The Order of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent De Paul, Motherhouse Freiburg, in the Archdiocese Freiburg Im Breisgau (Germany), 1846ꟷ1945
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THE ORDER OF THE SISTERS OF CHARITY OF SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL, MOTHERHOUSE FREIBURG, IN THE ARCHDIOCESE FREIBURG IM BREISGAU (GERMANY), 1846ꟷ1945 by ANGELIKA AGNES HANSERT THESIS FOR THE DEGREE OF PHD DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, MAYNOOTH HEAD OF DEPARTMENT: PROFESSOR FILIPE RIBEIRO DE MENESES SUPERVISOR OF RESEARCH: DR JACINTA PRUNTY OCTOBER 2018 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ......................................................................................... i List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................... iii Table of Figures ............................................................................................. iv Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 ....................................................................................................... 27 The introduction of the Order of the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, Motherhouse Freiburg, into Baden, 1841 to 1846 ꟷ setting the scene ............... Chapter 2 ....................................................................................................... 41 The first thirty-five years from 1846 to the 1880s: a slow start ............................ Chapter 3 ....................................................................................................... 67 Expansion years of the Motherhouse Freiburg, 1883 to 1918: spreading wings Chapter 4 ..................................................................................................... 107 Nursing as the main task of the Order of the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, Motherhouse Freiburg ............................................................................... Chapter 5 ..................................................................................................... 142 Nursing and the Motherhouse Freiburg in times of war, 1866 to 1918 ............... Chapter 6 ..................................................................................................... 165 The Motherhouse Freiburg in the Weimar Republic, 1919 to 1933: golden years? ................................................................................................................. Chapter 7 ..................................................................................................... 192 The Motherhouse Freiburg in the Weimar Republic, 1919 to 1933: education and training ......................................................................................................... Chapter 8 ..................................................................................................... 238 The Order of the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul in the Third Reich, 1933 to 1945: Forecourt of Hell .......................................................................... Conclusion .................................................................................................. 265 Appendix ..................................................................................................... 270 Bibliography ................................................................................................ 284 Acknowledgements I would like to express my very great appreciation to the Order of the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, Motherhouse Freiburg for allowing access to their archival collections. I would like to offer my special thanks to Mothers General Sister Anemunda Weh, Sister Birgitta Stritt and Sister Gerlanda Jäger and all the sisters who helped me in any way, especially the deceased Sisters M. Philogonia Seibel and Gudila Gerspacher who were an inspiration to me. I am indebted to the Order and to Fr Superior Maximilian Bertrud, deceased, for the scholarship which enabled me to undertake this research. I wish to express special thanks to Prof. em. Dr Hugo Ott to whom I owe the thesis topic in the first place, and to Fr Dr Hans-Peter Fischer who helped me at a critical stage in the research. I would like to thank all the staff of the different archives I visited over the years, especially the Freiburger Diözesanarchiv, the Motherhouse Archive Strasbourg, the Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, the Stadtarchiv Freiburg and the Staatsarchiv Freiburg. I am deeply grateful to my advisor Dr Jacinta Prunty. It was courageous of her to take me on as a student and I acknowledge all she has done to help me to achieve my goal in the set timeframe. I am also deeply grateful to Prof. Jacqueline Hill, Prof. Marian Lyons, Prof. Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses, Ann Donoghue, Catherine Heslin and all the other staff at Maynooth University, and the generosity and kindness with which they treated me, the foreigner, as one of theirs. Thank you for taking me on as a student and thank you for everything! I want to thank my dear friends all over the world who encouraged me to take up my studies again, notably in Germany and in Ireland. Special thanks go to my dear colleagues Marion Rogan, Egess Tiri, Fr Dr John Cunningham, Dr Fergal Donoghue and Richard Fitzpatrick for all their help, advice and for being such good 'comrades in arms'. The people who set the whole thesis project in motion were Dr Daragh Downes and his sister Jane without whom I would have never i even started all over again. I am deeply honoured to be called a friend by Prof. Eda Sagarra; she was my very own guardian angel. Without her this thesis would not exist. Special thanks go to my family in Germany. During all my studies and throughout this journey, my parents supported me in everything I did. Words cannot express the gratitude I feel. I dedicate this dissertation to you. ii List of Abbreviations CIC Codex Iuris Canonici DCV German Caritas Association (Deutscher Caritasverband) DiCV Diocesan Caritas Association (Diözesaner Caritasverband) EAF Archdiocesan Archive Freiburg (Erzbischöfliches Archiv Freiburg/Freiburger Diözesanarchiv) Fr Father GLA Baden State Archive Karlsruhe (Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe) MHA Freiburg Motherhouse Archive Freiburg MHA Strasbourg Motherhouse Archive Strasbourg NS National Socialist(s) NSV National Socialist Welfare Organisation (National- sozialistische Volkswohlfahrt) NSDAP National Socialist German Workers’ Party (National- sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) RJWG State Youth Care Act (Reichsjugendwohlfahrtsgesetz) StadtA FR Municipal Archive Freiburg (Stadtarchiv Freiburg) ZSKG Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte iii Table of Figures Figure 0.1 All branch houses of the Motherhouse Freiburg in the 4 Archdiocese of Freiburg, 1846 to 1945 Figure 1.1 Family tree of the Sœurs de la Charité de Strasbourg and 39 its offshoots, the motherhouses of the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, in the German lands. Figure 2.1 Number of clothings per year, Order of the Sisters of 50 Charity of St Vincent de Paul, Motherhouse Freiburg, 1846–1945 Figure 3.1 Foundation of branch houses of the Order of the Sisters 83 of Charity of St Vincent de Paul of Freiburg per year, 1846–1918 Figure 3.2 Foundation of branch houses of the Order of the Sisters 84 of St Vincent de Paul of Freiburg in five-year periods, 1846–1918 Figure 3.3 Map of branch houses of the Motherhouse Freiburg in the 89 archdiocese of Freiburg, 1846–1882 Figure 3.4 Map of branch houses of the Motherhouse Freiburg in the 90 archdiocese of Freiburg, 1883–1945 Figure 5.1 Sister Constantia Geiger in a military hospital in 159 Drohobycz (Galicia) around 1916 (MHA Freiburg) Figure 6.1 Sisters of Charity of the Motherhouse Freiburg at Corpus 167 Christi procession in Freiburg in the 1920s Figure 7.1 Nursery schools staffed by the Sisters of Charity of St 201 Vincent de Paul, Motherhouse Freiburg, 1873–1918 Figure 8.1 Financial supporters of inmates of Bethania of the Good 248 Shepherd, Heitersheim, 1932ꟷ44 iv Introduction Inspired by Claude Langlois‘ ground-breaking 1984 work Le Catholicisme au féminin1, this thesis explores a Roman Catholic female religious order during its first one hundred years, starting in 1846. Although Langlois set the example with French congregations in the nineteenth century and many scholars all over the world followed in his footsteps, the echo in Germany was by far shorter. This study fills the gap for a specific German region by taking a specific order as a model. The Order of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul was historically and geographically not only the oldest and biggest of that part of Germany but it was also attributed the label ‘conservative’ as a characteristic feature.2 On the background of the great political and social upheavals of the turbulent and eventful German history of the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth history, this thesis will focus on the role of the Order in the world, and it will explore its sisters as being agents or instruments in their respective fields of work. It will also show if and what the archival material reveals as a possible tension between conservative order and female agency. This study argues that although the Order grew over time into a major player in the social field, and the sisters became indispensable helpers in the parishes, so much so that the people saw them as female representatives of the Catholic Church, the sisters never acted on their own behalf but for the greater good of their motherhouse in Freiburg, for the Church and for the souls of the believers. The present thesis set out to find the Order and its sisters in action in the files of archives in Freiburg,