Carl Paul

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carl Paul in 1927 on his 70th birthday in Schweta near Mügeln.

Carl Paul (born February 4, 1857 in Lorenzkirch near Strehla ; † October 10, 1927 in Schweta near Mügeln ) was a German Protestant - Lutheran theologian , pastor , missionary scholar and author.

Carl Paul was director of the Leipziger Missionswerk and honorary professor for recent mission history and mission studies at the University of Leipzig , nestor of missiology in Saxony and at the beginning of the 20th century was considered the most respected expert for colonial missions in Germany.

Life

Carl Paul and Elisabeth Fritsche at the engagement in Rothschönberg in 1884.

Carl Paul was born on February 4, 1857 in the rectory in Lorenzkirch . His father taught him geography from an early age . From 1870 he attended the humanistic Thomas School in Leipzig until he graduated from high school. During this time he was enthusiastic about church music . From 1877 to 1880 he studied theology at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen and the University of Leipzig . Then in 1880 he became a candidate for two years as a private tutor for the Karl Vietor family in Bremen . In the Hanseatic city he had first contacts with missionaries and learned English. In 1882 he was vicar in Großstädteln .

As a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony , he worked at the Predigerkolleg St. Pauli in Leipzig from 1882 to 1884, most recently as a study inspector. In 1884 he also received a scholarship in the Netherlands (Amsterdam), Belgium (Antwerp) and England (London and Oxford), as well as in the German cities of Barmen, Berlin, Bielefeld, Bremen, Elberfeld, Hanover, Hermannsburg and Kaiserswerth. From 1884 to 1887 he worked as a pastor in Rothschönberg near Meißen and from 1887 to 1911 as the third generation pastor in his place of birth in Lorenzkirch . Before he left Lorenzkirch, he donated a local history museum, which was completely looted during the events in Lorenzkirch in April 1945 .

In 1887 he was a co-founder of the Saxon Mission Conference , of which he became secretary and whose yearbook he contributed to. In addition, he was the author of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Gazette and the Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift . He has written articles for the London and South American Mission Societies . He lectured at national conferences such as the Continental Mission Conference in Bremen and from 1902 at the German Colonial Congress in the presence of Friedrich Fabri , Richard Grundemann , Johannes Hesse and Gustav Warneck (he later wrote the commemorative publication for his 70th birthday). He took on responsible tasks in the German Evangelical Mission Committee under Wilhelm Oehler (1877–1966) and Paul Otto Hennig . From 1988 to 1911 he was a committee member of the Saxon Missionary Association . In 1900 he initiated press correspondence, which regularly provided the daily press with information on mission topics. From 1898 to 1908 he published his main work in four volumes The Mission in our Colonies with the books Togo and Cameroon (1898), German East Africa (1900), German South West Africa (1904) and German South Sea Islands (1908). He was friends with the Africa researcher Hans Meyer , who held a professorship for colonial geography and colonial politics in Leipzig from 1915 to 1928.

The landscape painter Pedro Schmiegelow, the sculptor Professor August Schreitmüller and the writer Otto Eduard Schmidt belonged to his circle of friends .

Carl Paul 1911 in the rectory of Lorenzkirch reading the Bible.

In 1909 the University of Leipzig awarded him an honorary theological doctorate (Dr. theol. Hc) in recognition of his work on mission history . In addition, in 1912 he became a full honorary professor for recent mission history and mission studies in Leipzig, where he held the following lectures until the winter semester 1926/27:

  • Development stages of the Heidenmission, shown on the mission on the German South Sea Islands
  • Mission and colonial politics in their relationship with one another
  • Christianity and Islam compete for our African colonies
  • Germany's share in the missionary endeavors of the Christian Church in the present
  • The mission in its importance for the cultural development of the German colonies

He also carried out these mission science seminars:

  • Cultivating the sense of mission in the local church
  • The Leipzig Mission in German East Africa
  • The spread of Islam

He also expanded the book inventory of the library of the mission science seminar.

When he took office, the dean of the theological faculty Ludwig Ihmels spoke the following words:

"The faculty is proud that our regional church counts a man among its members who is known far beyond the borders of Saxony as one of the most important experts and promoters of the global work of the mission."

