Family and Youth

Alphonsus Joannes Maria Diepenbrock was born on 2 September 1862 in Amsterdam, the eldest son of merchant and entrepreneur Ferdinand Diepenbrock (1828–96) and Joanna Kuytenbrouwer (1833–1904). The Diepenbrock roots extended back to a noble German family – and a notably Catholic one – in the Westphalian city of Bocholt. Alphons’ grandfather, Bernhard Diepenbrock (1793–1877), was the steward of the Prince of Salm-Salm in Bocholt, and lived at Horst, near Holtwick, an estate several kilometres distant from the city. One of his grandfather's younger brothers was the Prince-Bishop of Breslau and later Cardinal, Melchior von Diepenbrock (1798–1853). Following studies in Germany and later in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, Alphons’ father Ferdinand settled in the Dutch capital as a manufacturing representative. He married Joanna Kuytenbrouwer, who was related to the well-known Catholic families of Alberdingk Thijm and Cuypers, in Amsterdam in 1857.

The considerable wealth of the Diepenbrock family was quickly depleted through embezzlement by one of Ferdinand's business partners. Nevertheless, the Diepenbrock family still lived in relative comfort, especially when compared to the abject poverty suffered by the lower classes living within Amsterdam's ‘canal belt’. Ferdinand and Joanna had nine children, three of whom did not reach their first birthday. Of their surviving children, Lidwine (1859–1933) was the eldest, followed by Alphons (1862–1921), Maria (1864–1931), Willem (1866–1925), Maurits (1869–1943) and Ludgardis (1873–1944). Or as they were known to each other: Lid, Fons, Marie/Mies/Dikmietje (‘Fatty’), Willem, Maus (‘Mouse’) and Lud/Kleinkind (‘Littl’un’) or Luit (‘Lute’).

Joanna's side of the family was of particular importance to the young Alphons, since it was to them that he owed his involvement in the new Catholic upsurgence in Dutch culture. Joanna's grandmother was a relative of the prominent and pivotal Catholic figure Joseph A. Alberdingk Thijm (1820–98), known within the family as the ‘old professor’. Thijm's youngest son, Karel, who later became known as the writer Lodewijk van Deyssel (1864–1952), was therefore Alphons’ cousin. In 1859, Thijm's younger sister, Antoinette, married the architect Pierre Cuypers (1827–1921), whom the family usually addressed as ‘cousin Cuypers’. These family bonds help to explain not only the strong connection that Diepenbrock felt to ‘Catholic culture’ from a young age but also the nature of his own Catholicism and its expression, throughout his life, in all that he said and did.