Vitus Heller

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vitus Heller (born May 3, 1882 in Tauberrettersheim , † October 18, 1956 in Würzburg ) was a German left-Catholic publicist and politician during the Weimar Republic . Heller founded the Christian Social Reich Party .

Career

Vitus Heller received his political education and ideological basic orientation in the People's Association for Catholic Germany , a the center affiliated educational institution with headquarters in Mönchengladbach . There he received special support from the later German Reich Labor Minister Dr. Heinrich Brauns . After participating in the First World War and demobilization, Heller worked as secretary of the Volksverein in Würzburg from 1911. The encounter with Marxist war comrades had stimulated him to search for a third way between socialism and Christianity . He created a forum for himself in 1919 with the weekly Das Neue Volk . The “Heller Movement”, which was formed around the person and the newspaper, found support among southern German workers and craftsmen, in leagues of the Catholic youth movement and among some intellectuals and chaplains.

Christian Social Party of Bavaria

When the Bavarian People's Party (BVP) endangered Catholic unity by splitting off from the center , Vitus Heller founded the Christian Social Party of Bavaria at Heinrich Braun's instigation. This should bind the southern German workers opposing the BVP to itself. Heller's party program was based on Christian fundamentalism, pacifism , life and land reform in connection with industrial hostility. Prominent members were u. a. The working-class poet Heinrich Lersch and the writer Leo Weismantel , especially popular with young people . On the right wing of the center, Vitus Heller encountered opposition and hostility. In the Bavarian state elections in 1924 , however, the party only won one mandate for Leo Weismantel.

Christian Social Reich Party

See also Christian Social Reich Party

After the merger with the left-wing Catholic Christian Social People's Community, which was made up of West German industrial workers and small farmers from Westphalia and Emsland, in 1926, Heller's party was called the Christian Social Reich Party (CSRP). The radicalized program was sharply anti-capitalist and directed against the armaments policy of the center. According to divergent information, the number of members should not have exceeded a few thousand. The party organ Das Neue Volk had 15,000 subscribers. In 1928 the CSRP took part in the Reichstag elections , entering into an alliance with the Reich Party for People's Law and Appreciation. Vitus Heller hoped to get votes from center voters in the Catholic workforce. The top candidate was the "settler father", pacifist and youth leader Nikolaus Ehlen from Velbert. The alliance, which was mainly elected by members of the Catholic youth movement and opponents of armaments, received 110,704 votes (= 0.4%). However, this was not enough for a mandate. The center lost 8 of its 69 parliamentary seats, but the migration of votes among the workers did not benefit the CSRP, but the social democrats and, in some cases, the KPD as well . In the Reichstag election of 1930 , the CSRP received 271,291 votes, but the 0.8% was not enough for a seat in the Reichstag.

After the election, Vitus Heller's party quickly lost its importance. In early 1931 he changed its name to Workers and Peasants Party of Germany . Like his party, he grew closer to the KPD. Heller saw himself as a "communist Catholic", but remained loyal to the Catholic Church throughout his life . However, his party did not recover until it was banned in 1933.

In July 1933, Heller was temporarily sent to the Dachau concentration camp . After the end of the war, he and Adam Stegerwald were among the founders of the CSU in Lower Franconia in 1945, and from 1948 to 1951 he served as an honorary city councilor and refugee commissioner in Würzburg . He had to resign from chairmanship of a ruling chamber in 1946 after the Main-Post published a letter of loyalty from Heller to Adolf Hitler written in 1939.

Fonts

  • The program of Christian Socialism, the attempt of a program to rebuild an economic, social, state and national order on a Christian basis
  • No more war . Wuerzburg 1926

literature

  • Franz Konrad Schäfer: The Vitus Heller Movement on the Saar. Separate paths in the 1934 referendum battle between the German Front and the status quo . In: Yearbook for West German State History . 34th vol., 2008, pp. 547-696
  • Karsten Ruppert , In the service of the state of Weimar. The center as the ruling party in the Weimar democracy 1923-1930. Düsseldorf 1992.
  • Werner Fritsch, The Christian Social Reich Party (CSRP). In: Dieter Fricke u. a. (Ed.): Lexicon on the history of parties. The bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties in Germany (1789-1945). Vol. 1, Leipzig-Cologne.
  • Franz Hüskes, The Heller Movement. Essen 1927.
  • Klaus Kreppel , remembering the liberation in a narrative. Vitus Heller - a mystical-political figure of Weimar left Catholicism. In: “CfS-Korrespondenz.” No. 58. Bielefeld 7/1987. Theological special number for Marie Veit for her 65th birthday. Pp. 81-91
  • Wolfgang Löhr: Vitus Heller (1882-1956). In: Jürgen Aretz u. a. (Ed.): Contemporary history in life pictures. 8th volume, Mainz 1980, pp. 128-170.
  • Emil Ritter, The Catholic Social Movement in Germany in the 19th Century and the People's Association. Cologne 1954.
  • Susanne Hedler, The Catholic Socialists, presentation of their work. Dissertation Hamburg 1952.
  • Rolf Brüne: Nikolaus Ehlen (1856-1965), person, circle, background. Frankfurt a. M. 2002.
  • Franz Focke: Socialism in Christian Responsibility. The idea of ​​a Christian socialism in the Catholic social movement and in the CDU. Wuppertal 1981
  • Michael Rudloff: Catholic and socialist. Vitus Heller and his movement. In: encounter. Magazine for Catholics in Church and Society. 28th year 1988, pp. 31-32
  • Michael Rudloff: Weltanschauung organizations within the labor movement of the Weimar Republic. Frankfurt am Main 1991
  • Helga Grebing : History of the German labor movement. An overview. Munich 1966
  • Helmut Försch: Vitus Heller. Forgotten fighter for justice. Real Verlag Würzburg 2017.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rolf-Ulrich Kunze : Würzburg 1945-2004. Reconstruction, modern city. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Volume I-III / 2 (I: From the beginnings to the outbreak of the Peasant War. 2001, ISBN 3-8062-1465-4 ; II: From the Peasant War 1525 to the transition to the Kingdom of Bavaria 1814. 2004, ISBN 3 -8062-1477-8 ; III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 ), Theiss, Stuttgart 2001–2007, Volume III (2007), Pp. 318-346 and 1292-1295; here: p. 328.
personal data
SURNAME Heller, Vitus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 3, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Tauberrettersheim
DATE OF DEATH October 18, 1956
Place of death Wurzburg