Johannes Siemes

Jesuit community in Hiroshima-Nagatsuka (2014)

Johannes Baptist Siemes SJ ( Japanese ヨ ハ ネ ス ・ ジ ー メ ス yohanesu jīmesu ; * October 22, 1907 in Cologne as Johannes Wilhelm Siemes ; † August 6, 1983 in Tokyo , Japan ) was a German Jesuit , philosopher and author . He witnessed the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima .

Life

After graduating from the Dreikönigsgymnasium in Cologne , Siemes joined the Jesuit religious order in 1927 . He came to 's-Heerenberg for his two-year novitiate . From 1929 to 1932 he studied philosophy at the Ignatius College in Valkenburg aan de Geul , Limburg Province of the Netherlands , and the University of Dublin in Ireland . He volunteered for Japan and studied Japanese and German at Sophia University in Tokyo from 1932 to 1934 . After studying theology again in Valkenburg, he was ordained a priest in 1937 . From 1938 to 1939 he completed a postgraduate course in philosophy at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster , especially with the existential philosopher Peter Wust . In 1940 he received his doctorate in philosophy from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Shortly thereafter, he returned to Japan and taught philosophy at the Department of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities at Sophia University in Tokyo. In 1941 he was appointed professor of philosophy at Sophia University.

After the regular air raids on Tokyo began in November 1944, the lecturers and students moved to the novitiate house in Nagatsuka, about five kilometers north of Hiroshima, which was completed in 1938 in early 1945 . Siemes witnessed the atomic bombing on August 6, 1945 and documented the incident in an eyewitness account entitled Eyewitness Account of Hiroshima . He was one of 16 Jesuits who were in the Hiroshima area when the bomb was dropped.

In 1951 the Sophia University Graduate School of Philosophy reopened a course and Siemes was elected Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy. From 1979 he taught as a professor emeritus at Sophia University.

Johannes Siemes was considered an expert on the life and work of Hermann Roesler and Friedrich Schlegel .

In the American television film Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes (German title: Brennende Erde ) from 1990 Johannes Siemes is portrayed by the much older Max von Sydow .

Siemes' eyewitness account

In September 1945, Siemes wrote down his memories of the day the atomic bomb was dropped, probably in German. At the time he was in Tokyo and was examined and interviewed by nuclear medics from the Manhattan Project . In his report, he describes how he and his confreres in the novitiate experienced the explosion of the bomb and its consequences, how a torrent of injured people fled the city and how the Jesuit community converted its damaged rooms into an emergency hospital for almost a hundred wounded Pedro Arrupe took care of them, who had a medical education. In the afternoon he went to town with a search party, including Klaus Luhmer and Helmut Erlinghagen , to save the Jesuits who lived near the Catholic parish church near the city center. In Asano Park ( Shukkei Garden ) they found four of them ( Hugo Lassalle , Wilhelm Kleinsorge , Hubert Cieslik and Hubert Schiffer ) alive, albeit with injuries of varying severity, and were able to bring them to safety in the novitiate. Siemes completed his report on September 20, 1945. At the time, the extent of radiation sickness was poorly understood, as his report makes clear.

Siemes concluded his report with a paragraph on the ethical problem of atomic bombing and the question: “Must we not say that total war is a greater physical and moral evil than any good we hope to achieve from it? Hopefully the moral theologians will give us a clear answer to this question soon. "

Siemes gave a copy of his report to Stafford L. Warren , who had it translated by Yale University pathologist Averill A. Liebow, who was also part of the group . An interview with Siemes found its way into the documentary / propaganda film The Atom Strikes! It is noteworthy that Siemes, quite differently from the general tenor of the film, can present the paragraph with the ethical question from his report at the end of the interview.

In early 1946, Siemes made his report available to the American magazine Jesuit Mission . However, it first appeared in the February 11, 1946 issue of Time magazine under the headline: From Hiroshima: A Report and a Question . This made the report widespread. This was followed by Jesuit Missions in March 1946, but with cuts, also the last paragraph so that the ethical problematization eliminated. and in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Saturday Review of Literature in May 1946. When the United States Strategic Bombing Survey published a report, The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , in late June 1946 , it included the Siemes eyewitness report as an appendix.

Susan E. Swanberg from the University of Arizona has pointed out how the report of Siemes the famous reportage Hiroshima by John Hersey coined.

Because of its early dissemination in English, the report is widely used and cited by Siemes to this day.

Fonts

• Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima. 1946.
• Hermann Roesler and the introduction of German constitutional law in Japan. Tokyo 1962.
• Hermann Roesler and the Making of the Meiji State. An Examination of His Background and His Influence on the Founders of Modern Japan & the Complete Text of the Meiji Constitution Accompanied by His Personal Commentaries and Notes. , Sophia University, 1968.

Reprinted 1989 ISBN 9781462912544

• The founding of the modern Japanese state and German constitutional law. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 1975, ISBN 978-3-428-03221-1 .
• The Day the Bomb Fell: Hiroshima, August 6, 1945 - An Eye-witness. Catholic Truth Society 1984, ISBN 978-0-85183-594-5 .

items

• The Atomic Age: Hiroshima: Eye-Witness. In: Saturday Review of Literature XXIX (May 11, 1946), pp. 24-25, 40-44.
• From Hiroshima: A Report and a Question In: Time XLVII (Feb. 11, 1946), pp. 26-27.
• Our Lady of Fatima's Protective Shield and The Two Atomic Bombs Dropped on Japan in 1945. Np, nd Web. April 20, 2015.

interview

• John A. Siemes (Johannes Siemes). In: The Atom Strikes! dated December 31, 1945 (en.)

Web links

• Literature by and about Johannes Siemes in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Johannes Siemes in the bibliographic database WorldCat

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima: Eyewitness Account of Hiroshima" on atomicarchive.com from August 6, 1945, accessed on August 9, 2020 (en.)
2. ↑ Researcher confirms that 16 Jesuits experienced Hiroshima A-bombing and told world of tragedy , Hiroshima Peace Media Center, November 12, 2019, accessed on August 12, 2020
3. ↑ Overview of the professors emeritus , Sophia University, accessed on August 9, 2020 (jp.)
4. ↑ Anna Bartels-Ishikawa (Ed.): Hermann Roesler. Documents on his life and work. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007.
5. ↑ Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes (1990) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
6. ↑ The longest version currently available in English was originally written in Japanese. See THE BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA Report from an eye-witness John Siemes, SJ Translated from the Japanese by Francis Mathy, SJ, 1997
7. ↑ The World Peace Church (Hiroshima) is located here today
8. ↑ James L. Nolan, Jr .: Atomic Doctors. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2020 ISBN 9780674249424
9. ↑ The Atom Strikes! (en.)
10. ^ Report form Hiroshima. in: Jesuit Mission March 1946, pp. 30–32
11. ↑ John Siemes: Hiroshima- August 6, 1945 , in: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 1 (1945/46), No. 11 of May 15, 1946 doi : 10.1080 / 00963402.1946.11454599
12. ↑ . Digitized , p. 35 ff .; Full text , Yale University's Avalon Project , accessed August 11, 2020
13. ↑ Swanberg on Her Research on John Hersey and Hiroshima Eyewitness John A. Siemes, SJ, August 2, 2017, accessed August 11, 2020
14. ^ As an example, Truman's mock trial for dropping the bomb as a school project: Truman Trial 2015 - Prosecution Team , accessed on September 9th. August 2020 (en.)