Friedrich Andersen

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Friedrich Karl Emil Andersen (born July 15, 1860 in Geneva , † April 15, 1940 in Glücksburg ) was a Protestant theologian and co-founder of the German Christians . As an anti-Semite , he became one of the forerunners of ethnic Christianity .

Life

Friedrich Andersen's father was already a pastor and worked in Husum . After the victory of the Danes in the Schleswig-Holstein War , the German-minded father lost his position. The family therefore moved to Geneva in 1852 . Only after the German-Danish War , which was victorious for the German side , did the Andersens return in 1865 and live in Grundhof .

Friedrich Andersen attended grammar school in Flensburg and after graduating in 1880 studied in Tübingen , Kiel , Erlangen and Copenhagen . He was ordained for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Schleswig-Holstein in 1886 and then worked in Sörup . As a deacon he began his service in the main church St. Johannis in Flensburg in 1890. There he was appointed senior pastor in 1900 and was responsible for the northern district. In his practical community work, he was particularly committed to social tasks and youth work. In September 1928 he retired and spent his twilight years in Glücksburg . He died in Glücksburg in 1940 and was buried in the mill cemetery in Flensburg.

Anti-Semitism and the anti-cleric

From 1895 to 1904 Andersen was the editor of the Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburg Church and School Gazette . Here he represented a strictly orthodox - pietistic Christianity. He took part in a petition against the liberal theologian Otto Baumgarten , who was professor of theology in Kiel, and demanded his removal from office. When the official church did not act, he was deeply disappointed and rejected his previous principles of the old church.

The anti-Semitic book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century by Houston Stewart Chamberlain was of decisive importance for Andersen . He then developed a theological, anti-Judaistic pamphlet, which he published in 1907 under the title Anticlericus and in which he referred to the Kiel church historian Hans von Schubert . In it he called for a "pure" gospel that should only go back to Jesus Christ . The Old Testament must no longer be preached, and the Jews are not God's chosen people. The ten commandments are "Jewish" and the people of the Jews are to be blamed for everything bad in the world. Because of the public discussion about his book, Andersen was warned in 1913 by general superintendent D. Theodor Kaftan .

Association for the German Church

With the outbreak of World War I , Andersen publicly showed his patriotic sentiments and declared war as a sacred mission. He was deeply convinced of the superiority of German culture and regarded the German victory as a revelation from God and the fulfillment of a divine mission. Through his publications, he made contact with like-minded people and turned to the Hamburg “Deutschbund-Gemeinde”. Together with the Saxon church councilor Ernst Katzer from Oberlößnitz , the writer Hans von Wolzüge and the national literary historian Adolf Bartels , he wanted to put Christianity on its own feet and separate it from Judaism. On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the Reformation , they jointly published 95 guiding principles, which they understood as a program for the “Germanization and De-Judgment of Christianity”. Basically Jesus was not a Jew, but a "Galilean of Aryan origin".

Andersen saw the war lost for the German Reich as the work of a " Jewish world conspiracy ". Now, in 1921, together with the Berlin teacher Joachim Kurd Niedlich, he was instrumental in founding the “ Federation for the German Church ”, which saw itself as a community of struggle and convictions with the aim of freeing the Protestant church “from its Jewish clutches”. Andersen was elected as the lifelong federal warden and chairman of this new church group. When the “Faith Movement German Christians” was founded in 1932, Andersen welcomed this new ethnic-Christian fighting movement.

Political activities

As early as 1919, a " German Völkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund " was formed in Flensburg , which Andersen joined. He published anti-Semitic hate speech and recommended avoiding any contact with Jews. After the prohibition of the German Völkisch Schutz- und Trutzbund in 1922, former members formed a Flensburg local group of the Völkisch-Sozialen Block (VSB) in early 1924 . Andersen was elected as a member of the VSB in the Flensburg city parliament in the same year. When this group joined the NSDAP in 1925 , Andersen worked for the Hitler movement. He invited speakers from this party to Flensburg, whom he let spend the night in the pastorate. These agitators included Gregor Strasser , Gottfried Feder , Dietrich Klagges and Joseph Goebbels . The Hitler Youth also found refuge in the confirmation house of St. John's Church in Flensburg. Andersen organized church services with members of the Flensburg SA who stood in uniform at the church altar. After his retirement, Andersen became head of training for the NSDAP in Glücksburg. In 1937 he was made an honorary citizen of Flensburg at the suggestion of the NSDAP district leadership because of his National Socialist services. The Flensburg council only distanced itself from this award in 1994.

