Ernst Wilm

Julius Ewald Ernst Wilm (born August 27, 1901 in Reinswalde , Sorau district , † March 1, 1989 in Lübbecke ) was a German pastor, church leader and president of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia .

Apprenticeship and first years of employment

Wilm was born on August 27, 1901 in Reinswalde, Sorau district. His parents were the pastor Friedrich Hermann Wilm and his wife Anna geb. Eggeling. His school education began in Kaiserswerth . He then switched to an elementary school in Rheydt . The Rheydter Reformprogymnasium and the Realgymnasium in Witten followed . On July 11, 1918, he passed the emergency maturity examination in Witten. This was followed by his service in the agricultural auxiliary service in Schaumburg-Lippe . In January 1919 he began studying theology in Bethel ( Bielefeld ), where he stayed for three semesters. He moved to Tübingen for two semesters , where he was greatly impressed by Adolf Schlatter and Karl Heim . Then came a semester in Greifswald , where he heard Otto Procksch . Then there followed four semesters at the theological faculty in Halle under Wilhelm Lütgert , Friedrich Loofs , Karl Eger and Ernst von Dobschütz . He joined the Halle Wingolf . He passed the first theological examination in autumn 1924 at the Consistory of the Old Prussian Church Province of Westphalia in Münster .

On November 1, 1924, he became teaching vicar to Pastor Friedrich von Bodelschwingh in Bethel, and on November 1, 1925, he was employed as an assistant preacher in Mennighüffen in the Herford district . He passed the second theological examination, also in Münster, in autumn 1926; afterwards he was assigned to the service of the Bethel branch in Freistatt as assistant preacher in November . There he was ordained in 1927 by General Superintendent Wilhelm Zoellner . On May 25, 1927, he married Ilse Könecke from Halle an der Saale.

From February 1, 1928, he worked as a chaplain in Freistatt until May 19, 1929; then he took over the first parish of the Evangelical parish of Lüdenscheid . On July 6, 1931 he became pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran parish of Mennighüffen .

Commitment to the Confessing Church

On March 16, 1934, the Westphalian Confession Synod was formed , to which 85 to 90 percent of the adult members of the Mennighüffen parish signed their own handwritten signature. The conflict of the church struggle began . In his sermons in May 1935, Ernst Wilm took a clear position on the ideological indoctrination of youth. Various state coercive measures against him were the result, including an imprisonment in August 1937. Ernst Wilm was later appointed a member of the Provincial Brotherhood of the Westphalian Confessing Synod .

Captivity in the Dachau concentration camp

In December 1941, at a meeting of representatives of the Westphalian Confessing Church , Ernst Wilm took a position on the National Socialist-initiated killing of the mentally ill (the so-called T4 action ), which he openly discussed and condemned in the New Year's Eve service of his parish in Mennighüffen in 1941. He was arrested by the Secret State Police on January 23, 1942. Initially, he remained imprisoned in the Bielefeld police prison, but was then transferred to the Dachau concentration camp on May 23, 1942 .

All efforts by the presbytery of the Mennighüffen parish, Herford's superintendent Hermann Kunst , the Evangelical Consistory in Münster and the Old Prussian Evangelical High Church Council in Berlin to get Ernst Wilhelm's release were unsuccessful. On January 2, 1945, he was released from the Dachau concentration camp. The reasons for this are unknown. Ernst Wilm expressed his opinion that it was probably a mix-up. He was able to preach in Mennighüffen again on January 7, 1945, but was drafted into the Wehrmacht on January 28, 1945, where he was taken prisoner by the Soviets on April 27, 1945.

President of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia

In September 1945 he returned from captivity and was again active as a parish priest in Mennighüffen. On April 3, 1946, he was elected Synodal Assessor of the Herford parish . On November 13, 1948 he was elected President of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia . He took office on January 7, 1949, initially for eight years as the successor to President Karl Koch .

With the active participation of Ernst Wilm, the Aufbaugemeinschaft Espelkamp was founded in 1949 by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Diakonisches Werk and the Evangelical Church of Westphalia. In 1949 Wilm went on a trip abroad to Great Britain, where he met representatives of the Labor Party and the Church of England . In 1951 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in theology by the Evangelical Theological Faculty of the University of Münster .

