Maximilian Kaller

Maximilian Kaller, Bishop of Ermland, was born in 1880 in Beuthen, Upper Silesia, Germany. He was a priest in Breslau and in Berlin. He became Administrator of Schneidemuehl (today Pila) and in 1930 was appointed Bishop of Ermeland. He took office in his diocese at Frauenburg. Bishop Kaller applied to administer services at Theresienstadt, but his wish was not granted. In 1945 the Nazi SS forced him out of his Ermland office while the Soviet Army was overrunning the country.

Bishop Kaller and many civilians managed to return to the Ermland diocese. However the bishop was forced out of office by Cardinal August Hlond, while Poles and Russians expelled millions of Germans. Bishop Kaller survived and found refuge in West Germany. In 1946 he received 'Special Authority over the Heimatvertriebene', or homeland-expelled from Pope Pius XII. In 1947 Bishop Kaller died suddenly of a heart attack in Frankfurt am Main.

Fifty years later the current Polish Bishop of Warmia/Ermland and the community in western Germany commemorated Bishop Maximilian Kaller and placed busts of him at each location.

Bishop Kaller along with other members of the German Catholic Church formulated their opposition against the policy of Nazi Neo-Paganism early on. Parts of the German clergy, those opposing Hitler or supporting refugees, were strongly persecuted under the Hitler dictatorship.

See also : Bishops of Warmia.

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Based on Mitteilungen, German minority newspaper of Ermland.

Outside links: The Catholic Church first under Nazi persecution, then under destruction by Soviet propaganda in their conquest of eastern Europe, aided by American Protestant clergy [[1] , [[1]