Works

  • Anticlericus . A lay theology based on history , 1907
  • German Christianity on a purely evangelical basis , 1917
  • Wake-up call to the Protestant clergy in Germany , 1920
  • For the religious renewal of the German people , 1920
  • Der deutsche Heiland , 1921 (abridged revision of the Anticlericus , another revised version appeared again in 1932 as Der deutsche Heiland )
  • Rebirth and work community on a patriotic-Christian basis. Three sermons , 1922
  • The real Rembrandt German , 1927
  • Not stones, but bread! Not theology, but religion! , 1931
  • Six lectures on Alfred Rosenberg : "The Myth of the Twentieth Century". In popular representation and lighting , 1936
  • How it really was. History of the Master of Nazareth without legends or theological additions , 1938

literature

  • Werner Bergmann : Andersen, Friedrich Karl Emil. In: Handbook of Antisemitism . Volume 2/1, 2009, pp. 20-23.
  • Hans Buchheim :  Andersen, Friedrich Karl Emil. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 268 ( digitized version ).
  • Hansjör Buss: Friedrich Andersen and the "Bund für Deutsche Kirche" in the Schleswig-Holstein regional church . In: Daniel Schmidt, Michael Sturm , Massimiliano Livi (Hrsg.): Wegbereiter des Nationalozialismus. People, organizations and networks of the extreme right between 1918 and 1933 (= series of publications by the Institute for City History . Vol. 19). Klartext, Essen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8375-1303-5 , p. 179 ff.
  • Hauke ​​Wattenberg: Friedrich Andersen. A German preacher of anti-Semitism (=  Small Series of the Society for Flensburg City History , Volume 34). Society for Flensburg City History, Flensburg 2004, ISBN 3-925856-49-8
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  Andersen, Friedrich. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 1, Bautz, Hamm 1975. 2nd, unchanged edition Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-013-1 , Sp. 162-163.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Bernd Philipsen: Flensburg heads. Women and men from the city's history (= small series of the Society for Flensburg City History , Volume 36). Baltica, Glücksburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-934097-36-0 , p. 51f.
  • Peter Heinacher: The rise of the NSDAP in the city and district of Flensburg (1919–1933). Text volume (= Writings of the Society for Flensburg City History , No. 38, Vol. 1; = Dissertation Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel 1985). Society for Flensburg City History, Flensburg 1986, ISBN 3-925856-03-X . In it especially chapter pastor Friedrich Andersen - A trailblazer for National Socialism in Flensburg , pp. 138-144.
  • Gisela Siems: Senior Pastor Friedrich Andersen, Bund für Deutschkirche - A pioneer of National Socialism in the city of Flensburg. In: Klauspeter Reumann (Ed.): Church and National Socialism. Contributions to the history of the church struggle in the Protestant regional churches of Schleswig-Holstein. Writings of the Association for Schleswig-Holstein Church History, Series I, Volume 35. Karl Wachholtz, Neumünster 1988 ISBN 3-529-02836-3 , pp. 13–34.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Simultaneously with distancing himself from Wilhelm Frick's honorary citizenship . see Broder Schwensen: "In grateful joy". Flensburg was granted honorary citizenship during the Nazi era. In: Stadtarchiv Flensburg in cooperation with the IZRG Schleswig and the BU Flensburg (ed.): Between consensus and criticism - facets of cultural life 1933–1945 (= Flensburg contributions to contemporary history 4). City archive Flensburg 1999, ISBN 3-931913-03-1 , pp. 37–57, here p. 37f.
personal data
SURNAME Andersen, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Andersen, Friedrich Karl Emil (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian and pioneer of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva
DATE OF DEATH April 15, 1940
Place of death Glücksburg