Stella Matutina (Jesuit College)
| Stella Matutina | |
|---|---|
|
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| The building, today the Vorarlberg State Conservatory , with a gatehouse | |
| type of school | high school |
| founding | 1856 |
| closure | 1979 |
| place | Feldkirch |
| state | Vorarlberg |
| Country | Austria |
| Coordinates | 47 ° 14 '5 " N , 9 ° 35' 46" E |
Stella Matutina was, with interruptions, from 1856 to 1979 a private high school of the Jesuit order in Feldkirch .
history
Summary
In 1649 the Jesuit order settled in Feldkirch and maintained a college there until the Jesuit order was abolished in 1773. From 1856 there was the Jesuit convict "Stella Matutina" in Feldkirch, which was originally on the right side of the Ill .
In order to cope with the large number of students, a new school building was built in 1900/1901. 37 years later, in 1938, the school was closed again by the National Socialist rulers and used as a Reich Finance School and later as a military hospital .
The school was considered an elite high school, where many Catholic aristocrats from the German Empire were also taught.
After the Second World War , the college was reopened and the school's final Matura took place in 1979. Since 1977 the building has housed the Vorarlberg State Conservatory, where over 400 students study music today.
Prehistory: 1547–1649
Between 1550 and 1700, almost 50 Jesuit colleges were founded in Germany. There were also 13 in Prussia-Poland, 36 in Austria and Hungary and five in Switzerland.
In 1547 the Jesuits in Messina founded the first Jesuit college for external students (i.e. for those who did not belong to the order and had no intention of entering). Petrus Canisius taught there and gained experience for his later foundings in Germany and Switzerland.
The first German college was founded in 1556 by Father Johannes Retius as "Tricoronatum" ( Dreikönigsgymnasium ) in Cologne; it still exists today under this name. A college with university operations had previously been founded in Vienna in 1551.
The Jesuit College St. Nikolaus in Feldkirch 1649–1773
In 1649, after the Peace of Westphalia , the Jesuit Order settled in Feldkirch at the request of the then responsible Prince-Bishop of Chur, first in the form of a mission station and in the following year as a college in Feldkirch ("Collegium Societatis Jesu Veldkirchy, Patronus S. Nicolaus").
Father Stanislaus, known as “Elias of his time” or “Apostle of the Bregenzerwald”, who was born as Michael Saurbeck (1595–1647) and came from Wutöschingen , played a major role in the creation and also in saving the city of Feldkirch from the enemy .
In 1652, 150 students were studying there in eight classes. In 1697 a large fire destroyed most of Feldkirch and the school building. In 1726 the Ill flooded the town of Feldkirch and the school. The repeal of the Jesuit order by Pope Clement XIV was read to the Fathers on November 10, 1773. The school was closed and the goods were auctioned.
The Stella Matutina from 1856 as an Imperial and Royal State High School
In 1814 Pope Pius VII again admitted the Jesuit order. Father Clemens Faller from Alsace, Provincial of the German Order Province since 1852 , founded the Jesuit college "Stella Matutina" in Feldkirch in 1856. Father Faller, a former Freiburg student, bought a newly built but unused barracks in Feldkirch. In the same year he received a “very high resolution” from Emperor Franz Joseph I with the approval to start the school as an imperial-royal (k. K.) Grammar school under certain conditions.
Private educational institution 1868–1891
It was about Ratio Studiorum or state examination : Jesuits had been teaching in their colleges for centuries with about ten years of intensive religious training and their study regulations Ratio Studiorum, but without state examination. The Ratio Studiorum , which was used in all colleges, was a collection of practical rules for the heads of the Jesuit universities, colleges and their organs, professors, theologians, teachers and educators. It defines exams and requirements for subjects and a class system. In terms of content, emphasis was placed on training in Latin, Greek, history, theology, music, theater and rhetoric. Latin was colloquial, as was the case in Feldkirch. Liberal politicians also called for the Austrian state examination and state curricula in Jesuit schools .
