Hugo Aufderbeck (23 March 1909 – 17 January 1981) was a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

. He served as

Bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

and

Apostolic Administrator An Apostolic administration in the Catholic Church is administrated by a prelate appointed by the pope to serve as the ordinary for a specific area. Either the area is not yet a diocese (a stable 'pre-diocesan', usually missionary apostolic admi ...

in the

Episcopal Office An episcopal polity is a hierarchical form of church governance ("ecclesiastical polity") in which the chief local authorities are called bishops. (The word "bishop" derives, via the British Latin and Vulgar Latin term ''*ebiscopus''/''*bi ...

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...

Meiningen Meiningen () is a town in the southern part of the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in the region of Franconia and has a population of around 25,000 (2021).

Life

Early years

Aufderbeck was born in Hellefeld, a small village in the heart of the

Sauerland The Sauerland () is a rural, hilly area spreading across most of the south-eastern part of North Rhine-Westphalia, in parts heavily forested and, apart from the major valleys, sparsely inhabited. The Sauerland is the largest tourist region in ...

countryside, and located some 70 km (45 miles) to the southeast of

Dortmund Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...

. He attended the local school and then studied

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for a year with his vicar, Dr. Josef Brill. His early years were spent in a Roman Catholic environment, but he then switched to secondary school, the humanist "Laurentian Gymnasium" in nearby

Arnsberg Arnsberg (; wep, Arensperg) is a town in the Hochsauerland county, in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is the location of the Regierungsbezirk Arnsberg administration and one of the three local administration offices of the Hochs ...

. He concluded his secondary schooling in

Paderborn Paderborn (; Westphalian: ''Patterbuorn'', also ''Paterboärn'') is a city in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pader and ''Born'', an old German term for t ...

, where he was able to board at the archbishop's boys' seminary (''"Seminarium Liborianum"''). It was in Paderborn, as a pupil at the city's "Gymnasium Theodorianum" Cathedral School, that on 8 March 1930 he successfully passed his school final exams. Remaining in Paderborn he now entered the episcopate's and studied

Theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

. This period also included two sabbatical semesters, in 1932/33, in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

. Then, from 1934 till 1936, he attended the Paderborn Catholic Priest Seminary. On 28 March 1936, in the

Cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...

, Archbishop Caspar Klein ordained Hugo Aufderbeck into the priesthood. Following his ordination Aufderbeck became a religious teacher in

Gelsenkirchen Gelsenkirchen (, , ; wep, Gelsenkiärken) is the 25th most populous city of Germany and the 11th most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 262,528 (2016) inhabitants. On the Emscher River (a tributary of the Rhine), it lies ...

at the Franciscan Sisters'

Lyceum The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies among countries; usually it is a type of secondary school. Generally in that type of school the th ...

. In 1937 he began to study at the

University of Münster The University of Münster (german: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, WWU) is a public university, public research university located in the city of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. With more than 43,000 students and over ...

for a higher level teaching qualification. This was cut short in 1938 when the course was closed under pressure from the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

. Aufderbeck now relocated to the eastern part of the large

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Paderborn The Archdiocese of Paderborn is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany; its seat is Paderborn.Saints Francis and Elizabeth in Halle, also becoming a student chaplain for the city.

Wartime

In 1940 he took on pastoral responsibilities for soldiers in the Halle region, having already since September 1939 been creating a "Soldiers' Circle", in which regular soldiers, regardless of rank, met together. Using the military mail service he had built up and sustained a massive correspondence, which by Easter 1945 and the end of the

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

had involved several thousand soldiers. Mistrusted by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

, he was subject to house-searches and interrogation sessions, and by the end of the war at constant risk of arrest and punishment. During the

Aufderbeck was in contact with the resistance group around Prof. Theodor Lieser. As the end approached Halle was occupied by

US troops The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...

on 17 April 1945, and Theodor Lieser was installed by them as the city's Lord Mayor. Although Halle was liberated by Americans, by the time war ended

zones of occupation Germany was already de facto occupied by the Allies from the real fall of Nazi Germany in World War II on 8 May 1945 to the establishment of the East Germany on 7 October 1949. The Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France ...

