Hermann Stöhr

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Hermann Stöhr

Hermann Stöhr (born January 4, 1898 in Stettin , † June 21, 1940 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a German pacifist and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Stöhr's pacifist attitude was the result of his experiences on the battlefields in World War I , for which he had volunteered. After the end of the war he studied economics , public law and social policy from 1919 to 1922 and received his doctorate in political science at the University of Rostock in 1922 . He then moved to Berlin and worked there in various Protestant peace and social organizations in the vicinity of Pastor Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze . He worked as a secretary in the German branch of the International Union of Reconciliation, co-founded by Siegmund-Schultze, and looked after unemployed young people under the umbrella of the Berlin-East Social Working Group who were around the Schlesischer Bahnhof, today's Ostbahnhof . During this time, several articles and books appeared in which he dealt with questions of social policy and ecumenism . In 1931 he lost his research position at the Inner Mission because he advocated reconciliation with Poland . He returned to his native city of Szczecin unemployed, where he founded the Ecumenical Publishing House in Szczecin in 1936.

Resistance and Execution

Memorial plaque for Hermann Stöhr on Hermann-Stöhr-Platz in Berlin

Stöhr's protests against the National Socialist regime began early and were consistent. As early as 1933 he publicly opposed the call for a boycott of Jewish shops and the flagging of churches with swastika flags . He later joined the Confessing Church .

When he was drafted into the Navy in Kiel in the spring of 1939 , Stöhr refused military service and the associated oath for reasons of conscience . He failed to comply with two drafting orders of March 2 and August 22, 1939. Then he was arrested on 31 August 1939 and initially due to desertion sentenced to one year in prison. Stöhr appealed against it. Because of his refusal to oath, the Reich Court Martial sentenced him to death on March 16, 1940 for undermining his military strength . The sentence was carried out by beheading on June 21, 1940 in Berlin-Plötzensee prison . During Stöhr's funeral, Gestapo officials prevented a sermon from being held; the priest could only speak to an our father .

Rehabilitation and Remembrance

The death sentence against Stöhr became the subject of case law again in the 1990s. In December 1997 it was overturned by the Berlin Regional Court as one of the first individual judgments against conscientious objectors from the time of National Socialism. Only a few weeks later, on the occasion of Hermann Stöhr's 100th birthday, a square north of Berlin's Ostbahnhof not far from his previous apartment on Fruchtstrasse was named after him. There is also a large boulder on which a memorial plaque is attached, commemorating Stöhr's fate.

In 1985 the Evangelical Church Community Grünes Dreieck in Berlin-Charlottenburg, which merged with the Friedensgemeinde Berlin-Charlottenburg under their name in 2000, gave its community center in Angerburger Allee the name “Hermann-Stöhr-Haus”.

According to him, is Hermann Stöhr Square north of the Ostbahnhof named between Erich Steinfurth-, Koppen- and long road since 1998th A street is also named after him in Buchholz in the North Heath in Lower Saxony .

literature

Web links

Commons : Hermann Stöhr  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ History of the Ev. Friedensgemeinde Charlottenburg ( Memento from October 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Stöhr, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pacifist and resistance fighter against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH January 4, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1940
Place of death Berlin-Plötzensee