After attacks by the press and politics against the Jesuits at the time, the parliament in Vienna decided to withdraw the administration of the Imperial and Royal State High School in Feldkirch from the Jesuit order . The teaching qualification was denied to the fathers in Feldkirch. The college itself was allowed to continue to exist as a private educational institution thanks to the protection of Emperor Franz-Josef. The curriculum could now be designed more freely. Since many of the pupils came mainly from Germany, they shifted even more to classical languages, which also corresponded to the requirements of German grammar schools.
German and Austrian grammar school 1891–1919
The Stella as an imperial guaranteed private school without a state qualification was not sufficient for many Austrian parents in the long run. Austrian public rights were acquired and the Stella was run as a double high school. Now the international heyday of the college began. Up until the beginning of the First World War, pupils and Jesuit teachers came from all countries of Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, Slovenia, but also from Poland, Italy, Germany, France, the USA, etc. At that time, several assistant professors moved from Feldkirch to the Papal University Gregoriana or others Universities. Well-known Jesuit professors helped the Stella gain an additional reputation as a scientific center with their private studies. The papal historian Ludwig von Pastor , Achille Ratti (Vatican library, later Pope Pius XI. ) And others sought their company and scientific advice in repeated stays in Feldkirch. The rector of the college at this time was Anton David .
The outbreak of World War I weighed heavily on the school. War-related blockades and hostilities reduced the formerly numerous student nations essentially to Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The number of students in the years 1914-1919 had fallen sharply. In June 1917 there was the last visit of the Emperor, Charles I was a guest at the Stella Matutina with Empress Zita . The Emperor Karl, beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 3, 2004, said in the Stella:
"Anyone who has a religious foundation and remains religious has his man everywhere."
Reconstruction and closure by the National Socialists 1919–1938
After the war, the pension price rose in five years from 2,700 kroner to 11,000,000 kroner per year due to inflation. But there were also bright spots. After 1919, members of other nations were able to return in small numbers. The number of German students decreased more and more after 1920 as a result of the economic difficulties there, which threatened the existence of the Stella Matutina more and more. From 1923 on, whole classes were dismissed or merged with Austrian classes. The recognition of Stella as a German school abroad by Berlin became all the more important . In the spring, a privy councilor Melber came from Berlin to examine the pupils, school, curricula, school facilities and the Abitur, which the Director of Studies P. Otto Faller had carefully prepared with his predecessor P. Josef Knünz. The results were excellent: sixteen students passed with distinction or good, four with sufficient. The German Reich Minister of the Interior then informed :
“I hereby revocably recognize the German department of the Stella Matutina College in Feldkirch as a higher school (full institution) that is equivalent to the German grammar schools. The confirmation of the current head of the institution, Father Otto Faller, is hereby expressed. "
In the following years the high school graduation results were excellent. Of 107 students, 86 graduated with distinction or good, 21 with sufficient. The school flourished under its reputation. In 1931 almost 500 students were taught again in Feldkirch, but mostly from Germany and Austria. The school's international importance was lost forever in 1914.
Moved to St. Blasien in 1934
After the Nazis came to power in Germany, the German government tried to put Austria under economic pressure. A thousand-mark block was passed by the Reichstag on May 27, 1933 , according to which every German citizen had to pay 1000 Reichsmarks before traveling to Austria. This meant that the transfer of pension funds was no longer guaranteed for the foreseeable future. Despite various attempts, it has unfortunately proven impossible to continue the German school abroad of the Stella Matutina as such in Feldkirch in the long term . It was decided to move the entire German grammar school to the St. Blasien college , a former Benedictine monastery in the Black Forest.
On March 20, 1934, the 240 German boys and many fathers and teachers said goodbye to Feldkirch with a heavy heart. Stella had shared the library, furniture, dishes, school inventory, a total of 13 railway wagons full of things that the Austrians generously sent to Germany . The previous director of studies, Provincial Otto Faller (1929–1934) managed the school move and became the school director in St. Blasien in the Black Forest , near his home in Saig . However, as the school director, Provinzial Faller was soon confronted with the principles of education under National Socialism and after multiple tribulations the order had to close the school again in 1939, after five years, under pressure from the Nazi government.
