Emil Fuchs

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Emil Fuchs, 1952
Emil Fuchs with his wife Else and the three oldest children Elisabeth, Gerhard, Klaus (from right to left), 1912

Emil Fuchs (born May 13, 1874 in Beerfelden , † February 13, 1971 in East Berlin ) was a German Protestant theologian , three times honorary doctor and politically active theology professor . Fuchs worked in the resistance against National Socialism .

family

Emil Fuchs was born in Beerfelden in the Odenwald ( Grand Duchy of Hessen-Darmstadt ). He came from an Evangelical Lutheran pastor's family. In 1906 he married Else Wagner (1875–1931), daughter of the agronomist Paul Wagner and his wife, who was a daughter of the lawyer Wilhelm Franz Francke , belonging to the Hanoverian pastor family Francke, from which August Hermann Francke as founder of the Francke Foundations in Halle ( Saale) came from.

The Fuchs couple had four children, Elisabeth (1908–1938 suicide), Gerhard (1909–1951), Klaus (1911–1988) and Christel (1913–2008). In addition, his grandson, the science philosopher Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski , son of his eldest daughter Elisabeth, grew up with him.

Life

Emil Fuchs studied Protestant theology at the University of Gießen from 1894 to 1897 , where he was strongly influenced by the Christian-social ideas of Friedrich Naumann . After completing his military service and attending the seminary in Friedberg (Wetterau), he was ordained in 1900 and received his doctorate in Giessen. After positions as a parish assistant and vicar in Lampertheim , Manchester and Arheilgen near Darmstadt , he worked from 1905 to 1918 as a pastor in Rüsselsheim , where he also founded a “Volksakademie” in 1905 (in the sense of today's adult education center).

In 1918 Fuchs then became pastor of the Westvorstadt am Ehrensteig, a workers' community in Eisenach . Here he founded the first adult education center in Thuringia in 1919 . He was one of the very first pastors in the SPD when he became a member of this workers' party in 1921. He was also a leading head of the Religious Socialists of Thuringia and became a member of the board. In 1933 he joined the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), whose pacifist attitude he shared. He was supposed to take over a chair at the University of Halle-Wittenberg in 1930/31 , but was rejected by the Protestant theological faculty. In particular because of his solidarity with the families of the workers shot by a volunteer battalion from Marburg students, there were long, politically motivated conflicts with the Protestant Church of Thuringia and its community.

During the Weimar Republic, Fuchs belonged to the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold organization for the protection of the republic .

In 1931 he was appointed to a professorship at the Pedagogical Academy in Kiel . Immediately after he came to power, he was ousted by the Nazi regime because he had publicly signed up in Kiel in the “Iron Book”, the German Social Democratic League against the emerging fascism. He was given leave of absence in April 1933, released on September 20, 1933 and briefly imprisoned. He was then under the surveillance of the Gestapo . In 1934 he and his daughter, Elisabeth Kittowski, were able to stay for a short time in the Rest Home run by the Quakers in Falkenstein .

Since his impeachment by the Nazis, Fuchs had retired on a reduced pension. He earned his living for a short time as the owner of a car rental company and by sending his theological writings. In 1943 he went to Gortipohl (Vorarlberg in Austria) with his grandson Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski . In Vorarlberg, Emil Fuchs and his grandson made contact with the Austrian resistance movement. After the Second World War he resumed his work in the Hessian SPD.

Leipzig, Emil-Fuchs-Strasse (2014)
Leipzig, Emil-Fuchs-Straße Nr. 1, former seat of Emil Fuchs’s Institute of Religious Sociology (2014)

In 1948 Fuchs was offered a call to Leipzig , and before moving he went on a one-year trip to the USA with his grandson Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski , where he met his daughter Christel Fuchs-Heinemann (later Fuchs-Holzer) and his international friends Society of Friends (Quakers) and visited his son, the physicist Klaus Fuchs , in England on the way .

In 1949, Fuchs moved to the GDR and became professor for systematic theology and sociology of religion at the theological faculty of the University of Leipzig . He became a founding member of the Christian Peace Conference and was active in the World Peace Council.

Together with the Quakers, he worked to ensure that GDR citizens who refused to serve with weapons in the National People's Army were able to serve as so-called " construction soldiers ". He protested against the persecution of the Young Community in the early 1950s, with basic loyalty to the GDR state . In the second half of the 1950s there were ideological disputes in Leipzig and finally the forced retirement of the director of philosophy Ernst Bloch . Fuchs spoke out publicly against this and continued to stand by him. In 1968, Fuchs also took a stand against the demolition of the Leipzig University Church . He retired in 1959 at the age of 85.

