Wilhelm von Pechmann (10.6.1859 Memmingen – 10.2.1948 Munich)

The son of a public prosecutor, Pechmann studied classical philology and law in Munich after attending secondary school at Realgymnasium Augsburg. In 1885 he passed the second state examination and found employment at Bayerische Handelsbank in Munich the following year. Within a few years he worked his way up from legal consultant to member of the Board of Directors, later becoming Principal Director and finally Chairman of the Supervisory Board in 1939. Pechmann was also a member of numerous economic associations and published writings on economic and legal topics. He was particularly committed to the Evangelical Lutheran Church. In 1901 he was appointed to the Bavarian General Synod, from 1919-1922 he was the first elected President of the Bavarian State Synod, and from 1921-1930 he presided over the German Protestant Church Congresses.

Politically speaking Pechmann was a German nationalist monarchist and therefore quite skeptical of Weimar democracy. As a conservative Lutheran, however, he strictly rejected the Nazis’ attempts to influence the Protestant Church after they came to power, and he firmly condemned the incipient persecution of Jews. Joining the oppositional Confessing Church (BK), he established numerous contacts with churchmen who were critical of the regime. But since the leaders of his Church seemed too compliant towards the National Socialist rulers and refused to take a public stand against anti-Jewish Nazi policies – something he himself had repeatedly demanded of figures such as the Bavarian Bishop Hans Meiser – he resigned from the Protestant Church in April 1934, a move which he announced publicly. In the years that followed, he was unable to overcome his disappointment at the weakness of the Church to which he had been committed for so long. After the end of the war he therefore finally converted to the Catholic faith.