Baptist messenger
Der Anabaptist-Bote was a monthly German-language magazine with the subtitle of the monthly journal of the Baptist communities of the German tongue in the Danube countries that appeared in Southeastern Europe from 1930 to 1942 .
distribution
The Baptists are today one of the largest Protestant churches in the world, with a large number of members in individual states (USA, Cameroon, Romania, etc.). In Eastern Europe, the spread first took place among the German-speaking population; from this, Baptism occasionally spread to the respective national language.
The following countries were counted among the Danube countries - from which reports from municipalities appeared: Austria, Czechoslovakia (at that time often referred to as CSR), Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria. There were also subscribers in Germany, the USA and Canada.
It is a valuable source because the Germans were expelled from large parts of Eastern Europe at the end of the war, so that many historical sources on the Germanness of those countries were lost. The years 1930–42 are a short but very turbulent period.
editor
The editorial staff included two Baptist preachers: Arnold Köster (Vienna) and Johannes Fleischer (Bucharest), as well as the mission inspector of the German-speaking North American Baptists, Carl Füllbrandt (born in 1880 in southern Russia, since 1924 mission inspector for the Danube countries mission , then ordained in Berlin, lived in Vienna, after World War II moved to Salzburg, finally to Toronto in 1954, where he died in 1956).
content
At the beginning of each issue there was a motto by Balthasar Hubmaier : “The truth is deadly!” Here a link between the Baptists and the Anabaptists of the Reformation period is visible.
Füllbrandt was responsible for collecting and editing the two-page "Church News" - he was in contact with these churches through his travels as a mission inspector. This congregation news gives an impression of the places in Southeast Europe in which there were German-speaking Baptist congregations at that time, and what the respective circumstances were there. In addition to the news from the German-speaking Baptists, evangelism or church work among the respective national-language population comes into view.
Fleischer was strongly oriented towards the end of time. The rubric he wrote is accordingly called “Signs of the Times”. Among the topics he dealt with stand out: the emergence of National Socialism, Bolshevism in Russia, Judaism and the endangered religious freedom, especially in Romania.
Koester's rubric was called “From the messenger's pocket”. In addition, sermons and biblical treatises by Köster and Fleischer were often printed. When referring to contemporary phenomena, there was repeated criticism of the NS. In the Anabaptist messenger , even from 1933 onwards, many criticisms could still be said.
Scope and retention
From Baptist messengers appeared 13 years gears. The individual booklet usually comprised 8 pages; the annual volume is about 100 pages. Each page had about 1000 words; this corresponds to almost 3 book pages. A collection of these booklets is in the Oncken archive in Elstal near Berlin. A digitization of the entire text is in progress and will soon be put online.
literature
- Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer : German-speaking Baptists in Southeastern Europe in 1930. A documentation from the community news of the magazine Täufer-Bote as a snapshot of the Baptist expansion in the Danube countries Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria , in: Dietmar Lütz ( Ed.): “The Bible is to blame for it…” Festschrift for the 175th anniversary of the Oncken congregation in Hamburg , WDL: Hamburg 2009, pp. 191–225
Single receipts
- ^ Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer : Public Criticism of National Socialism in the Greater German Reich. Life and worldview of the Viennese Baptist pastor Arnold Köster (1896-1960) (historical-theological studies on the 19th and 20th centuries; 9), Neukirchener: Neukirchen-Vluyn 2001.
- ↑ Roland Fleischer: Johannes Fleischer , in: BBKL Vol. XIX, 2001, Col. 410-416.
- ↑ See truth witnesses of December 6, 1925, p. 391.
- ↑ An obituary for him can be found in Die Gemeinde , 1957, No. 2, p. 8.