Friedrich von Bodelschwingh the Elder

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Friedrich von Bodelschwingh around 1900

Friedrich Christian Carl von Bodelschwingh , later also Friedrich von Bodelschwingh the Elder , (born March 6, 1831 in Tecklenburg , † April 2, 1910 in Gadderbaum , today Bielefeld ) was a Protestant pastor and theologian in Germany. He worked in the Inner Mission . According to him, the v. Bodelschwingh Foundation Bethel in Bielefeld.

Life

He came from the old Westphalian noble family Bodelschwingh . His mother Charlotte was born von Diest (born November 27, 1793 in Kleve, † May 27, 1869 in Dillenburg). His father Ernst von Bodelschwingh was the Prussian finance minister in Berlin. Through his contacts with the House of Hohenzollern, Friedrich became a playmate of the future Emperor Friedrich III as a child . selected. He later arranged an audience with him for the Bremerhaven pastor Eberhard Cronemeyer . Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm gave the moor colony in Düring its name .

Friedrich von Bodelschwingh was a student at the Joachimsthal Gymnasium from 1842 to 1845 . First he wanted to become a miner , but after graduating from high school he trained as a farmer from 1849 to 1851 . He became the manager of a modern estate in Gramenz , Neustettin district, in Western Pomerania , where he was confronted for the first time with the plight of the landless population. He worked there as an estate manager until 1854.

His desire to help people grew and he wanted to go on a mission . However, his parents persuaded him to study Protestant theology first . He studied in Basel , Erlangen and Berlin and became a pastor in 1863 . In Basel he passed his first theological exam, but not the second. During his studies he was one of the founding members of the Bonner Wingolf .

His first congregation was the Evangelical Mission among the Germans in Paris from 1858 . At that time, around 80,000 German emigrants lived in the French capital, earning their living as day laborers (e.g. as street sweepers). Von Bodelschwingh collected donations in Germany for the construction of a church and a school on Montmartre . When his wife Ida fell ill with postpartum depression after the birth of their first child , the family moved back to Germany in 1864 on the advice of the doctors. Von Bodelschwingh accepted a pastor's position in Dellwig near Unna. In 1869 his four children Ernst (born February 7, 1863), Friedrich, Elisabeth and Karl died of diphtheria within two weeks . By 1877, the couple had four more children.

Friedrich von Bodelschwingh around 1870

In 1872 he became head of the Evangelical Sanatorium and Nursing Home for Epileptics near Bielefeld, founded in 1867 . The institution he renamed Bethel (Hebrew: House of God) in 1874 (now v. Bodelschwinghsche Stiftungen Bethel ), together with the Sarepta mother house and the Nazareth brother house, he made one of the most important institutions of the Inner Mission . Bodelschwingh took care not only of the mentally ill, but also of the brothers von der Landstrasse , for whom he founded workers' colonies according to his motto work instead of alms and, as a member of the Prussian state parliament, enforced the law on migrant workplaces in 1907 . The workers' colony founded by Pastor Friedrich von Bodelschwingh in Wilhelmsdorf in East Westphalia in 1882 became particularly well known . One of his last foundings in 1905 was right on Berlin's doorstep - the "Hope Valley" (now Hope Valley Foundation Lobetal ), 15 km to the northeast - a refuge and hostel for the homeless of the metropolis. He was a founding member of the Evangelical Church Building Association , founded in 1884 .

Bodelschwingh shared a friendship and shared church and political views with Adolf Stoecker , as can be seen from their correspondence. As early as 1885 Bodelschwingh solicited in vain the Crown Prince Friedrich's understanding of Stoecker's anti-Semitism by writing that Stoecker was fighting against “stock market Jewry, which sucked the best mark of our people”.

In 1885, Pastor von Bodelschwingh founded the first German building society , the building society for everyone , in Bielefeld . In the 1890s he founded a number of hospices in Norddorf on the North Sea island of Amrum , where people could go on vacation in a Christian environment. The clergyman belonged to the Prussian House of Representatives in the 20th legislative period, but did not join any major political grouping and was listed as "bkF" (no parliamentary group).

