Raphaelswerk

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The Raphaelswerk is a registered association based in Hamburg in the field of emigration advice and advises emigrants , people working abroad , refugees , binational couples and returnees .

The association is named after the archangel Raphael , who is considered the guardian angel of travelers.

history

Information office of the Raphaelsverein in Hamburg, 1925

In 1871 the “Association for the Protection of Catholic Emigrants” was founded by the Limburg businessman Peter Paul Cahensly (1838–1923) with the aim of offering Catholic emigrants security and support on their way to their new homeland. In 1865, at the Catholic assembly in Trier , Cahensly had campaigned for the “rescue of thousands and millions of endangered emigrants ”. On the Katholikentag in Mainz in 1871, the St. Raphaels Association was founded, which in 1878 received papal recognition by Pope Leo XIII. received. Prince Karl zu Isenburg-Birstein (1838–1899) became the first president .

The aim of the initiative was to improve the conditions for emigrants, to offer them impartial advice and to protect them from the influence of unscrupulous agents. The support was mostly very specific. It was about the procurement of tickets and work opportunities as well as the church involvement in the destination country, in some cases the emigrants were accompanied by employees of the Raphaelswerk on ships to the foreign destination area. His activities also extended to the Catholic seamen and sailors, in Germany also to Italian guest workers and to support the efforts of the girls' protection associations and the German national committee to combat trafficking in girls .

In the time before the Second World War, Lorenz Werthmann, the managing director of the Raphaelsverein , advocated colonialism , as he saw in it a possibility of missionary to the Gentiles. On the eve of the Second World War, the St. Raphaels Association tried to enable those persecuted by the Nazi regime to flee from Germany to South America - mainly to Brazil . The German bishops supported the club financially, the Vatican reached through diplomatic channels in the South American embassies granting visas to refugees. The persecuted were mainly Catholics of Jewish descent who were affected by the National Socialist racial legislation. However, the employees of the St. Raphaels Association made sure that Jews had converted to the Catholic faith before 1933 in order to rule out that the conversion only took place in order to flee Germany. In 1941 the St. Raphaels Association was banned by the Secret State Police . However, it was revived in 1946 and has since advised millions more Germans and foreigners on emigration.

Mission and goal

On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference, the association advises emigrants and people working abroad nationwide regardless of their nationality, their legal status and their religious affiliation.

The legal framework for advice is provided by the 2013 amendment to the Emigration Protection Act of March 26, 1975. With this act, the state assumes a protective function for its citizens. Emigrants should not be advised out of commercial self-interest, but should have access to the most objective and comprehensive information possible. The advice should prevent you from taking the step abroad without thinking about it.

The goal of counseling at the Raphaelswerk is to answer the specific questions of those seeking advice, to provide them with comprehensive information and to draw their attention to as many aspects of their project as possible. Those seeking advice are supported in realistically assessing their plan so that they can make a viable decision for themselves. The support in the decision-making process takes place on the basis of the Christian image of man, which does not reduce people to aspects such as career and earnings, but sees them in their social context and includes the religious dimension.

Work areas

The association advises:

  • Emigrants: Germans who want to permanently move their place of residence to another country.
  • Foreign workers : people who want to work temporarily abroad .
  • Onward migrants: Foreigners, especially refugees, who are looking for new perspectives in a third country.
  • Returnees: Foreigners, especially refugees, who want to or have to return to their country of origin, and Germans who wish to return to Germany.
  • Binational partnerships and families

structure

The association is committed to a double ecclesiastical mandate, which on the one hand is given directly by the German Bishops' Conference and on the other hand arises from the status as a recognized central professional association in the German Caritas Association .

It is organized as a recognized non-profit association and maintains a general secretariat in Hamburg . The chairman of the association is Franz-Peter Spiza, Provost of the Archdiocese of Hamburg. General secretary and thus federal manager is Birgit Klaissle-Walk.

There is a nationwide network of advice centers supported by Caritas associations. The advisors all have permission to advise on emigration.

General Secretaries

St. Raphaels Association (from 1899 St. Raphaels Association)

Raphaelswerk eV (from 1977)

  • 1976–1990: Victor Mohr
  • 1990-1996: Christopher Layden
  • 2000–2012 Gabriele Mertens
  • Birgit Klaissle-Walk

literature

  • Manfred Hermanns : Worldwide service to people on the move. Advice and welfare for emigrants from the Raphaels factory 1871–2011. Pallotti Verlag, Friedberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-87614-079-7 .
  • Peter Paul Cahensly : The German Emigrants and the St Raphael Association , Frankfurt contemporary brochures, New Series, Volume VIII, Issue 11, Frankfurt am Main, 1887.
  • Jana Leichsenring: The emigration support for Catholic "non-Aryans" and the limits of aid. The St. Raphaelsverein in the years 1938 to 1941 , in: Susanne Heim , Beate Meyer, Francis R. Nicosia [eds.]: “Whoever stays, sacrifices his years, maybe his life.” German Jews 1938-1941. Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, pp. 77-95.
  • Festschrift 80 years of the St. Raphaels Association 1871–1951, General Secretariat of the St. Raphaels Association, Hamburg, 1951

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.raphaelswerk.de/wirueberuns/impressum/
  2. ↑ https://www.raphaelswerk.de/wirueberuns/unseregeschichte/unseregeschichte
  3. ↑ https://www.raphaelswerk.de/wirueberuns/unseregeschichte/unseregeschichte
  4. ^ Raphaelsverein . In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . 6th edition. Volume 16, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1908, p.  601 .
  5. ↑ Heiko Wegmann: Dr. Lorenz Werthmann and its colonial downsides. In: freiburg-postkolonial.de. October 2008, accessed December 31, 2017 .