Joannes Baptista Sproll

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A memorial plaque to Bishop Sproll in Rottenburg. It reads: On 23 June 1938 the National Socialists stormed the apartment of Dr. Joannes Baptista Sproll, 1870-1949, the seventh Bishop of Rottenburg. In the same year, the government forced the bishop into exile; he could not return to his diocese from Krumbad until after the war

Joannes Baptista Sproll (; 2 October 1870 – 4 March 1949) was a German bishop and prominent opponent of Nazism.

Biography

Joannes Baptista Sproll was born in Schweinhausen, near Biberach, the son of street mender Josef Sproll and Anna Maria (née Freuer). He attended the Latin school in Biberach and Gymnasium Ehingen before studying Catholic theology at the University of Tübingen from 1890 to 1894. In 1898, he received his doctorate for work on the history of law and constitution at Tübingen's St. George Monastery. He became Bishop of Rottenburg on 14 June 1927.

Nazi-era opposition

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Sproll's coat of arms. Motto in Latin meaning, "Stronger in Faith"

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Inscription St. Martin Erolzheim 1943

Though initially welcoming the 1933 Reichskonkordat between Nazi Germany and the Holy See, Sproll later became a public opponent of the regime. His demonstrative abstention from the April 1938 Reichstag election – which included a referendum on the Anschluss – prompted Nazi-orchestrated demonstrations and legal proceedings against him. On 23 July 1938, SA men stormed Rottenburg Bishop's Palace, and Sproll was expelled from his diocese, living under Gestapo surveillance in Krumbad (Diocese of Augsburg) until 1945. His refusal to resign despite pressure from Nuncio Cesare Orsenigo earned him the epithet "Martyr Bishop".

He himself summed up this period: Template:Quote

Sproll articulated his resistance in theological terms during a 1934 sermon at the Fulda Bishops' Conference, later cited as inspiration for Cardinal Faulhaber's encyclical "Mit brennender Sorge": Template:Quote

On October 4, 1938, amid the Sudeten Crisis, Sproll wrote to his diocesan flock: "A war more terrible than humanity has ever experienced has been averted from us." At a men's pilgrimage on September 19, 1939, Sproll made positive comments about Jews and their religion and negative remarks about the Kristallnacht pogrom.

World War II and death

On 1 August 1940, Archbishop Conrad Gröber of Freiburg and Vicar General Max Kottmann (acting for Sproll) formally protested the Grafeneck euthanasia program – preceding Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen famous denunciation. Despite a 1939 pastoral letter praising German troops' loyalty: Template:Quote Church historian Franz X. Schmid maintains Sproll remained "an avowed pacifist" and member of the "Peace Association of German Catholics."

Sproll died in Rottenburg am Neckar on 4 March 1949. His 1941 refusal to resign when requested by a papal envoy reportedly made him persona non grata in post-war church circles.