Eduard Hesse

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Eduard Hesse (born October 1, 1912 in Bremen , † December 10, 2011 in Bielefeld ) was a German Protestant clergyman.

Life

Eduard Hesse grew up in a pietistic family. His father was the theologian Hermann Albert Hesse . His three brothers also decided to become their father and were committed to the Confessing Church . His sister Margit married a theologian. His youngest brother, Helmut Hesse , was sent to the Dachau concentration camp with his father in 1943 because of his church commitment , where Helmut Hesse died due to a lack of medical care. His two brothers Theodor and Friedrich-Wilhelm had already fallen by this time . Of the siblings, only Margit and Eduard survived the Third Reich . Eduard had six children with his wife Friederike (widow of his fallen brother Theodor).

In his youth he was active in the evangelical and youth-oriented Bible study group . During his theology studies in Tübingen he was involved in the youth movement-reformed college guild Rüdiger von Bechelaren . He used the following months of study in Basel (1935–1936) for cross-border courier services within the Confessing Church. In the autumn of 1936 he passed his first exam in the Confessing Church and then worked for them as vicar in Breslau . His sermons were observed by the Gestapo after a denunciation . He was arrested several times for its contents. In a diary entry of the confessional pastor Hermann Klugkist Hesse , his imprisonment is noted as follows:

“Eduard Hesse lies in a narrow cell with a blood thief and a thief. A bed. Two must sleep on the ground. The number of those arrested in East Prussia over 80! Niesel and Gollwitzer taken prisoner again. "

- Hermann Klugkist Hesse : Diary entry from November 19, 1937

Even a transfer within the Confessing Church to Gebroth in the Hunsrück could not protect him from further reprisals . But even that did not change his theological convictions. In March 1939 he passed his second exam in the now illegal Confessing Church in the Rhineland. At the end of 1939 he was sentenced to one year imprisonment by a special court based on the so-called Heimtückegesetzes . The previous prison term was credited to him and an amnesty was granted for the remaining months . In his confirmation group , which he led as assistant preacher in Duisburg - Meiderich , he dealt with the Heidelberg Catechism, which is valued in the Confessing Church, and told his students about the funeral of the confessional pastor Paul Schneider, who was murdered in the Buchenwald concentration camp . He was therefore interrogated again by the Gestapo and the matter was passed on to the public prosecutor's office . There was no trial and conviction for the time being. In 1940, like many supporters of the Confessing Church, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht to serve on the Eastern Front. A special court in Düsseldorf took up the Meiderich case again in 1941, but without passing a judgment. In the further course of the war, Hesse was ordered to do dangerous “special operations” with a remarkable number of times, and a comrade informed him of a confidential letter from the Gestapo in Düsseldorf with the note that he should not come back. Eduard Hesse survived the Second World War .

Eduard Hesse was pastor in Herford from 1947 to 1952 and pastor in the community of Hoerstgen on the Lower Rhine from 1952 to 1977 . After his death, the incumbent pastor remembered him:

"Together with his father Hermann Albert Hesse, pastor in Wuppertal, and his brothers, he belonged to a radical, more decisive wing of the so-called 'Confessing Church', which also counted advocating the persecuted Jews directly to the Christian creed."

- Pastor Stefan Maser : Obituary for Eduard Hesse on the website of the church district Moers

So it is not surprising that the community of Hoerstgen not only commemorates the victims of the World War, but also the Jewish victims of the place.

The Hesse couple spent their retirement in the Westerwald . His wife Friederike died in January 2011. Eduard Hesse died on December 10, 2011 at the age of 100 in Bielefeld. Both were buried in the Hoerstgener cemetery.

Translations

  • Dirk Heikoop: Hermann Albert Hesse (1877–1957). A Reformed in the struggle of the Confessing Church in Germany. Translated from the Dutch by Eduard Hesse

literature

  • Friedhelm Meyer: The endangered life of the young theologian Eduard Hesse. In: Günther von Norden , Klaus Schmidt (Ed.): They swam against the current. Cologne 2006, pp. 86-89
  • Frank Friedhelm Homberg: Rescue Resistance in Wuppertal during National Socialism. Dissertation, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, in particular Chapter 3.2 - The Hesse pastor family, p. 53 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gottfried Abrath: Subject and Milieu in the Nazi State. Pastor Hermann Klugkist Hesse's diaries. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1994, pp. 304-305
  2. ^ Resistance shaped down to the deepest soul .
personal data
SURNAME Hesse, Eduard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant clergyman
DATE OF BIRTH October 1, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 2011
Place of death Bielefeld