Friedrich Heitmüller

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Friedrich Heitmüller (born November 9, 1888 in Völksen ; † April 1, 1965 ) was a German pastor in the Association of Free Evangelical Congregations in Germany and director of the ELIM hospital in Hamburg .

Life

From 1906, Heitmüller completed training as a post office worker in Hamburg . In 1908 he had a conversion experience during a faith conference of the “Christian Community Philadelphia” in Hamburg-Holstenwall . He then attended the St. Chrischona seminary from 1910 and was appointed second preacher of the "Christian Community Philadelphia" in early 1912, because the local pastor and leader Johannes Rubanowitsch (1866-1941) valued him. However, Heitmüller had concerns about Rubanowitsch's understanding of leadership, teaching and pastoral care. However, Heitmüller found too little support for his concerns from the other employees, which is why he resigned in August 1912. In the following years, the community developed under the leadership of Rubanowitsch in a crisis, so that he resigned in 1918 and left. In the meantime, Heitmüller had founded his own congregation, called the “Friedensgemeinde”, with around 70 people attending the church service at first; by 1918 there were 300. After Rubanowitsch left, Heitmüller was brought back and the two congregations united in 1918 with Heitmüller as leader, also for the affiliated deaconess house "Elim". In 1927 the deaconess house was expanded to include a hospital under his direction . In the early 1930s, the community numbered over 3,000.

Heitmüller was the deputy chairman of the Gnadau Association from 1929 to 1932 . Heitmüller resigned in 1932 because of differing views with Walter Michaelis regarding the position of the Gnadau Association within the Church. Heitmüller's endeavor was the "inner solution" from the church, Michaelis continued to see the association fully located in the regional church . Heitmüller initially rejected a separation from the church and the formation of a free church. At his endeavors, however, the "community on Holstenwall" finally left the Gnadau Association in 1934. In 1937, the congregation was accepted into the Federation of Free Evangelical Congregations as the Free Evangelical Church Foundation in Northern Germany . After him, Fritz Laubach became head of the “Free Evangelical Congregation in Northern Germany” and the “Congregation on Holstenwall” from 1966.

Heitmüller was a member of the "Blankenburg Committee of the Evangelical Alliance". After the end of the Second World War , Heitmüller was a member of the board of the German Evangelical Alliance . In 1954 he became President of the International Federation of Free Evangelical Congregations . In the dispute over biblical criticism, Heitmüller repeatedly acknowledged the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible.

End time expectation 1930

Heitmüller's book The Coming Things (1930) lets you feel the tension in that dramatic period:

"We can only say that today, in the political as well as in the economic and religious areas, we are working almost feverishly to prepare for the appearance of the Antichrist."

It becomes even more specific:

"If I see right, the future League of Ten will develop from the current League of Nations, at the head of which the Antichrist will stand."

Heitmüller's connection between biblical end-time prophecy and current political developments turned out to be wrong.

Attitude in National Socialism

Friedrich Heitmüller: Seven speeches by a Christian and a National Socialist. Self-published, Hamburg 1934

Heitmüller's position in the Third Reich is controversial. According to his own statement, he declared in writing to join the NSDAP in 1933 in order to help overcome the anti-Christian tendencies in the party, but he was declared an enemy of the state shortly after Alfred Rosenberg was appointed Reich trainer. He was banned from preaching and writing several times and, according to his own statements, was threatened with being sent to a concentration camp . Other sources assume that Heitmüller was initially critical of National Socialism and then later approached Nazi ideology, eventually even becoming part of the movement at times. He publicly declared that since 1927 no Jewish doctor has been allowed to work in his hospital. In his work Seven Speeches of a Christian and National Socialist (1934) he explained his view, according to which Judaism should be pushed back into the "stranger among the peoples", by which he understood that Jews in Germany according to their "guest role" on citizenship, public offices and should forego cultural influence. Even this book was banned according to Heitmüller.

