Edmund Kalau

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Edmund Kalau in 2008

Edmund Kalau (born July 9, 1928 in East Prussia ; † January 8, 2014 in Tamuning, Guam ) was a German theologian and missionary . Trained as a fighter pilot for National Socialist Germany, he used these skills to bring aid to Micronesia’s poorest areas for more than 50 years.

Live and act

In Germany

Kalau was born and raised in East Prussia, on the border with Lithuania. At the age of 10 he was accepted into the Hitler Youth , where he was exposed to the indoctrination of National Socialism and experienced a strong atheistic stamp. At the age of 14 he joined the Flieger-HJ. There he learned to build and fly gliders. This qualified him to begin a two-year training as a pilot for powered aircraft at the age of 16. He had already completed four years of required training in meteorology, aerodynamics and basic flight knowledge by the time he joined the German Air Force . After brief combat training due to the rapid development of World War II , he was sent to the Eastern Front to fight the Soviet Union , where he flew a BF 109 G. Unlike many other soldiers who were inexperienced in combat, he survived the war and came to the Harburg district as a displaced person . But both Germany and its future were in ruins. He turned away from atheism and found faith in God through a former "enemy", a Russian doctor, of all people .

In 1950 Kalau entered the theological seminary of the Liebenzeller Mission to begin a four-year training course as a missionary.

In Micronesia

After a stay in the United States , he was sent in 1956 by the Liebenzeller Mission to Micronesia, a former German colony, where he worked on the island of Palau for three years . At Yap , where he then worked for 17 years, he built the mission station with a church, school and print shop during this time. In Colonia (Yap) he founded today's Yap Evangelical Church (YEC) with a youth center. Here he experienced the sufferings of the sick, especially on the remote islands. Often all help came too late for them and they died because boats and ships were too slow to transport patients to the central district hospital. As a pilot, he had the vision of using an airplane on the runways on some islands from the world war in order to be able to help more quickly from the air. With financial support from the USA and Germany, he was able to purchase his first aircraft in 1974. In 1975 Kalau founded the mission company Pacific Mission Aviation (PMA) on the Pacific island of Guam, which supports humanitarian and missionary tasks on the islands of Micronesia and from 1982 on the Philippines as Flying Medical Samaritans : rescue flights are carried out for the sick and seriously injured, Searched low over the ocean for lost fishing boats and dropped food and medicines after disasters such as typhoons. In order to reach islands and atolls without runways that are inaccessible to aircraft, the PMA uses a floating clinic, the M / S Sea Haven, for free medical care . Church planting (Pacific Mission Fellowship) and evangelism intensified. Later an orphanage for children in Mindoro , Philippines, and with the media work on Pohnpei a radio and television station as well as a printing company were added. In 1989 he began to set up an academy at Yap to train young men in the marine and fishing industries. 1999 handed Kalau head of the PMA his son Norbert and moved in 2004 with his wife Elizabeth in her house in Tamuning on the island of Guam, where he spent his retirement and until his death in an honorary capacity as senior pastor of the church Pacific Mission Fellowship , as active Rotarian in the Guam Sunrise Rotary Club as well as involved in local social projects for Micronesians.

Private

Edmund Kalau married Elisabeth Grünewald, a granddaughter of Heinrich Coerper, in 1954 . The couple has three children.

literature

  • Mary Alice Moore Kinchen: In the Shadow of His Wings: Pacific Missionary Aviation in Micronesia, 1974 to 2005 . University of Guam, Mangilao, Guam 2006, OCLC 317840637 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ex-Fighter-Pilot now Humanitarian celebrates 85th-Birthday ( Memento from January 18, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ), guampdn.com, message from July 13, 2013.
  2. ↑ Brief portrait of Edmund Kalau ( memento from January 18, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ), pmapacific.org
  3. ↑ a b Photo gallery of Kalau's first airplane , evangel4500.com, accessed on January 18, 2014.
  4. ↑ a b East Prussia in the swimming bird (PDF; 13,811 kB) , Ostpreußenblatt vol. 14 / series 18 of May 4, 1963, p. 10
  5. ↑ Commemoration of the life of Reverend Edmund J. Kalau (JPG; 351 kB) ( Memento from January 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), legacy.com
  6. ↑ Höllischer Pilz - Reporter at Kalau , spiegel.de, article from December 1, 1969
  7. ^ History of the PMA-Pacific , pmapacific.org, accessed January 16, 2014
  8. ↑ The Flying Samaritans of the South Seas ( Memento from January 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on January 18, 2014
  9. ↑ Reverend Edmund J. Kalau , mbjguam.com, notification of January 26, 2014.
  10. ↑ Edmund Kalau gone home ( Memento of 15 January 2014 Internet Archive ), pmadeutschland.de, release dated January 8 2014
  11. ↑ Kalau died ( Memento from January 18, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ), Google+ OurYAP message from January 13, 2014
  12. ↑ Kalau died , facebook.com report from January 13, 2014
  13. ^ Edmund J. Kalau Film Collection
  14. ↑ Kalau Short portrait , pmapacific.org, accessed on January 19, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Kalau, Edmund
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theologian and missionary
DATE OF BIRTH July 9, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 2014
Place of death Tamuning, Guam