Georg Heinrich Häberlin

Georg Heinrich Häberlin on an engraving by Leonhard Heckenauer (1650–1704)

Georg Heinrich Häberlin (born September 30, 1644 in Stuttgart ; † August 20, 1699 ibid) was a Württemberg Lutheran theology professor and moderate preacher in the context of the Calw child witch trials.

Life

Georg Heinrich Häberlin was the son of a Stuttgart businessman and city councilor. He went to the monastery schools in Maulbronn and Bebenhausen and, after studying theology at the University of Tübingen in 1663, received his master's degree. In 1668 he became a deacon in Leonberg, 1669 a deacon in Cannstatt and in 1675 a preacher in Stuttgart, first at the Leonhardskirche, 1677 at the Hospitalkirche, and in 1678 as second preacher at the collegiate church . He received his doctorate in theology and in 1681 followed a call as an associate professor of theology at the University of Tübingen, where he also became the second superattendent at the Evangelical monastery and temporarily taught Hebrew . His portrait, painted by Johann Dramburg , hangs in the Tübingen professors' gallery . He probably turned down several attractive appointments from abroad for health reasons. Instead, in 1692 he became the first preacher at the Stuttgart collegiate church and clergyman in the princely consistory. In 1695 he also became a Protestant abbot in Alpirsbach .

Calw child witch trials

In 1683/84, Häberlin campaigned for an end to the witch trials in the Duchy of Württemberg. At the child witch trials in Calw, some children were charged with signing a pact with the devil and several adults were suspected of witchcraft. On behalf of the Stuttgart government, Häberlin was supposed to calm the angry population and take away the fear of witches through sermons and pastoral instruction. His sermon there was then published at the request of the duke's administrator.

Häberlin did not deny the existence of witches, did not speak out in favor of the end of witch trials and did not question the legality of the two Calw death sentences, but he urged the Calw population to deal very critically with witch hunts and trials. Häberlin thus followed the moderate stance of the Lutheran orthodoxy of Johannes Brenz and his successor Wilhelm Bidembach . He transformed the conflict between the witch and the population like Brenz and Bidembach into a conflict between God, the devil and the population. According to Häberlin, the magic of damage and the flight of witches were only imaginations, and it was hardly safe for people to recognize what was reality, what was a dream and what was simply an invention. Beyond the few clear cases, only God ultimately knows who a witch really is. The devil as the real enemy to be defeated uses the great uncertainty in the witchcraft righteousness to create disorder and strife in the community in witch panics and to bring innocent people into false suspicion. The community must arm itself against the enemy by means of spiritual armament and Christian moral discipline. With uncontrolled witch hunts, however, it serves the devil more than it harms him. Even if you burned all the witches, you would not exterminate Satan.

literature

• Jürgen Michael Schmidt: The witch hunt in the secular territorial state of the Old Kingdom. The example of southwest Germany . In: Johannes Dillinger, Jürgen Michael Schmidt, Dieter R. Bauer (eds.): Hexenprozess und Staatsbildung (= Hexenforschung 12), Bielefeld 2008, pp. 149–180, here pp. 171–174.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Jürgen Michael Schmidt: Häberlin, Georg Heinrich. In: Lexicon on the history of witch persecution, edited by Gudrun Gersmann, Katrin Moeller and Jürgen-Michael Schmidt. Retrieved January 26, 2014.
2. ↑ Documents of the Stuttgart upper council documented. Main State Archives Stuttgart, signature A 209, Bü 690.
3. ↑ Georg Heinrich Häberlin: Historical relation of those in the Würtemb. Ampts- und Handelstadt Calw some time ago, for the sake of magic, children and other people were shouted at. Stuttgart 1685.