Gerhard Besier

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Gerhard Besier, 2009

Gerhard Adolf Besier (born November 30, 1947 in Wiesbaden ) is a German Protestant theologian , historian and politician ( non-party , previously Die Linke ). His academic work focuses on church history and contemporary European history . In particular, his three volumes on The SED State and the Church (1993–1995) are standard works for dealing with the history of the GDR . His research focus is the history of the churches in the 20th century. From 2009 to 2014 Besier was a member of the Saxon State Parliament .

Life

After graduating from the Gutenberg School in Wiesbaden , Besier began studying Protestant theology in 1968 and passed the first theological exam in 1973 . He became assistant to the Tubingen church historian Klaus Scholder , his doctorate in 1976 with him to Dr. theol. 1977 received the ordination and laid 1978, the Second theological exam from. He completed a second degree in psychology , which he completed in parallel , in 1980 with the diploma examination.

After his habilitation in church history (1982) and a further doctorate (1986 in history at the Friedrich Meinecke Institute of the Free University of Berlin ) as well as lecturing at the Ludwigsburg University of Education and as rector of the Institute for Religious Education in Loccum , he followed a call from the church in 1987 University of Berlin (West) on the chair for modern and contemporary church history .

In 1992 Besier was appointed to the chair of historical theology at Heidelberg University. In 2003 he moved to the Technical University of Dresden , where he was Professor of Totalitarianism Research and Director of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarianism Research (HAIT). After his contract was not extended by the HAIT Board of Trustees due to a vote of no confidence by the employees and public criticism, Besier taught as a professor for European studies at the TU Dresden since 2008 . At the end of the winter semester 2012/13 he retired .

1997/98 Besier received for his work Split Churches in total State, 1934–1939 the research grant of the historical college . In May 2009 the University of Lund (Sweden) awarded him an honorary doctorate for his exceptional achievements in the fields of history and church history as well as for his commitment to religious freedom in Europe. Besier was visiting professor at Stanford University in the USA, Poland and Sweden. He is co-editor of the journals Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte and Religion - Staat - Gesellschaft as well as the book series Historical-Theological Studies of the 19th and 20th Centuries and Central and East Central European Studies . Besier is on the board of the Sigmund Neumann Institute.

Besier has also been working as a forensic psychologist since 2014, completing a two-year postgraduate course at the Berlin School of Psychology and graduating with a Master of Science (M.Sc.).

politics

Besier had been a member of Die Linke since April 2009 and was presented in June of the same year as a member of their competence team in Saxony for the areas of science and religion. In the state elections in 2009 , he was elected to the Saxon state parliament via the state list of his party - although, according to his own statements, he does not share many socio-political ideas of the left. During his time as a member of parliament, Gerhard Besier was the spokesman for science and university policy for the Left Party and at the same time chairman of the science and university committee of the Saxon state parliament. After he was not nominated for a promising place on the list at the party congress of the state association Die Linke Sachsen for the state elections in 2014 , he announced his resignation from the party on April 6, 2014 and was a member of the parliamentary group as a non-party member until the end of the legislative period.

At the end of August 2014, shortly before the state elections, Besier drew a critical balance and published the book Five Years under Left at the beginning of September . About a self-experiment.

In January 2017 Besier moved up for the party Die Linke from fourth place in the Dresden city council. In December 2018 he joined the FDP city council faction. At the end of the electoral term, he resigned from the city council in 2019.

Controversy

With the publication of his book The SED State and the Church - The Path into Adaptation , Besier was criticized by other church historians. The book, which was based on research from the Stasi documents , accused Karl Barth and other representatives of the Brotherhood Council from the Confessing Church, as well as its followers in the following generation, of being willing to work with a totalitarian state out of a left-wing political motivation. The reason for criticism was his methodology, since the SED documents by their nature can only document cooperation, but not motivations or other activities.

Besier later remained controversial because of his commitment to religious freedom . Among other things, he campaigned for the Church of Scientology by giving a speech at the opening of an office of this organization in Brussels in September 2003, in which he took the view that this Church was “in the front row of those who support fight the acceptance of religious pluralism ”. Some public figures, including Freimut Duve , Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Antonia Grunenberg , then demanded from the Hannah Arendt Institute that it should distance itself from its director. In retrospect, Besier once again explicitly distanced himself from Scientology and described his appearance in Brussels as a "political error".

