Birger trout
Birger Forell (born September 27, 1893 in Söderhamn , Sweden , † July 4, 1958 in Borås , Sweden) was a Swedish Protestant pastor . He campaigned for refugees , persecuted people , displaced persons and prisoners of war during and after World War II .
Life
Forell studied theology from 1919/1920 at the universities of Tübingen and Marburg . From 1929 to 1942 he was pastor at the Swedish Church in Berlin and a staunch supporter of the Confessing Church . He helped those persecuted by the Nazi regime and was monitored by the Gestapo . At the urging of the National Socialists he was called back to Sweden and was pastor in Borås from 1942 to 1951 .
In 1943 he was sent to England by the World Council of Churches to look after German prisoners of war . In 1944 he founded the Committee for Christian Post-War Aid in Borås . In 1945 he founded the Norton Camp study camp in the county of Nottinghamshire with the support of the English churches and after a lengthy discussion with the British War Office in cooperation with the YMCA employee John Barwick . German prisoners of war from all English camps were able to take their Abitur there. Forell wanted to focus on a theological school where clergy and lay helpers were trained for church work. At the same time, as wanted by the War Ministry, an educational school trained elementary school teachers.
From 1947 Forell campaigned to found the refugee town of Espelkamp on the site of a former munitions plant of the Wehrmacht in Mittwald near Espelkamp . In 1948 the Committee for Christian Post-War Aid was established in Mittwald , which distributed food, clothing and money donated as aid to Sweden . In 1951 he gave up his position as pastor in Borås completely and founded the German-Swedish Refugee Aid , which helped displaced farmers with the resettlement.
In 1958 Birger Forell died. The refugee aid stopped its work two years later. The tasks were continued by the Birger-Forell-Stiftung eV until it was dissolved in 2000.
family
Forell was married to Calise Strindberg. He had three children with her, two of whom died early.
Honors
- March 31, 1955: Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany , Great Cross of Merit
- Schools and streets in Berlin , Bonn , Recklinghausen , Espelkamp and in Neugnadenfeld in Lower Saxony and a settlement in Kaufungen in North Hesse are named after Birger Forell .
- A plaque commemorating him hangs on the house of the Swedish Church in Berlin. A plaque commemorating his commitment was inaugurated on July 4th, 2008 at an open-air concert at “Birger-Forell-Platz” in Berlin-Wilmersdorf .
- In 1993 the Deutsche Bundespost issued a stamp to commemorate Birger Forell's 100th birthday.
literature
- Martin Kraatz: Birger Forell 1893–1993. Student and friend of Rudolf Otto, Marburg honorary doctorate in theology. In: alma mater philippina , summer semester 1994, pp. 4–8.
- Klaus Loscher: Birger Forell 1893–1958. For the 100th birthday of the "father of prisoners of war and refugees". Bayreuth 1993.
- Klaus Loscher: Study and everyday life behind barbed wire, Birger Forell's contribution to theological-pedagogical teaching at Norton Camp, England (1945–1948) (= Neukirchen theological dissertations and habilitation theses, volume 12). Neukirchener, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1997, ISBN 3-7887-1632-0 ( dissertation Augustana University Neuendettelsau 1996).
- Harald von Koenigswald : Birger Forell. Life and work in the years 1933–1958. Berlin 1962.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz : Forell, Birger. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 69-70.
- Robert Kain: Otto Weidt. Anarchist and “Righteous Among the Nations” (Writings of the German Resistance Memorial Center / Series A / Analyzes and Representations; Volume 10). Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-86732-271-3 , esp.p. 383ff. ( Full text in excerpt online ).
Web links
- Literature by and about Birger Forell in the catalog of the German National Library
- Birger-Forell-Realschule: Birger Forell - namesake of our school
Individual evidence
- ^ Nicolaus Schmidt : Willi Lassen - a biographical sketch. In: Democratic History, Vol. 26. Schleswig-Holsteinischer Geschichtsverlag, 2015, pp. 204ff.
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Trout, Birger |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swedish pastor |
DATE OF BIRTH | September 27, 1893 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Söderhamn , Sweden |
DATE OF DEATH | 4th July 1958 |
Place of death | Borås , Sweden |