August Wiegand

August Wiegand

August Wiegand (born December 26, 1864 in Schwerin ; † September 22, 1945 there ) was a Lutheran theologian . His (second) wife Magda Wiegand-Dehn was a German textile artist.

Life

August Wiegand did his Abitur in Schwerin and then studied theology in Leipzig, Tübingen, Erlangen and Rostock. He joined the Wingolfs connections there . In 1889/90 he trained as a Jewish missionary at the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum in Leipzig, founded by Franz Delitzsch in 1886 . In 1890/91 he went to the German Protestant community in Stanislau in Galicia on behalf of a Danish mission society . However, there were not many tasks for him there, so that in November 1891 he accepted the position as pastor in Perlin .

The short time in Stanislau with the lifelong friendship with the Christian Jew Chajim Jedidjah Pollak , called Christian Theophilus Lucky, also Lucki (1854–1916), remained sustainable for Wiegand's attitude towards Jews and Jewish Christians . Pollak was buried at his own request and at Wiegand's mediation in the Jewish cemetery in Plau .

In 1902 August Wiegand was elected pastor in Plau . In the same year he took an active part in one of the last Jewish New Year services, Rosh Hashanah , as an excellent expert on the Jewish customs for preserving the minyan . In 1929 he was appointed provost. As early as 1930 Wiegand recognized the danger of the increasing influence of the German Christians and became involved against this movement.

On September 1, 1935, Pastor Wiegand was forced out of office as a "Jew servant" because of a sensational, much-discussed sermon against the anti-Semitic propaganda of the Nazi propaganda newspaper Der Stürmer ("Who knows the Jew, knows the devil"); the parish of Kirchnüchel near Malente was transferred to him for administration for another 3 years . There, too, he was warned by the Gestapo about some sermons . After the death of his wife in July 1938, Pastor Wiegand returned to his home town of Schwerin in November of that year. Here he was one of the few who visited the last Jews and "non-Aryan" Christians of Jewish descent who remained in Schwerin and maintained friendly contacts with them. From 1939 Wiegand was the Mecklenburg shop steward of the Berlin office Grüber , which helped (especially baptized) Jews to emigrate to safe countries abroad. However, he helplessly witnessed a number of deportations. The menorah of the Jewish community in Schwerin survived the National Socialist era, hidden by a daughter of Wiegand.

As a friend of non-alcoholic beverages - in Plau he had founded and managed an abstinence association - Wiegand had the eco-name "Limonaden-August".

swell

• Chronicle of the Protestant parish Plau am See
• Files of the State Church Archives of Mecklenburg
• Bernd Ruchhöft: From ALBAN to ZIPPE. Famous and notable personalities from the history of the city of Plau. (still unpublished)

Web links

• Literature about August Wiegand in the state bibliography MV

Individual evidence

1. ↑ MISHKAN A Forum on the Gospel and the Jewish People ( Memento from June 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) MISHKAN magazine 60/2009 (pdf in English)