Arthur Rackwitz

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Arthur Rackwitz (born August 4, 1895 in Landsberg an der Warthe ; † August 16, 1980 in Berlin-Frohnau ) was a German Protestant pastor , anti-fascist speaker and publicist , helper for victims of Nazi persecution , prisoner in Dachau concentration camp , member of the Confessing Church (BK) and the Association of Religious Socialists (BRS).

Life

Rackwitz came from a Pomeranian theologian family . His father was one of the free- spirited representatives of his guild. After attending primary school and successfully completing high school in 1913, he studied Protestant theology in Berlin - already filled with a deeper interest in solving the social question that was being discussed in social democratic circles. Because his mother had meanwhile been widowed , he financed his studies himself by teaching at the pedagogy of the Spandauer Johannesstift . He also played the organ at the associated collegiate church. At the beginning of the First World War he volunteered for army service , but had to retire due to illness. The few terrible war impressions he had gathered made him a pacifist anyway . He used the free time to hear lectures from the esteemed university professor Adolf von Harnack . After Rackwitz had successfully completed his theological exams , he was ordained a pastor on May 2, 1920 . At first he was hired as an assistant pastor at the so-called Ölberg Church in Berlin , but the following year he went to Thuringia and was elected pastor of the community in Möhrenbach , where he served for eight years. During this time - 1926 - he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Inspired by a lecture by the religious-socialist pastor Emil Fuchs , he too joined this movement and founded a local group in Möhrenbach, which achieved considerable votes in the church elections . This was followed by a short interlude as a pastor in Eisenberg , before he became pastor at the Melanchthon Church in Berlin-Neukölln in 1929 . This was preceded by the so-called “ Neukölln church dispute ”, which initially hindered his employment there until the Prussian minister of culture, Adolf Grimme , threw his word for him into the balance. Since then, Rackwitz has been a member of the Federal Executive Committee of the Federation of Religious Socialists (BRS) and has also given lively lectures against the emerging National Socialism . He also continually criticized his own party and campaigned for the BRS to distance itself from the SPD. Dissatisfied with the half-hearted resolutions of his party, he always gave his vote in elections to the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), as Ulrich Peter writes. Because of his lectures as a war opponent, he was repeatedly criticized by church leaders. That was u. a. because he criticized the secret support of Nazi organizations like the Sturmabteilung (SA) as well as militaristic associations like the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten by influential church circles. Rackwitz held numerous offices within the federal government. In November 1932 he was the federal organization leader for the Prussian church elections. He held the state chairmanship in Prussia and was at times also head of the "Brotherhood of Socialist Theologians". Attempts on the DC side to oust him from the community, however, failed.

After power was transferred to the NSDAP in 1933, Rackwitz took part in illegal activities among the workers. He granted protection to the persecuted in his rectory. He also looked after the families of people whose relatives had already been taken to concentration camps or prisons . This included u. a. also the daughter of Ernst Schneller , whom he took into his family. In 1935 Rackwitz became a member of the Confessing Church (BK). From 1936 he was also a member of the Pastors' Emergency League , even if he did not consider all of his principles to be correct. When he preached , Gestapo agents recorded what he said. In the following years he was repeatedly briefly ver liable - also because he persecuted Jews had helped to escape.

After hiding Ernst von Harnack , one of the men from July 20, 1944 , he was arrested himself and transferred to the Dachau concentration camp on December 2, 1944, where he was assigned to the pastors' block . It was here that he was liberated in 1945.

When the Nazi rule was eliminated, he returned to Berlin. He founded the " Arbeitskreis Religiöser Sozialisten " (ARS) in his residential district , but church and political conservative circles suspected it because of Rackwitz 'proximity to the KPD . In April 1946 he joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) with a few social democratic comrades , while the majority remained with the SPD Neukölln. Despite resistance from church circles, he was able to keep his pastoral office, which even Bishop Otto Dibelius campaigned for. But together with other clergymen such as the theologian Erich Hertzsch , he resigned from the SED in 1952 because he rejected its cultural-political rigor . The authoritarian party regime also met with disapproval.

From 1946 to 1962 Arthur Rackwitz was a member of the Provincial Synod Berlin-Brandenburg . In his last years of service, however, he concentrated more on his community activities and held back from making political statements.

Rackwitz was married to his wife Charlotte, who also stood by him faithfully in the church struggle.

Publications

  • Christian and socialist at the same time , Hamburg: Reich, 1976
  • Christian commitment to socialism , [Berlin]: Socialist Unity Party of Germany, [19] 46
  • Marxism in the light of the gospel , Berlin: Allg. German Ed., 1948
  • Working group of religious socialists , in: Die große Not [collective brochure], Meisenheim / Glan 1947

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrich Peter: The "League of Religious Socialists" in Berlin from 1919 to 1933, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1995, 431
personal data
SURNAME Rackwitz, Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian, religious socialist and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH 4th August 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Landsberg on the Warta
DATE OF DEATH August 16, 1980
Place of death Berlin-Frohnau