Rupert Giessler

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Rupert Gießler (born September 23, 1896 in Mannheim , † October 15, 1980 in Freiburg ) was a German journalist, victim of the Nazi regime and co-founder of the Badische Zeitung .

Origin, education and career beginnings

Rupert Gießler was born the son of the later district court director Franz Joseph Gießler . During the First World War he was taken prisoner of war. After returning, he began studying philosophy and jurisprudence in the conclusion he in 1925 at the University of Freiburg to the Dr. phil. received his doctorate . He then joined the editorial team of the Freiburg daily post , which is close to the center , as a feature section editor , where he later also worked in the political department. In 1928 he married Irmgard Freytag, who came from a Jewish family and who converted to the Catholic faith of her future husband before the wedding . In 1936 their daughter Ursula was born.

Disadvantage and persecution

After 1933 Gießler had to struggle with handicaps from the National Socialist regime until he was banned from practicing his profession in 1939 , shortly before the Freiburger Tagespost had to stop its publication at the end of February 1940 due to an alleged lack of paper. After a period of unemployment , he was on November 1, 1940, now by the German Wehrmacht occupied Alsace in Alsatia publishing house in Colmar brokered by his publisher, Joseph Rossé , a job as a lecturer find and department heads that way as outward secretary camouflaged has been. The Alsatia publishing house was regarded as the center of Catholic resistance in Alsace, where writers such as Reinhold Schneider published, among others . At that time, Joseph Rossé was able to save Rupert Gießler from access by the Gestapo several times .

After the family's safety from the persecution by the Nazi authorities in Freiburg was no longer guaranteed, a friend of the family's daughter Ursula was brought by bicycle to Stegen in the middle of summer 1944 to the religious house of the Sacred Heart Priests , where the rector was of the monastery, Father Heinrich Middendorf , later honored as Righteous Among the Nations , placed her in the children's home until her mother could follow a short time later. Irmgard Gießler worked in Middendorf's office as a secretary to be considered an employee of the house. Rupert Gießler often visited his family in Stegen, including on November 27, 1944, when Freiburg was bombed . He almost rode his bicycle into this attack if he hadn't wanted to wait for the prayer of the monastery community in the chapel to say goodbye. Gießler also experienced the French invasion of Stegen and in the coming weeks worked there as a credible interpreter between the occupying forces and the religious order.

New beginning after the Second World War

Shortly after the end of the Second World War , on September 5, 1945, Giessler and Heinrich Rombach, the former editor of the Freiburger Tagespost, were among the founders of the Freiburger Nachrichten , the first daily newspaper licensed in Freiburg by the French occupation forces. This in turn went up on February 1, 1946 in the newly founded, more nationally oriented Badische Zeitung , which was one of the highest-circulation papers in southwest Germany and saw itself as an independent daily newspaper with a Christian attitude. Gießler worked here until 1965 as the responsible editor and head of the feature pages.

Together with Gertrud Luckner and other committed Catholics, he founded the Freiburger Rundbrief in 1948 , a magazine for Christian-Jewish dialogue.

Supraregional commitment

From 1946 Gießler worked on the board of the newly founded German Press Association Baden and was chairman of the German Journalists' Association (DJV) from 1953 to 1965 . On November 20, 1956, Gießler was one of the ten founders of the German Press Council , as its first spokesman from 1965. At the 1st German Journalists' Day on March 24, 1960 in Berlin , Giessler was confirmed as its president; he also acted as a member of the broadcasting council of Südwestrundfunk .

Honors

Works (selection)

  • The paintings by Willy Oeser . Mannheim 1928
  • The sacred song poetry of the Catholics in the Age of Enlightenment. in: Writings on German literature, Vol. 10, B. Filser, Augsburg 1929.
  • Ten years of the German Press Council. Bonn-Bad Godesberg: Dt. Press Council 1966.

literature

  • Ansgar Fürst : On the death of Rupert Gießler , in: Badische Zeitung of November 16, 1980.
  • Bernd Bothe: Irmgard and Ursula Giessler , in: Righteous Among the Nations - Father Dr. Heinrich Middendorf , in: Freiburger Rundbrief, New Series, Journal for Christian-Jewish Encounters, Freiburg, July 1, 1995, p. 185.
  • Bernd Bothe: He recorded them all. Research narrative about the savior of the Jews, Father Heinrich Middendorf, Freiburg 2014, pp. 32–36.
  • Martin Schieder and Friederike Kitschen (eds.): Art vivant. Sources and comments on Franco-German art relations 1945–1960 , Berlin 2011 (Passagen / Passages, vol. 14), pp. 106f.
  • Peter Johannes Weber: Alemannic home. A local history supplement to the Freiburger Tagespost in difficult times (1934-1940), including index , in: Schau-ins-Land. Annual issue of the Breisgau history association Schauinsland 121 (2002), pp. 165–208.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Giessler, Rupert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist, publicist and Nazi victim
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH October 15, 1980
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau