Christian Friedrich Spittler

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Christian Friedrich Spittler

Christian Friedrich Spittler (born April 12, 1782 in Wimsheim , † December 8, 1867 in Basel ) was secretary of the Basel Christianity Society and founder of various pietistic social and missionary organizations in and around Basel.

Live and act

The son of a pastor came to the Latin school in Kirchheim unter Teck after the early death of his father , where he was also confirmed in 1796 . Like his ancestors, his mother wanted him to pursue a career as a pastor and caretaker of saints , although he resisted and began an apprenticeship in the Oberamtei Steinbach . In 1800 he came to the town clerk in Schorndorf .

Although he wanted to emigrate to America, from 1801 he worked with the Christianity Society in Basel, where his friend Carl Friedrich Adolph Steinkopf had become secretary. From 1803 to 1807 he was Steinkopf's secretarial assistant, also for a short time under his successor Blumhardt , before he became the company's secretary himself in 1807. In this task he was able to bring his specialist knowledge, organizational talent and writing skills to bear. He wrote around 25,000 letters to hundreds of people in the course of his life.

In 1812 he married Susanna Götz from Basel. The marriage remained childless and the couple adopted two children. In 1815 Spittler founded the Evangelical Mission Society in Basel . In 1820 he and Christian Heinrich Zeller built a rescue house in Beuggen , and in 1823 the Jewish mission institution in Sitzenkirch near Kandern, which was headed by Karl Köllner . In 1827 he set up a Greek institution in Beuggen, which was transformed into an institution for the deaf and mute in 1830. From 1834 he made various attempts to found a pilgrim mission school, for which he also acquired the pilgrims' yard in Riehen in 1837, to which the institution for the deaf and dumb was relocated the following year. The Riehener Diakonissenhaus emerged from this in 1852 . Spittler succeeded in winning the deaconess Trinette Bindschedler as head of the deaconess house.

Finally, in 1840, Spittler founded the St. Chrischona pilgrimage mission , from where two brothers were sent to Jerusalem in 1846 to establish a brother house there. In 1857 the house of the pilgrim mission in Chrischona was finally built. Under Spittler's leadership, the mission company began working with German emigrants in Texas, and branches were set up in Tettnang, Säckingen and Rheinfelden, as well as the Mayenbühl men's asylum and the Marthastift in Basel. The later called Spittler-Stift Klösterli in Riehen was expanded under his direction in 1866.

After 66 years of service in Basel, Spittler died there on December 8, 1867 at the age of 85. He was buried on December 11th in the Spalengottesacker in Basel, in the family grave of Christian Gottlieb Blumhardt , the director of the Basel Mission who died in 1838 and in which Spittler's wife Susanna (1787–1844), née Götz, was buried in 1844 . The Spalengottessacker was later converted into the botanical garden, in which the university library was also built in 1893. At the request of Spittler's publishing staff Ludwig Kober and Jakob Ludwig Jaeger and the Basel mission inspector Theodor Oehler , the remains of the deceased were reburied on March 9, 1893 in the nearby Kannenfeld cemetery , which opened in 1868 . This cemetery was also closed in 1952, so that Spittler's tombstone can no longer be identified today.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Claudius Buser: Spittler's legacy. On the 150th anniversary of Christian Friedrich Spittler's death , Chrischona Panorama 6/2017, pp. 20–21
  2. ↑ Hubert Kolling: Katharina “Trinette” Bindschedler. In: Horst-Peter Wolff (Hrsg.): Biographisches Lexikon zur care history. Volume 2, Urban & Fischer, 2001, pp. 25-26.
  3. ↑ Jochen Eber: Where is Spittler actually buried? ( Memento of the original from December 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. On the homepage of the Theological Seminary St. Chrischona , December 4, 2017 (accessed: December 7, 2017) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tsc.education

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Spittler, Christian Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German secretary of the Basel Christianity Society
DATE OF BIRTH April 12, 1782
PLACE OF BIRTH Wimsheim
DATE OF DEATH December 8, 1867
Place of death Basel