KÖPP, GEORG von. - Cardinal, b. at Duderstadt on 25 July 1837, d. at Troppau, now Opava, on 4 March 1914. Ordained priest in 1862 and appointed director of a female teacher-training school, he concerned himself with pedagogical questions and educational policy.
He suffered persecution at the hands of the Prussian government during the Kulturkampf; but later, after the struggle between Church and State had ended, he took part in the political life of the country as a member of the Prussian House of Lords (from 1886), working toward conciliation between the two powers. He also showed himself conciliatory, as a member of the House of Lords and of the Diet of Austrian Silesia, toward the Poles, opposing the Prussian law for the expropriation of their landed property. He was also a member of the International Conference for the Protection of Workers of 1890 and of that for the reform of higher education in Prussia. Bishop of Fulda in 1881, prince-bishop of Breslavia from 1887, he was made cardinal by Leo XIII in 1893 and, as such, headed the German episcopate until his death.