Muench,Aloisius b. February 18, 1889; Milwaukee, Wisconsin d. February 15, 1962; Rome, Italy
Catholic bishop of the diocese of Fargo (1935—1959) who after World War II occupied key positions in the American Occupation Zone and played a significant role in the discussions about guilt and responsibility with respect to the Nazi past.
Muench was born into a deeply religious family. His father, Joseph Muench, descended from generations of Catholic farmers in Sankt Katharina, a village in the Bohemian Forest on the Austrian side of the Bavarian-Austrian border. He immigrated to Milwaukee in 1882 at the age of eighteen and worked as a master carpenter at the Northwestern Furniture Company. Aloisius Muench’s mother, Theresa Barbara Kraus, was born in Kemnath, a town in the Upper Palatinate region of Bavaria and also close to the Bavarian Austrian border. Her family left Kemnath for Milwaukee in 1882. Theresa Muench worked in the home and reared the seven surviving Muench children. The Muench family lived among other German Catholic immigrants on the north side of Milwaukee. Muench’s parents spoke only German at home, though he and his siblings answered in English. Muench began to train for the priesthood at the age of fourteen. In 1904 he entered Saint Francis Seminary, an institution with predominantly German traditions and cultural emphases. In June 1913 he was ordained Father Aloisius Muench and appointed to Saint Michael’s parish in Milwaukee, composed largely of German immigrants. In 1917 he became assistant chaplain of Saint Paul’s University Chapel at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. While in Madison, Muench obtained a master’s degree in economics from the University of Wisconsin (1918). From 1919 to 1921 Muench attended the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, where he pursued a doctorate in social sciences, specializing in the theological disciplines of economics, social morality, and social ethics. Due to Muench’s academic aptitude, the archbishop of Milwaukee, Sebastian Messmer (1903-1929), granted Father Muench permission to remain in Europe for additional study at the Universities of Louvain (Belgium), Cambridge, Oxford, the London School of Economics, the College de France, and the Sorbonne. At these universities, he studied the economic and social rehabilitation of post-World War I Europe. Muench returned to St. Francis Seminary in 1922 to begin his career as a seminary professor. He taught courses in social science and Catholic catechetics, apologetics, and dogma. In 1929 Muench left teaching to become rector of Saint Francis Seminary. Five years later, he reached the rank of monsignor (September 1934). On August 10, 1935, at the recommendation of Cardinal Samuel Stritch (Chicago), Pope Pius XI named Muench bishop of the diocese ofFargo, North Dakota, where he remained until Pope Pius XII appointed him apostolic visitor to Germany in July 1946.
Muench held five key positions in Germany between 1946 and 1959. He was the Catholic liaison representative to the U.S. Army in occupied Germany (1946—1949); Pope Pius XII's apostolic visitor to Germany (1946—1947); Vatican relief officer in Kronberg, near Frankfurt am Main (1947— 1949); Vatican regent in Kronberg (19491951); and Vatican nuncio to Germany from its new seat in Bad Godesberg, outside Bonn (1951-1959). In addition to his Vatican duties in Germany and his three-year stint as liaison representative for the American occupation, Muench also remained bishop of the diocese of Fargo. In December 1959 Pope John XXIII named him to the College of Cardinals in Rome. This marked the end of his career as nuncio to Germany and also as archbishop of the diocese of Fargo. In Rome, Muench was given curial assignments as a regular member of the Congregations of Religious, Rites, and Extraordinary Affairs, three of the permanent commissions of cardinals functioning in the central Vatican administration.
As liaison representative to the U.S. occupation forces and as Vatican emissary to Germany (1946-1959), Muench played a significant role in ongoing and active discussions about the Nazi past in postwar Germany. Muench’s pastoral letter One World in Charity (Fargo, 1946) established the cardinal as a trustworthy figure of German descent who seemingly understood German “victimization.” Muench held the philo-German notions that animated One World before he knew of his assignment to Germany as Vatican apostolic visitor.
He expressed no regret over its defensively proGerman message or its widespread illegal dissemination; he merely expressed concern at defamation of his character or possible damage to his standing with the U.S. Army. One World validated the already popular notion that Germans were by and large victims. It rejected the notions of “collective” guilt and responsibility. The wild popularity of One World earned Muench a platform from which he might have encouraged a real reckoning with the years 1933 to 1945. Instead, Muench concerned himself with those whose labeling of themselves as “victims” or “resistors” was often questionable.Muench bemoaned the fate of ethnic German expellees and other (largely Roman Catholic) refugee groups across Europe, sometimes at great length. He excluded Jewish Holocaust survivors, Jewish refugees, and Soviet prisoners of war in his litany of victims. These exceptions were unsurprising given Muench’s anti-Jewish and equally strong anti-Communist tendencies. He viewed German Jews then in America as “alien” or “recent” Americans, unfamiliar with “American” standards of fairness and incapable of true loyalty to the United States. He believed them to be “in control” of American policymaking in Germany. He feared them as “avengers” who wished to harm “victimized” Germans. He believed Jews to be excessively involved in leftist activities, and Muench feared communism deeply. Muench entertained without protest letters from German Catholics (including clergy) calling Jews sexual predators, thieves, and anarchists. He supported Germans (again including clerics) in their efforts to retain Jewish property gained by way of so- called aryanization during the Nazi period. In none of these sentiments and activities was he alone. He had support for these notions in his American (clerical, hierarchical, and military) as well as German circles.
If One World introduced Muench as a champion for German Catholics, surely his active participation in the Catholic clemency campaign confirmed it.
He received hundreds of unsolicited letters from German Catholics trying to commute the sentences of war criminals who were proven participants in the Einsatzgruppen campaigns, the concentration and extermination camp systems, the confiscation of Jewish assets, medical experiments, and more. In some cases, he offered his help, petitioning army and military government clemency boards on behalf of these criminals. Only when he feared damage to his or the Vatican’s reputation did he refuse to intervene.Suzanne Brown-Fleming
See also American Occupation Zone;
Denazification; Milwaukee
References and Further Reading
Barry, Colman, O.S.B. American Nuncio: Cardinal Aloisius Muench. Collegeville, MN: Saint Johns University, 1969.
Brown-Fleming, Suzanne. The Holocaust and Catholic Conscience: Cardinal Aloisius Muench and the Guilt Question in Germany. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2005.
Volk, Ludwig. “Der Heilige Stuhl und Deutschland 1945—1949.” Stimmen der Zeit 194 (1976): 795-823.
------. “Bilanz einer Nuntiatur 1946-1959: Schlussbericht des ersten Nuncios in der Nachkriegszeit.” Stimmen der Zeit 195 (1977): 147-158.