Georg Schümer

Georg Schümer (born December 11, 1873 in Schüttorf ; † June 1, 1945 there ) was an Evangelical Reformed German educator and politician.

Origin and occupation

The son of the Schüttorf mill owner and brandy distiller came from an influential family that had lived there since the 16th century. Wessel Georg Schümer studied theology and philosophy in Göttingen , Marburg and Berlin , where he, from the Orthodox Reformed county of Bentheim, turned theologically towards the liberal direction. Schümer was briefly active as a ministerial candidate in Schüttorf. Although he passed the first theological exam, he switched to the higher teaching post because of his poor career prospects due to his political activity and theological concerns about the wording of the ordination vows. Through further studies he acquired the license to teach religion, German and Latin, which was followed by jobs as a teacher in Lingen, Emden, Leer and Goslar and as a senior teacher in Görlitz. From 1903 he was employed in Magdeburg . Here he took over the position of director at the renowned Lessing School in 1924 , which he expanded from a secondary school to a high school. In this function he was entitled to the title of "Professor".

Political activity

Since 1898 Georg Schümer was part of the leadership of the National Socialist Association of Friedrich Naumann (1860-1919) in the county of Bentheim , which organized the workers as a local Protestant party. As " Adlatus " of the Berlin journalist Hellmut von Gerlach (1866–1935), who tried several times unsuccessfully for a political mandate in the county between 1898 and 1903, Georg Schümer, 1898 to 1899 first secretary of the National Socialist electoral association for the constituency of Lingen recruited -Bentheim, in many events for this party and for the National Social Workers' Association movement he promoted. Schümer took part in the National Socialist party congresses as a delegate for the Emsland / Bentheim region, and later for East Friesland and Görlitz . He chaired the electoral association created by the National Socialists for the Reichstag constituency of Meppen until his resignation in April 1899.

His motion at the party congress of 1903 to continue the party work did not find a majority. Thereupon Schumer followed the National Socialist party leader Friedrich Naumann to the left-liberal " Freethinking Association ". Schümer was the founder and chairman of the Magdeburg local group of the social-liberal association (Wahlverein der Liberalen), which was established in December 1906, as the local association of the “Freedom Association” was called here. At the same time he acted as a Magdeburg correspondent for the former National Socialist party newspaper “ Die Hilfe ” from Berlin. However, the senior teacher broke with this new left-wing liberal political grouping when it approached national liberalism. In 1908, like Hellmuth von Gerlach, he was one of the founders of the “ Democratic Association ”, which was politically unsuccessful. As a supporter of the Grafschafter workers' association movement, Schümer stayed at rallies in the Bentheimer Land. Before the First World War , in particular , he was heavily involved in the “ Bund deutscher Bodenreformer ”, with whose leader Adolf Damaschke (1865-1935) he was known from his National Socialist days. During the First World War , Schümer emerged as a critic of the Pan-German and German annexation plans, so that he came under surveillance and his mail was censored. The experience of the First World War led him to pacifism . Georg Schümer founded and headed the local branch of the " German Peace Society " (DFG) in Magdeburg . He also worked in the Protestant Association and in the Presidium of the " German League for Human Rights ", which he left with other members in 1926 due to internal disputes about the management style of the board. Before that he was already a board member of the “Society for Republican-Democratic Politics”, which he founded in 1922 and merged with the “German League for Human Rights” in 1924. The long-time board member of the “Bund deutscher Bodenreformer” joined the left-liberal “ German Democratic Party ” (DDP) in 1918, like the former National Socialist party leader Friedrich Naumann, and in 1919 he joined the Prussian state assembly in the Magdeburg constituency . In the same year he became a member of the Prussian constituent church assembly, where he belonged to the left wing. In the Prussian state elections of 1921 he ran again for the DDP, but due to the party's considerable loss of votes, he did not return to the state parliament. In 1923 Schümer switched from the DDP to the SPD and became a member of the " Bund der Religischen Sozialisten " (BRSD). In addition, Georg Schümer was involved in the abstinence movement , the "Free School Reformers" and the "Reconciliation League". From 1920 to the end of 1929 he was a member of the Reich Executive Committee of the "German Peace Society" and took part in numerous pacifist congresses at home and abroad. Within the DFG, Schümer represented the moderate direction and advocated cooperation with the SPD and other parties. He rejected a one-sided commitment to the political left. Because of internal quarrels and an increasing radicalization of the association through the politics of the chairman, he resigned from the DFG, with the Magdeburg local group completely following him. Using her as a basis, he founded an "Independent War Opponent League" in Magdeburg at the end of 1929, and became its chairman. He joined the " German Peace League " with his Magdeburg group and personally in 1931 the "Evangelical Peace League". Another attempt to unite the German pacifists was the " Allgemeine Deutsche Friedensbund " established in December 1932 , as the DFG, which had been politically isolated and sidelined, lost many members. In order to build a new pool for the German peace friends, Schümer founded this new pacifist movement together with the well-known pacifist Ludwig Quidde (1858–1941). The "Allgemeine Deutsche Friedensbund" (General German Peace League) appointed Schümer as the federal chairman and Magdeburg as the seat of the new organization. After this was initially able to register the influx and accession of well-known personalities, the National Socialist takeover brought an end to organized German pacifism.

