KOLPING, ADOLF. – Priest and organizer of the first Catholic workers’ associations in Germany, hence called the Gesellenvater; born in Kerpen (Cologne) on 8 December 1813, died in Cologne on 4 December 1865. Forced by poverty to take up the shoemaker’s trade, he was able to become closely acquainted with the spiritual and temporal needs of young workers, to whom he would later devote his entire life.
At the age of twenty-four he decided to enter the ecclesiastical career; ordained in 1845, he was sent as curate to Elberfeld, where a Jünglingverein had recently been founded, soon becoming a Kath. Gesellenverein, with the aim of helping young workers to prepare themselves to become the men of tomorrow: skilled craftsmen, sincere Catholics, and exemplary heads of families. K. took charge of it, was elected its president in 1847, animated it with his zeal, and perfected its programme. He had understood that, in order to raise the level of the working class and transform it into the creator of a new social world, it was necessary not only to instil religious principles in its members, but also to give them the means of continually improving their skills in their own trade, so as to assert themselves and assume positions of leadership. To achieve this aim more effectively, the « associations » had to multiply throughout working-class Germany. Meanwhile, he decided to begin with Cologne, a major industrial centre. In 1849 he was appointed assistant pastor at the cathedral, and immediately established an « association » there, which soon succeeded in obtaining premises of its own and opening a hostel in which travelling workers could lodge. Energetic and indomitable, a good speaker and popular writer, he spread his ideas in pamphlets and undertook many journeys through Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, speaking about them everywhere. Success was not lacking, for at his death the « Gesellenverein » numbered approximately 400, and they continued to multiply, winning the sympathy of various countries in America as well.
He wrote: Der Gesellenverein und seine Aufgabe (1851); Für ein Gesellenhospitium (1852), and, in order to promote sound popular reading, a substantial series of counsels, exhortations, and stories, distributed as supplements in various newspapers and in his annual Kolpingskalender.