Adolf Bertram
His Eminence Adolf Bertram | |
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Schloß Johannesberg, Jauernig, Czechoslovakia | |
Denomination | Roman Catholic |
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Motto | veritati et caritati |
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Adolf Bertram (14 March 1859 – 6 July 1945) was
Early life
Adolf Bertram was born in
Eight years later, on 8 September 1914, the Pope confirmed his election by the cathedral chapter of
Cardinal
On 4 December 1916 Bertram was created a cardinal but only
After hostilities ceased, his appointment was published on 5 December 1919, and he was assigned the titular church of
Silesian uprisings
Order of 21 November 1920
On 21 November 1920, four months before the
Conflict with Polish members of the clergy
A special committee of 91 priests from Upper Silesia issued a declaration to Holy See in which they warned of the consequences of Bertram's actions and growing "bitterness" among the population that would harm the Catholic Church in the long term. They called for a boycott of his order and declared loyalty to Vatican.[2] Soon, the priests were supported by senior members of the Polish clergy. On 30 November, at the residence of Cardinals Aleksander Kakowski and Dalbor and Bishops Bilczewski, Sapieha, Teodorowicz, Fulman and Przeździecki issued a letter to Pope to warn him that Bertram engaged in political activity on behalf of German side and threatened to break relations between the Vatican and the Polish state as well as the Polish nation. Thy pleaded with the Pope to revoke Bertram's order.[2]
As the consequences of Bertram's order became known, the Polish Parliament debated on breaking up relations with the Vatican or removing the Polish ambassador to the Vatican. Eventually, the Polish government decided to issue a protest note, and the Vatican revoked its delegate to Poland, Achille Ratti, who would later become Pope Pius XI.[2]
On 7 November 1922, Bertram lost his episcopal competence in the parishes of Breslau diocese that had become part of
Last years of Weimar Republic
By his bull "Pastoralis officii nostri"
In 1930, he refused a religious funeral for a well-known Nazi official on the grounds that the principles of
In a widely publicized statement, he criticized as a grave error the one-sided glorification of the Nordic race and the contempt for divine revelation that was increasingly taught throughout Germany. He warned against the ambiguity of the concept of "positive Christianity", a highly nationalistic religion that the Nazis were encouraging. Such a religion, he said, "for us Catholics cannot have a satisfactory meaning since everyone interprets it in the way he pleases".[4]
In 1932, he sought the permission of Rome regarding about joining the Nazi Party, but it was refused as the Church wanted no involvement with politics.[5]
Nazi dictatorship
In March 1933, the president of an interfaith group asked for Bertram's aid in protesting the boycott of Jewish business organised by the Nazis but was refused as he regarded it as purely an economic matter and because, in his opinion, the Jewish press had kept silent about the persecution of Catholics.[6]
On the eve of the Second World War, Nazi Germany and, to a much lesser extent, Poland annexed parts of Czechoslovakia, Sudetenland and Trans-Olza, whose northern part was a component of Bertram's diocese. After the Polish takeover of Trans-Olza, which was never internationally recognised, the Polish government requested the Holy See to depose Bertram from jurisdiction in the newly-Polish annexed area.[7] The Holy See complied, and Pope Pius XI then subjected the Catholic parishes in Trans-Olza to an apostolic administration under Stanisław Adamski, Bishop of Katowice, who wielded that administration until 31 December 1939.[8]
World War II
He ordered Church celebrations upon Nazi Germany's victory over Poland and France, with an order to ring bells all across Reich upon the news of the German capture of Warsaw in 1939.[9] With his knowledge, the diocese of Breslau issued a statement calling the war with Poland a "holy war" fought to enforce God's orders on how to live and regain "German lost land".[9]