From 1911 to 1923 he was the successor to Karl von Schwartz (1847–1923) Mission Director of the Leipziger Missionswerk , then briefly Chairman of the Leipzig Mission College (successor to Ludwig Ihmels ). As a mission director, he traveled to East Africa and Southeast India from 1912 to 1913 . He tried to combine colonial politics and mission . However, he rejected the suppression of the Herero and Nama uprisings and German colonialism as "brutal colonial egoists". He represented a conservative Lutheranism and rejected ecumenical endeavors (together with Anglicans and Presbyterians ) in the mission areas, as well as the training of African theologians.

The result of the First World War brought a deep turning point in Paul's work. In 1916 the seminar of the Leipziger Missionswerk was closed and only reopened in 1919. With the restructuring, the Indian areas of the Leipzig Mission in 1915 were entrusted to the Church of Sweden Mission (CSM) and the East African areas of the Leipzig Mission in 1922 to the American Synod of Augustan .

After the mission festival in Hermannsburg in 1919, Carl Paul, together with August Cordes and Max Ahner, became an important proponent of an auxiliary committee for needy Germans and Lutherans in the Soviet Union . They were finally commissioned by the National Lutheran Council of the USA under John Alfred Morehead to promote cooperation with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia . Carl Paul organized the transnational Lutheran Mission Conference in Leipzig in 1920 and was also chairman of the World Mission Conference in Crans-Montana in 1920 .

On 19–24 August 1923 he became one of the co-founders of the Lutheran World Convention in Eisenach and pioneer of the World Mission Conference of the Lutheran World Federation . Regional Bishop Ludwig Ihmels was elected chairman and Carl Paul, Professor Neve from Springfield and Pastor Pehrsson from Gothenburg were elected as secretaries . Carl Paul gave his lecture here: "Development and Characteristics of the Lutheran Mission". He was elected to the Great Committee for the Preparation and Implementation of the Second World Convention in Copenhagen in 1929, but he did not live to see that Second World Convention.

Retired Carl Paul in his garden in Schweta.

On October 1, 1923, Carl Paul resigned from his position as mission director. He moved into the empty rectory in Schweta near Mügeln . There he cultivated the parish garden as he did in Lorenzkirch and grew roses. He continued teaching as an honorary professor at the University of Leipzig until the winter semester of 1926/27. He still supported the Leipzig Mission in retirement. In addition to the representation work in the Leipzig Mission House, he worked as before on his scientific publications. His successor Carl Heinrich Ihmels wrote in the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Gazette in November 1925 :

  • Professor D. Paul, who already worked so much for the Leipzig Mission in his retirement, wants to use all his strength again in the next few months to ensure that there is no gap at home. We are sincerely grateful to him for this.

He died of a stroke on October 10, 1927, eight months after his 70th birthday . When they commemorate the Leipzig sang Thomas Choir the hymn World, farewell, I am your tired of Johann Rosenmüller . The theologian Emil Balla spoke for the Leipzig University and the missiologist Carl Mirbt for the German Mission Association.

Carl Paul had subscribed to the mission journals of numerous mission societies from different countries and thus collected his research results over decades. After his death, his widow tried in vain to give the mission magazines to libraries or to sell them in second-hand bookshops. Money was too scarce after the inflation in Germany. The widow couldn't find anyone interested. She then called her family together. The children dug a huge hole under the big pear tree. There they threw the innumerable mission newspapers in and buried them. The widow stood next to her, moaning, complaining and shouting: All that money! All that money!

family

Carl Paul came from a Saxon pastor's family. His parents were Simeon Fürchtegott Paul (1814–1890), pastor in Lorenzkirch, and Maria Elisabeth, b. Fritzsche (1861-1942); they married in 1884.

Carl Paul had these siblings:

  • Christian Arndt Friedrich (1848–1918), deacon
  • Georg Gotthold (1849–1890), criminal advisor
  • Ernst Friedrich (1851–1929), officer
  • Hermann (1853-1854)
  • Maria Christophora (1855-1927)
  • Heinrich (* † 1858)
  • Fürchtegott (1859–1927) forester in Lohmen ;
  • Theodor (1862–1928), pharmacist and full professor for pharmacy and applied chemistry at the University of Munich . He was the father of the Physics Nobel Prize winner Wolfgang Paul .
  • Martin (1864–1932), merchant in Bremen and Togo
  • Heinrich (* † 1868)
  • Sophie (1869-1886)

Father Simeon Fürchtegott Paul (1814–1890) and maternal grandfather Christian Gotthelf Heyme (1784–1872) were Evangelical Lutheran pastors in Lorenzkirch . The father chiseled the family's motto in 1854 on the two sandstone posts at the entrance to the rectory in Lorenzkirch: Pax Dei Nobiscum (German: God's peace be with us ) and I and my house want to serve the Lord . This motto is taken from the Bible and can be found in the book of Joshua ( Jos 24.15  EU ).

