friedrichshain , where he was pastor until 1967. From 1953 to 1958, Groß was also an editor, then until 1974 editor-in-chief of the Catholic Berlin church newspaper St. Hedwigsblatt . In 1962 he became a full professor in the Episcopal Ordinariate in Berlin . 1966 became Grand Prelate.

From 1967 to 1974 Groß was the representative of the chairmen of the Berlin Ordinariatskonferenz in negotiations with the State Secretariat for Church Issues in the GDR. After the turning point and the peaceful revolution in the GDR in 1989, it became known that Groß was an unofficial employee of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) from 1967 to 1974 and had written numerous reports for the MfS under the code name Otto .

literature

• Bernd Schäfer:  Great, Otto . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

Commons : Otto Groß  - Collection of images, videos and audio files