Some of Besier's colleagues criticized the non-renewal of Besier's contract. The historian Jürgen Kocka sees the real reason for this in the fact that Besier, once the CDU's preferred candidate, consistently “refused to take political action”. The theologian Klaus Berger takes the view that the Scientology affair only serves as a pretext: “Colleague Besier [has] made enemies through three things: He dared to admit the behavior of German Christianities under the two dictatorships of the 20th century research, and he has raised questions on the subject of religious freedom in Germany. ”Besier's contract with the Hannah Arendt Institute expired in 2008 and was not extended because of his special view of religious freedom in Germany. Besier's employees at the Hannah Arendt Institute as well as several professors at the Philosophical Faculty of the TU Dresden have now distanced themselves from him. However, the contract of Besier's predecessor, Klaus-Dietmar Henke , was not extended either. Günther Heydemann was appointed as Besier's successor .

After the Brandenburg Interior Minister Jörg Schönbohm had sparked a debate as to whether the “ decay of values ” in the East German federal states was to blame for the fact that they were “disenfranchised” until 1989 , Besier referred to a 2006 study on racism (“Group- related enmity in Saxony”), which resulted I have said that "members of one of the two major Christian denominations [...] all over Germany are more hostile than those without a denomination".

Fonts (selection)

  • Prussian Church Policy in the Bismarckian Era. The discussion in the state and the Evangelical Church about a reorganization of the church conditions in Prussia between 1866 and 1872 . Berlin 1979, ISBN 3-11-007176-2 (also: Diss. Theol., Tübingen 1976).
  • Pastoral Care and Clinical Psychology. Deficits in the theory and practice of pastoral psychology . Göttingen 1980, ISBN 3-525-62182-5 (also: Dipl.-Arb., Tübingen 1980).
  • War - peace - disarmament. The attitude of the European and American churches to the question of the German war guilt 1914–1933 - a church-historical contribution to peace research and peace education . Göttingen 1982, ISBN 3-525-55385-4 (also: Habil.-Schr., Bethel 1981).
  • "Self-cleaning" under British occupation. The Evangelical Lutheran regional church of Hanover and its regional bishop Marahrens 1945–1947 . Göttingen 1986, ISBN 3-525-55241-6 (also: Diss. Phil., Berlin 1986).
  • Religion, nation, culture. The history of the Christian churches in the social upheavals of the 19th century . Neukirchen-Vluyn 1992, ISBN 3-7887-1405-0 .
  • The SED state and the church. 3 volumes. Munich / Berlin 1993 ff.
  • The Protestant Church in the upheavals of the 20th century. Collected essays . Neukirchen-Vluyn 1994, DNB 940750651 .
    • Volume 1: Church at the transition from Wilhelminism to the Weimar Republic / From the Weimar Republic to the “Third Reich” - the church struggle . ISBN 3-7887-1442-5 .
    • Volume 2: From the first dictatorship to the second democracy, a new beginning for the church in the post-war period / churches, parties and ideologies under the sign of the East-West conflict . ISBN 3-7887-1496-4 .
  • Group Church. The gospel and the power of money . Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-7751-2858-1 .
  • Church, Politics and Society in the 19th Century . Munich 1998, ISBN 3-486-55709-2 .
  • with Armin Boyens, Gerhard Lindemann : National Protestantism and Ecumenical Movement. Church action in the Cold War (1945–1990) . Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-10032-8 .
  • with Erwin K. Scheuch (ed.): The new inquisitors: freedom of religion and envy of faith . Part 1 and 2. Edition Interfrom, Zurich. Fromm, Osnabrück 1999. ISBN 3-720-15277-4
  • Church, Politics and Society in the 20th Century . Munich 2000, ISBN 3-486-56438-2 .
  • The churches and the Third Reich. Volume 3: Divisions and defensive battles 1934–1937 . Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-549-07149-3 .
  • with Renate-Maria Besier: The character assassination campaign. Churches & Co. in court . 2nd Edition. Bergisch Gladbach 2002, ISBN 3-929351-19-6 .
  • with Francesca Piombo: The Holy See and Hitler's Germany. The fascination of the totalitarian . Munich 2004, ISBN 3-421-05814-8 .
  • with Gerhard Lindemann: In the name of freedom. The American Mission . Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-525-36734-1 .
  • The Europe of dictatorships. A new story of the 20th century . Munich 2006, ISBN 3-421-05877-6 .
  • Religion, State and Society in the Transformations of the Twentieth Century. Modernization, Innovation and Decline . Münster 2007, ISBN 3-8258-0980-3 .
  • Neither good nor bad. Why people behave how . Berlin 2012, ISBN 3-643-11610-1 .
  • Five years on the left. About a self-experiment. Berlin 2014, ISBN 3-945187-05-2 .

