Fritz Erbe

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ESA Tower Theater.jpg
View of the Storchenturm , where Fritz Erbe was imprisoned from 1533 to 1540.
Wartburgzelle.jpg
Room in the middle floor of the south tower of the Wartburg with an opening in the floor - the so-called fear hole - the only access to the Fritz Erbes dungeon
Memorial stone Fritz Erbe Elisabethplan, Eisenach 1.JPG
Memorial stone at the possible final resting place of Fritz Erbe on the Elisabethplan below the Wartburg

Fritz Erbe (* around 1500 in Herda ; † 1548 in Eisenach ) was a German Anabaptist and farmer.

Life

Fritz Erbe came from Herda near Gerstungen , where he owned a farm. As a supporter of the Reformation Anabaptist movement , which was widespread in Thuringia at the time , he was an advocate of believer baptism (“Baptism is useless without salvation experience”). He was first arrested in Hausbreitenbach in October 1531 when he refused to have his child baptized. In Herda at times more than half of the residents, especially ordinary people, joined the Anabaptist movement. The superintendent in Eisenach Justus Meniusin this capacity was also responsible for the village of Herda and its apostate residents. He led the first proceedings against Fritz Erbe and others in the autumn of 1531. At the end of January 1532, Landgrave Philipp I pardoned Erbe , probably because he had revoked it.

After giving shelter to the Anabaptist Margarethe Koch despite a public ban , he was arrested again in January 1533 and transferred to Eisenach . Elector Johann Friedrich I demanded the death penalty, but Landgrave Philip I was reluctant to have someone executed for his belief. A lengthy correspondence between the two rulers on this subject followed, while Fritz Erbe was held in a tower of the Eisenach city wall - the stork tower . There it became a symbol of resistance against state and church; many citizens of Eisenach showed solidarity with him. Two of his followers were executed in 1537, and another three were arrested in 1539.

In order to end this situation, Erbe was brought to the Wartburg in 1540 and locked in the ten meter deep dungeon of the south tower in complete darkness and cold. There the reformer Eberhard von der Tann tried to convert him in 1541 by having him transferred to the preacher's monastery for four weeks. Fritz Erbe, meanwhile in poor health from the long imprisonment, clung to his faith. He died in his prison in 1548.

In 1925 the warden of the Wartburg, Hermann Nebe , found Fritz Erbe's name carved in stone while he was cleaning up the south tower, which Erbe himself had carved into the rock. In the course of excavations on the Elisabethplan - the location of the former Elisabeth Hospital below the Wartburg - in September 2006 the remains of Fritz Erbe may have been found. A memorial stone commemorates Fritz Erbe at this location. A plaque on the south tower of the Wartburg reminds of his fate. Fritz-Erbe-Straße in Eisenach is a reminder of him.

literature

  • Petra Schall: The Baptist Fritz Erbe - prisoner in the south tower of the Wartburg . In: Wartburg Foundation (Hrsg.): Wartburg yearbook . tape 1994 . Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 1995, ISBN 978-3-7954-2216-5 , pp. 85-95 .
  • Sabine Birkenbeil: Anthropological studies of a skeleton from the Elisabethplan below the Wartburg and the Anabaptist Fritz Erbe . In: Wartburg Foundation (Hrsg.): Wartburg yearbook . tape 2007 . Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-7954-2216-5 , pp. 168-74 .
  • Urania cultural and educational association Gotha eV (Ed.): Eisenacher personalities. A biographical lexicon. RhinoVerlag, Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-932081-45-5 , p. 40 .
  • Fritz Jäger: Fritz Erbe and the Anabaptist movement in the Hausbreitenbach office. In: Eisenach information. 1984, No. 8, pp. 6-12 and No. 9, pp. 9-12.
  • Andreas Müller: The prisoner in the Wartburg; The fate of Fritz Erbes. Wartburg Verlag, Weimar 2005, ISBN 3-86160-164-8 .

Web links

Commons : Fritz Erbe  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Martin Krarup: Ordination in Wittenberg. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2007, p. 240, ISBN 978-3-16-149256-3 .
  2. ↑ The Anabaptist in the Stork Tower , article in the church newspaper Glaube und Heimat from March 17, 2013, accessed on October 20, 2013.
  3. ^ Andreas Müller: The prisoner in the Wartburg; The fate of Fritz Erbes. Wartburg Verlag, Weimar 2005, ISBN 3-86160-164-8 , p. 9.
  4. ^ Andreas Müller: The prisoner in the Wartburg; The fate of Fritz Erbes. Wartburg Verlag, Weimar 2005, ISBN 3-86160-164-8 , p. 14.
  5. ↑ Sabine Birkenbeil: Anthropological investigations of a skeleton from the Elisabethplan below the Wartburg and the Anabaptist Fritz Erbe. In: Wartburg Yearbook 2007, Verlag Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-7954-2216-5 , pp. 168-174.
  6. ↑ Presumably found Fritz Erbe. Wartburg Region Online, September 12, 2006, archived from the original on August 10, 2014 ; Retrieved January 17, 2009 .
  7. ↑ In memory. Biblekreis.ch, accessed on March 27, 2012 .
personal data
SURNAME Erbe, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Baptist
DATE OF BIRTH 15th century or 16th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Herda
DATE OF DEATH 1548
Place of death Eisenach