The Stella 1934–1938
The Stella went on with half her strength. Father Josef Knünz became the school director again, as he did before 1929. Only 223 pupils remained in the now purely Austrian grammar school. Feldkirch's Stella Matutina continued to run the school for Austrian and other pupils until it was closed by the Nazis. In 1938 the school was closed by the Nazi rulers and used as a Reich Finance School and later as a military hospital. For a long time, the school had been set up as a Greater German, as evidenced by the private records of the Austrian diplomat Josef Schöner, who in 1945 responded to an interview with Kurt Schuschnigg, a Stella student, as follows:
- “[Schuschnigg] only spoke of the German people, not of the Austrians. Amazing - if it should be true. Whether the memory of the 'Stella Matutina', whose attitude, contrary to prevailing opinion, was decidedly Greater German for many years (many Imperial German Jesuit fathers as teachers!) Has an effect? "
However, this attitude could not save them from the closure, especially since the Jesuits were always considered particularly loyal to the Pope and this was perceived as a threat by the new rulers.
Feldkirch Jesuit martyr
In the Jesuit Church in Innsbruck there is a plaque with the names of the Feldkirchen Jesuit Fathers, some of whom were cruelly executed by the National Socialists for their sincere demeanor. Among them are P. Alois Grimm and P. Alfred Delp , P. Johann Schwingshackel and P. Steinmeyer, who had to give up their lives for their faith. The trial of Father Alois Grimm was symptomatic of the hatred of Jesuit Fathers. His defense attorney at the " People's Court ", Dr. Joachim Lingenberg wrote after the hearing:
“Father Grimm's defense is one of the most terrifying memories of my life. It is a piece of historical truth that should be retained, especially at a time that tends to minimize what happened, at least in memory ... "
The last years: 1946–1979
After the end of the war, the Stella Matutina was in the French occupation zone . In October 1946, with 46 students, a new beginning was started in the former outbuildings. Feldkirch was separated from the German order province of the Jesuits and now belonged to the smaller Vice Province of Switzerland. By 1956 the number had grown to 327 students.
Resurgence
P. Blöchlinger, a former student, teacher and rector of the house, reports from the last few years: “The school has continued to develop. In 1953/54 the full grammar school with Austrian public rights was expanded and in 1954 the grammar school was authorized to carry out the German school leaving examination. In autumn 1963, in addition to the humanistic grammar school, a new language with the basic languages English and French was introduced, a prerequisite for the recognition of the Austrian Matura for Swiss students in 1973. Thus, the Stella Matutina was now the only Catholic private school in the German-speaking area where students from Austria, South Tyrol, Germany and Switzerland achieved the university entrance qualification recognized by their country. "
Pedro Arrupe's decision
The school continued its teaching operations until 1979, when it was closed by the Jesuit General Pedro Arrupe in a not undisputed decision due to a lack of offspring in the responsible Swiss religious province. The last Matura at the school took place in 1979. Less than two years after the historically unique deposition of the sick Father Arrupe by Pope John Paul II , Father Paolo Dezza became a Jesuit general , a fan and friend of Feldkirch. It was too late. P. Blöchlinger reports that a total of 10,648 students attended the Stella Matutina. From 1946–1979 there were 2,334. The 2,047 students from 1946–1971 were distributed according to where their parents lived in the following countries: Austria (916), Germany (500), Switzerland (408), Italy (101, of which South Tyrol 86), Liechtenstein (22), France (63) , other countries 37 (England, Holland, Portugal, Sweden, Spain, Hungary, Ghana, Nigeria, USA, Mexico, Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Turkey, India, Indonesia, Australia).
Since 1977 the building has housed the Vorarlberg State Conservatory , where over 400 students study music today.