In 1933, when the Nazis came to power, he was briefly arrested for his political and pacifist involvement, removed from office at the end of April 1933 and finally forced into retirement in August 1933. In the following years he mainly dealt with theological work. So he rhymed all 150 psalms up to 1942, of which only fragments were published. Because of his political past, the Magdeburg “ Confessing Church ” refused him membership. In 1938 Schümer, who was under constant observation in Magdeburg, returned to his home town of Schüttorf. Having had cancer since 1942, he was supposed to be arrested after the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944 , but his doctor managed to withdraw the warrant. His son Wilhelm Schümer (1909–1943) and his daughter Änne (1904–1982) also came into conflict with the Nazi state. Since he himself expressed himself "hostile to the state" in Schüttorf, he has been under observation since November 1939. In July 1942, he was questioned, his house was searched and books were confiscated.

Works

• School devotions. Collected and compiled in connection with Rudolf Richter and Karl Steyer, Frankfurt / Main 1913.
• Basic questions of ethics (= religion and life. Supplementary booklet for the upper level). Goettingen 1928.
• Life questions (= religion and life. Supplementary booklet for the intermediate level). Goettingen 1929.
• Norman Percy Grubb, Karl T. Studd. A messenger from God. Edited by Wilhelm Dreisbach and Georg Schümer, Basel 21941.

Participation in the ecclesiastical-biographical series "The German Heritage" and "The Roman Heritage", which was banned in 1941. For this he wrote the volumes:

• Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. Works. Excerpts compiled by Georg Schümer, Bad Pyrmont 1937.
• Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Works. Excerpt compiled by Georg Schümer, Bad Pyrmont 1940.
• Christoph Blumhardt. Works. Compiled by Georg Schümer, Bad Pyrmont 1941.
• Immanuel Kant. Works. Compiled by Georg Schümer, Bad Pyrmont 1947 (2nd edition).

A bibliography of programmatic newspaper articles by G. Schümers can be found in: Jürgen Schäfer / Matthias Schreiber: Compromise and Conscience. The path of Pastor Wilhelm Schümer in the Third Reich. (= Series of publications by the Hans Ehrenberg Society, vol. 1), Waltrop 1994, pp. 128–129.

literature

• Peter Bomfleur: From the history of Schüttorf. In: Trade and Change in the Grafschaft Bentheim. Düsseldorf 1926, pp. 53-85.
• Adolf Damaschke : turning point. Out of my life. Vol. 2, Leipzig / Zurich 1925, pp. 405–406.
• Hans Gressel: Article by Georg Schümer. In: Democratic Ways. German résumés from four centuries. A lexicon. Edited by Manfred Asendorf and Rolf von Bockel, Stuttgart / Weimar 1997, pp. 570–572.
• Karl Holl : Pacifism in Germany. Frankfurt 1988, pp. 156-157, 193, 197, 200, 203.
• Otmar Jung, Splitting and Reconstruction of Organized Pacifism in the Late Period of the Weimar Republic , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 34th Jg., Munich 1986, pp. 213–243, especially pp. 216, 231, 235 (here also with the indication another programmatic newspaper article).
• Helmut Lensing, The elections to the Reichstag and the Prussian House of Representatives in Emsland and in the Grafschaft Bentheim 1867 to 1918 - Party system and political conflict in the constituency of Ludwig Windthorst during the Empire (= Emsland / Bentheim. Contributions to history, vol. 15th ed. By the Emsland landscape for the district of Emsland and Grafschaft Bentheim), Sögel 1999.
• Helmut Lensing, The elections for the Prussian House of Representatives in the Lingen-Bentheim constituency 1867–1913, in: Osnabrücker Mitteilungen Vol. 98, Osnabrück 1993, pp. 161–204.
• Helmut Lensing, Elections, parties and associations in Schüttorf from 1867 to 1933, in: Heinrich Voort (editor), 1295–1995. 700 years of city rights in Schüttorf. Contributions to history. Edited by the city of Schüttorf (= Das Bentheimer Land vol. 134), Bad Bentheim 1995, pp. 333–438.
• Helmut Lensing, Art. Schümer, Georg, in: Emsländische Geschichte Vol. 7. Ed. By the Study Society for Emsländische Regionalgeschichte, Dohren 1998, pp. 244–249.
• Reinhold Lütgemeier-Davin, Art. Schümer, Georg, in: Helmut Donat / Karl Holl (ed.), The Peace Movement. Organized pacifism in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (= Hermes Handlexikon), Düsseldorf 1983, p. 345.
• A (ugust) Plate, Handbook for the Prussian Constituent Assembly, Berlin 1919, p. 100.
• Jürgen Schäfer / Matthias Schreiber, compromise and conscience. The path of pastor Wilhelm Schümer in the Third Reich (= series of publications by the Hans Ehrenberg Society, vol. 1), Waltrop 1994, pp. 10–15, 27–30.
• Friedrich-Karl Scheer, The German Peace Society 1892–1933. Organization, ideology, political goals. A contribution to the history of pacifism in Germany, Frankfurt / Main 1981, pp. 517, 521–522, 533–534, 536.
• Matthias Schreiber:  Georg Schümer. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 9, Bautz, Herzberg 1995, ISBN 3-88309-058-1 , Sp. 1048-1949.
• Hans Wehberg, Professor Georg Schümer (1873–1945), a religious socialist and pioneer of the peace movement, in: Die Friedens-Warte No. 1–2, Zurich 1947, pp. 62–65.