Albert Lempp

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Albert Lempp, German bookseller and publisher (Christian Kaiser Verlag und Buchhandlung, Munich), active supporter of the "Confessing Church" and founder of the "Lempp'schen Kreis"

Albert Hermann Lempp (born February 13, 1884 in Heutingsheim , † June 9, 1943 in Munich ) was a Protestant bookseller and publisher . As the owner of Christian Kaiser Verlag and the Kaiser bookstore in Munich, he helped Karl Barth's dialectical theology to make its breakthrough in Germany after the First World War . In the time of National Socialism Lempp became the publisher of the Confessing Church . He was the center of what was later called the "Lempp Circle". Originally a Bible study group, this developed into a support network for racially persecuted Christians and Jews. In the spring of 1943, Lempp contributed to the creation of the Easter Message from Munich Laity , which is one of the most courageous testimonies of Protestant Christians against the Nazis' persecution of Jews.

Life

Albert Lempp was on 13 February 1884 as the son of Württemberg born Protestant pastor Ferdinand Julius Lempp (1842-1903) in Heutingsheim am Neckar and grew up in Stuttgart-Gablenberg on. Often sick as a child, he - unlike his brothers, who all studied - was unable to take a high school diploma and therefore trained as a bookseller. At the age of 27, he took over the Christian Kaiser Verlag in Munich , which had been pounding in front of him for some time , and which in the 19th century had been the publishing house of the small Protestant community in the Bavarian capital and residence. Whether Friedrich Rittelmeyer or Christian Geyer - right from the start, Lempp relied on authors beyond the main evangelical-theological currents, who had one thing in common: They were all in heartfelt dispute with the church leadership, the Evangelical-Lutheran senior consistory in Munich.

After the First World War, a momentous publishing decision was imminent: after three Swiss publishers had previously rejected it, Karl Barth's interpretation of the Romans was published in 1919 by Bäschlin-Verlag in Bern. One of the enthusiastic reviewers was the Upper Franconian theologian Georg Merz (1892–1959), who came to Munich- Laim in 1918 as a pastor . Merz had immediately predicted that Karl Barth would "determine the course of theology for a long time to come."

Because sales of Barth's book stalled after a few hundred copies among the Swiss, Merz recommended his friend Lempp to take over the remaining circulation. Lempp was able to sell these from Munich so quickly that a new edition was soon necessary. It was published by Kaiser Verlag in 1922. Merz became chief editor of the publishing house and theological advisor to Lempps. From 1922 to 1933 the magazine "Zwischen den Zeiten" appeared, for which Karl Barth , Friedrich Gogarten , Eduard Thurneysen and Rudolf Bultmann wrote. Lempps Verlag made the Catholic capital Munich an important place for Protestant theology.

One of Lempp's most important collaborators was the poet and actor Otto Salomon , who published under the pseudonym Otto Bruder. Lempp secretly employed Salomon, who was an Evangelical Lutheran Christian of Jewish origin, until he enabled him to leave for Switzerland in 1938. Irmgard Meyenberg, also a Protestant Christian of Jewish origin, survived the war hiding in Lempp's house on Isabellastraße in Schwabing .

In 1940 Lempp was forced to change his publishing house into “Ev. Verlag A. Lempp / Munich formerly Chr. Kaiser Verlag ”. Lempp never saw the fact that his publishing house was finally closed at the end of August 1943 after a new and negative manuscript check by the Reichsschrifttumsstelle of the Propaganda Ministry. He died of a stroke on June 9, 1943 at the age of 59; his grave is in the Munich forest cemetery. Two of his sons died in World War II, while the surviving son Fritz Lempp took over his father's bookstore after the war.

"Lempp'scher Kreis" and "Osterdenkschrift" 1943

After 1933 Lempp courageously supported the Confessing Church. In his house on Isabellastraße the "Lempp'sche Kreis" met regularly, which was known to the outside world as a biblical circle with pious lectures, but was actually a kind of conspiratorial group that heard " enemy broadcasters " at the start of the war and provided help for oppressed Christians of Jewish origin and Jews organized. In 1943, the district no longer wanted to remain silent about the Nazi regime's persecution of Jews: The Württemberg pastor Hermann Diem drafted a “memorandum of the Munich laypeople”, which Judge Emil Höchstädter and University Professor Wilhelm Hengstenberg, two members of the Lempp circle, wrote personally brought to the Bavarian regional bishop Hans Meiser .

The memorandum says, among other things: “As Christians, we can no longer bear the fact that the Church in Germany is silent about the persecution of the Jews. (...) What drives us is first of all the simple commandment to love one's neighbor, as Jesus interpreted it in the parable of the good Samaritan (...). Every “non-Aryan”, whether a Jew or a Christian, is “fallen under the murderer” in Germany today and we are asked whether we treat him like the priest and Levite, or like the Samaritan. (...) To the state, the church has to testify to the salvation-historical significance of Israel and to resist every attempt to "solve" the Jewish question for a self-made political gospel, that is, to destroy Judaism as an attempt to defend the God of Fight First Commandment. The church must confess that, as true Israel, it is inextricably linked in guilt and promise to Judaism. It must no longer try to get itself to safety from the attack against Israel. "

Effect of the “Osterdenkschrift” in 1943

Regional Bishop Meiser could not bring himself to publish the document. However, he passed the script on to his Württemberg official Theophil Wurm . He took up thoughts and formulations from the memorandum in his letter to Hitler and the Reich Government of July 16, 1943, with which he protested against the persecution of the Jews. The Evangelical Press Service of Switzerland (Zurich) published the document on July 14, 1943 under the title “A pleasant document”. In addition, the memorandum was privately copied and forwarded.

The Rhenish pastor Helmut Hesse read the Munich Easter memorandum on June 6, 1943 in a confessional service. A few days later he and his father were arrested for this and transferred to the Dachau concentration camp in November . He died there on November 24, 1943.

Appreciations

The Evangelical Lutheran Kreuzkirchengemeinde in Munich-Schwabing, which Albert Lempp was instrumental in founding in 1933, celebrated its large hall with the name "Albert-Lempp-Saal" on February 12, 2009, the evening before Lempp's 125th birthday. given.

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personal data
SURNAME Lempp, Albert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lempp, Albert Hermann (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Protestant bookseller and publisher
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Heutingsheim
DATE OF DEATH June 9, 1943
Place of death Munich