Well-known professors and students
The importance of the Stella Matutina for her time is reflected, among other things, in the well-known personalities who have taught there as teachers, professors or educators. There were: The Jesuit General Franz Xaver Wernz , the later Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar , Cardinal Franz Ehrle ; Hermann Hoffmann , Hugo Rahner , Otto Danneffel, Heinrich Pesch , Alois Urban Piscalar , Alexander Baumgartner ; Wunibald Briem ; Hermann Joseph von Fugger-Glött , Johann Georg Hagen , Otto Karrer , Max Pribilla , Erich Przywara , Otto Faller , Alfred Delp , Friedrich Muckermann , Augustin Rösch , Alois Grimm , Johannes Rick, Paul de Chastonay , Oswald von Nell-Breuning , Niklaus Brantschen , Werner Nagel , Ferdinand Strobel and Karl Josef Rudolf Cornely .
Some of the teachers and educators mentioned were previously pupils at the Stella Matutina, such as Cardinal Ehrle, Johannes Hagen, professor and head of the papal observatory, Joseph Fröbes , professor of philosophy in Falkenburg, Johannes Rick , professor of philosophy in Sao Leopoldo, Brazil .
Influential secular students also came from the Stella, such as the future Prince Aloys zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg , President of the Central Committee of German Catholics, the first Swiss General Niklaus Franz von Bachmann , Count Alfred Eckbrecht von Dürckheim-Montmartin , commanding general of the II Royal Bavarian Army Corps and confidante of Ludwig II, Count Franz-Josef Degenfeld Schonburg, professor of economics at the University of Vienna, Cardinal Clemens August von Galen , Franz von Galen , the cardinal's brother, Emanuel von Galen , Member of the State Parliament (DP) , Cousin of the two named, Heinrich Adelmann von Adelmannsfelden , MdR (center), the politician Hans Georg von Oppersdorff , the Vorarlberg governor and temporary Federal Chancellor Otto Ender , Kurt Schuschnigg , dictator in the Austro-Fascist corporate state and Federal Chancellor of Austria (1934–1938, and 1939 –1945 in various concentration camps), Ferdinand von Lüninck , Upper President of the Pr ovinz Westfalen 1933–38 and member of the national conservative resistance against Hitler, executed on November 14, 1944, the Jesuit and theologian Josef Neuner , the international law expert Theodor Veiter , the Austrian politician and freedom fighter Aloys Oberhammer , the poet Peter Paul Rainer , the Westphalian lawyer and author Heinrich von Droste zu Hülshoff , the publicist Carl Doka , the zoologist and writer Franz Xaver Graf von Zedtwitz , the Vorarlberg politician and lawyer Guntram Lins , the Valais politician and hotel entrepreneur Hermann Seiler , the Viennese architect Anton Liebe , the writer Arthur Conan Doyle , the experimental psychologist Alexander Willwoll , Michael Czinkota , professor of international business administration at Georgetown University in Washington, as well as the meteorologist Karl Gabl and the two economists and rectors of the University of Innsbruck Manfried Gantner , the future castle actors Ignaz Kirchner and Christ ian Smekal .
architecture
In the beginning there was the barracks:
In fact, there was a newly erected building in Feldkirch - ingens aedificium the house chronicle calls it somewhat hyperbolic - above the mill gate on the right bank of the Ill. This is where the little St. Leonhard's church stood "in the floodplain", Count Rudolf von Montfort on the basis of a vow made in his captivity in the years 1374–79. When larger troop contingents were stationed in Vorarlberg during the troubled revolutionary years of 1847–1849, the city magistrate had hoped to get a garrison. In 1850 he had the little St. Leonhards church torn down and a barracks built in its place.
But the troops were billeted in other parts of Austria, and the three-story barracks stood empty and were sold to the Jesuits. However, the building turned out to be too small and had to be expanded with a study wing on the Ill after just two years. After that, the number of internal and external students rose from 50 to 465. Emperor Franz Josef then approved a new building for the previous state high school around 1860, thus showing his preference for Christian education and his goodwill towards the Feldkirch high school.
