Albert Hosenthien

Friedrich Albert Matthias Hosenthien (born December 6, 1882 in Drackenstedt , † June 17, 1972 in Braunschweig ) was a German Evangelical Lutheran theologian , local history researcher and author .

Life

Albert Hosenthien was as a child tenth of Halbspänners born Christian Matthias Gottlieb Hosenthien and his wife Auguste Dorothee Elisabeth Hosenthien, born Thormeyer. First he attended the village school in Drackenstedt for four years and then, from the age of ten, the grammar school in Helmstedt for a period of nine school years . He showed no interest in his parents' farming. After graduating from high school, he studied theology at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald , the University of Leipzig and the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg . After serving as a vicar , he was ordained a pastor.

In Rengersdorf on September 4, 1912, he married Katharina Anna Julia Wähdel, the daughter of a ship's captain, who was born in Greifswald on November 17, 1886 . The marriage resulted in Hans Henning Hosenthien in 1915 , Karl Christian in 1917 and Franz Gottlieb in 1920.

Hosenthien's place of work in Westerhüsen: the listed rectory at Elmer Straße 2 , photo 2011

He took on his first pastoral office in 1912 at the Protestant village church in Werkleitz near Barby . In 1923 he became a pastor at the Sankt Stephanus Church in the Magdeburg district of Westerhüsen . In 1935 his son Karl Christian died on his 18th birthday.

Since July 1941, Hosenthien also served as a substitute in the parishes of Sankt Sophie and St. Georg in Randau-Calenberge . He retired on February 18, 1942, but remained active as a pastor in Westerhüsen until 1944. His successor began his service on February 20, 1944. As a German soldier, his youngest son went missing in Russia on July 2, 1944 during World War II . In 1945 the family was evacuated to Eschwege . A little later, they moved to Landshut to work on an American housing project .

His son Hans Henning Hosenthien worked as an engineer in the German missile program at Wernher von Braun in Peenemünde and went with von Braun to the USA after the end of the war. In 1949 Albert Hosenthien followed his son and moved to Fort Bliss in El Paso ( Texas ), but returned to Germany in 1954 as he could not cope with the local conditions. Since the Magdeburg region was now in the GDR , he settled in Braunschweig, in the western part of Germany. He also worked here as a pastor again. At least in the 1950s he lived at the address Hinter Liebfrauen 6. His wife died in May 1962 in Braunschweig.

Act

As a theologian, Hosenthien represented völkisch-nationalist and anti-Semitic positions. Even before 1933 he was of the opinion that keeping one's own race pure and distinguishing it from the Jews was God's commandment. At the same time, however, he also positioned himself to grant baptized Jews church equality. He justified this by saying that they were exposed to the hatred of the believing Jews. He rejected hatred of Jews and violent persecution on the grounds that racial hatred itself came from Judaism and was one of the dark spots in the Old Testament.

He joined the German Christians , who were close to the Nazi regime .

As a member of the Evangelical Social Congress , he demanded at the general meeting in Braunschweig in June 1933 that the organization should support the new state in its programmatic goals, while other members wanted to point out the limits set by the gospel. Hosenthien suggested sending a telegram to Adolf Hitler . Ultimately, Hosenthien resigned from the congress in 1938 because it “did not fit in firmly enough in the new era of the Third Reich”.

He also addressed political issues in his sermons. There was a sermon on the tenth anniversary of Albert Leo Schlageter's death and a memorial service for Horst Wessel . On August 2, 1934, an evening service was held on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the mobilization in World War I and the death of Hindenburg . It also happened that Hosenthien read Hitler's appeal to the German people of February 1, 1933 instead of a religious text.

On January 30, 1934, the first anniversary of Adolf Hitler's office as Reich Chancellor, not only one sermon was given. Hosenthien had also composed a celebratory song for Adolf Hitler , which was sung after the melody Praise the Lords, the mighty King of Honor . For this he received a letter of thanks from Hitler and the Reich Bishop and recommended the song for his proposed patriotic church services. In the general church prayer he worked out , which he often used in sermons, the text line “Protect and bless the Führer and his co-workers and give them strength and wisdom for order, freedom and new prosperity was found in addition to the usual requests create."

Divine service and popular service from 1935

Hosenthien wrote patriotic poems and published theological positions. The most important work in this respect was his book Service and People's Service , published in 1935 . On the basis of various articles he had previously published in magazines, Hosenthien made suggestions for the organization of the worship service and church work. In addition to apolitical approaches that were based on the effort to improve the church's work in the interests of the parishioners, he also proposed changes that were shaped by his political attitudes. His idea of ​​assigning German names to the Sundays of the church year was particularly striking. Mostly a naming after "heroes and saints of Protestantism" was planned. According to his ideas, there should be a solstice Sunday, but also Dürer Sunday, Paul Gerhardt Sunday, Vaterlands Sunday, Heimat Sunday, Pestalozzi Sunday and Bismarck Sunday, whereby the goal is not secularization, but awareness of the religious heritage of the church.

He paid particular attention to the organization of the home Sunday, which he had proposed for the first Sunday in September. The people should be connected more closely to their respective homeland and religion. He also made detailed proposals for the organization of patriotic services.

Further suggestions called for the use of German poetry in worship. He also proposed to supplement or replace the usual initial liturgy with larger readings from scriptures, readings of Christian stories and church performances. He also campaigned for the introduction of celebrations for confirmation anniversaries throughout the German Protestant Church.

