Ernst Karl Gillmann

Ernst Karl Gillmann (born August 22, 1890 in Raumbach near Meisenheim , † June 22, 1966 in Simmern ) was a German Protestant theologian .

Life

Origin and education

Ernst Gillmann was the first of two sons of the farmer Philipp Gillmann and his wife Charlotte born in Jeckenbach . Wolff. While his three years younger brother Karl took over his father's farm, Ernst Gillmann attended the Latin school in Meisenheim and passed his Abitur in 1911 at the Oldenburg Gymnasium in Birkenfeld . He decided to study theology and matriculated in Tübingen in the summer semester of 1911 . In the winter semester of 1911/12, Gillmann moved to Erlangen , where he stayed for three semesters and also became a member of the Bubenreuth fraternity , with which he remained loyal to the end of his life. From the spring of 1913 he studied for two more semesters in Marburg and finally went to Bonn for the summer semester of 1914 . His studies were interrupted by his participation as a field artilleryman in the First World War , from which he returned as a reserve lieutenant who was awarded the Iron Cross 1st class.

In April 1919 he passed the first and in October 1920 the second theological exam. During his vicariate in Waldböckelheim in the parish of Sobernheim, he had occasionally taken over for church services in the neighboring parishes of Weiler and Seesbach and then took up a position as assistant preacher in the parish of Kappeln - Hoppstädten in the parish of Meisenheim.

Pastor in hamlet

After ordination on February 10, 1921 in the Meisenheim castle church , he became pastor of the parish Weiler - Seesbach in the parish of Sobernheim, where he officiated until 1929. During this time, on May 8, 1923, he married Maria Heckert, twelve years his junior, from Gänsmühle near Martinstein , a village in his community. The first three of the four children from this marriage were born in Weiler during Gillmann's tenure, including his son Ernst Gillmann Jr., born on May 26, 1928, who later was pastor and superintendent in the Birkenfeld church district . 1929 joined Ernst Gillman to the pastorate Simmern - Wood Creek in Kirchenkreis Simmern , where he was introduced on October 11, 1929th After him circle Synod Simmern had chosen in 1932 to superintendent, he was on 8 September 1932 by General Superintendent Ernst Stoltenhoff introduced into the office.

Superintendent in Simmern - Behavior during National Socialism

Ernst Gillmann's attitude towards National Socialism was initially positive because of his nationally conservative and patriotic basic attitude , as he hoped to strengthen the church's influence in the state and society. For the first months of the Nazi era, a certain sympathy for the German Christians can be assumed. In addition to Gillmann's own retrospective at the end of the 1950s, this assumption is also suggested by the closing words he spoke in July 1933 to the meeting of the Simmern local group of German Christians . In the Simmern Kaiserhalle decorated with swastika flags and a picture of Hitler, he said, among other things, “that here on the Hunsrück the true national community has not yet been lost, but that there is a community of blood and a (!) Community of faith. [...] National Socialism deserves thanks for shaking up and loosening up the people and it is now a duty to take the Gospel of Christ seriously too. "His greeting concluded with the sentence:" We German Christians believed about our love for ours People to the Father and to Jesus Christ, who loves us above all else, yesterday, today and for all eternity. ”The meeting ended with the singing of the song A strong castle is our God and the Horst-Wessel song .

It was not until the Berlin Sportpalast rally of the German Christians in November 1933 that Gillmann, like many other Protestant pastors, opened his eyes to the true nature of this ecclesiastical group. In the course of 1934 he got more and more into conflict with the German-Christian dominated Rhenish consistory , which, under the sign of the Führer principle , endeavored to undermine the presbyterial-synodal order of the Rhenish church province . Gillmann's vigorous protest against this ultimately led to his impeachment on August 2, 1934, and his salary to be suspended a few weeks later. Although these measures were lifted again in December 1934, Ernst Gillmann remained a tough opponent of National Socialist church policy until the end of the Nazi regime and became one of the leading figures in the moderate wing of the Confessing Church .

Although he was quite ready to compromise with the regime in many ways, in 1935 he participated in the church committee established by the state and in 1939 advised an official to celebrate Hitler's 50th birthday with a solemn service. But when he saw the basic substance of the gospel message threatened, he clearly took a stand. As a member of the Superintendent Conference at the end of 1937 he protested sharply against all attempts to introduce the Führer principle into the Church. In his homeland in Hunsrück he was exposed to numerous harassment from the SA because of his upright posture - for example, he visited his official brother Paul Schneider, who was imprisoned in Simmern, every day in prison . In November 1938, a few days after the Jewish pogrom , the Simmern parsonage was stormed, but this did not prevent Gillmann from maintaining open contact with local Jewish families.

After 1945

If Ernst Gillmann's attitude towards the rulers of the Nazi regime was borne by the confidence of the Hunsrück rural population, this was especially true for the period after 1945, when he tirelessly advocated the French occupying forces to keep the burden on the population as low as possible possible to keep. In the French-occupied part of the Rhineland, he took over the organization of the relief organization of the Evangelical Church in Germany , which was founded in 1945 and always tried to achieve the best possible for the people in the region. Equipped with a great moral authority established by his commitment in the Confessing Church , he knew how to appear self-confident but at the same time noble towards the occupiers, which quickly earned him the appreciative designation "Lord of the Hunsrück" from the Americans.

The fact that he not only campaigned for the German prisoners of war , in particular those interned in the Bretzenheim camp, but also - regardless of the harassment to which he himself had been exposed during the Nazi era - probably contributed to his popularity among the population . for former National Socialists. He tried to alleviate their material need and was not afraid to issue “ Persilscheine ”. In addition to his inner attitude, which is characterized by Christian mercy , it may also have played a role that he himself felt the political-ideological temptations to which these people succumbed in 1933 and therefore did not want to assume the role of a prosecutor. Until his retirement in 1959 and beyond that until his death, Ernst Gillmann was shown unbroken respect in the Hunsrück . He died in Simmern on June 22, 1966.

family

His children include the later Birkenfeld superintendent Ernst Georg Hermann Gillmann and the Simmern pastor's wife Ruth Spering; their two sons are the musicians Christoph and Andreas Spering , so grandsons of Gillmann.

Honors

On March 13, 2004, the community center of the Evangelical Church Community Simmern was renamed "Ernst-Gillmann-Haus".

Works

• As author and editor: Our church in the Rhenish Oberland . Verlag Glaube und Heimat, Simmern 1954; DNB 965999386
• On the anniversary of the Reformation in the Hunsrück , printed by Böhmer, Simmern 1957

literature

• Andreas Metzing: Ernst Gillmann (1890–1966) and peasant piety in the Hunsrück . In: Monthly for Protestant Church History of the Rhineland . tape 61 , 2012, ISSN  0540-6226 , p. 123-138 .
• Dieter Bach : The life and work of pastor and superintendent Ernst Gillmann, told in 12 life pictures from the point of view of his last vicar . In: Annual issue of the Hunsrück Club . 2009, p. 6-28 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dieter Bach: Life and work of pastor and superintendent Ernst Gillmann . In: Annual issue of the Hunsrückverein 2009, pp. 6–28.
2. ^ Hunsrücker Zeitung, August 1, 1933

Web links

• Vita + photo on the 49th anniversary of death Photo collection archive EKiR
• Short biography and other documents on the website Resistance !? Evangelical Christians under National Socialism