In February 1952 he took over the chairmanship of the Evangelical Press Association for Westphalia and Lippe. In 1953, Ernst Wilm was instrumental in the reorganization of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union and the designation as the Evangelical Church of the Union. In 1956 he attended the 2nd assembly of the World Council of Churches in Evanston . In the same year he was re-elected for the first time as President of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia.

From 1957 to 1973 Wilm was a member of the EKD Council . In 1959 he visited the State of Israel accompanied by his wife Ilse , and in 1962 together with other church representatives. During his time as a member of the EKD Council, the diplomatic recognition of the State of Israel by the Federal Republic of Germany took place on May 12, 1965. Wilm was one of those who, together with Council Chairman Kurt Scharf, increased the public pressure, which ultimately induced Chancellor Ludwig Erhard to initiate the exchange of ambassadors against the will of the Foreign Office . Because on October 26, 1964, the EKD Council sent a letter to the federal government that Wilm had brought along, clearly advocating an exchange of German-Israeli ambassadors.

In 1961 he took part in the Christian Peace Conference (CFK) and took part in the 1st  All-Christian Peace Assembly in Prague . In 1962 he took on an important role at the 1st General Assembly of the Conference of European Churches in Nyborg . From 1963 to 1969 he was council chairman of the Evangelical Church of the Union .

In 1964 he was re-elected for the second time as President of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia. In the same year he took part in the 2nd All-Christian Peace Assembly in Prague and undertook an ecumenical trip to Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Chile in September / October. In 1968 he took part in the 4th assembly of the World Council of Churches in Uppsala .

On January 3, 1969, Ernst Wilm was retired. His office as President of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia was handed over to Hans Thimme .

Retired

In 1970 he was entrusted with the pastoral care of the German war convicts who were still in Breda and Gaeta . In 1972 the request to visit Rudolf Heß in the prison in Berlin-Spandau was not approved. He was also denied access to Erich Koch in Barczewo .

In 1971, Ernst Wilm refused to be awarded the Great Federal Cross of Merit by Federal President Gustav Heinemann . As a justification, he gives that because of church merits or because of a service in the church for the gospel no state order can be awarded.

In 1974 he acted as honorary president of the Conference of European Churches at the 7th General Assembly of the CEC in Engelberg and in 1981 was granted honorary citizenship of the city of Espelkamp . In 1982 he became a member of the SPD . In retirement, Wilm no longer felt obliged to exercise restraint in party politics.

Ernst Wilm died on March 1, 1989 in Lübbecke. The funeral took place on March 7th in Löhne -Mennighüffen.

estate

Ernst Wilm's estate is in the Bielefeld Regional Church Archive (holdings 3.2 and 3.21 and 3.36). In 2001, a section of Lübbecker Strasse in Espelkamp was renamed Preses-Ernst-Wilm-Strasse .

Fonts (selection)

• The Lord has done great things for us; we are happy! A farewell and a beginning , Bielefeld 1948.
• "So we are now ambassadors ..." Testimonies from freedom and fetters , Witten 1953.
• The Confessing Congregation Mennighüffen, Bethel 1957.

literature

• Ernst Brinkmann: Ernst Wilm 1901–1989. In: Yearbook for Westphalian Church History. 82 (1989).
• Sunday newspaper Evangelical Church Rio Grande do Sul. Brazil No. 41, October 1964.
• Jürgen Kampmann : Pastor Ernst Wilm - his work in Mennighüffen. In: Ev.-Luth. Parish Mennighüffen (Ed.): "Grant us, Lord, Resistance". Pastor Ernst Wilm on his 100th birthday. Without place and year [2001], pp. 16–35.
• Bernd Hey / Matthias Rickling: The cross went with: Ernst Wilm (1901-1989). Pastor and church leader, ambassador and witness , Bielefeld 2001.

Web links

• Literature by and about Ernst Wilm in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Manfred Blänkner, Axel Bernd Kunze (ed.): Red flags, colorful ribbons. Corporated Social Democrats from Lassalle to date . Dietz, Bonn 2016, ISBN 978-3-8012-0481-5 .
2. ^ So Gerhard Gronauer: The State of Israel in West German Protestantism. Perceptions in church and journalism from 1948 to 1972 (AKIZ.B57). Göttingen 2013, pp. 185–190.

predecessor	Office	successor
Karl Koch	President of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia 1949–1969	Hans Thimme