BERTRAM, ADOLF

BERTRAM, ADOLF. – Cardinal, born on 14 March 1859 at Hildesheim, died on 6 July 1945 at Breslau. He pursued philosophical and theological studies at the Universities of Würzburg and Munich. Ordained a priest in 1881, he came to Rome, where he was chaplain of the Collegio Teutonico of S. Maria dell’Anima, and obtained a degree in canon law from the Gregorian University. In 1884 he also obtained a degree in theology at Würzburg. In that same year he entered the episcopal curia of Hildesheim; after subsequently serving as canon of that cathedral Chapter, vicar general, and capitular vicar, he was elected bishop of Hildesheim in 1906. During these years he devoted himself intensely to 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 27 May 1914 he was transferred to the episcopal see of Breslau, then of great importance, since the diocese of Berlin had not yet been established and formed part of it as the delegation of Brandenburg and Pomerania. In 1916 Benedict XV created B. cardinal in pectore, publishing his name three years later with the title of S. Agnese fuori le Mura. Card. B. thus became the head and leader of the German episcopate, and exercised these functions particularly at the annual conferences of Fulda. When, in accordance with the concordat concluded with Prussia in 1929, the diocese of Breslau was raised to the dignity of a metropolitan church, Card. B. assumed the archiepiscopal title. After National Socialism came to power (Jan. 1933), Card. B. defended the rights of German Catholics before Hitler. He firmly protested against measures aimed at dissolving Catholic associations and against the removal from public office of many officials because they were Catholics and, as president of the Fulda conferences, was the authoritative spokesman for all the Catholics of Germany. When war broke out in 1939, Card. B. was particularly concerned, given the geographical position of his diocese, with the fate of the interned Polish priests and of Polish workers in Germany. He never left his see, not even amid the onslaught of aerial bombardments and street fighting, and after his death he was buried in that metropolitan church. Although he uncompromisingly opposed Nazism, Card. B., a mild and conciliatory man by temperament, avoided giving the struggle against the Third Reich a violent character; consequently, the statements by von Hassel concerning him (“the majority—including the old irenic cardinal, Bishop B. of Breslau—is opposed to open struggle, opposed to political methods, and would prefer religious methods”) have meaning only if interpreted in the aforementioned sense.