KOPP, GEORG von
Cardinal. Born at Duderstadt on 25 July 1837, died at Troppau (now Opava) on 4 March 1914. Ordained priest in 1862, and appointed director of a school for women teachers, he devoted himself to pedagogical problems and to educational policy.
He suffered persecution at the hands of the Prussian government during the period of the *Kulturkampf*; but once 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 to reconcile the two powers. He showed himself equally 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 in 1890 and of that for the reform of higher education in Prussia. Bishop of Fulda in 1881, prince-bishop of Breslau from 1887, he was created cardinal by Leo XIII in 1893 and, in that capacity, headed the German episcopate until his death.