|
Hilarius Breitinger, OFM Conv (7 June 1907 – 23 August 1994) was a German Franciscan prelate made apostolic administrator of the Reichsgau Wartheland during World War II by Pope Pius XII, one of the most controversial examples of the reorganization of occupied dioceses during World War II. Breitinger's appointment and those like it were the justification of the Polish Provisional Government for declaring the Concordat of 1925 "null and void" in 1945. ==Early life== Breitinger was born as Lorenz Breitinger on 7 June 1907 in Glattbach near Aschaffenburg.〔 Martin Sprungala. "(Breitinger, Hilarius )". Ostdeutsche Biographie.〕 His parents were Martin, a carpenter, and Barbara Breitinger.〔 He decided to study theology and enter the Order of Friars Minor ("Franciscans") after high school.〔 He was ordained in 1932.〔 According to Phayer, Breitinger is the "key to unraveling" the contradictory accounts of Catholicism in Poland between Poles of German ethnicity (Nazi term Volksdeutsche) and those of Polish ethnicity.〔 At the invitation of Primate Hlond, Breitinger (a German expatriate of Franconian descent) entered Poland in 1934 and began administering to Poles of German ethnicity in Poznań's church of St. Anthony of Padua,〔 under the authority of the Bundestreffen der Landsmannschaft Weichsel-Warthe (LWW) as a pastor at a local Franciscan church.〔 Breitinger wrote in a letter to Pius XII that he "did not like" pastoral work.〔 While a pastor, Breitinger learned the Polish language.〔 After the German invasion of Poland, Breitinger was arrested on September 1, 1939〔 and asked to report to local police as "formality".〔 Instead, Breitinger, the German expatriate, and ''Volksdeutsche'' were led around the countryside in a "three-week life-threatening ordeal".〔 Forced to undergo a gamut of verbal and physical abuse, Breitinger was at one point hit in the head with a brick which he later theorized would have been fatal if not for his glasses.〔 Some of his fellow captives succumbed to the ordeal or were murdered.〔 Eventually, Breitinger was abandoned as the vigilantes found themselves between the retreating Polish and advancing German armies.〔Phayer, 2008, p. 7.〕 When the German army came upon Breitinger and the ''Volksdeutsche'' they sang "Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles'", the German national anthem.〔 Similar accounts of abuse of ''Volksdeutsche'', especially ethnic German priests, are common during this period, and Breitinger's story comports in large part to that of August Rauhut.〔 However, for the next four years, Poland's 1.5 million ''Volksdeutsche'' "could literally cash in on the cruelties that the German occupational authorities heaped upon their Polish neighbors", until Polish and Soviet forces ended the German occupation.〔Phayer, 2008, p. 8.〕 During this period, Breitinger came to regard Polish Catholicism as "superficial" as—in his letters—he tried to explain how "all this was possible in a Catholic country".〔Phayer, 2008, p. 9.〕 However, Breitinger's formerly "disenchanted" opinion of Pius XII reversed in 1943 when he wrote that the pope's "heroic silence" would "create the foundation for a new peaceful order in the world".〔Phayer, 2000, p. 29.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hilarius Breitinger」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|