Rudolf von Gerlach
Rudolf von Gerlach (born July 13, 1886 , † 1946 Great Britain) was a German theologian. Gerlach was the papal secret chamberlain and liaison between Pope Benedict XV during the First World War . and the German government.
Life and activity
Youth and early career
Gerlach was the son of a Prussian officer. The parents' marriage was later annulled and both parents remarried.
From 1897 to 1902 Gerlach was taught at the Maximilian Gymnasium in Munich and the Gymnasium in Landshut without having obtained a degree. He then joined the Prussian army : there he acquired his school leaving certificate as an ulan and the status of a one-year volunteer as a flag junior . He also stood out for his unsteady lifestyle - he had high debts and a dubious reputation.
Around 1906 Gerlach left for Paris with a dancer, but was brought home by his parents' lawyer. His regiment put him in reserve at that time . In 1907, Gerlach was sent to Mexico by his family while his parents were studying his alternative career options.
In Mexico, Gerlach turned to Catholicism under the influence of the local archbishop. After his return to Germany he studied philosophy and theology in Freiburg im Breisgau and in Switzerland . Then, on the recommendation of the Bishop of Trento, Endrizzi , he was accepted into the Accademia Die Nobili Ecclesiastici , the diplomatic school of the Vatican. He received his priestly ordination through the papal nuncio in Bavaria, Cardinal Frühwirth in the Munich nunciature.
Thanks to the support of influential patrons - Cardinal Antonio Agliardi and Cardinal Giacomo della Chiesa (Archbishop of Bologna) - Gerlach rose quickly in the ecclesiastical hierarchy: in 1914 he was allowed to accompany Chiesa to the conclave in Rome that was convened after the death of Pius X , that with Chiesa's election as the new Pope Benedict XV. ended. On the day of his enthronement, the new Pope appointed Gerlach as the Really Duty Privy Chamberlain.
In the following years Gerlach belonged to the immediate retinue of the Pope: he was the Pope's Colonel Chamberlain and checked in the papal anteroom who could and did not gain access to Benedict. Above all, however, Gerlach was the Pope's advisor for German, Austrian and Swiss affairs.
Gerlach's activity during the First World War
After Italy entered the First World War in 1915, the Central Powers Germany and Austria-Hungary saw themselves largely cut off from direct communication with the Vatican, which was enclosed within the Italian state. As the only direct collaborator of the Pope from Germany, Gerlach achieved an important role as a link between the German and Austrian governments and the head of the Catholic Church.
When the German central politician Matthias Erzberger launched the project of transferring rule over the Principality of Liechtenstein to the Pope in 1916 and, after Benedict agreed to this project, started negotiations with the Liechtenstein Princely House to achieve this goal, the politician's correspondence and reports ran to the Pope on this matter via Gerlach, whom Benedikt entrusted with the supervision of the process. The idea behind the whole action was that by assuming nominal rule over Liechtenstein (the de facto government should have remained with the Princely House there), the Pope would formally have become a sovereign European territorial ruler and thus a right to be included in the political negotiations of the European Powers to end the war and organize the post-war order. The Liechtenstein ruling house would meanwhile exercise the de facto reign over the small state and would not suffer any loss of property or income and would be rewarded for the nominal concession with the establishment of its own cardinal in Liechtenstein. In Germany it was expected that the Pope's involvement in the peace process by participating in appropriate negotiations as the sovereign prince of his own (small) state would work in favor of the Central Powers. The Entente Powers took the opposite view. Gerlach, who de facto determined the political line of the papal curia on the Liechtenstein question, therefore drew the attention of the Western powers' secret services soon after the project had got underway.
After the Liechtenstein ruling family finally distanced themselves from the Erzberger project, Gerlach let the German center politician know in May 1916 at the behest of the Pope that he had given up the project and that he, Erzberger, should not conduct any further negotiations. Nevertheless, he put out feelers to Spain as to whether the Pope could not alternatively be allowed to rule over a Balearic island .
The Italian government, which was observing these events with suspicion, judged them to be that Gerlach had been the secret main actor in the attempt to bring the Pope under German control. At her behest, the Italian military judicial authorities launched an investigation into Gerlach on suspicion of espionage.
Gerlach, at that time with the rank of prelate , meanwhile traveled to Switzerland in January 1917 and from there to Germany. In order to avoid political inconvenience with the Western powers, the Pope ordered him to stay in Germany and dismissed him from service in the Vatican in honor by awarding him a bishops cross.
On January 23, 1917, a military court in Rome sentenced him to life imprisonment for acts dangerous to the state and naval espionage. In the German press the verdict in the “Gerlach Trial” was commented as “hair-raising” and the trial was criticized as a “tendency process”. The press of the Allied states, on the other hand, sharply attacked Gerlach as the most active exponent in the Vatican's relations with the Central Powers, which lasted until the end of the war and also in the post-war period, when he was ostracized as a spy and traitor.
Since it was not possible for Gerlach to work in the vicinity of the Pope due to the political situation in Italy in the post-war period, Benedict XV resigned. to a recall of Gerlach after the end of the war.
In 1919 Gerlach wrote his memoirs and announced sensational revelations about the Vatican's secret policy during the war, but finally decided not to publish the manuscript against the assurance of the Papal States that it would resolve his financial problems: Gerlach burned his manuscript and gave all to emissaries to the Curia Politically relevant documents in his possession. He also made a statement never to do anything against the church or its interests. After the death of Benedict XV. In 1922 he received a high endowment that allowed him to settle his gambling debts of 250,000 francs.
Also in 1919 Gerlach finally resigned from the service of the Curia. He left the church and married the Protestant Katharina Blanckenhagen on October 22, 1920. In the following years he lived in Switzerland, Tyrol, Munich and Gmünd am Tegernsee, but above all in his wife's Dutch homeland.
Later years
Despite his falling out with the Catholic Church, Gerlach fell into the sights of the völkisch movement in Germany in the 1920s: various theorists of the extreme political right in the German Reich used him for the stab in the back legend . After the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, Gerlach had to flee abroad to protect himself from persecution by the new regime.
Classified by the National Socialist police as a traitor to the fatherland, an agent of the English secret service and an enemy of the state, Gerlach was placed on the special wanted list GB in the spring of 1940 by the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin, which suspected him to be in Great Britain , a directory of people who were to be found in the event of an occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht of special commandos of the SS, who were to follow the occupation troops, were to be located and arrested with special priority.
In 1940/1942 a confidential study on German-Vatican relations was made on behalf of the RSHA, in which Gerlach, who was seriously attacked in it, was also discussed in detail. After the German invasion of the Netherlands, Gerlach emigrated to Canada, probably via Great Britain.
His further fate is in the dark. Gerlach's estate is said to have reached the Vatican in 1940.
literature
- Hubert Wolf: Relocation of the Holy See. A papal state without Rome? Matthias Erzberger and the Roman question in the First World War: in: Rottenburger Jahrbuch für Kirchengeschichte , vol. 11 (1992), pp. 251–270.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Entry on Gerlach on the special wanted list GB (reproduction on the website of the Imperial War Museum)
- ↑ Entry in the estate database .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gerlach, Rudolf von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German theologian |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 13, 1886 |
| DATE OF DEATH | after 1940 |