Friedrich Bischoff (clergyman)

Friedrich Bischoff (born March 31, 1909 in Frankfurt am Main ; † December 9, 1987 there ) was a German New Apostolic clergyman.

biography

Friedrich Bischoff was born as the first joint child of the future Chief Apostle of the New Apostolic Church (NAK) Johann Gottfried Bischoff and his wife Margarethe. After finishing school he learned the printing trade and later continued his education in evening classes.

In 1928, at the age of 19, Chief Apostle Hermann Niehaus entrusted him with the management of the in-house printing facility of the New Apostolic Church in Frankfurt am Main. With that his life task was determined.

In 1932, economic and political conditions prompted the church leadership to give up the print shop. Friedrich Bischoff acquired the facilities and went into business for himself. Since then, the printer and publisher have borne his name.

Friedrich Bischoff joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) on May 1, 1933, like many higher functionaries of the New Apostolic Church after the seizure of power . He was also a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and, as a sports pilot, also of SA-Fliegersturm I. An application for membership in the Schutzstaffel (SS) had been rejected. From 1933 Friedrich Bischoff was "political representative" of the NAK and thus a church representative towards the Nazi leadership . During the Second World War he must also have served in the military on the Western Front , as he returned to Germany from a US prisoner of war in 1947.

After the war, the publishing house became the property of the New Apostolic Congregation again. The 1932 contract between Chief Apostle Johann Gottfried Bischoff and his son Friedrich Bischoff provided for a term until 1940, with an automatic extension of 5 years each time if it is not terminated. In 1950 the Chief Apostle extended the term to 1975. The reasons for this extension were the high investment requirement and the need for long-term security. The apostles college was subsequently informed. This led to discrepancies in the circle of the apostles at the time. A lawyer checked the facts and found that the extension had been legally enforced.

Initially, the products were limited to the literature of the New Apostolic Church, but also orders from other customers. The magazine “Our Family” has been published since 1933 and is now distributed worldwide in the NAK. In the time of National Socialism, publications by the political leadership also had to be printed in it. Nevertheless, all church publications were banned in the course of the war. Production did not resume until 1949. From the 1950s the production of music carriers came into the publishing program. After the death of Friedrich Bischoff in 1987, the publishing house and printing company returned to the ownership of the New Apostolic Church in 1989, but they still bear the name of the company founder. Today the publishing house "Friedrich Bischoff" sees its task in "conveying Christian values ​​beyond denomination, age and country borders".

Controversy

According to the history group of NAK International, Friedrich Bischoff was an actor in the internal church tensions between 1938 and 1955. As a result, he is said to have influenced various articles in the church magazine “Our Family” as the publishing director and “initiator” of various articles. According to the NAK, the assumption today can be derived from the fact that between 1949 and 1950 he pursued the strategy of assigning the "position and legitimation" of Peter Kuhlen in his former office as Chief Apostle Helper and designated successor of his father, Chief Apostle Bischoff, to the Apostles College and church members undermine. A survey of contemporary witnesses conducted by the NAK North Rhine-Westphalia in 2008 came to a similar conclusion. General allegations of Friedrich Bischoff's influence on the conflict arose early on from those, like the deposed and excluded Apostle Otto Güttinger , who broke away from the New Apostolic Church in 1954/1955. Information Peter Kuhlen According to to Friedrich Bischoff in the Apostles' Meeting of 12 September 1954 in Stuttgart clearly and repeatedly for a dogma of the message of faith to the formal status Confessionis have pronounced themselves against the more cautious position of his father. Wilhelm Parzich, former NAK priest and significantly involved in the schism of the Apostolic Community of Saarland in 1952 , even went so far as to present the "message" as an invention of Friedrich Bischoff, who is said to have tried to claim power and advantageous financial relationships with the church publishing house before internal ones To protect critics like Peter Kuhlen.

Career in the NAK

Friedrich Bischoff was also actively involved in the community work of the New Apostolic Church. The following offices have been assigned to him over the years:

• 1927 deacon
• 1929 priest
• 1931 District Evangelist
• 1950 District Elder
• 1951 apostle
• 1953 District Apostle and Church President of the District Church of Rhineland-Palatinate.

From 1972 he also headed the Saarland District Church on behalf of Chief Apostle Walter Schmidt .

In 1984 Chief Apostle Hans Urwyler retired.

He continued working in his publishing house until his death.

Friedrich Bischoff had been married to his wife Barbara since 1932. There are two daughters from the marriage, the younger of whom (also Barbara) is married to the retired Chief Apostle Wilhelm Leber .

Web links

• Friedrich Bischoff publishing house
• List of all apostles of the New Apostolic Church with additional data on apwiki.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ M. König & J. Marschall: The New Apostolic Church in the Nazi era and the effects up to the present . 2nd Edition. Feldafing 1994.
2. ↑ Andreas Rother: "History of Friedrich Bischoff Verlag", presented on October 2, 2011 in Frankfurt am Main on the occasion of a lecture event of the Network Apostolic History, based on a master's thesis from the 1980s and unpublished sources that had not been published until 2011.
3. ↑ ibid.
4. ^ New Apostolic Church International: The New Apostolic Church from 1938 to 1955: Developments and Problems . Zurich November 6, 2007, p. 30 .
5. ↑ New Apostolic Church North Rhine-Westphalia: http://www.nak.org/fileadmin/download/pdf/ZurGeschichtederNeuapostolischenKirche1938-1955_GespraechmitZeitzeugen.pdf. In: nak.org. October 20, 2008, accessed July 5, 2019 . 
6. ^ Otto Güttinger: Manifesto on the conditions and tendencies in the New Apostolic Congregation . Ed .: Association of Apostolic Congregations in Europe.
7. ↑ Peter Kuhlen: Thoughts on the message of Chief Apostle JG Bischoff: "I am not dying, the Lord Jesus will come again in my lifetime?" Ed .: Association of the Apostolic Congregations in Europe. Düsseldorf March 8, 1955.
8. ↑ William Parzich: special issue Febr./März 72 - The truth according to the will of the Eternal . Homburg March 1972.