His ancestors include distinguished personalities: among others, the Leipzig mayor Hieronymus Lotter (around 1497–1580), the theologian Johannes Olearius (1546–1623), his son Gottfried Olearius (1604–1685) and grandson Johann Gottfried Olearius (1635–1711) .

Carl Paul married on October 22, 1884 in Streumen his wife Marie Elisabeth Fritzsche (1861-1942), daughter of the pastor Theodor Ernst Julius Fritzsche (1828 to 1888) and his wife Marie Louise born Hofmann (1834-1915) in Streumen.

Carl Paul had these children:

In 1925, after completing his apprenticeship as a pastor and before leaving for India as a prospective missionary for the Leipzig Mission, Paul Gäbler asked Carl Paul for his daughter Elisabeth Paul. Carl Paul refused and replied that before a wedding he expected him to prove himself a missionary and learn the Tamil language in India . When Paul Gäbler learned the Tamil language two years later, Carl Paul approved the marriage. However, Carl Paul did not live to see his daughter Elisabeth's marriage because he had died earlier. His other children decided not to marry and remained single.

The double grave of Carl Paul and his wife is located in the Lorenzkirch cemetery next to the sacristy door of the Sankt Laurentiuskirche, through which Carl Paul walked in his gown as pastor of Lorenzkirch for 24 years. Next to it is the epitaph for his fallen son Theodor Martin Paul (1888–1918).

Carl Paul's motto

  • On the Hindenburgtag in 1927, Carl Paul presented his daughter Elisabeth with his picture with the dedication “Duty to act is also worship. Your father ”.

Obituaries and tributes

Carl Paul in the last year of his life, 1927.
  • The Archbishop of Sweden Nathan Söderblom wrote to the Missionswerk in Leipzig on October 20, 1927: “The man who has gone home has done your work great service, and we here in Sweden will not forget what he as your representative and we in serious, difficult times have lived through together. "
  • Professor D. Julius Richter , Berlin, said on June 8, 1936 at the ceremony to mark the centenary of the Leipzig Mission : “ For Carl Paul, too, Lutheranism was the be-all and end-all. He also made two valuable contributions: He has energy and skill and liveliness represent the colonial idea in missionary work; and he was the only one who repeatedly pushed the question of Protestant Germanism abroad in the mission fields into our consciences with great expertise and energy. "
  • Dr. Jobst Reller, Hermannsburg, August 20, 2011: “ If you consider the life and work of Dr. Carl Pauls, I am particularly impressed by one thing, the gift of fine and sensitive observation, the ability to seize the most opportunities at the right time, also to make compromises for the sake of the matter. "

Awards

  • Honorary doctorate from the theological faculty of the University of Leipzig in 1909
  • Honorary member of the Evangelical Lutheran Student Association Philadelphia in Leipzig
  • Honorary member of the German Colonial Society , Leipzig Department
  • Director of the Leipzig Mission 1911–1923
  • Presidency of the World Mission Conference in Crans-Montana in 1920
  • Chair of the first Lutheran World Convention in Eisenach in 1923

The D. Paul Foundation of the Saxon Mission Conference

The D. Paul Foundation of the Saxon Mission Conference was established on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Carl Paul. The honor was given to Carl Paul because he had co-founded the Saxon Mission Conference in 1887, because he was its secretary and 1888–1921 on its yearbook of the Saxon Missionary Conference and because he had contributed to its Lutheran Missionary Yearbook (Leipzig) from 1922–1927 .

It was the task of the foundation to advertise a prize work every year, in which the writings of Carl Paul had to be given special consideration. The best award work should be published in the Lutheran Mission Yearbook of the Saxon Mission Conference; the author was to receive 100 marks in cash.

