100th anniversary of death of Wilhelm Emmanuel Freiherr von Ketteler - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1977 - 50 Pfennig

When Wilhelm Emmanuel Freiherr von Ketteler died on July 13, 1877, Catholic Germany lost with him an exceedingly energetic and popular pastor, and the working class an eloquent defender of their interests and champion of social justice. Born in 1811 in Münster (Westphalia), the son of an old Westphalian noble family, Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler began studying theology after studying law and practicing law in the Prussian civil service. In 1844 he was ordained a priest. For the gifted and committed priest, the church has held responsible tasks. He went as a provost to St. Hedwig in Berlin and was appointed in 1850 Bishop of Mainz. The negative attitude of the governments of Baden and Prussia prevented him from becoming Archbishop of Freiburg or Cologne. As a politician - he was a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly and belonged to the Reichstag 1871/72 - sat down Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler especially for the rights of Catholics and the workers. His church and social activities were often inappropriate to governments during the period of restoration and cultural struggle. Far beyond Germany Bishop Ketteler was known and appreciated as a social reformer. Even his six Advent sermons in 1848 on the social question gave him extraordinary attention. He recognized very early the importance of trade union efforts to improve the situation of the workers and demanded, in view of the impossibility to remedy social abuses solely by charitable activity, an active state social policy and a legislated social reform. Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler decisively influenced the modern Catholic social doctrine with his social ideas and the social encyclical »Rerum novarum« (1891) Pope Leo XIII. prepared. He is one of the most important German Catholic bishops of the 19th century. The depiction shows Ketteler's episcopal coat of arms. Two plates of the shield each contain a wheel and a kettle hook, the Mainz diocese coat of arms and the Ketteler root coat of arms. As in the coat of arms of an archbishop, the green Bischofshut has ten tassels on both sides instead of the six tassels provided by bishops. An indication that Mainz was an archdiocese until 1802.