Theodor Seelbach

Theodor Seelbach SDB (born November 25, 1883 in Mengerskirchen near Limburg , † May 17, 1958 in Bendorf ) was a German Salesian of Don Bosco .

Live and act

Theodor Seelbach came from a religious family and had ten siblings. After attending elementary school until 1897, he worked in the construction industry in Wiesbaden from 1897 to 1908 and received training as a plasterer . In winter he worked as a nail blacksmith in Mengerskirchen . From 1903 to 1905 he did his military service, most recently with the rank of non-commissioned officer . Together with his older brother, they supported the Wiesbaden parish priest in church youth work. This in turn successfully promoted the vocation of priests. In 1909 he decided to join the order of the Salesians of Don Bosco, completed his school days in the boarding school in Penango in Italy, began his novitiate in Wernsee , which was interrupted during the First World War, during which he was wounded several times.

Because of his services on the Western Front, he was promoted to captain . He led the 5th company in the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 16 (List Regiment) , in which Adolf Hitler also served as a private. During the Third Reich, Hitler remembered his "regimental comrade" and sent him a picture of him with a personal dedication, a circumstance that annoyed Seelbach, but later helped secure the existence of the house in Marienhausen from the confiscation to the district leaders and party functionaries. As a final safeguard, he asked a Wehrmacht general friend of his to put the house under his command.

After the First World War he finished the novitiate in Unterwaltersdorf with his first profession on August 2, 1919, and went to Foglizzo to study theology . This was followed by a doctorate at the University of Turin , which he successfully completed in 1924. He received in the July 20, 1924 Turin the priesthood .

After various tasks in education, including as the first catechist in Marienhausen and parish vicar of Aulhausen (1925 to 1927), he was director in Marienhausen (1927 to 1931 and 1952 to 1954), Helenenberg (1931 to 1941) and Bendorf - Sayn ( 1949 to 1952 as the first director of the Johanneskolleg there).

As Provincial, he headed the All-German Province of the Order from 1941 to 1949. Although the Wehrmacht High Command had banned the sending of circulars to soldiers, he sent a total of 26 issues to the confreres in the field. The General Administration of the Salesians removed him prematurely from his office in 1949 because they considered him "too understanding ... in dealing with the war returnees". From 1954 to 1958 he was Provincial of the North German Province. He died of a heart attack and a pulmonary embolism and was buried in Marienhausen.

Fonts

• Master Don Bosco , Munich 1949
• Don Bosco speaks. Collected sayings from the life of St. Johannes Bosco , Bendorf 1955
• Cäcilia Burg: Don Bosco as educator. Lessons and examples from the life of the great youth apostle with regard to his preventive system , Bendorf 1956
• Dreams of Don Bosco , Bendorf 1958

swell

• Georg Söll: The Salesians of Don Bosco (SDB) in the German-speaking area 1888–1988 . Munich 1989.
• Alois Leuninger: Mengerskirchen . Section on Theodor Seelbach (1973)

Footnotes

1. ↑ Dr. Theodor Seelbach (1883-1958). Responsible for the appointment (PDF file; 104 kB)
2. ↑ Gisela Fleckenstein: Working Group Order History 19./20. Century . In: Ordenskorrespondenz 53 (2012), Heft 1, pp. 100-105. <Conference report on the 12th symposium 2012>. Quote p. 103.