Bertram as ex officio head of the German episcopate sent greetings on the occasion of Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday in 1939 in the name of all German Catholic bishops, an act that angered bishop Konrad von Preysing; Bertram was the leading advocate of accommodation as well as the leader of the German church, a combination that reined in other would-be opponents of Nazism.[10]
Throughout most of World War II Cardinal Bertram remained in Breslau. Bertram opposed what he called the
In 1940, Cardinal Bertram condemned the propaganda and planning for Operation Lebensborn and Nazi vitalism and insemination plans as "immoral", saying that the Lebensborn programme was institutionalized "adultery".[12]
A few months after his death, Time magazine wrote about Cardinal Bertram:
Died. Adolf Cardinal Bertram, 86, outspoken anti-Nazi Archbishop of Breslau and dean of the German Catholic hierarchy, whose tireless resistance to Hitler's "neopaganism" was climaxed last March in his defiance of orders to evacuate Breslau before the advancing Russians; presumably in Breslau. His death left the College of Cardinals with 40 members - the fewest in 144 years.[13]
In early 1941 Bertram as metropolitan bishop of the
Last years and death
In 1945, as Soviet forces were attacking, he resisted pressure from the Nazi government to leave Breslau, until much of the population was evacuated. Bertram finally decided to leave the city in late February or early March 1945 and spent the rest of the war at his summer residence at Castle Johannesberg in Jauernig (Czechoslovak part of Breslau diocese, Sudetenland), where he died on 6 July 1945 at the age of 86.[14][15]
He was buried at the local cemetery in Ves Javorník (Oberjauernig). His body was exhumed in 1991 and was reburied in the metropolitan cathedral in Wrocław, Poland. He was succeeded as Chairman of the Fulda Conference of Catholic Bishops by Josef Frings.
Legacy
It has been claimed that Bertram scheduled a Requiem Mass upon Hitler's death. In point of fact, this is what we know: Bertram was elderly and ill when the war ended. When he died (just weeks later), his papers included a handwritten order scheduling a Requiem Mass for all Germans who died in the war, including Hitler (who was originally reported to have died while fighting the Red Army), and for the protection of the Catholic Church in Germany. This order was never sent, and the Mass was never held. Bertam's personal secretary later reported being unaware of this paper or any such proposed order. In fact, the order itself was crossed through with two broad strokes.[4]
References
- ^ "Adolf Cardinal Bertram". Catholic-Hierarchy.org. David M. Cheney. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Stanisław Sierpowski. Watykan wobec polsko-niemieckich plebiscytów 1919-1921 (1988)
- Upper Silesia plebiscite.
- ^ a b c Ronald J. Rychlak. "Goldhagen v. Pius XII", First Things, volume 124 (June/July 2002): pp. 37-54 Archived 2013-10-15 at the Wayback Machine Catholic Education Resource Center
- ^ "I forbid," wrote the future Pope Pius XII, "that ecclesiastical authorities or church interests be utilized for party politics", "Three Popes and the Jews", Pinchas Lapide, p. 92, 1967, Hawthorn
- ^ Lapide, 1967, p. 99
- Archdiocese of Olomouc, Poland had achieved likewise the deposition of Archbishop Leopold Prečanof Olomouc.
- ISBN 3-412-11800-1.
- ^ a b Czesław Madajczyk. Polityka III Rzeszy w okupowanej Polsce page 209 volume 2 , Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa, 1970
- ISBN 0-253-33725-9
- ^ ISBN 3-412-11800-1
- ^ "Battle of Births", time.com, 5 February 1940.
- ^ Time, 23 July 1945.
- ^ Catholic Hierarchy website, profile page
- ^ German History in Documents and Images website, Pastoral Letter by the Conference of Catholic Bishops (August 23, 1945)
- Daniel Jonah Goldhagenin "Hitler's Willing Executioners", 1997, pg. 454 and "A Moral Reckoning", 2002, pg. 266
- ISBN 0-253-33725-9.
Sources
- Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz (1975). "Bertram, Adolf". In Bautz, Friedrich Wilhelm (ed.). Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). Vol. 1. Hamm: Bautz. cols. 557–558. ISBN 3-88309-013-1.
- Cornwell, John. ISBN 0-670-88693-9.
- (in German) Schlesien in Kirche und Welt