Friedrich von Bodelschwingh came up with several creative concepts that were unusual for his time in order to a) obtain donations and b) provide work for those in need. So he founded the Brockensammlung , a collection of old clothes that still exists today; The second-hand store furnishings, which are still widespread in Switzerland today , probably go back to this. Bodelschwingh took the idea for this from the Jesus saying in John 6:12: "Collect the leftover pieces so that nothing is lost." Bethel residents found and find work collecting, sorting and mending clothes, which are then sold. Because of his good relationships with church leaderships and state authorities, von Bodelschwingh had no trouble getting permits for church collections and house collections. One of the best-known institutions is the stamp collecting point, which was established in 1906.

Von Bodelschwingh had friendly contact with the theologian Ernst von Dobschütz and his mother.

When he died on April 2, 1910, his son Friedrich von Bodelschwingh (Pastor Fritz) took over the management of what was now the Bodelschwingh Institute (from January 2010 of the Bodelschwingh Foundation Bethel ).

Honors

Friedrich von Bodelschwingh received the following honors during his lifetime:

reception

Postage stamp (1951) from the series Helpers to Mankind

From today's point of view, von Bodelschwingh operated professional fundraising by seeking not just a few large, but many small donations and by trying to build a relationship with the donors through thank you letters in order to turn one-time donors into permanent sponsors. Von Bodelschwingh also engaged in lobbying in order to favor state subsidies for his facilities. Theodor Heuss therefore called von Bodelschwingh “the most ingenious beggar Germany has ever seen”.

The Deutsche Bundespost honored Friedrich von Bodelschwingh the Elder in 1951 with a welfare stamp from the Helfer der Menschheit series .

In August 2007, Friedrich von Bodelschwingh won the vote advertised by the East Westphalian daily Neue Westfälische "Election to the most important Bielefeld" with 36.1% of the votes cast and a clear lead over the second-placed Bielefeld industrialist August Oetker , who received 25.3% of the votes cast Voices came.

Remembrance day

April 2nd in the Evangelical Name Calendar .

literature

Web links

Commons : Friedrich von Bodelschwingh the Elder  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Friedrich von Bodelschwingh the Elder  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ AREF background information
  2. ^ Genealogical Handbook of the Nobility , Adelige Häuser B, Vol. VIII 1968
  3. ↑ Chrismon Special 150 Years of Bethel . Hansisches Drucks- und Verlagshaus GmbH, Frankfurt a. M. 2017, p. 8.
  4. ↑ Federal Association of Volks- und Raiffeisenbanken: Bibliographical notes on the founders (PDF; 199 kB)
  5. ↑ Catholic-arbeiterkolonien-westfalen.de
  6. ↑ Quoted from Eberhard Bethge : Adolf Stoecker and church anti-Semitism. Hatred of Jews and hostility towards socialists - a Christian-German tradition? . In: Peter von der Osten-Sacken , Martin Stöhr : (Ed.): Direction. Jewish and Christian Bible studies and lectures. 17th German Evangelical Church Congress in Berlin 1977 (= publications from the Institute for Church and Judaism at the Church University Berlin 8). 1978, pp. 40-58, here p. 44.
  7. ↑ v. Bodelschwingh Foundation Bethel, Main Archive Bethel
  8. ↑ Faith and Charisma . In: Neue Westfälische , 11./12. August 2007
  9. ^ Friedrich von Bodelschwingh the Elder in the ecumenical dictionary of saints
  10. ↑ A suggestion for the celebration of the day of remembrance can be found at evangelische-liturgie.de .
personal data
SURNAME Bodelschwingh, Friedrich von der Elder
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bodelschwingh, Friedrich von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pastor and theologian, pastor
DATE OF BIRTH March 6, 1831
PLACE OF BIRTH Tecklenburg
DATE OF DEATH April 2, 1910
Place of death Gadderbaum , today Bielefeld