In 1877 a class wing was added to the barracks on the southeast corner. As the number of pupils increased, "the new building" of the grammar school, today's Vorarlberg State Conservatory, was built on the left bank of the Ill in the autumn of 1899 , which was connected to the old building by a covered iron bridge over the river. The new Stella Matutina building was built between 1899 and 1900 by the Innsbruck architect Peter Hutter . Due to its asymmetry, the large building loses something of the monumentality that often made the Viennese Ringstrasse style appear negative. The horizontal bands take into account the topographical situation.
In the years 1890 and especially in 1910, catastrophic floods of the Ill caused great damage to the college and the city of Feldkirch. After the German grammar school moved to St. Blasien, the old building on the right-hand side was sold to the city of Feldkirch in 1938.
literature
- Stella Matutina (Ed.): 75 years of Stella Matutina. 3 volumes. Volume I: Treatises by Faculty Members. Volume II: Treatises by former pupils. Volume III: Stella times and stella lives, described by pupils. Self-published, Feldkirch 1931.
- P. Alex Blöchlinger SJ: The moving history of the Stella Matutina College from 1856–1938 and 1946–1979. Bucher, Hohenems 2006, ISBN 978-3-902525-52-9 .
- P. Alex Blöchlinger SJ: 150 years since Stella Matutina was founded. In: Feldkirch Aktuell. June 2006.
- P. Otto Faller SJ: 25 years at the St. Blasien college. In: Kollegbrief 1959. Ed. Kolleg St. Blasien. St. Blasien 1959, pp. 20-25.
- P. Josef Stiglmayr SJ: Festschrift to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ULF Stella Matutina boarding school in Feldkirch. Feldkirch, 1906.
- Bernhard Holes: The Austrian Feldkirch and its Jesuit colleges, St. Nikolaus' and 'Stella Matutina'. Mainz Studies in Modern History, Vol. 22, Frankfurt a. Main 2008.
- P. Anton Ludewig SJ: Letters and files on the history of the grammar school and the college of the Society of Jesus in Feldkirch (1649–1773). In: Annual reports of the Stella Matutina private high school (1908–1911).
- Fr Jón Svensson SJ: How I gave the retreat to the little pupils in the Stella Matutina, October 1916 . Special print from the communications from the German Province, No. 60, Easter 1917. 13 bls. Roermond.
More general:
- Brigitte Behal: Continuities and discontinuities of German-national Catholic elites in the period 1930–1965. Dissertation, University of Vienna. Faculty of History and Cultural Studies, 2009.
- P. Albert Heitlinger SJ: About old Jesuit colleges and their pedagogy. In: Kollegbrief, 100 years of Stella Matutina 1856–1956. Teutsch, Bregenz 1956.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ This was followed (1559–1600) colleges were founded in Munich, Trier, Mainz, Dillingen, Würzburg, Speyer, Fulda, Heiligenstadt, Augsburg, Koblenz, Molsheim near Strasbourg, Paderborn, Münster in Westphalia, Regensburg, Altötting and Hildesheim (Heitlinger)
- ↑ Ed. Community Wutöschingen, Parish of St. John the Baptist Schwerzen, pp. 69–71
- ↑ Knünz, p. 108
- ↑ Knünz, p. 145
- ↑ see Knünz, p. 133 ff.
- ^ Ernst Bruckmüller in: Österreichische Galerie Belvedere: Das neue Österreich. Vienna 2005, p. 241.
- ↑ Benedicta Maria Kempner : Priest before Hitler's tribunals . Unchanged reprint of the 2nd edition from 1967. Bertelsmann, Munich 1996, ISBN 978-3-570-12292-1 , p. 125 .
- ↑ a b Blöchlinger, 150 years
- ↑ 75 years of Stella Matutina, Volume III, index
- ↑ Time - Austria's original sin
- ↑ Holmes at the Stella Matutina . In: derstandard.at , May 15, 2009
- ↑ Rector Manfried Gantner will end his rectorate on September 30, 2007 . Retrieved July 8, 2018.
- ↑ Head of the week: Em. O.Univ.-Prof. Dr. Christian Smekal . Article from January 22, 2007, accessed on July 8, 2018.
- ↑ Knünz, p. 14
- ↑ Knünz, p. 42