German Evangelical Church Congress 1956

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The 7th German Evangelical Church Congress in 1956 took place from August 8 to 12, 1956 in Frankfurt am Main . The annual motto for 1956 was used as the motto , “Let yourself be reconciled with God” ( 2. Cor. 5:20  LUT ). The host state church was the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau .

Topics and course

Opening service on the Römerberg

The opening service with 100,000 participants celebrated the Kirchentag President Reinhold von Thadden-Trieglaff , Church President Martin Niemöller and the Frankfurt Provost Karl Goebels in the presence of Federal President Theodor Heuss on Wednesday, August 8, 1956 on the Römerberg . Large parts of the Römerberg and the Dom-Römer area were still in ruins.

The dominant theme of the Kirchentag was the political debate about rearmament and the introduction of conscription in the Federal Republic of Germany . The Kirchentag slogan referred to this conflict as well as to the growing distance between East and West. In his greeting, Niemöller explicitly addressed the “guests from the area of ​​the German Democratic Republic ” and demanded in the opening sermon: “We cannot just get our way through; we must be considerate of others; we have to come to an understanding one way or another. And that applies to both big and small things ... that we take the plunge, that we let concern for our own safety, that we refrain from sacrificing others in order to preserve ourselves ”.

The Deputy Prime Minister of the GDR , Otto Nuschke, was one of the approximately 55,000 permanent participants at the Kirchentag . However, it was not dealt with in accordance with the protocol appropriate to his office . It was not until the closing service that the general secretary of the Kirchentag Heinrich Giesen had him searched for in the crowd and led to the stands to the applause of the visitors.

The participants in the church convention dealt in six working groups with the topics of church and community , family and upbringing , people and politics , work and economy , village and country as well as city ​​and settlement . Most of the events took place on the Frankfurt exhibition grounds , a performance of the "Kirchentagsspiel" The Abiding City in the Waldstadion .

Around 600,000 visitors came to the Annual General Meeting with the closing service on the Rebstock site . After the Leipzig Kirchentag in 1954 , this was the largest final assembly of all the Kirchentag.

literature

  • Jürgen Telschow: History of the Evangelical Church in Frankfurt am Main . Volume III: From the post-war period to the present (=  series of publications by the Evangelical Regional Association Frankfurt am Main . No. 42 ). Waldemar Kramer in the publishing house Römerweg GmbH, Wiesbaden 2019, ISBN 978-3-922179-56-6 , p. 90-92 .

Web links

Commons : Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag 1956  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files