born March 5, 1869, Heidenfeld, Bavaria
died June 12, 1952, Munich, W.Ger.
German religious leader and prominent opponent of the Nazis.
Ordained in 1892, he was bishop of Speyer before becoming cardinal and Munich's archbishop. In 1923 he contributed to the failure of Adolf Hitler 's Beer Hall Putsch . During the Nazi regime he delivered the famous sermons later published as Judaism, Christianity, and Germany (1934), which emphasized the Jewish background of Christianity and asserted that Christian values were fundamental to German culture. Despite attempts on his life, he vigorously criticized Nazism in his sermons until the collapse of the Third Reich. After the war he received West Germany's highest award, the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit.