Fritz Onnasch

Interior of the Marienkirche in Köslin, Protestant parish church until 1945

Friedrich Karl Günter Onnasch (born May 2, 1911 in Lobetal near Bernau , † March 4, 1945 in Köslin ) was a German Protestant theologian and close collaborator of Dietrich Bonhoeffer .

Youth and Studies

Fritz Onnasch was the son of the pastor and later superintendent Friedrich Onnasch (* 1881; shot by Soviet soldiers in Berlinchen in February 1945 ) and Maria geb. Frisius. He spent his childhood in Lobetal. At the age of eight, he developed polio . In 1922 the family moved to Köslin in Western Pomerania. Fritz Onnasch attended grammar school here and graduated from high school in 1929. He then began to study theology at the University of Tübingen , which he continued in Erlangen in 1930 , where he was influenced by Paul Althaus .

Confessing Church

In 1933 Onnasch passed the first theological exam and became vicar to Johannes Bartelt in Glowitz, Stolp parish. A year later he changed the vicariate position and came to Ferdinandshof. He refused to be admitted to a seminary subordinate to the consistory , and in 1934 broke off all contacts with the provincial church.

From April 1, 1935, Fritz Onnasch took part in the first course of the preacher's seminar led by Bonhoeffer, which began at the Zingsthof and then continued in Finkenwalde . Onnasch joined the community of the "brother house". On April 5, 1936 he was in Stettin Bredow by Reinold von Thadden and Heinrich Rendtorff ordained . He lived in Finkenwalde as a member of the brother house and had an assistant preacher position in Stettin-Podejuch.

From April 16, 1937, Onnasch had been the Finkenwalde study inspector in place of Wilhelm Rott, and on September 28 of the same year he had to receive the closure order from the Secret State Police .

At the end of 1937 there was a wave of arrests of pastors of the Confessing Church . Fritz Onnasch was imprisoned in Stettin from November 18 to December 20. Then he was study inspector of the collective vicariate, which was based in his father's parsonage in Köslin, at the same time he was deployed as an assistant preacher in the church district of Köslin. In 1938 he rejected “legalization”, that is, subordination to the consistory of the Pomeranian ecclesiastical province, and tried to convince other young pastors to do the same.

Bilingual memorial plaque in Köslin

On September 17, 1939, Onnasch married Eberhard Bethge's sister Margret. After his father was banned from staying in Pomerania and banned from speaking in the Reich, Fritz Onnasch took on leading tasks at the Brother's Council of the Old Prussian Union. The couple therefore moved to Stettin. Three children were born here. In May 1943 Onnasch had to undergo a leg amputation. As a close associate of Bonhoeffer, he was probably an accessory to the events surrounding the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944 . In January 1945 he moved to his family in Köslin. The Onnasch couple did not obey the eviction order.

death

When the Red Army marched into Koslin, Fritz Onnasch was arrested by Soviet soldiers, and two days later neighbors found his body in the basement of the rectory. They buried him in the parish garden.

Appreciation

In 2004 a memorial plaque was placed on the former superintendent in Koszalin, commemorating Friedrich and Fritz Onnasch.

Web links

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer Portal: Fritz Onnasch
• Friedrich Bartels: One with the big name "Brother". In memory of Friedrich (Fritz) Onnasch (1911–1945) ( PDF )