Adolf Freudenberg

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Adolf Emil Freudenberg (born April 4, 1894 in Weinheim ; † January 7, 1977 in Bad Vilbel ) was a German diplomat and Protestant pastor .

Life

After completing a degree in law, Adolf Freudenberg joined the Foreign Office as a lawyer . In 1934 he was legation counselor in the cultural and political department.

Due to the Jewish descent of his wife Elsa Liefmann (* February 19, 1897 - December 1, 1988), a cousin of Robert Liefmann , he retired from the public service in 1934 and began a year later at the Bethel University of the Confessing Church To study theology. He was ordained by the Dahlem Brothers Council . In 1939 he managed to emigrate, initially to London, where he was accepted at the German Lutheran St. George Church and its pastor Julius Rieger . The World Council of Churches, which was currently being established, entrusted him with looking after the refugees from Germany and brought him to Geneva in the summer of 1939 to set up the council's refugee relief organization. Here he was also repeatedly hosted by Dietrich Bonhoeffer on his conspiratorial trips to Geneva during the Second World War .

After the war, Freudenberg was part of the first ecumenical delegation in the run-up to the Stuttgart confession of guilt .

Holy Spirit Church in Heilsberg

In 1947 he returned to Germany and became pastor of the Heilsberg refugee settlement in Bad Vilbel, at the Evangelical Church of the Holy Spirit. In 1952 he founded the "Evangelical Working Group for Service to Israel in Hesse and Nassau", today's Working Group Church and Israel in the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau .

His daughter Brigitte († 1986), born in 1922, was a Protestant theologian and community helper and was married to Helmut Gollwitzer .

They belong to the Freudenberg family, who own the Freudenberg Group .

Works

  • Visits to Geneva. In: Wolf-Dieter Zimmermann (Ed.), Encounters with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 4th edition, Christian Kaiser Verlag , Munich 1969, pp. 158–161
  • Two speeches. Edited by the German Coordinating Council of the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation , Frankfurt 1955. Contains: Task and limit of tolerance by Eugen Gerstenmaier . Speech at the opening of the Week of Brotherhood , Munich, March 6, 1955; The obligatory background to our work at Freudenberg. Presentation given at the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the German Coordination Council, Offenbach, June 2, 1955
  • Anti-Semitism, Judaism, State of Israel. Voice, Frankfurt 1963 (Series: Answers, 3)
  • In the free Geneva. In: “Liberate those who are dragged to death!” Ecumenism through closed borders 1939–1945 (= series of bookmarks). Foreword Helmut Gollwitzer. Kaiser, Munich 1989 ISBN 3459015918 pp. 16–6.
    • as editor: Save them! French and the Geneva ecumenism in the service of the persecuted of the Third Reich. Evangelischer Verlag Zollikon EVZ, Zurich 1969
    • Au-delà des frontières. L'action du Conseil Œcuménique des Églises, in Les clandestins de Dieu. CIMADE 1939-1944 eds. Jeanne Merle d'Aubigné, Violette Mouchon, Émile C. Fabre. Fayard, Paris 1968; again Labor & Fides, Geneva 1989 ISBN 2830905881 pp. 39–61 (in French). In English: God's underground. CIMADE 1939–1945: accounts of the activity of the French protestant church during the German occupation of the country in World War II. Compilation and contributions: Jeanne Merle d'Aubigné and Violette Mouchon. Ed. Emile C. Fabre. Introduction Marc Boegner ; a chapter on CIMADE today. Translated by William and Patricia Nottingham. Bethany, St. Louis, Missouri, 1970

literature

  • Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Ed. Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 1: Johannes Hürter : A – F. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2000 ISBN 3-506-71840-1
  • Martin Stöhr , Klaus Würmell (ed.): Jews, Christians and the ecumenical movement. Adolf Freudenberg 1894–1994. A remarkable life. Contributor Konrad Raiser and others Spener, Frankfurt 1994 ISBN 3-930206-21-8
  • Dorothee Freudenberg-Huebner, Erhard Roy Wiehn (ed.): Deported. Jewish fates from Freiburg 1940–1942. Letters from the Liefmann siblings in Gurs and Morlaas to Adolf Freudenberg in Geneva. (= Writings on the Schoáh and Judaica) Hartung-Gorre, Konstanz 1993 ISBN 3-89191-665-5
  • Uta Gerdes: Ecumenical solidarity with Christian and Jewish persecuted. The CIMADE in Vichy France 1940–1944 (= work on contemporary ecclesiastical history. Series B: representations, 41). V&R , Göttingen 2005 ISBN 3525557418 . At the same time Diss. Theol. FU Berlin 2002.
  • Hartmut Ludwig, Eberhard Röhm : Baptized Evangelically - persecuted as "Jews" . Calwer Verlag, Stuttgart 2014, p. 112f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ With the chapters: "Freedom in the crowd", "An emergency cry and its consequences", "Ecumenical communities behind barbed wire", "Illegal loyalty", "Daily life without routine", "French-Swiss border: hope and fear".
  2. ↑ The naming of AF as "editor" in 1989 is misleading because he was no longer alive. It is a new edition of the book he published in 1969 under a different title, the following book
  3. ↑ today's publisher name: Theologischer Verlag Zurich; a book u. a. about rescue attempts for prisoners in the Camp de Gurs . First (in a shorter barrel) Les clandestins de Dieu, Fayard, Paris 1968, Geneva 1989 p. u .; his remarks in the following French and English. Edition are significantly shorter than the documents published in German, cf. the page numbers. With numerous other contributions by contemporary witnesses from the ecumenical movement
  4. ↑ s. also web links
  5. ↑ Gerdes had extensive archive material from Freudenberg and the WCC concerning him
  6. ↑ s. also ref.
personal data
SURNAME Freudenberg, Adolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Freudenberg, Adolf Emil (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat and theologian
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Weinheim
DATE OF DEATH 7th January 1977
Place of death Bad Vilbel