Anna Paulsen

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Anna Sophie Paulsen (born March 29, 1893 in Hoirup in North Schleswig , † January 30, 1981 in Heide ) was an Evangelical Lutheran theologian. She was one of the first female theologians to receive a doctorate in Germany.

Origin and education

Anna Paulsen was a daughter of Paul Düyssen Paulsen (born August 19, 1857 in Hoyer ; † November 16, 1904 in Ballum) and his wife Anna Margarete, née Brodersen (born February 1, 1862 in Gath ; † April 8, 1951 in Schleswig ). The maternal grandfather, Karsten Brodersen (1826–1862), was married to Anna, née Paulsen (1826–1893). He owned a farm and worked as dikemaster in the Ruttebüller Koog and in Gath.

Paulsen's father had been pastor in Hoyer since 1888 and was appointed pastor of Ballum in 1896 , where the family moved their residence. He was close to the Inner Mission and the Awakening Movement . After his father's death after a long illness in 1904, Paulsen moved with her mother and three younger sisters to Tondern in spring 1905 , where the widowed mother bought a house. In 1912 the mother sold the residence and moved into an apartment in Flensburg with her daughters .

Paulsen grew up bilingual: in the purely Danish-speaking Ballum, she spoke Danish on the streets, in church and in religious instruction, in the school for higher daughters in Tondern and in the family German. She kept this bilingualism throughout her life. After graduating from girls' school, she initially aimed to train as a teacher and completed a one-year teacher training course in Schleswig. Then she decided to study at university, for which she needed a university entrance qualification . She therefore attended a grammar school in Hamburg as an external student . In 1912 she passed the Abitur exams there. During this time she fell ill with tuberculosis due to insufficient nutrition and overexertion and traveled to Davos for a cure . She then worked for three years as a tutor in the family of a pastor.

From the summer semester of 1916, Paulsen studied philosophy, German literature and history at the University of Kiel . She switched to theology and especially listened to Erich Schraeder . In the winter semester of 1917/18 she moved to the University of Tübingen and attended lectures in particular by Adolf Schlatter , Otto Scheel , Paul Volz and Johannes Haller . She spent the summer semester of 1919 at the University of Münster and heard from Karl Heim . Then she went back to Kiel and studied Old Testament theology with Ernst Sellin , systematic religious studies with Hermann Mandel and attended lectures by Heinrich Scholz . The Kiel University granted her a Konvikt scholarship in the winter semester of 1920/21 . In March 1921 she passed the faculty examination for female theology students. The parish office was not open to her time as a woman. It was not until 1927 that women were able to exercise the pastor's profession as vicars, albeit limited to child and women's labor and without full ordination .

Act

After completing his studies, Paulsen got a job at the “House of the Oriental Women's Mission” in Berlin , where he trained catechists . At the same time she attended lectures by Adolf Harnack and Reinhold Seeberg at the Berlin University . During this time she wrote her dissertation on overcoming the Protestant principle of writing through a historical concept of revelation under the influence of Wuerttemberg biblicism with special emphasis on its theosophical circle of ideas . In November 1924 she received her doctorate on this subject at Kiel University as a licentiate in theology. In her writing she developed a well-founded scriptural principle that was not tied to the doctrine of verbal inspiration in the Bible, and a believable account of Revelation. She was the first female doctor of theology in Kiel and also one of the first in Germany. As was customary in the theology at the time, she received the degree Lic. Theol. who only years later became a Dr. theol. was converted. Therefore, she was called "Lic. Anna ”.

After completing his doctorate, Paulsen co-founded a Bible school in 1914 at the “ Burckhardthaus ” evangelical educational institution in Berlin-Dahlem , which Johannes Burckhardt established in 1914 and which opened in October 1926. Paulsen led this "Bible and Youth School / Seminar for Church Women Service" together with Pastor Wilhelm Thiele until the end of the Second World War . There they helped community helpers not only a practical and social basis of their profession, but they were also theologically. Anna Paulsen was one of the founders of the Berneuchen movement and in 1926 was the only woman alongside Ruth von Kleist-Retzow among the 70 signatories of the Berneuchen book . During her work at Burckhardthaus she got to know important personalities of the Confessing Church , including Paul Tillich , Hermann Schektiven , Walter Künneth , Günther Dehn and Otto Riethmüller . She made close friends with Elly Heuss-Knapp .