The first prize work was advertised in December 1928 in the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Gazette in Leipzig. The topic of the award work was: German Colonization and Mission - The Impact of the German Colonial Era on World Mission. When writing the award work, special attention should be paid to Carl Paul's writings on mission and colonization. The board of the Saxon Mission Conference, the mission director Carl Heinrich Ihmels and the Professor Carl Mirbt in Göttingen were responsible for the evaluation of the submitted work .

Diaries July 1881 to October 1883

Works (selection)

literature

Web links

Commons : Carl Paul  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Evangelical Lutheran Missionswerk Leipzig  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Archives

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Source: Lorenzkirch - his market and his local museum. (Responsibility: -z). In: The black magpie. Our home in words and pictures. Free addition to the Liebenwerdaer Kreisblatt. No. 207 of October 9, 1913.
  2. ↑ 1888–1921: Yearbook of the Saxon Missions Conference , 1922–1938: Lutherisches Missionsjahrbuch (Leipzig) .
  3. ↑ Pedro Schmiegelow painted watercolors and paintings by Lorenzkirch at the request of Carl Paul. From 1911, the Lorenzkirch Local History Museum housed a painting in the format 1.5 × 4 meters with a view of Lorenzkirch and its surroundings. The picture has been lost since 1945.
  4. ↑ August Schreitmüller designed two crucifixion groups as a sculptor at the request of Carl Paul: in 1906 in the St. Laurentius Church in Lorenzkirch and in 1913 in the chapel of the mission house in Leipzig. In Lorenzkirch a fisherman and a farmer from Lorenzkirch stand under the crucified Christ and in Leipzig an Indian woman with child and a Jagga warrior. Pedro Schmiegelow painted these crucifixion groups. The painting on the crucifixion group in Lorenzkirch was destroyed during the flood in 2002 and replaced by a different color painting.
  5. ↑ Otto Eduard Schmidt describes in his work Kursächsische Streifzüge a visit to Carl Paul in Lorenzkirch. Source: Otto Eduard Schmidt: Electoral Saxon forays . Third volume: From the old Mark Meißen. Page 152–176. Verlag der Buchdruckerei der Wilhelm und Bertha v. Baensch Foundation, Third Edition, Dresden 1924.
  6. ^ Kurt Schmidt-Clausen: From the Lutheran World Convention to the Lutheran World Federation . History of the Lutheran World Convention (1923–1947). Page 55, 77-78, Gütersloh 1976
  7. ↑ Lutheran World Convention in Eisenach from 19.-24. August 1923. Memorandum, published on behalf of the committee in 1925 by Dörffling and Franke, Leipzig 1925. Pages 169–178.
  8. ^ Kurt Schmidt-Clausen: From the Lutheran World Convention to the Lutheran World Federation . History of the Lutheran World Convention (1923–1947). Page 97, Gütersloh 1976
  9. ↑ Evangelical Lutheran Mission Gazette, Volume 89, No. 11, November 1925, page 184.
  10. ↑ Source: Elisabeth Gäbler née Paul reported this to the author Michael Gäbler.
  11. ↑ Freddy Litten: Theodor Paul - short biography.
  12. ↑ Images can be found here .
  13. ↑ Relationship calculation
  14. ↑ Relationship calculation
  15. ↑ Source: Elisabeth Gäbler née Paul reported this to the author Michael Gäbler.
  16. ↑ The term Hindenburg days referred to various anniversaries that were named after Paul von Hindenburg . The anniversaries of August 26th to 30th commemorated his victory in the Battle of Tannenberg (1914) .
  17. ↑ Source: Remembrance of the Lorenzkirch pastor and Leipzig mission director Dr. Carl Paul Chapter II. A memory of Carl Paul in the form of an outline of his life.
  18. ↑ Source: Evangelical Lutheran Missionsblatt, Leipzig: 91st year, August 1936, No. 8, Our Centennial II, ceremony in the Gewandhaus in Leipzig on Monday, June 8th at 10 a.m., pages 246–247.
  19. ↑ Source: Remembrance of the Lorenzkirch pastor and Leipzig mission director Dr. Carl Paul Chapter V conclusion.
  20. ↑ Evangelical Lutheran mission sheet. Ev.-luth. Mission, Leipzig 1928, page 317.
personal data
SURNAME Paul, Carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Paul, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pastor, mission director and professor
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Lorenzkirch near Strehla
DATE OF DEATH October 10, 1927
Place of death Schweta at Mügeln