literature

  • Katarzyna Stoklosa, Andrea Strübind (ed.): Faith - Freedom - Dictatorship in Europe and the USA. Festschrift for Gerhard Besier for his 60th birthday. Göttingen 2007, ISBN 3-525-35089-9 .

Web links

Commons : Gerhard Besier  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerhard Besier: Vita , sigmund-neumann-institut.eu, accessed on December 11, 2015.
  2. ↑ Steffi Eckold: Prof. Besier receives a Swedish honorary doctorate . In: Dresdner Universitätsjournal , Volume 20, No. 11, June 23, 2009, p. 1 ( online as PDF ; 4.1 MB).
  3. ^ Visiting Professor at Stanford University, California , stanford.edu, accessed December 11, 2015.
  4. ↑ Board of the Sigmund Neumann Institute , sigmund-neumann-institut.eu, accessed on December 11, 2015.
  5. ↑ Statements from Dr. André Hahn and Dr. Cornelia Ernst on the introduction of further members of the competence team ( memento from July 12, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), press conference of the DIE LINKE party on June 3, 2009.
  6. ↑ List of members of the DIE LINKE party in the 5th Saxon state parliament ( memento from September 5, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ); see. also Jan Fleischhauer : Musty warmth. The former Kohl adviser and SED critic Gerhard Besier wants to move to the Saxon state parliament for the left . Spiegel Online . August 24, 2009. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
  7. ↑ Not on the list: University expert Besier leaves the left . Free press . April 8, 2014. Retrieved April 8, 2014.
  8. ↑ They have no political goal . In: The time. 36/2014; In: Saxon newspaper. August 27, 2014 .
  9. ^ Publisher's website ( memento from September 8, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ); Excerpt from Sächsische Zeitung. 6./7. September 2014, p. 6.
  10. ↑ Thomas Baumann-Hartwig: Scientists - Besier moves for the left in the Dresden city council. In: DNN-Online. Retrieved October 17, 2017 .
  11. ↑ A city council member resigns from the city council and a replacement person moves up to the city council of the state capital Dresden constituency 5 - mandate DIE LINKE (DIE LINKE). Retrieved October 17, 2017 .
  12. ↑ City council changes from the Left to the FDP . In: Sächsische Zeitung of December 12, 2018, accessed on December 12, 2018.
  13. ↑ Review of “The SED State and the Church - The Path to Adaptation”. In: The Humanist. Retrieved February 17, 2011.
  14. ↑ Richard Herzinger : Farces are always there. The Hannah Arendt Institute in Dresden makes headlines above all through bizarre ideological brawls. . Time online . June 24, 2004. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
  15. ↑ Press release of the Hannah Arendt Center Oldenburg (PDF; 179 kB) from June 2004.
  16. ↑ Gerhard Besier: Inappropriate behavior and social control. Experience report of a successful scandal. In: Religion - State - Society. Volume 9, Issue 1, 2008, ISSN  1438-955X , pp. 93-107, here p. 96.
  17. ↑ See letters to the editor from Kocka and Berger in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of April 19, 2007.
  18. ^ Franziska Augstein : The latest discharge. The Hannah Arendt Institute separates from its director . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , (April 7, 2007), p. 13; Aftermath of the Scientology scandal? The Hannah Arendt Institute in Dresden has a new management team . Daily mirror online . April 5, 2007. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
  19. ↑ Klaus Wiegrefe , Steffen Winter: The professor and the sect. The director of the Hannah Arendt Institute in Dresden, Gerhard Besier, has to go . Spiegel Online . May 7, 2007. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
  20. ↑ Annette Binninger: Besier: "Christians are more inclined to racism than non-denominational" . Saxon Newspaper Online . August 20, 2009. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Besier, Gerhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Besier, Gerhard Adolf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian, historian and politician (Die Linke), MdL
DATE OF BIRTH November 30, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiesbaden