Stolz

I do not mean the German word for pride; instead, I am referring to Alban Stolz, a theology professor at Freiburg's Alberto-Ludoviciana born in 1808 and a professing anti-Semite.

Since 1913, Alban Stolz's bronze bust
has stood in front of the Konviktkirche (Seminary Church) (©BZ)

He belongs to the Freiburg dozen, i.e., those street names identified by a naming commission as unacceptable according to present moral standards.

©BZ/Ingo Schneider

An article in yesterday's Badische Zeitung titled "Alban Stolz in the Snow and the Rain" showed an old photo of his bronze head in the snow. These days, with temperatures much too warm for the season, his bust is left out in the rain. For how long? The Archbishop's Ordinariate announced already last February that the physical memory of Alban Stolz would be removed.

View from the Konviktkirche (Seminary Church)
 to the Münster (Minster Church) (©Hans Sigmund)

There are other places in Freiburg's suburbs named after Alban Stolz: a children's daycare center in Zähringen and a Catholic dormitory in Littenweiler. The building was renamed in 2017 and is now dedicated to Saint Alban of Mainz, so residents may continue to call it Alban-Haus.

Stolz was a representative of Catholic anti-Semitism, and as such, he wrote countless articles in his popular calendars, stirring up hate against Jews using animal, plant, and plague metaphors. He was on to Presse- and Schacherjuden (press and bargaining Jews). To these traditional clichés of anti-Judaism, Stolz added the alleged genetic determination of Jewish shortcomings, bringing him close to racist ideas.

In Wikipedia, I read: After the revolutionary turbulence of 1848, he alleged a Jewish-Masonic conspiracy. This is directly linked to the Third Reich, where the menace was the Jewish-Bolshevik plot.

A sinister anti-Semitism runs like a red thread through history, from the time of the Romans to the 21st century. In this context, renaming a street is nothing but a symbolic act.

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