HARTMANN, Felix von. — Cardinal, Archbishop of Cologne, b. at Münster in Westphalia on 15 Dec. 1851, d. at Cologne on 11 Nov. 1919. Ordained priest in 1874, he devoted himself to legal studies in Rome (1874-80), then to pastoral ministry for ten years (1880-90); subsequently he became secretary to the Bishop of Münster and vicar general; upon the death of his bishop he was elected vicar capitular (1910) and then, on 6 June 1911, bishop of the same diocese. Cardinal Fischer secured him (9 Apr. 1913) as his coadjutor with right of succession in Cologne, and when he became Archbishop of that city on 25 May 1914, he was raised to the purple with the title of Cardinal Priest of S. Giovanni a Porta Latina. As president of the Fulda Episcopal Conferences he was for many years at the head of the German episcopate.
He showed himself an indefatigable champion of Catholic orthodoxy against the errors of Hermann Schell, of the Kraus of the so-called Reform Catholicism movement, whose leading exponents were Herhard, Müller, and Schnitzer. He devoted himself to works of Christian charity during the First European War (1914-18). Through his zeal there arose at Paderborn an institution for the benefit of all prisoners in Germany. To the imprisoned priests he obtained from the Emperor the treatment accorded to officers. In the field of charity he promoted a kind of confederation among all the charitable works in Germany.
In his social action he took care to avoid any exaggeration and to maintain unconditional fidelity to the directives of Rome. Thus, in the very difficult question of Christian trade unions, he immediately followed the line of conduct marked out by Pius X in the encyclical *Singulari quadam* of 24 Aug. 1912, namely, tolerance towards Christian trade unions with the necessary safeguards indicated in the same papal document, although until that day he had followed a somewhat different approach in the *Kölnische Volkszeitung*.
He promoted with solemn celebrations the 12th centenary of the beginning of the evangelization of Germany by St. Boniface (1919) and laid the foundations of the celebrated association *Neudeutschland*, which did so much good among German youth.