had been agreed which placed Halle in the

Soviet occupation zone The Soviet Occupation Zone ( or german: Ostzone, label=none, "East Zone"; , ''Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii'', "Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany") was an area of Germany in Central Europe that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a c ...

in what remained of

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, and in July 1945 the Americans withdrew and were replaced by the

Red army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

. Both under US occupation and under the longer period of Soviet administration which followed, Aufderbeck focused on youth work. He was a member of the "Archbishop's Council for Imperiled Youth" (''"Erziehungsbeirats für gefährdete Jugendliche"'') and of the "Advisory Council for Public Youth Support". He was the

representative in liaison with the newly formed Free German Youth (FDJ / ''Freie Deutsche Jugend''). The FDJ was the youth wing of the recently renamed and reconstituted

ruling party The ruling party or governing party in a democratic parliamentary or presidential system is the political party or coalition holding a majority of elected positions in a parliament, in the case of parliamentary systems, or holding the executive ...

in this part of Germany, which by the later 1940s was in the process of reverting to one-

party dictatorship A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties ...

. In 1947 Aufderbeck was appointed by Wilhelm Weskamm, the episcopal commissioner (who later became the Bishop of Berlin) as the permanent representative of the Archbishop's Commission for Youth Work in the Province of Saxony. The context for these developments, and for much of Aufdebeck's subsequent career, was the political frontier which since 1945 had divided the eastern half of the Paderborn archdiocese from

itself. Although this secular border was initially thoroughly porous, it would become progressively less so after the reinvention, formally in October 1949, of the

as the new Soviet sponsored

German Democratic Republic German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

. Because of the way in which FDJ activity was ever more overtly blended into the increasingly ubiquitous political activity of the ruling SED (party), Aufderbeck's contacts with the FDJ were fairly soon abandoned.

Soviet occupation zone / German Democratic Republic

In 1948 Weskamm made Aufderbeck responsible for building up and directing spiritual support on behalf of the Archdiocesan Commission. The political division of Germany was becoming accepted as a permanent aspect of the post-war legacy. Within this political reality Aufderbeck and Weskamm, and then Weskamm's successor created an increasingly separate structure for the eastern part of the Paderborn archdiocese, and in the process constructed an important spiritual and administrative focus for the

church in the

. Of particular importance are Aufderbeck's efforts regarding liturgical renewal, the "priestless" offices in remoter areas, with Communion celebrated by members of the laity, and his work at preparing priests and believers for ideological confrontation with

Communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

. In 1955 he became a member of the Liturgical Commission of the Fulda Bishops' Conference of Pastoral Theologians in the German speaking lands. In 1956, at the invitation of the Trier based German Liturgical Institute, he took part in the first international Pastoral Liturgical Congress, held at

Assisi Assisi (, also , ; from la, Asisium) is a town and ''comune'' of Italy in the Province of Perugia in the Umbria region, on the western flank of Monte Subasio. It is generally regarded as the birthplace of the Latin poet Propertius, born aroun ...

. In 1958 he was appointed a

Papal chamberlain A Papal Gentleman, also called a Gentleman of His Holiness, is a lay attendant of the pope and his papal household in Vatican City. Papal gentlemen serve in the Apostolic Palace near St. Peter's Basilica in ceremonial positions, such as escorting d ...

and in 1959 a Papal

Honorary Prelate A Prelate of Honour of His Holiness is a Catholic prelate to whom the Pope has granted this title of honour. They are addressed as Monsignor and have certain privileges as regards clerical clothing.The Pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

appointed Aufderbeck

Titular bishop A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese. By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox an ...

of ''Arca in Phonicia'' and an Auxiliary bishop with his base in

. The sudden erection in August 1961 of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...

had made it clearer than ever that the eastern part of the Paderborn archdiocese could no longer be administered from Paderborn. Aufderbeck received his episcopal ordination on 5 September 1962 from Archbishop of Berlin (later Cardinal) Alfred Bengsch.

Death

Aufderbeck became aware of his incurable cancer in 1977. He signed his last will on 15 December 1980. He died on 17 January 1981 in the

Catholic Hospital The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of health care services in the world. It has around 18,000 clinics, 16,000 homes for the elderly and those with special needs, and 5,500 hospitals, with 65 percent of them located in deve ...

References