Friedrich Hammer (theologian)

Friedrich Robert Karl Kaspar Hammer (born April 28, 1908 in Hamburg ; † November 10, 1997 there ) was a German theologian , journalist and local researcher .

Live and act

Friedrich Hammer was a son of the physician Friedrich Georg Hammer and his wife Anna Auguste, nee Grundmann. After his birth in Eimsbüttel , he attended the Johanneum School of Academics , which he left in 1926 with the final exam. There he took lessons from among others with Carl Bertheau and Benno Diederich . While studying Protestant theology at the University of Erlangen and the University of Leipzig , he heard from Paul Althaus , Werner Elert , Franz Rendtorff and Ernst Sommerlath, among others . He passed the first theological exam in Hamburg in 1930. Then he worked for a short time as vicar at St. Lukas in Fuhlsbüttel . From here he moved to the church seminar abroad in Ilsenburg as an adjunct . In 1932 he was ordained in the Michaeliskirche in Hamburg. He then worked as an assistant preacher in several places in Hamburg. From 1934 to 1938 he worked as a prison chaplain at the Fuhlsbüttel correctional facility . In 1934 he took over pastoral care at Christianskirche in Ottensen , where he stayed with interruptions until his retirement in 1976.

During the time of National Socialism , Hammer did military service from 1939 to 1941 and then worked as a war pastor until 1945. In 1938 he wrote about his attitude during this time that he was neither a member of the German Christians nor of the “Confession Front”. However, contradictions can be found between later autobiographical publications and historical documents: In 1991 Hammer himself wrote that he had a “critical, wait-and-see” opinion on National Socialism. However, he signed parish letters from this period with “our German greeting: Heil Hitler!” When the Christian Church celebrated its 200th anniversary in 1938, the theologian Hitler recommended it as “guardian of the Klopstock grave as a national shrine”. In early 1939 he wrote an essay entitled “Soldiers' Faith”. In it he urged the reader to fulfill his duty "in the service of the state, in the service of the people and in being geared to the emergency". Because of his "bravery before the enemy" he achieved the rank of non-commissioned officer as a soldier in 1940. He also received several awards as a war pastor. For this purpose, there are superficially held “Activity reports as a war pastor 1941–1945” in the Hamburg State Archives . Hammer, who also accompanied executions, never recapitulated this time in his family circle.

After the end of the war, the reconstruction of the destroyed church building in Ottensen Hammer determined life from 1945 onwards. In the 1960s he expanded the congregation's facilities to include a pastorate, a daycare center and a home for the elderly. From 1961 to 1978 he was on the board of the Association for Hamburg History . From 1962 to 1967 he took part in the regional church council. In the last few years before retiring, Hammer took care of elderly care in particular. As he was conservative, there were increasing conflicts due to the zeitgeist, including 1969/70 with the young vicar Jens Ball.

Hammer, who married Sophie, née Hamann, in 1937, left behind four daughters when he died. At his funeral in the Christian Church, the theologian Herwarth spoke of shame . He was buried in the Bernadottestraße cemetery in Ottensen.

Publications

Hammer first wrote before the Second World War. He published the Hamburger Gemeindeblatt , for which he wrote articles himself. In 1938 he compiled a chronicle of the Christian Church. In doing so, he gathered a lot of previously unknown information from archives, which he kept safe during the war.

After the end of the war he published extensively on church and local history. From 1945 to 1949 he headed the press and radio department of the Hamburg regional church office. In 1946/47 he published the Lutherische Gemeindeblatt and from 1959 to 1946 also the Hamburg calendar . He wrote regularly for the weekly newspaper Die Kirche in Hamburg . He wrote several book reviews for the journal of the Association for Hamburg History. This included a new edition of the Altona Confession or the biography of Franz Tügel , which appeared after his death.

In retirement, Hammer devoted himself to further publications. From 1981 to 1983 he described details of the Christian Church in a large series in the Nordelbische Kirchenzeitung . The lists of theologians in Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg drawn up by him are considered particularly important. The Hamburg Pastors since the Reformation appeared as a manuscript in 1995 , on the two volumes of which Hammer worked with Herwarth von Schade. In 2009 an expanded edition, partly rewritten, was published.

literature

• Kai-Uwe Scholz: Hammer, Friedrich . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 5 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , p. 167-169 .