DEATH OF FATHER KONRAD FUCHS

[Kev in Deva]

FATHER Konrad Fuchs, who has died aged 109, was the world's oldest living Roman Catholic priest; he was also the second oldest living German and one of only eight known remaining German veterans of the First World War.

It was following his own traumatising experience as an infantry soldier on the front line that he received a strong calling to the priesthood, one he had already felt in boyhood. Three of his brothers fell at the front, and Fuchs reflected that he was only saved from a similar fate after a head injury meant he was unable to fight in a particularly bloody battle in which many of his comrades perished.

Konrad Fuchs was born near Lake Constance in Germany on October 15, 1897 into a strict Catholic household. His father was a wagon-builder and church warden. At his 109th birthday celebrations, for which he said mass in the convent chapel where he spent his last years, Fuchs joked about his fragile start in life. "My mother told my father, 'Let's just give him your name - he's only going to die anyway,'" he recalled. The baby was so tiny and frail his mother was convinced he could not survive.

When Fuchs's war service ended, he studied theology in Freiburg and trained for the priesthood at St Peter's seminary. Following his ordination in 1923, he was a parish priest for the next 47 years, in Constance, Mannheim, and Seebach in the Black Forest. His longest incumbency was in Freiburg, where he spent 32 years.

During the period of Nazi dictatorship, Fuchs was once called in for questioning by the police for criticising the regime. On the 80th anniversary of his entry into the priesthood, Pope John Paul II sent him a personal letter of congratulations.

Described by his parishioners as a down-to-earth, deeply religious clergyman, Fuchs cited as his great passions the liturgy and especially choral music. He took his motto from the Benedictines, to whom he always felt a strong connection: "God is exalted in all things." He had also wanted to go to Rome to visit his fellow German, Pope Benedict XVI, whose election he welcomed as a "joy for Germany". Old age thwarted his plans, but Fuchs kept in regular contact with the Pope's secretary, Georg Ganswein, whom he had known from his days as a young altar server and who sent him letters from the Vatican up until his death.

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/sto...;issue_id=14989 ?Telegraph

[AlecH]

August 2004 - Only one living survivor from Kaiser's Forces

Hello Kev,

Whilst not knowing how currant the articule in the Irish Independent you quoted is ( the link provided, required that one registers for the independent ).

August 2004 didn't pass unnoticed in the german press, covered by the serious broadsheets in depth, german geographical magazine devoted one whole issue to the WW1conflict.

From the whole of the Kaiser's WW1 forces, they unearthed one living survivor, a frenchman, born into the newly annexted german lands following the prussian victory in 1871. He fought on the Western Front. Ironically in WW2 he fought in the french army and was interned by the german forces. In 2004 he lived quietly with his daughter on the family farm in France. Towards the end of the year. he was to dine, with then chancellor Schroder, as the last living german link with WW1.

Regards

Alec

[Kev in Deva]

Hallo AlecH,

the article is taken from Sunday 10th of December 2006 in regard to Father Konrad Fuchs.

By the way regestering with the Newspaper is FREE

My interest in the story was because of the fact he was a man of the cloth, and a WW1 veteran.

Thanks for your additional information with regards another veteran.

Kevin in Deva.

Edited December 14, 2006 by Kev in Deva

[webr55]

Thanks for bringing this up! Konrad Fuchs was one of the last German WW1 veterans - but not the last. Neither was the French one, Charles Kuentz, who died in 2005. Actually, there are still 7 WW1 veterans living in Germany (and 50 in the entire world). Look here:

Surviving_Veterans_of_the_First_World_War