Heitmüller's initial attempt to differentiate between the political and ideological characteristics of National Socialism did not prove to be sustainable. When he and many supporters left the regional church in 1934 and founded the Free Evangelical Congregation in Hamburg, he was denounced by the Hamburg regional bishop Tügel . After the publication of some of his writings under the title Religious Errors of the Present in 1935, he was banned from speaking and writing in November of the same year. The Gestapo were monitored and interrogated. After the war, Heitmüller expressly endorsed the EKD's confession of guilt in Stuttgart from October 1945 and, in 1946, expressed himself in his book Forgive Us Our Debt in an extremely self-critical manner. His personal admission also found international recognition, so that from 1954 to 1965 he was President of the International Association of Free Evangelical Congregations.

Works

  • The things to come. Hamburg 1930.
  • The Crisis of the Community Movement: A Contribution to Overcoming It. Christian community bookstore, Hamburg 1931.
  • Seven speeches by a Christian and a National Socialist. Self-published, Hamburg 1934.
  • Forgive us our debts! Evangelical Zeitstimmen 6. Hamburg 1946.
  • From 40 years of gospel service. Bundes-Verlag , Witten 1950.
  • The secret of the Christian faith. Bundes-Verlag, Witten 1950.

literature

  • Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  Heitmüller, Friedrich. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 692-694.
  • Ulrich Betz : beacon and oasis. From 100 years of history of the Free Evangelical Congregation Hamburg and the Deaconess Mother House "Elim". Witten 1993.
  • Ulrike Heitmüller: My grandfather, the anti-Semite: Preacher Friedrich Heitmüller. In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Yearbook for anti-Semitism research. 19, 2010, pp. 178-196.
  • Ulrike Heitmüller: Friedrich Heitmüller and his examination of church and state in the Weimar Republic. In: Free Church Research. 21, 2012, pp. 114-130.
  • Walter Persson: In unity and freedom. The history of the International Federation of Free Evangelical Congregations. Witten 1999.
  • Einar Rimmerfors: From the post office to the pulpit. Life and work of Friedrich Heitmüller. Witten 1984 (Swedish original: Stockholm 1965).
  • Michael Schröder: Friedrich Heitmüller and the way of the Christian Community Hamburg on Holstenwall. In: Free Church Research. 12, 2002, pp. 71-89.
  • Hartmut Weyel: Between anti-Semitic faults and salvation-historical perspectives. The Free Evangelical Congregations and the "Jewish Question" under National Socialism. In: Daniel Heinz (ed.): Free churches and Jews in the “Third Reich”. Instrumentalized history of salvation, anti-Semitic prejudices and suppressed guilt. V&R unipress, Göttingen 2011, pp. 183–214.
  • Hartmut Weyel: Friedrich Heitmüller (1888–1965). In: Hartmut Weyel: The future needs a past. Lively portraits from the history and prehistory of the Free Evangelical Congregations (GuTh 5.5 / 3). Witten 2011, pp. 269-330.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ This community experienced an astonishing growth to approx. 1000 members until about 1906, after which the membership stagnated at this high level.
  2. ↑ This conflict is presented by August Jung: Israel Johannes Rubanowitsch. Jewish Christian - Evangelist - Victims of concentration camps (= history and theology of the free evangelical communities. 5.2), Witten: Bundes-Verlag 2005.
  3. ↑ Jung denies that: Rubanowitsch, however. In general, he thinks that the concerns stated by Heitmüller were only an excuse. However, in his book Jung provides many indications of concern about Rubanowitsch, so that Heitmüller's reasoning sounds credible. See the extensive review of Jung's book by Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer in: Theological conversation. 32, 2008, pp. 149-153. Also to be found in: ThGespräch 2008 Review (PDF; 87 kB)
