Erich Arndt (pastor)

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Erich Arndt (born October 11, 1912 in Parchim ; † May 11, 2012 in Rostock ) was a German Evangelical Lutheran pastor , former Wehrmacht division pastor , co-founder of the National Committee Free Germany (NKFD) and the Federation of German Officers .

Life

Arndt grew up in the family of an employee . His father was a train driver for the Deutsche Reichsbahn . After attending elementary school and obtaining his university entrance qualification in Parchim in 1932, he studied Protestant theology . With his ordination as pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Mecklenburg , he became assistant preacher in Spornitz .

After the seizure of power of the Nazi party in 1933, he joined the Nazi Party, from which he hoped for an improvement in the social situation in the kingdom. A party proceeding initiated in January 1936 against Arndt because of his membership in the Confessing Church since 1935 before the district court of the NSDAP in Parchim was discontinued on June 13, 1936. In 1939 Arndt applied for training as a military pastor because he saw no chance of a permanent pastor in the Mecklenburg regional church, which was dominated by the German Christians .

With the beginning of the Second World War in 1939 he was called up as a reserve officer candidate for an "exercise", but then advanced with his troops as far as Warsaw during the course of the war . From here he was assigned according to his application to train as a Wehrmacht chaplain . In 1942 he became a military chaplain with the rank of major . Erich Arndt was wounded in an attack on Stalingrad on August 1, 1942 and was taken to a hospital in Parchim. Shortly before the encirclement of the Paulus army took place, Arndt returned to the front. Here he was assigned to the 24th Panzer Division under Lieutenant General Arno von Lenski . Together with him he was taken prisoner by the Soviets . There, a group of emigrated German communists around Walter Ulbricht and Erich Weinert set up the “National Committee Free Germany”. So when the so-called “ Antifa-Lager-Aktiv ” was founded in the camp , he worked there. When the NKFD was founded, he became a camp chaplain. In June 1944 he was one of the co-founders of the " Working Group for Church Issues " on the National Committee. He was also a signatory of the appeal of the clergy in the Free Germany Movement : " To the Christians at the front and in the homeland ". Arndt was also one of the founding members of the Association of German Officers (BDO). About the day of liberation , May 8, 1945 - still a prisoner in POW camp No. 27/1 in Krasnogorsk - he wrote in a look back at his life:

“ The long-awaited and hoped-for news of the unconditional surrender of the German Wehrmacht filled me and probably also the majority of the other camp inmates with sadness, joy and hope: sadness because of the many losses of human life and material assets on the fronts and at home; Joy that the fascist tyranny in Germany and large parts of Europe had finally come to an end; Hope that the peoples of the world and their governments would no longer solve emerging problems with wars and, last but not least, the hope that a peace-loving, democratic and anti-fascist Germany could have a meaning due to it and of course the hope of returning home soon. In an ecumenical service I spoke to the numerous comrades who were present in the sermon. "

In September 1948 he returned to Germany from captivity. First he became a pastor in Parchim again. From 1975 to 1990 he was the regional church representative for prison chaplaincy in the Bützow , Neustrelitz and Warnemünde penal institutions .

Arndt worked in the German Peace Council and in the National Front . In an election for the People's Chamber and for the district days, he became a member of the Schwerin District Parliament with the mandate of the Kulturbund of the GDR . As a member of the Christian Peace Conference , he took part in its 2nd All-Christian Peace Assembly in Prague in 1964.

With his political-realistic stance in the opinion of the party and the state , Arndt had an outsider role in the Mecklenburg regional church, which was instrumentalized by the SED as part of the policy of differentiation to polarize the pastors . At church events he was ready to appear progressively on behalf of government agencies if necessary in order to prevent criticism.

During the turning point and the peaceful revolution , all parties and mass organizations in the district assembly - including the PDS - approved the motion for their bodies to be dissolved. Only the parliamentary group of the Kulturbund with Pastor Arndt voted against the transfer of responsibility to a government representative. At the first public district meeting broadcast by the Schwerin broadcaster, he said:

“ I love socialism because I am convinced that of all the social systems currently offered it is the one that comes closest to my Christian faith and the ethics and morals based on it: charity and peace! "

For years he attended the event of the " Literary Spring " in house Seeschlößchen of Bolton .

The archive of the Mecklenburg Regional Church in Schwerin keeps a personal history collection from / about Erich Arndt.

Publications

  • Easter experience. Memories of an employee of the “Working Group for Church Issues” at the NKFD.
  • On the subject of the Official Breeding Act. In: Evangelisches Pfarrerblatt 1964, p. 36f.
  • Activity Report: Prison Pastoral Care. In: epd documentation 18/86
  • Two sermons by Pastor Erich Arndt, former pastor of the 6th Army, during the captivity. In: Yearbook for Mecklenburg Church History. Mecklenburgia Sacra , ed. by Michael Bunners and Erhard Piersig, Vol. 1, Wismar: Redaria 1998 ISBN 3-933771-00-5
  • An Easter sermon from Pastor i. R. Erich Arndt, former division pastor of the 6th Army, during the captivity of war (1948); on this a document from the time of the Confessing Church, which led to his arrest by the Gestapo in the auditorium of Rostock University (1934). In: Yearbook for Mecklenburg Church History. Mecklenburgia Sacra , ed. by Michael Bunners and Erhard Piersig, Vol. 6, Wismar: Redaria 2003 ISBN 3-933771-09-9

literature

  • Klaus Drobisch : Christians in the National Committee »Free Germany«. Berlin: Union Verlag 1973

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Date of death after the obituary notice
  2. ↑ Letter of the III. Chamber of the Supreme Party Court of the NSDAP to the staff of the Deputy Leader of June 13, 1936. BArch, DC 1036
  3. ^ Dagmar Pöpping : The Wehrmacht chaplaincy in the Second World War. Role and self-image of war and armed forces pastors in the Eastern War 1941-1945. In: Manfred Gailus , Armin Nolzen (ed.): Quarreled Volksgemeinschaft: Faith, denomination and religion in National Socialism . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011 ISBN 9783525300299 , pp. 257–286, here p. 269 after an interview with Arndt
  4. ↑ http://www.drafd.de/?Erich_Arndt
  5. ↑ Andreas Beckmann and Regina Kusch: God in Bautzen: the prison pastoral care in the GDR. Berlin: Ch. Links 1994 ISBN 3-86153-066-X , pp. 177f
  6. ↑ Rahel Frank: More real, more exact, more precise? The GDR church policy towards the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg from 1971 to 1989. The state commissioner for Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for the documents of the State Security Service of the former GDR, 2nd revised edition, Schwerin 2008, ISBN 978-3-933255-28-0 , P. 286f
  7. ↑ Frank, p. 288 with reference to a communication from the department head in the State Secretariat for Church Affairs , Horst Dohle, on a pastors' conference in Güstrow in 1976
  8. ↑ http://www.klangkontext.de/boltenhagen/b6/infotext.html
  9. ↑ VIII. Boltenhagener Literaturfrühling 2006 , accessed on March 3, 2012
  10. ↑ List of holdings
personal data
SURNAME Arndt, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant pastor
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Parchim
DATE OF DEATH May 11, 2012
Place of death Rostock