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His father, a policeman, belonged to an old family of farmers from Lower Bavaria of modest economic resources. His mother was the daughter of artisans from Rimsting on the shore of Lake Chiem, and before marrying she worked as a cook in a number of hotels. He spent his childhood and adolescence in Traunstein, a small village near the Austrian border, thirty kilometres from Salzburg.

In this environment, which he himself has defined as "Mozartian", he received his Christian, cultural and human formation. His youthful years were not easy. His faith and the education received at home prepared him for the harsh experience of those years during which the Nazi regime pursued a hostile attitude towards the Catholic Church. From to he studied philosophy and theology in the Higher School of Philosophy and Theology of Freising and at the University of Munich.

During this last year he held the Chair of dogmatics and history of dogma at the University of Regensburg, where he was also Vice-President of the University. From to he made a notable contribution to Vatican II as an "expert"; being present at the Council as theological advisor of Cardinal Joseph Frings, Archbishop of Cologne.

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In together with Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac and other important theologians, he initiated the theological journal "Communio". On 28 May of the same year he received episcopal ordination. He was the first Diocesan priest for 80 years to take on the pastoral governance of the great Bavarian Archdiocese.