Hosenthien submitted proposals for the drafting of a people's Bible that should not replace the Luther Bible but should be used by lay people. The People's Bible should only be an abridged version that presents the biblical story in an easily readable chronological order. Double should be removed. It should also not contain passages with historical value or offensive texts. At the same time, Hosenthien suggested that texts outside the canonical books should also be taken into account to a lesser extent. In addition to the Old Testament Apocrypha , the pseudepigraphs should also be taken into account in order to build a bridge to the New Testament . He also wanted to include the New Testament acts of martyrs, apocalypses and apocryphal gospels to represent early Christianity. He also saw a need for revision for Luther's Small Catechism . In addition, he criticized the selection of chants made by his church's hymn book at the time.

Hosenthien turned against the Christian Science community as early as the Weimar Republic . In 1931/1932 he had also written an article and lectures against the freethinkers and " Bolsheviks " that he called "organized godlessness" . However, in the period after 1933 Hosenthien was particularly concerned about the völkisch German faith movement , which he saw as a strong, purely German movement. Their rejection of Christianity met his criticism. He accused the Faith Movement that "the demand for racial unity and the aversion to Jewish things has become a mania" and opposed the assumption that racial unity was God's first commandment and that for its sake one could "renounce all the riches of the Bible". Even if there is no reason to "recognize something specifically Jewish as binding for us, we can also learn a great deal from biblical Judaism."

In 1934 he commented on the Old Testament : “Ultimately, the OT does not come from the Jews, but from God. God sent great religious leaders to the people of Israel, often in stark contrast to the indolence and malice of the people. Jesus, too, was a Jew by nature, and if it pleased God to let his great thoughts grow in this people for all of humanity, we cannot change that, and truth remains truth, be it conveyed by whomever it will. " From 1939, however, he worked in the institute for the research and elimination of the Jewish influence on German church life . He commented disparagingly on the proclamation of the Old Testament: “The old evangelical proclamation, according to which the entire Old Testament is God's Word and Jesus is the perfecter of the Jewish religion and Judaism is still somehow a chosen people, can no longer satisfy people who really feel German. But thank God Jesus was not a Jew and his soul was in stark contrast to Judaism ”.

After the end of the National Socialist tyranny in 1953, Hosenthien's writings were placed on the list of literature to be segregated by the GDR Ministry for National Education .

He earned merit in local research in the Westerhüsen district. From 1923 to 1942 he published the municipal newspaper for Magdeburg-Westerhüsen, in which he and other authors dealt in detail with local history. The work is still an important source of local historical research. The parish gazettes were then discontinued due to the war-related paper shortage.

The nave of the Sankt-Stephanus-Kirche, which occupied a special place in his local history, was destroyed in a bomb attack on February 14, 1945.

In the post-war period he worked again as an author in Braunschweig. He wrote descriptions of his childhood in Drackenstedt in the Low German language and commented on local history topics.

Works

• God and fatherland. Holtermann Magdeburg 1915.
• Sun and blessings. Foundation publishing house Potsdam 1929.
• Divine service and popular service. Leopold Klotz Verlag Gotha 1935.
• Magdeburg-Westerhüsen municipal gazette. 1923-1942.
• Ut mine childhood in Braunschweigische Heimat. 42nd year 1956, issue 4, page 145 f.

Web links

• Literature by and about Albert Hosenthien in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Albert Hosenthien, Ut mine childhood . In: Braunschweigische Heimat. 42nd year 1956, issue 4, pp. 145f.
2. ↑ Braunschweig homeland. 42nd year 1956, issue 4, table of contents.
3. ^ Albert Hosenthien: Sermon on the home Sunday of the Magdeburg-Westerhüsen community on September 11, 1932. in Protestantenblatt 66 (1933) 211-216; here p. 215.
4. ^ Klaus Erich Pollmann: The Evangelical Social Congress in the time of National Socialism. In: Norbert Friedrich, Traugott Jähnichen (Ed.): Social Protestantism in National Socialism: diaconal and Christian-social associations under the rule of National Socialism (= Bochum Forum for the History of Social Protestantism 4). LIT Verlag, Münster 2003, ISBN 978-3-8258-7039-3 , p. 14f.
5. ^ Albert Hosenthien: Divine Service and People's Service. Leopold Klotz Verlag, Gotha 1935, p. 128.
6. ^ Albert Hosenthien: Divine Service and People's Service. Leopold Klotz Verlag, Gotha 1935, p. 130.
7. ^ Albert Hosenthien: Divine Service and People's Service. Leopold Klotz Verlag, Gotha 1935, p. 132. The exact text is also printed there.
8. ^ Albert Hosenthien: Divine Service and People's Service. Leopold Klotz Verlag, Gotha 1935, p. 91.
9. ^ Albert Hosenthien: Divine Service and People's Service. Leopold Klotz Verlag, Gotha 1935, pp. 95f.
10. ^ Albert Hosenthien: Divine Service and People's Service. Leopold Klotz Verlag, Gotha 1935, p. 212f., With a concrete listing of the intended texts from page 215.
11. ^ Albert Hosenthien: Divine Service and People's Service. Leopold Klotz Verlag, Gotha 1935, p. 191.
12. ^ Albert Hosenthien: Divine Service and People's Service. Leopold Klotz Verlag, Gotha 1935, pp. 186f.
13. ^ Albert Hosenthien: Divine Service and People's Service. Leopold Klotz Verlag, Gotha 1935, p. 202.
14. ↑ Our parish in the current world war. In: From the home history of Magdeburg-Westerhüsen. August 1942.