Ahrensburg abuse scandal

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The abuse scandal of the Evangelical Church in Ahrensburg in the Stormarn district is probably the largest abuse scandal in the Evangelical Church in Germany . It became known in 2010 and in 2018 led to the passing of the first church law on prevention and intervention against sexual violence .

Stephan Kohn , his girlfriend and three of his brothers were sexually abused by his stepfather, the Lutheran pastor Gert-Dietrich Kohl in the 1970s and 1980s. In December 1985, they turned to another pastor about the abuse.

In 1990 the church council decided to continue employing Kohl.

In 1999 the responsible provost Heide Emse was informed. The pastor was then transferred to a youth prison as a pastor. In 2010, the first victims went public, when the acts were statute-barred. The pastor remained unpunished, asked for his release in 2010 and could no longer be prosecuted under disciplinary law. He published a letter of apology.

Stephan Kohn had the story published in 2010 by the news magazine Der Spiegel .

After 2010, the Ahrensburg victims founded an initiative for those affected and the Bishop Kirsten Fehrs had an independent study carried out by the North Church , which in 2014 came to the conclusion in an almost 500-page investigation report that the Ahrensburg abuse scandal involving Kohn's stepfather and his co-pastor was not an isolated incident and other cases of abuse in the church environment had been covered up for years.

As a consequence of the abuse case in Ahrensburg, the regional synod of the Northern Church in Travemünde passed a church law in 2018 on prevention and intervention against sexual violence . The bishop Maria Jepsen declared her resignation because of this biggest abuse scandal in the Protestant church.

In connection with the incidents, allegations were made against colleague Kohns, Pastor Friedrich Hasselmann, and against former bishop Karl Ludwig Kohlwage , the provost at the time in Stormarn, both of whom are said to have been informed at an early stage.

The investigations of the Lübeck public prosecutor's office against Maria Jepsen and three other people for obstruction of punishment were discontinued in 2012, obstruction of punishment could not be proven.

The Protestant Church rejected lump-sum compensation for the victims.

literature

  • Nina Apin: The normal abuse. How to fight sexual violence against children. CH.Links Verlag, March 2020, ISBN 978-3-96289-080-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ahrensburg pastor admits abuse. In: The world . December 10, 2010, accessed July 24, 2020 .
  2. ^ Chronicle of a scandal. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . December 21, 2011, accessed June 6, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b Hanns-Bruno Kammertöns: Abuse: In the shelter of silence. In: The time . July 22, 2010, accessed June 5, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Nina Apin: The normal abuse: How to fight sexual violence against children . Ch. Links Verlag, 2020, ISBN 978-3-86284-475-3 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  5. ↑ Jürgen Dahlkamp, ​​Ralf Hoppe: The kisses of a shepherd. In: Der Spiegel . July 12, 2010, accessed July 24, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Andrea Maestro: No trust in the church. In: taz . March 6, 2018, accessed July 24, 2020 . Synod passes prevention law. NDR , March 3, 2018, accessed on July 24, 2020 .
  7. ^ Matthias Popien: Former Bishop Karl Ludwig Kohlwage in the twilight. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . December 21, 2011, accessed June 6, 2020 (German).
  8. ↑ Claudia Keller: Resignation of a bishop: End of silence. In: Der Tagesspiegel . July 17, 2010, accessed July 24, 2020 .
  9. ↑ a b abuse scandal of the Protestant church in Ahrensburg. NDR , October 10, 2019, accessed on July 24, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Jürgen Dahlkamp , Ralf Hoppe: The kisses of a shepherd. In: Der Spiegel . July 12, 2010, accessed July 24, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Felix Bohr, Markus Feldenkirchen , Florian Gathmann, Julia Amalia Heyer, Valerie Höhne, Martin Knobbe, Dirk Kurbjuweit , Veit Medick , Ann-Katrin Müller, Christopher Piltz, Lydia Rosenfelder, Jonas Schaible, Christoph Schult, Christian Teevs, Severin Weiland, Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt and Steffen Winter: Berlin Fears Populists Will Exploit Protest Movement. In: Der Spiegel . May 15, 2020, accessed on July 24, 2020 .
  12. ↑ North Church: Dispute about compensation for abuse. NDR , October 10, 2019, accessed on June 6, 2020 .