Arnold Hitzer

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Arnold Hitzer (born March 1, 1902 in Glogau , † May 23, 1977 in Düsseldorf ) was a German Protestant and, after the Second World War, an Evangelical theologian .

Life

Arnold Hitzer was born on March 1, 1902 in Glogau. Little is known about his family and life. He studied Protestant theology in Greifswald and Breslau . After his studies, from 1928 onwards, he worked as a pastor in the remote Upper Silesian village of Rösnitz , close to the then Czechoslovakian border. This village, which had been evangelical since the 16th century, together with the neighboring village of Steuberwitz, had withstood all attempts at recatholization in history. Both places existed as a common Protestant community like an island in a Catholic environment. Evangelical residents living scattered around the area belonged to this parish , as in the nearby small town of Katscher . Here it took in the absence of occasionally weaving provost and botanist Richard Keilholz with reading services.

From a young age, Hitzer always played an inappropriate role within the Evangelical Church . Because of fundamental theological questions, he had long been inclined towards free church beliefs. From 1933 the attempts of the National Socialists to bring the Evangelical Church into line aroused his resistance. The inhuman Nazi - ideology , especially the leadership principle , the racial doctrine and anti-Semitism , were his Christian image of spiritual renewal of the Church diametrically opposed. Conflicts within the so-called church struggle were therefore inevitable. He was one of the prominent members of the Confessing Church in Silesia and was arrested several times. He was held in five different police prisons in total. The responsible consistory of the Evangelical Church in Wroclaw showed little interest to support him and threw him against his own will and by the church council in Rösnitz in -waiting , was considered by the state has his expulsion from Silesia. His application for a job in the province of Brandenburg was rejected by the responsible Silesian church leadership. That was tantamount to a professional ban in Silesia.

In 1940 Hitzer found a pastor's position in Rehhof in West Prussia in the Stuhm district . Hitzer became part of a network of the Confessing Church that offered shelter to persecuted Jews. Hitzer took in Rosa Karmeinsky and her daughter on the run, who later survived with Horst and Isolde Symanowski , " Righteous Among the Nations ".

In Rehhof in 1941, Hitzer wrote comments on the baptism question with special consideration of infant baptism , in which he described the theological justification of infant baptism as "heresy" and called for a "baptism of faith". Thereupon the West Prussian Brother Council, the governing body of the Confessing Church in the Province of West Prussia, asked Julius Schniewind and Dietrich Bonhoeffer for an expert opinion and conducted a doctrinal discussion with Hitzer. Due to the war, however, there were no further consequences, as Hitzer was drafted into the Wehrmacht in Marienwerder in 1942. After serving at the front in the Soviet Union and France , he was taken prisoner by the British in 1944 . There he worked as a pastor for German prisoners of war. During this time he had already broken spiritually with the Evangelical Lutheran faith by being baptized a second time.

Back in Germany, he finally resigned from this church in 1948 and joined the Pentecostal movement to look for a spiritual home here. First he took over a free church congregation in Kiel as pastor, before he later entered various offices within the umbrella organization Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Christengemeinden in Germany (ACD eV) and continued to work as a teacher at the Beröa Bible School in Erzhausen, Hesse . In 1959, due to fundamental theological differences of opinion on the so-called “two-tier teaching”, which deals with the difference between rebirth and the baptism of the Spirit, a rift broke out, and Hitzer resigned from all offices. He then joined the then still very small Free Christian Congregation in Munich , which he led as the first full-time senior pastor for 17 years and which grew considerably during this time. Hitzer died unexpectedly on May 23, 1977 on a business trip in Düsseldorf. In the farewell speech at his grave , Reinhold Ulonska, the then President of the Working Community of the (Pentecostal Church) Christian communities in Germany , described Hitzer as a Christian with "a wide heart, great faithfulness and willingness to make sacrifices" for God and the community.

Hitzer was married and had five children.

Publications

  • Baptism with the Holy Spirit according to the testimony of the scriptures. Missionsverlag Niedenstein, Mülheim ad Ruhr 1985
  • The burning question of power of attorney. Franz Verlag, 1969, DNB 457001593
  • The symbolism of the tabernacle. Manuscript, 1956

literature

  • Ludwig David Eisenlöffel: The Free Church Pentecostal Movement in Germany, interior views 1945–1985 . V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-89971-275-7 .
  • Ernst Hornig: Confessing Church in Silesia 1933–1945 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1977, ISBN 3-525-55554-7 .
  • Arnold Hitzer (1902–1977) . In: Paul Schmidgall (Ed.): Hundred Years of the German Pentecostal Movement 1907–2007 . Verlag Traugott Bautz, Nordhausen 2008, ISBN 978-3-88309-408-3 , pp. 278-279

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The following source writes: Glogau an der Elbe ; such a place is unknown. Glogau lies on the Oder : Ludwig David Eisenlöffel: The free church Pentecostal movement in Germany ; P. 47, point 1.1.
  2. ^ According to Eisenlöffel: The Free Church Pentecostal Movement in Germany , p. 47, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a student friend of Hitzer. But that doesn't fit with Bonhoeffer's places of study.
  3. ↑ Richard Keilholz. Kulturportal Ost-West, Ostdeutsche Biographie, 6th paragraph from the bottom, accessed on May 9, 2017.
  4. ^ Eisenlöffel: The free church Pentecostal movement in Germany ; P. 163, point 2.1.
  5. ^ Hornig: Confessing Church in Silesia 1933-1844 ; P. 270.
  6. ^ Hornig: Confessing Church in Silesia 1933-1844 ; Pp. 369-371.
  7. ↑ Beate Kosmala, Claudia Schoppmann (ed.): Solidarity and help for Jews during the Nazi era. Volume 5: Underground Survival. Help and rescue for Jews in Germany 1941-1945. Metropol, 2002, p. 145. ISBN 978-3932482861
  8. ↑ Maria von Borries: Your name is alive: on the history of the Jews in the Bersenbrück region. Rasch Verlag, 1997. P. 340. ISBN 978-3932147302
  9. ↑ Bonhoeffer's detailed report is published in Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werke (DBW), Volume 16: Konspiration und HAft 1940–1945 . Gütersloh 1996, ISBN 3-579-01886-8 , pp. 563-587
  10. ^ Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werke (DBW), Volume 16: Conspiracy and Imprisonment 1940–1945 . Gütersloh 1996, ISBN 3-579-01886-8 , p. 874.
  11. ↑ The Father's Promise. , Issue 9, 1956, p. 18, Verlag des Vaters, Hünibach (Switzerland); downloaded from digitallibrary.usc.edu on June 9, 2017
  12. ^ Eisenlöffel: The free church Pentecostal movement in Germany ; P. 150.
  13. ↑ Welcome to FCG Munich: History. Freie Christengemeinde München, January 2014, accessed on May 9, 2017.
  14. ^ Eisenlöffel: The free church Pentecostal movement in Germany ; P. 121.
  15. ^ Eisenlöffel: The free church Pentecostal movement in Germany ; P. 93.
personal data
SURNAME Hitzer, Arnold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian; Member of the Confessing Church
DATE OF BIRTH March 1, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Glogau
DATE OF DEATH May 23, 1977
Place of death Dusseldorf