Waldemar Otte

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Waldemar Otte

Waldemar Wilhelm Otte (born March 29, 1879 in Leuber ; † July 9, 1940 in Breslau ) was a German politician ( center ) and Catholic priest.

Live and act

Otte was born in 1879 as the son of a master carpenter. After attending elementary school (1885–1890) and grammar school in Neustadt , he studied Catholic theology , philosophy and economics at the University of Breslau from 1898 to 1901 . In 1902 he was ordained a priest. He then worked as a pastor in Kesselsdorf ( Löwenberg district ). 1903 doctorate he became Dr. theol.

After the chaplaincy in Schweidnitz , Otte officiated from 1907 to 1917 as a pastor in Greiffenberg in Silesia . There he founded, among other things, a group of the Volksverein for Catholic Germany and in 1910 the newspaper Der Greif , the first Catholic newspaper in Lower Silesia. On October 1, 1917, Otte became the full-time state secretary of the People's Association for Silesia in Breslau, where he was also appointed cathedral deficit. During the revolution , he headed the Sunday paper for the diocese of Breslau . On February 1, 1919, he became editor of the Neisser Zeitung in Breslau.

After the First World War at the latest , Otte joined the Catholic Center Party . From January 1919 to June 1920 he was a member of his party for constituency 11 (Liegnitz) in the Weimar National Assembly . Otte, who was a member of the centre's board of directors at the time, supported the newly founded republic and the constitution adopted in Weimar. In terms of coalition politics, despite his fundamental rejection of social democracy, he campaigned for the center to merge with the SPD .

From 1921 to 1924 Otte was director of the Bergland-Gesellschaft in Schweidnitz and chief editor of the Mittelschlesische Zeitung . He then worked as a pastor in Liegnitz , where he was mainly socially committed. In 1928 he was co-editor of the monthly Die Seelsorge . In the same year he was made the canon of honor in Wroclaw. This honor was later followed by appointments as resident canons and cathedral preacher (1931).

Grave of Waldemar Otte at the Laurentiusfriedhof in Breslau

In 1930 he became a representative of the Lower Silesia Province in the Reichsrat and in 1931 chairman of the Lower Silesian Center Party. In 1932 and in March 1933 Otte was elected twice in a row for the constituency of Breslau in the Prussian state parliament.

After the National Socialist " seizure of power " Otte was forced to give up his political activities. Instead, he withdrew to his work in the cathedral chapter and as an employee of Cardinal Adolf Bertram . He became director of the diocesan retreat, vice-curator of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Elisabeth and editor of the Silesian Bonfatius Association newspaper. He took an indirect position against the Nazi regime through political acts such as hiding a communist functionary wanted by the Gestapo in 1933.

Fonts

  • The historical value of the old biographies of Pope Clement V , 1903. (Dissertation)
  • The center in the German National Assembly in Weimar , Breslau 1919.
  • The German Catholics and the New Era , s. l. 1919.
  • The recovery of the socialist working masses , in: Die Seelsorge 7, 1929/1930, pp. 81–92.
  • Defeated the center by the enemies! Left by friends , in: Deutsche Reichszeitung from April 29, 1933.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Otte, Waldemar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Otte, Waldemar Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theologian and politician (center), MdR, MdL
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Leuber
DATE OF DEATH July 9, 1940
Place of death Wroclaw