Fritz Loerzer

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Fritz Loerzer at the funeral of Marga von Etzdorf in 1933

Fritz Loerzer (born July 27, 1893 in Berlin , † July 21, 1952 in Farchant , Upper Bavaria) was a German Protestant clergyman and one of the leading figures in the German Christian movement .

Life

Loerzer began studying theology at the University of Berlin in 1913 , but interrupted it in 1915 to serve in the German air force . Under the command of his older brother Bruno Loerzer , he was one of the most successful German fighter pilots with eleven aerial victories. After returning from captivity, he resumed his studies in 1920. After ordination in 1922 , he became pastor in Falkenstein, a district of Friedeberg (Neumark) in 1923 . In 1928 he took over a pastor's office at the Advent Church in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg . He has been a member of the NSDAP since 1932 , was one of the founders of the German Christian Faith Movement, and after it came to power in the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union in 1933, he was appointed unskilled worker in the Berlin-Brandenburg Consistory . In July 1933 he became deputy Reichsleiter of the German Christians; in October he took over (with the title of provost ) the general superintendent of the Kurmark .

When the German Christians disintegrated into various competing groups in 1935, Loerzer joined Joachim Hossenfelder's “Combat and Faith Movement German Christians” and also became deputy Reichsleiter there. In the course of the removal of radical DC representatives from their offices, he had to give up his position as provost in June 1936. He became senior consistorial advisor in the Evangelical Consistory of the Church Province of Saxony in Magdeburg and returned to Berlin in 1939 in the same function. From 1940 he did military service again. After the end of the war he was not given a pastor's office, but was able to do auxiliary services in the Bavarian regional church from 1945 to 1948 .

literature

  • Rainer Bookhagen: The Protestant child care and the inner mission in the time of National Socialism. Retreat to the church, 1937–1945. Volume 1. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-525-55730-2 , p. 579.
  • Hannelore Braun, Gertraud Grünzinger: Personal Lexicon on German Protestantism 1919–1949 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 978-3-525-55729-7 , p. 579.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Greg VanWyngarden: Aces of Jagdgeschwader, No. III. Osprey Publishing, 2016, pp. 12 f., 43–45.
  2. ^ Gerhard Besier : The Churches and the Third Reich. Volume 3: Divisions and defensive struggles 1934 to 1937. Propylaen, Berlin 2001, p. 102; Handbook of the German Protestant Churches 1918 to 1949: organs - offices - associations - persons. Vol. 1: Supraregional institutions. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2010, p. 100.