Christian Berg (theologian)

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Christian Berg , complete Ferdinand Max Richard Gustav Christian Berg (born March 30, 1908 in Wesenberg (Mecklenburg) , † May 5, 1990 in Berlin ) was a German Evangelical Lutheran clergyman.

Life

Christian Berg was a son of Hans Berg , who was mayor in Wesenberg until 1919 and then a lawyer and notary in Neustrelitz, and a lay evangelist in the tradition of the Inner Mission and head of the Evangelical Home Mission , and his wife Elisabeth, née Raspe. He attended the Carolinum grammar school in Neustrelitz and studied Protestant theology at the universities of Tübingen, Vienna, Erlangen, Marburg and, from October 1928, Rostock. During his studies he was involved in the German Christian Student Association . In 1929/30 and 1932/33 he worked as a teacher at the pedagogy of the Brethren in Niesky . In 1933 he was appointed pastor of the 2nd parish office of the Marienkirche in Boizenburg .

He was one of the first and harshest critics of the takeover of power by the German Christians close to the National Socialists in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg . In June 1934 there was therefore the Schwerin trial before a special court , in which Berg together with six other pastors ( Gottfried Holtz , Johannes Schwartzkopff , Henning Fahrenheim , his Boizenburg colleague Hans Werner Ohse , Viktor Wittrock from Schwerin and Walter Pagels from Rostock) for " Degradation "of the National Socialist state was charged and was sentenced to a fine for violating the treachery ordinance . However, as part of a general amnesty , the sentence was waived. Berg was transferred to the Basse village church as a punishment.

In 1937 he was appointed pastor of the German Protestant community in Haifa as the successor to Detwig von Oertzen and, on his recommendation, by the Berlin Jerusalem Association.

From 1939 to 1945 pastor in Kirchheim / Teck , in 1945 he became deputy general secretary of the newly founded aid organization of the EKD and in 1947 general secretary. From 1949 he headed its Central Office East in Berlin. From 1956 to 1957, during the process of merging the Inner Mission and Evangelical Aid Organization into one work, Inner Mission and Aid Organization (which merged into the Diakonisches Werk of the EKD in 1975 ), he was acting head of the central office and until 1961 head of the ecumenical department of the Stuttgart headquarters. From 1962 until his retirement in 1971 he was director of the Gossner Mission in Berlin.

He was a co-founder of Bread for the World and the Overseas Services Working Group .

Christian Berg died in Berlin in 1990 at the age of 82. His grave is in the Zehlendorf cemetery .

Works

  • Order and structure of the aid organization of the Protestant churches in Germany. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1947
  • Helping Church. Stuttgart 1948
  • From the aid organization to the diaconate of the church: sermons, speeches, calls. From the work of the relief organization 1945-1950. Berlin: Heimatdienst Verlag 1950
  • with Günter Jacob : Evangelical Church beyond the zone boundary. Berlin: Lettner 1957
  • The silent mass destruction. Berlin: Lettner 1968 (Berliner Reden 13)

literature

  • Johannes Michael Wischnath: Church in Action. The Evangelical Relief Organization 1945–1957 and its relationship to the Church and Inner Mission. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1986 (= work on contemporary church history: representations 14) ISBN 978-3-525-55714-3
  • Niklot Beste : The Schwerin Trial in June 1934. In: Heinrich Holze (Hrsg.): The Rostock Theological Faculty under two dictatorships. Festschrift for Gert Haendler. Lit-Verlag, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-6887-7
  • Grete Grewolls: Who was who in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania. The dictionary of persons . Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 2011, ISBN 978-3-356-01301-6 , p. 822 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry in the Rostock matriculation portal
  2. ↑ Best: Process (Lit.)
  3. ↑ Roland Löffler: Protestants in Palestine: Religious Politics, Social Protestantism and Mission in the German Evangelical and Anglican Institutions of the Holy Land 1917 - 1939. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2008 ISBN 3-17-019693-6 (= Denomination and Society, Volume 37, incl . Diss. University of Marburg 2005/2006), p. 155
  4. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 671.
personal data
SURNAME Berg, Christian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Berg, Ferdinand Max Richard Gustav Christian (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Evangelical Lutheran clergyman
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Wesenberg (Mecklenburg)
DATE OF DEATH May 5th 1990
Place of death Berlin