Martin Kruse

Martin Kruse (born April 21, 1929 in Lauenberg , today part of the city of Dassel / Lower Saxony ) is a Lutheran theologian and former bishop .

Martin Kruse and Hanna-Renate Laurien at the ceremony in 1991 at the Plötzensee memorial

Live and act

Martin Kruse was born as the second of seven children (five brothers, one sister) to a Lutheran pastor and grew up from 1931 to 1938 in Sülzhayn (Thuringia) from 1938 to 1947 in Lingen in Emsland . His brother was the church musician Helmut Kruse .

After graduating from high school at the Georgianum grammar school in Lingen, Martin Kruse studied Protestant theology at the universities of Mainz , Heidelberg , Bethel and Göttingen from 1947 to 1953 . He entered the service of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover and completed the vicariate in Adelheide (now part of Delmenhorst ), Linz in Austria and at the seminary in Loccum .

In 1957, Kruse took over the youth education department at the Evangelical Academy in Loccum , where he became director of studies and in 1960 preacher. From 1964 to 1970 he was the conventual director of studies at the Loccumer Predigerseminar. With a thesis on Philipp Jacob Spener (1635–1705) he received his doctorate in theology in 1969 under Heinrich Bornkamm in Heidelberg. In 1970, Kruse was appointed state superintendent of the Sprengel Stade . From 1975 to 1976 he was also chairman of the Evangelical Village Helpers Lower Saxony eV .

Act as a bishop

From 1977 to 1994 he was bishop of the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg , until 1991 in the western region, then for the entire regional church. He was also chairman of the council of the Evangelical Church in Germany from 1985 to 1991 .

Involvement in the squatter conflict
After squatters Klaus-Jürgen Rattay was killed in a major police action in September 1981 , the unrest escalated. But in addition to the emotional reactions, the event also acted as a shock on all sides and the spreading prudence also led to the initiative of the Governing Mayor Richard von Weizsäcker with the aim of a permanent "peaceful solution" to the conflicts.

Shortly after the fatal incident, on October 8, 1981, the bishop wrote a letter "to the evangelical Christians in Berlin" - with the introduction:

“We are facing a tough test these weeks, as a city, as a church, as Christians. Nobody can simply stay out of it and pretend that the developments and disputes in our city are none of their business. We are more aware than in any city in the Federal Republic of Germany: we are sitting in the same boat, it is about our common future. "

- Martin Kruse: To the Evangelical Christians (1981), Stattbau 1984, p. 17.

In October 1981 the bishop commissioned the synod and lawyer Rainer Papenfuß “to initiate a conversation with the conflicting parties as a credible mediator.” The bishop's initiative was supported by the synod of the Evangelical Church in Berlin on November 14, 1981.

In a process accompanied by numerous vicissitudes, it was possible to establish the alternative redevelopment agency Stattbau with the organization Netzwerk Selbsthilfe as a mediator to the squatters , with which a large number of occupied houses could be redeveloped and legalized and the "peaceful solution" was completed by 1990.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he became known to
a wide audience as a regular speaker for the ARD program Das Wort zum Sonntag . a. the first broadcast after the "fall of the wall" .

Since 1994, Kruse has been living in retirement in Berlin . His successor in the episcopate was Wolfgang Huber .

Kruse has been married to Marianne Kittel since 1959. They are parents of two daughters and two sons.

Publications

• Spener's criticism of the sovereign church regiment and its prehistory . Luther-Verlag, Witten 1971 (= work on the history of Pietism, 10).
• Your Reverence, 10% . Hanover 1984.
• Vancouver for Berlin Trial of a balance sheet , Wichern-Verlag GmbH, Berlin 1984.
• What's next with the church? Wetzlar 1985.
• Seduction to goodness . 5th edition. Hanover 1i986.
• Flowers on Tuesday . Berlin 1989.
• Attentions . 2nd Edition. Berlin 1991.
• The Evangelical Church in Germany and its association . Wetzlar 1991.
• Keep an eye on the whole . Wetzlar 1991.
• The Stalingrad Madonna. The work of Kurt Reuber as a document of reconciliation . Hanover 1996.
• It always turned out differently. Memories of a bishop . Freiburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7831-3411-7 .

literature

• Thomas Krüger, Carola Wolf, Udo Hahn (eds.): Who is where in the Protestant Church? People and functions . Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-932194-29-2 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Letters of October 8, 1981 and March 15, 1982, fully documented in: Stattbau informed , 1984, pp. 17 to 22.
2. ↑ See speakers since 1954 .

predecessor	Office	successor
(1) Kurt Scharf ( West Department ) and (2) Gottfried Forck ( East Department until 1991 )	Bishop of the Ev. Church in Berlin-Brandenburg ( until 1991 only for the West area ) 1976 - 1993	Wolfgang Huber