Bertram, Adolf

BERTRAM, ADOLF. - Cardinal, b. March 14, 1859, in Hildesheim, d. July 6, 1945, in Breslau. He devoted himself to philosophical and theological studies at the Universities of Würzburg and Munich. Ordained a priest in 1881, he came to Rome and was chaplain of the Teutonic College of S. Maria dell'Anima, and he earned a doctorate in canon law at the Gregorian. In 1884 he also earned a doctorate in theology, at Würzburg. Having entered the episcopal curia of Hildesheim in the same year, after having successively been canon of that cathedral Chapter, vicar general and capitular vicar, he was elected its bishop in 1906. During these years he occupied himself intensely with the history of this bishopric, publishing the work Die Bischöfe von Hildesheim (1896) as well as a Geschichte des Bistums Hildesheim (Hildesheim 1899-1925), in 3 vols. On May 27, 1914, he was transferred to the episcopal see of Breslau, very important at that time, since the diocese of Berlin had not yet been established, which was part of it as a delegation of Brandenburg and Pomerania. In 1916 Benedict XV created B. a cardinal in pectore, publishing him three years later with the title of St. Agnes Outside the Walls. Cardinal B. thus became the head and guide of the German episcopate, and he exercised these functions particularly at the annual conferences of Fulda. Having been elevated, in accordance with the concordat of 1929 with Prussia, the diocese of Breslau to the dignity of metropolitan church, Cardinal B. assumed the archiepiscopal title. After the rise of National Socialism to power (Jan. 1933), Cardinal B. defended the rights of German Catholics before Hitler. He protested firmly against the measures tending toward the dissolution of Catholic associations and against the removal from public offices of many officials because they were Catholics and, as president of the conferences of Fulda, he was the authoritative spokesman of all the Catholics of Germany. When war broke out in 1939, Cardinal B. had particularly at heart, given the geographical position of his diocese, the fate of interned Polish priests and of Polish workers in Germany. He never left his see, not even under the raging of aerial bombardments and street fighting, and, having died, he was buried in that metropolitan church. Although he opposed Nazism intransigently, Cardinal B., of a mild and conciliatory nature, shrank from a violent framing of the struggle against the Third Reich, and therefore the phrases of von Hassel that concern him ("the majority - including the old irenic cardinal, Bishop B. of Breslau - is contrary to open struggle, contrary to political methods and would want religious methods") have meaning only if interpreted in the aforementioned way.

Silvio Furlani