June 20
© 1997, 1998 by Paul A. Schons
June 20, 981
Death of St. Adalbert von Magdeburg. St. Adalbert worked at the court of the Archbishop of Cologne. In 959 he left the service and became a monk at the monastery of St. Maximin in Trier. He was later made a bishop and was sent to establish Christianity in Russia in 961. The mission was at a request from princess Olga to the German Emperor Otto. When he returned to Germany he was made the Bishop of Magdeburg. From that position he continued his work in the East christianizing the Sorbs.
June 20, 1773
Death of Georg Christian Füchsel in Rudolstadt, Germany. Füchsel originated the concept of stratigraphic formations in geology.
June 20, 1797
Blessed Maria Theresia Gerhardinger was born in Regensburg, Germany in 1797. She became a teacher and taught in Regensburg until 1833. With the encouragement of the bishop she founded the order of the School Sisters of Notre Dame (Arme Schulschwester Unserer Lieben Frau). The order was dedicated to the education of girls. Gerhardinger was the director of the order until her death in 1879. In 1843 the mother house was moved to Munich with a donation of property by King Ludwig I. The order spread quickly through Europe and in 1847 was brought also to the U.S.A. The order then spread also to South America and Asia. Today there are over 5,000 members in the order. The headquarters is now in Rome. Maria Theresia Gerhardinger was beatified in 1985 by Pope John Paul II. The order's North American Web page is at http://www.ssnd.org/. The German Web page is at http://www.schulschwestern.de/index.html.
June 20, 1819
Birth of the musician, Jacques (originally Jakob) Offenbach, in Cologne, Germany.
June 20, 1859
Birth of Christian Freiherr von Ehrenfels in Rodaun, Austria. Ehrenfels was a philosopher who introduced the term Gestalt into psychology.
June 20, 1904
Birth of Heinrich von Brentano in Offenbach, Germany. Brentano was West German foreign minister from 1955-1961.
June 20, 1915
Death of Emil Rathenau in Berlin, Germany. Rathenau bought European rights to Thomas Edison's patents and founded the Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft. In 1887 the company was renamed the Allgemeine-Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft. In 1903 he joined with Werner von Siemens in founding the Telefunken Gesellschaft. Rathenau was the first German industrialist to produce aluminum.
June 20, 1925
Death of Feud's mentor, Josef Breuer in Vienna. Breuer's famous "Anna O." (Bertha Pappenheim) was cured of "hysteria" through hypnosis and Breuer's "talking cure". This was the starting point for psychoanalysis which Freud later developed.
June 20, 1940
Death of Matthias Zdarsky in Sankt Pölten, Austria. Zdarsky was the inventor of Alpine skiing. He had learned something of Nordic cross country skiing and determined to adapt it to mountainous application. He started by using one pole, but determined that two work better. He became a ski instructor and wrote the first book on the sport Die alpine Lilienfelder Skifahrtechnik (1897).
June 20, 1948
Currency reform in the three western sectors and West Berlin. The D-Mark is introduced. The Eastern Zone would introduce a currency reform on June 23.
June 20, 1949
The United States, Great Britain and France form the Allied High Commission which is to take political control over the new Federal Republic of Germany.
June 20, 1991
Decision of the Bundestag (in Bonn) that Berlin should become the German capital.
June 20, 2001
Heinz Josef Algermissen is named the bishop of Fulda.
Bishop Heinz Josef Algermissen was born on February 15, 1943 in Hermeskeil near Trier. He studied philosophy and theology in Paderborn and Freiburg. He was ordained a priest on July 19, 1969. He worked as a priest in Bielefeld until 1996. In 1996 he was made a bishop and assigned to Paderborn. He was named the bishop of Fulda on June 20, 2001.
Bischof Heinz Josef Algermissen wurde am 15. Februar 1943 in Hermeskeil bei Trier geboren. Er studierte Philosophie und Theologie in Paderborn und Freiburg. Er wurde am 19. Juli 1969 zum Priester geweiht. Er war bis 1996 in Bielefeld tätig. 1996 wurde Algermissen zum Weihbischof in Paderborn ernannt. Die Bischofsweihe empfing er am 21. September 1996. 2001 wurde er zum Bischof von Fulda ernannt.