After his friend and professor colleague Ernst Bloch did not return to Leipzig from a trip from West Germany after the construction of the Berlin Wall and his grandson Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski started an apprenticeship at the Humboldt University in Berlin in 1963, he finally moved to Berlin as well around. Here he continued to work on his old age and actively participated in the spiritual life. Emil Fuchs died in 1971 at the old age of 97.

tomb

In Leipzig, a street in the city center (close to the zoo) is named after Emil Fuchs. On the street sign, a plaque refers to house no. 1, in which the religious sociological institute he founded and directed was located. The well-known biologist and philosopher Hans Driesch (1867–1941) lived in this traditional house from 1921 to 1941 during his Leipzig years, and as an extension of the axis of Emil-Fuchs-Straße there is Hans-Driesch-Straße in the Leipzig district -Leutzsch. In the city of Rüsselsheim am Main, a library and a large square in the center bears his name. His grave in the central cemetery Friedrichsfelde became a grave of honor of the city of Berlin . The GDR CDU awarded him an "honorary membership".

Emil Fuchs wrote his late work during his GDR years. He wrote his work Christian Faith (1st and 2nd part), his biography Mein Leben (1st and 2nd part) as well as several important religious-socialist writings, including Christian and Marxist ethics .

Awards / decorations / medals

Fonts

  • Schleiermacher's concept of religion and religious position at the time of the first edition of the speeches (1799). Giessen 1901.
  • About the becoming of three thinkers - Fichte, Schelling and Schleiermacher in the first period of their development. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen, Leipzig 1904; reprinted as a historical good in the USA 2014.
  • Good and bad, essence and becoming of morality. Tubingen 1906.
  • Fr. W. Schelling - creative action. Jena 1907.
  • From Naumann to the Religious Socialists, 1894–1929.
  • Christianity and Socialism. Offenbach 1948.
  • The message of the inner light. Pyrmond 1949; under the title: The Call of Jesus Christ. Reprint Hamburg 1961.
  • Leonhard Ragaz - prophet of our time. Oberursel 1949.
  • Christ in catastrophe. An inward record. Pendle Hill, 1949; reprinted by Frieds Home Service, House Easton Road, London 1950.
  • Marxism and Christianity. Leipzig 1952.
  • Christian and Marxist ethics. Leipzig 1956.
  • My life. First and second part. (Autobiography). Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 1957 (I) and 1959 (II). New edition 2017
  • Christian faith. Halle, part I 1959, part II 1960.
  • Christianity at the crossroads. Berlin 1963.
  • Jesus of Nazareth in the faith of a Christian who is a socialist. In: Karlheinz Deschner (Ed.): Images of Jesus in theological view. List, 1966.
  • From Schleiermacher to Marx. Berlin 1969.
  • The gospel according to Matthew. An Interpretation of the Gospel in the Context of Persecution and Resistance (1933–35). Kovac, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8300-6434-3 . Edited by Claus Bernet and Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski .
  • Paul's letter to the Romans. Kovac, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-8300-8683-3 . Edited by Claus Bernet and Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski .
  • Interpretation of the Gospel according to Mark. Kovac, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-8300-8720-5 . Edited by Claus Bernet and Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski .
  • Revelating of the Johannes. Kovac, Hamburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-8300-8949-0 . Edited by Claus Bernet and Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski .
  • The good news according to Luke. An Interpretation of the Gospel in the Context of Persecution and Resistance (1939–41). Kovac, Hamburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-8300-9278-0 . Edited by Claus Bernet and Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski .
  • The gospel according to John. An Interpretation of the Gospel in the Context of Persecution and Resistance (1939–41). Kovac, Hamburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-8300-9408-1 . Edited by Claus Bernet and Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski .
  • The deeds of the apostles. An Interpretation of the Gospel in the Context of Persecution and Resistance (1941–43). Kovac, Hamburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-8300-9545-3 . Edited by Claus Bernet and Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski .
  • Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, Galatians and Corinthians. An Interpretation of the Gospel in the Context of Persecution and Resistance (1944–45). Kovac, Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-8300-9771-6 . Edited by Claus Bernet and Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski .

literature

Web links

Commons : Emil Fuchs  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Emil Fuchs: My life. First part. (Autobiography). Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 1957, pp. 198-207.
  2. ^ Hermann Groß: A Refuge in the Taunus - The Quaker "Rest Home" in Falkenstein 1933-1939
  3. ^ A b Claus Bernet: Emil Fuchs . In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon , Vol. XX, columns 551-598, Nordhausen 2002, ISBN 978-3-88309-091-7 .
  4. ^ New Germany , October 7, 1954, p. 4.
  5. ↑ Neues Deutschland, May 13, 1959, p. 5.
  6. ↑ Neues Deutschland, May 1, 1969, p. 6.
personal data
SURNAME Fuchs, Emil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theologian and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH May 13, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Beerfelden , Odenwaldkreis
DATE OF DEATH February 13, 1971
Place of death East Berlin