During the Third Reich, she criticized racial doctrine and the exaggeration of the Aryan race. She described the “folk idolatry” as unchristian. In two monographs she also criticized the National Socialist role of women. Although she saw motherhood as the most important occupation for women, she also spoke out in favor of women being employed. Since 1940 a member of the so-called Vicar Committee of the Confessing Church of the Old Prussian Union , she campaigned for the ordination of women in the Confessing Church from 1942 after initial hesitation . Towards the end of World War II, Berlin became an increasingly likely target for Allied bombing. Paulsen therefore moved to her mother's apartment in Schleswig, where one of her sister's lived. Apart from the years 1946 to 1950, during which the British occupiers had the apartment, she stayed here until shortly before the end of her life. The “Burckhardthaus” co-founded by Paulsen, in which she continued to work, had relocated to Gelnhausen . Paulsen got involved there and was the first to teach women's issues at the EKD . Shortly after the end of the Second World War, together with Werner Kohlschmidt and Friedrich Heyer , she founded the "Church School" in Kiel, which offered lectures to students in the summer semester of 1945 while the university was still closed. For this reason too, Kiel University made her an honorary doctorate in 1953 on the occasion of her 60th birthday . Paulsen prepared women theologically and practically for priestly work and continued to campaign for the ordination of women, but emphasized the special gifts and tasks of women.

At the same time, she researched and taught primarily about the interpretation of the existential philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard , with which she had already been interested in her father at an early age. In 1955, when she retired, she published her most important work, a scientific biography of Kierkegaard. Afterwards she wrote other books about his work, for example the speech interpretation Human Being Today in 1973 or shortly before the end of life 1981 The human being today before the question of God . This book went to press after her death. Paulsen remained unmarried. She died in a nursing home after a brief illness.

memory

  • In 1981, the building of the church archives of the North Elbian Church (today: Landeskirchliches Archiv der Nordkirche ) in Winterbeker Weg, which also keeps her estate, was named "Anna-Paulsen-Haus".
  • In 1994, the EKD Women's Study and Education Center opened in Gelnhausen under her name.

literature

  • Andrea Bieler: Constructions of the Feminine: the theologian Anna Paulsen in the field of tension between the bourgeois women's movements of the Weimar Republic and National Socialist femininity myths. Gütersloh: Kaiser 1994, zugl .: Kassel, Gesamtthochsch., Diss., 1992 ISBN 978-3-579-00139-5
  • Georg Asmussen: Paulsen, Anna . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 12 - 2006. ISBN 3-529-02560-7 , pages 332-335.
  • Dorothee Schlenke: Anna Paulsen (1893–1981). Pastor in church teaching and leadership positions. In: Peter Zimmerling (ed.): Evangelical pastors. Biographical sketches, texts and programs. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2005, pp. 263–278.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Georg Asmussen: Paulsen, Anna . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 12 - 2006. ISBN 3-529-02560-7 , page 332.
  2. ↑ a b Schlenke: Anna Paulsen (1893–1981) , p. 264.
  3. ^ Georg Asmussen: Paulsen, Anna . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 12 - 2006. ISBN 3-529-02560-7 , pages 332-333.
  4. ↑ a b c d Georg Asmussen: Paulsen, Anna . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 12 - 2006. ISBN 3-529-02560-7 , page 333.
  5. ↑ Andrea Bieler: Anna Paulsen: "Take seriously the fact that theology is not a secret subject for professional theologians"
  6. ^ Schlenke: Anna Paulsen (1893–1981) , pp. 276f
  7. ^ Schlenke: Anna Paulsen (1893–1981) , p. 263.
personal data
SURNAME Paulsen, Anna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Paulsen, Anna Sophie (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Hoirup , North Schleswig
DATE OF DEATH January 30, 1981
Place of death pagan