  4. ^ Jung: Rubanowitsch. Pp. 65 and 79.
  5. ↑ a b Ulrich Betz: Heitmüller, Friedrich (1888–1965) . In: Helmut Burkhardt, Uwe Swarat (ed.): Evangelical Lexicon for Theology and Congregation . tape 2 . R. Brockhaus Verlag, Wuppertal 1993, ISBN 3-417-24642-3 , p. 891 .
  6. ^ Schröder: Heitmüller. P. 75.
  7. ^ A b c Michael Diener: Staying on course in stormy times. Walter Michaelis (1866–1953), A Life for Church and Community Movement (=  TVG Church History Monographs ). Brunnen Verlag, Giessen 1998, ISBN 3-7655-9422-9 , p. 401 ff .
  8. ↑ Dieter Lange: A movement breaks out. The German communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and their position on the church, theology and Pentecostal movement (=  TVG Church History Monographs ). Brunnen Verlag, Giessen 1990, ISBN 3-7655-9359-1 , p. 262 .
  9. ↑ Erhard Baum: We owe him a lot . For the 85th birthday of Dr. Fritz Laubach. In: SCM Bundes-Verlag (Hrsg.): Christsein today . No. 1/2011 . Witten 2011.
  10. ↑ Hartmut Weyel: The future needs a past . Biographical portraits from the history and prehistory of free evangelical communities. Ed .: Wolfgang Heinrichs, Michael Schröder, Hartmut Weyel. tape 2 , no. 2 . Bundes Verlag, Witten 2010, ISBN 978-3-933660-03-9 , pp. 213 .
  11. ↑ Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz: AWARENESS Muller, Friedrich. In: Biographical-Bibliographical Church Lexicon. Archived from the original on June 29, 2007 ; accessed on March 2, 2011 : "When the entire German board of Allianz was reorganized after the end of the Second World War, H. was of course one of them."
  12. ↑ Ulrike Heitmüller: My grandfather. P. 178.
  13. ^ Stephan Holthaus: Fundamentalism in Germany. The battle for the Bible in Protestantism of the 19th and 20th centuries. VKW, Bonn 1993, pp. 287-293.
  14. ^ Friedrich Heitmüller: From 40 years of service to the gospel. Bundes-Verlag, Witten 1950, pp. 187–188.
  15. ↑ Heitmüller: The coming things. P. 32. See also Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer : “The end is near!” The mistakes of the end-time specialists. 3. Edition. VKW, Bonn 2007, pp. 32–34, 49, 86, 113 f.
  16. ^ Friedrich Heitmüller: From 40 years of service to the gospel. Bundes-Verlag, Witten 1950, p. 138.
  17. ^ Friedrich Heitmüller: From 40 years of service to the gospel. Bundes-Verlag, Witten 1950, pp. 142-143.
  18. ↑ Ulrike Heitmüller: My grandfather. P. 183. Weyel: Judenfrage. P. 187.
  19. ^ Weyel: Jewish question. Pp. 200-202.
  20. ^ Friedrich Heitmüller: From 40 years of service to the gospel. Bundes-Verlag, Witten 1950, p. 142.
  21. ↑ Ulrike Heitmüller: How do free churches view their behavior during the Nazi era? November 6, 2010, archived from the original on February 10, 2011 ; Retrieved February 10, 2011 .
  22. ↑ Hartmut Weyel: Friedrich Heitmüller (1888-1965). In: Hartmut Weyel: The future needs a past. Lively portraits from the history and prehistory of the Free Evangelical Congregations (GuTh 5.5 / 3). Witten 2011, pp. 295-297.
  23. ↑ Hartmut Weyel: Friedrich Heitmüller (1888-1965). In: Hartmut Weyel: The future needs a past. Lively portraits from the history and prehistory of the Free Evangelical Congregations (GuTh 5.5 / 3). Witten 2011, pp. 304-305.
  24. ↑ Walter Persson: In unity and freedom. The history of the International Federation of Free Evangelical Congregations. Witten 1999, 154.
personal data
SURNAME Heitmüller, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pastor in the Federation of Free Protestant Congregations in Germany and director of the ELIM hospital in Hamburg
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Völksen
DATE OF DEATH April 1, 1965