Aloisius Joseph Muench (February 18, 1889 – February 15, 1962) was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Fargo from 1935 to 1959, and as Apostolic Nuncio to Germany from 1951 to 1959. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1959. Muench was the most powerful American Catholic and Vatican representative in Allied-occupied Germany and subsequently in West Germany from 1946 to 1959 as the liaison between the U.S. Office of Military Government and the German Catholic Church in the American occupation zone (1946–1949), Pope Pius XII's apostolic visitor to Germany (1946–1947), the Vatican relief officer in Kronberg im Taunus, Germany (1947–1949), regent in Kronberg (1949–1951), as well as nuncio to Germany. Early life and education Muench was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Joseph Muench and Theresa Kraus on February 18, 1889, the first of seven surviving children. His father's ancestors were from Sankt Katharina in the Bohemian Forest near the Bavarian border, what is now Svatá Kateřina in the Czech Republic. His father, a baker, emigrated to Milwaukee at age 18 in 1882. His mother was born in Kemnath in the Upper Palatinate region of Bavaria and emigrated to Milwaukee in 1882 at age 14; Muench's parents married in 1888. The family lived on the north side of Milwaukee among other German Catholic immigrants, his parents speaking only German in the home. Muench began his training for the priesthood at age 14, entering Saint Francis Seminary in 1904. He was ordained on June 8, 1916, in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and assigned to Saint Michael's parish. He left Milwaukee in 1917 to become the assistant chaplain of Saint Paul's University Chapel at the University of Wisconsin (now University of Wisconsin–Madison), where he obtained a masters in economics in 1918. In 1919 Muench entered the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, earning a doctorate magna cum laude in July 1921 in the social sciences, focusing on theological disciplines of economics, social morality, and social ethics. He was a member of K.D.St.V. Teutonia Fribourg (Switzerland), a Catholic student fraternity that is part of the Cartellverband der katholischen deutschen Studentenverbindungen. The archbishop of Milwaukee granted Muench permission to remain in Europe to study at University of Leuven (Belgium), Cambridge, Oxford, the London School of Economics, the Collège de France, and the Sorbonne. Muench returned to St. Francis Seminary in 1922 as a professor. In 1929, he ceased