Edwin Kelm

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Edwin Kelm (2003)

Edwin Kelm (* 8. August 1928 in Friedenstal / Bessarabia , today Mirnopolje / Ukraine ) is a contractor with Bessarabia German origin. He campaigned for reconciliation with the areas formerly settled and occupied by Germans in what is now Poland , Ukraine and Moldova . For this he received high awards as "Bridge Builder of Peace" and "Ambassador of Reconciliation". He also contributed to the cohesion of the Bessarabian German population group in the Federal Republic.

Life

Edwin Kelm comes from a German-born farming family in Bessarabia. The place of birth was the Friedenstal settlement with around 2100 inhabitants founded by German emigrants in 1834. After the Bessarabian Germans were resettled in 1940 as a result of the Soviet occupation, he and his parents were temporarily taken to a camp in Germany. From there the family was sent to Germany- occupied Poland around 1942 ; The former inhabitants of Friedenstal were settled in the Kutno region on farms from which the German occupation forces had driven the Polish owners away.

Escape in 1945

When the Eastern Front collapsed in January 1945 as a result of a major Soviet attack, the family fled west. On the morning of January 20, 1945, the Kelm family found themselves in a mile-long refugee trail, which consisted of residents of the Bessarabian village of Friedenstal. On the road between Sompolno and Ślesin on the Schlüsselsee lake in the Konin district , the trek was overrun by armored troops of the Red Army and shot at. The force was in combat with German units that were in retreat. A part of the trek, which had evaded on byways, came across a group of partisans who were looking for escaping SS and Wehrmacht members in German uniforms . Kelm's 44-year-old father was shot, like many other male refugees. Edwin Kelm escaped and found shelter in the house of a Polish woman in the snow-covered landscape. The 16-year-old Kelm was to be shot on Russian orders as he continued to flee to Germany. The executing soldier did not obey the orders of his superior and let Kelm go.

The civilians who were killed and frozen to death on the road and in the forests near Ślesin, as well as fallen German soldiers, were buried by the local population. The 300 or so bodies were put in a mass grave in a huge bomb crater of a lost V2 rocket. In 1997 a memorial with a stone cross was erected at the grave site in a wooded area at the request of Edwin Kelm.

After the war

Kelm came to Möglingen at the age of 17 , where he still lives today (2019). In 1962 he passed the master craftsman's examination in the building trade in Möglingen and founded a construction company which he managed until 1993. His company built around 400 residential buildings, several community and town houses, schools and seven churches.

In his hometown he appeared from 1971 to 1994 as a local politician for the CDU . He has been a member of the Möglingen parish council since 1965. He was elected to the district synod of the Ludwigsburg church district and belonged to the regional synod of the Protestant regional church of Württemberg from 1977 to 1995.

Commitment to Bessarabia

In 1966 Kelm made the first trip to his former home Bessarabia, which had been part of the Soviet Union since the end of the Second World War. His travels were viewed with suspicion by government agencies, as they believed he was a Western spy.

Since 1980 he has been conducting study trips to Ukraine and Moldova. Around 1000 travelers, mostly Bessarabian Germans or their descendants, travel to the countries of the former Bessarabia each season and visit the former German settlements.

In 1982 Kelm was elected federal chairman of the Bessarabian German Landsmannschaft . He held the office until 2004. In this function he was also the deputy chairman of the Aid Committee of the Evangelical Lutheran Church from Bessarabia . For 36 years Kelm was a member of the advisory board, building committee and supervisory board of the Alexander-Stift in Großerlach -Neufürstenhütte, a home for Bessarabian German seniors.

Due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the population became extremely poor. In 1991/1992 Kelm founded the diaconal organization “Bessarabienhilfe” in Germany. It carried out aid deliveries by truck for the people living in the former Bessarabia. Humanitarian aid items such as medicines, medical equipment and clothing came into the country through donations. Initially, the aid reached hospitals, old people's homes and orphanages in Akkerman, Arzis, Kischinew, Schabo and Tarutino. Goods later came to the formerly German communities and to other people in need. Around 70,000 aid packages were handed out. Schools were also provided with teaching and learning materials. Edwin Kelm personally ensured that the hospital in Schabo in the Ukraine, a former wine-growing settlement of Swiss emigrants, was improved .

It was only after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s that Kelm was able to continue working in the area of ​​the former Bessarabia, in which the states of Moldova and Ukraine emerged. In the mid-1990s, he bought his grandparents' former farm in Friedenstal . He had the courtyard restored and the farm buildings, which had been demolished in the meantime, the summer kitchen and the fountain rebuilt. This became the Bessarabian German Farmers Museum, which was opened in 1998 and which later bore the name of the founder as the Edwin Kelm Museum . The farm complex with its agricultural implements on display represents a typical form of agriculture for the German population before they left the country in 1940 after the occupation by the Soviet Union. In 2009 Edwin Kelm transferred the museum to the Bessarabiendeutschen Verein , which now has a further exhibition space in addition to the Bessarabiendeutschen Heimatmuseum in Stuttgart.

Kelm planned and supervised the restoration of the oldest German church in Bessarabia in Sarata . He was also involved in the construction of a new church in Bilhorod-Dnistrowskyj and the reconstruction of the German church in Albota (Moldova). He campaigned for memorial stones to be erected in 50 settlements (out of around 150) to commemorate the places' earlier German past.

Awards

See also

literature

Documentaries

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Christmas letter 2009 of the Bessarabiendeutsche Verein
personal data
SURNAME Kelm, Edwin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bessarabian-German building contractor
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Friedenstal / Bessarabia, today Mirnopolje / Ukraine