Günther Harder (theologian)

Günther Harder (born January 13, 1902 in Groß-Breesen near Guben , † September 14, 1978 in Berlin ) was a German Protestant pastor, theologian and university professor.

Life

Harder, a son of the pastor Richard Harder and his wife Magdalena, geb. Wendland, graduated from high school in Halberstadt in 1920 and then studied law at the universities in Marburg and Berlin . In 1924 he presented in Berlin the state examination and was in Marburg Dr. jur. PhD. In the same year he began to study Protestant theology in Berlin, which he completed in 1927 with the first theological exam. After ordination in 1929, he took up a pastor's position in Fehrbellin . Under the guidance of Adolf Deißmann , he wrote a study on Paul and prayer , on the basis of which he was awarded a Lic. Theol. received his doctorate.

Since 1933 Harder belonged to the Pastors and built in the province of Brandenburg , the Confessing Church on to their radical, "dahlemitischem" wing he belonged. He was a member of the Provincial Council of Brothers, which he chaired in 1940, and also of the Council of Brothers of the Confessing Church of the Old Prussian Union. In 1935/36 he looked after Gerhard Ebeling as vicar . In 1936 Harder took on a part-time position as a lecturer for the New Testament at the illegal church college in Berlin . He has been arrested several times and given prison sentences or wages. He escaped a conviction by the People's Court for helping Arthur Nebe , Hans Bernd Gisevius and others involved in the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944 , only because of the turmoil of the last weeks of the war and the escape from embattled Berlin.

Immediately after the end of the war, Harder was elected superintendent of the church district of Nauen and was soon appointed to the church leadership of the church province of Brandenburg. With the reopening of the church university, he took over his lectureship again and was immediately elected rector . In order to be closer to this place of work, he moved to the parish office of the Berlin Trinity Church in 1947 and became superintendent in the Friedrichswerder church district. Since his ecclesiastical work concentrated more and more on the reorganization of the law and constitution of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg , a professorship for church teaching was created for him in 1948 at the church university. In addition, he continued teaching the New Testament and headed the archive on the history of the church struggle at the university. In 1955 his professorship, which now also included the history of Judaism, was converted into a full-time position, which he held until 1972.

Harder had been married to Käthe Fichtner from Berlin since 1929; they had three daughters, including the painter and writer Jutta-Natalie Harder (* 1934), and three sons, including the doctor and writer Wolfgang Andreas Harder (* 1936).

meaning

Harder's particular focus was on striving for a new relationship between Christians and Jews. In 1960 he founded the Institute for Church and Judaism at the university, in 1961 he was one of the founders of the working group Jews and Christians at the German Evangelical Church Congress , in 1968 he initiated the establishment of the Church and Judaism Commission of the Evangelical Church in Germany. He taught the permanent election of the Jewish people earlier than most other evangelical theologians.

In 1962 the Theological Faculty of the University of Göttingen awarded him an honorary doctorate . In Fehrbellin the Günter-Harder-Ring was named after him.

Fonts (selection)

• Guide to the two-year confirmation class. Evangelical Publishing House, Berlin 1950.
• Church and Israel. Works on the Christian-Jewish relationship. Edited by Peter von der Osten-Sacken. Institute for Church and Judaism, Berlin 1986.

As editor

• Marriage law and human rights. Contributions to fundamental legal thinking from a biblical point of view. Berlin 1951.
• (with Heinrich Vogel ) Role and path of the Church University Berlin 1935-1955. Lettner, Berlin 1955.
• (with Wilhelm Niemöller ) The hour of temptation, congregations in the church struggle 1933-1945. Testimonials. Kaiser, Munich 1963.

literature

• Peter von der Osten-Sacken (Ed.): Loyalty to the Torah. Contributions to the middle of the Christian-Jewish conversation. Festschrift for Günther Harder on his 75th birthday (= publications from the Institute Church and Judaism Volume 3). Berlin 1977.
• Martin Lehmann-Habeck:  Harder, Günther. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 16, Bautz, Herzberg 1999, ISBN 3-88309-079-4 , Sp. 635-643.
• Harder, Günther . In: Bernd Moeller , Bruno Jahn (Hrsg.): German Biographical Encyclopedia of Theology and the Churches (DBETh). de Gruyter, Berlin 2005, p. 579, ISBN 978-3-598-25039-2 .

Remarks

1. ^ Albrecht Beutel : Gerhard Ebeling. A biography. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2012, pp. 41–45.
2. ↑ The game is over - Arthur Nebe . In: Der Spiegel 14/1950.
3. ↑ Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: "It is asked to monitor the church services ...": Religious communities in Berlin between adaptation, self-assertion and resistance from 1933 to 1945. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2014, pp. 298–300; Johannes Tuchel: "... the rope is waiting for all of them." The cell prison on Lehrter Strasse 3 after July 20, 1944. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2014, pp. 143f.
4. ↑ Under the title The lost apple tree. A parsonage child in the Mark , the daughter published her memories of childhood in the parsonage in 1988.
5. ↑ For this and earlier initiatives, see Peter von der Osten-Sacken: Institute for Church and Judaism (1960–2005) - history, goals, perspectives. In: epd documentation 9 / 10-2005  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Pp. 7-16.