Raphael Waltz

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Archabbot Raphael Walzer in 1966 in Neuburg Abbey

Raphael Walzer OSB (born March 27, 1888 in Ravensburg as Josef Walzer , † July 19, 1966 in Heidelberg ) was a German Benedictine and fourth Archabbot of the Beuron Archabbey . As an opponent of National Socialism, he had to emigrate in 1937 and then worked in France and Algeria.

Life

Raphael Walzer's abbot coat of arms on a memorial plaque on the house where he was born in Herrenstrasse in Ravensburg

Raphael Walzer was born into a family of craftsmen in Ravensburg and joined the Benedictine Archabbey of Beuron in 1906 . On December 27, 1907, he completed his monastic profession in Beuron and was ordained a priest on September 1, 1913 . As early as 1918, in the final phase of the First World War , after studying in Beuron and Rome, the Beuron convent elected him - not yet thirty - as archabbot and thus also head of the convents for men and women belonging to the Beuron congregation. In the 1920s he initiated the establishment or resettlement of a number of monasteries such as on the Michaelsberg near Bruchsal and in 1926 Neuburg , later Weingarten , Neresheim , Kellenried , Grüssau and others. He was the initiator of the modernization and expansion of the Beuron Monastery, in particular the west wing with the theological college and the hydroelectric power station near St. Maurus of the Beuron Archabbey. He succeeded in accepting over 130 newcomers, professing over 150 monks and promoting scientific institutions. In 1935 almost 300 Benedictines lived in the monastery.

Walzer's extensive development work in Beuron was interrupted by the National Socialist rulers. He drew numerous people from science, art and church life to Beuron. He maintained close and friendly contact with President Eugen Bolz and was spiritual advisor and companion to Edith Stein , who is venerated today as a saint of the church. Both fell victim to the tyranny of the National Socialists. These contacts turned him into spiritual opposition. Walzer made no secret of his rejection of National Socialism inside and outside Beuron. He called for an election boycott and, contrary to official requests, refused to flag the monastery on public occasions. This brought him into tension with the National Socialist system, but also into difficulties within the church. From the Roman side as well as from the order itself, waltzes arose more and more obstacles.

In 1935, after a trip abroad, Walzer was unable to return to Beuron and emigrated to France via Switzerland . Since he had meanwhile been declared an “undesirable person” in Germany, he took French citizenship and lived in the Abbey of Saint-Wandrille in Normandy. In 1937 he resigned his post as abbot in Beuron and in 1940 fled from the Gestapo to Algeria . As a military chaplain of the French army in Algeria, he founded the first theological seminar for German prisoners of war in Rivet near Algiers during the Second World War , of which he was director from 1943 to 1946. Since a return to Beuron was still not possible (Benedikt Bauer had been Archabbot there since 1938), he built a Benedictine abbey in Tlemcen in Algeria in 1950 , which he headed until 1964. With the Algerian uprising he left Algeria and returned to Heidelberg to the Neuburg Abbey.

He died in 1966 in the Neuburg Abbey in Heidelberg, which he had re-established in the 1920s after a break in monastery life of over three hundred years, and was buried in the Beuron crypt.

literature

  • Elisabeth Endres , Archabbot Waltz. Reconciling without hiding , (= Positive Life series). Baindt / Ravensburg 1988, ISBN 3-925868-39-9 .
  • Jakobus Kaffanke OSB, Joachim Köhler (Ed.): Use more than rule. Raphael Walzer OSB, Archabbot of Beuron 1918–1937 (= contributions to theology, church and society in the 20th century; Volume 17). LIT Verlag, Münster 2008 (2nd, corrected and expanded edition 2010), ISBN 978-3-8258-1327-7

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Historical appreciation. Book about Archabbot Walzer , in: Südkurier from November 19, 2008
  2. ^ A b c Peter Stadler: Archabbot Walzer, our founding abbot In: Word in the Time , Neuburg Abbey, Issue 205/2016
  3. ↑ a b orden-online.de, Sept. 19, 2008

Web links

Commons : Raphael Walzer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor
Ildefon's racks Archabbot of Beuron
1918–1937 		Benedikt Baur
Ildefon's racks Archabbot of the Beuron Congregation
1922 / 1929–1936 		( Raphael Molitor )
personal data
SURNAME Waltz, Raphael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Walzer, Josef (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Benedictine, Archabbot of Beuron
DATE OF BIRTH March 27, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Ravensburg
DATE OF DEATH July 19, 1966
Place of death Heidelberg