Gerhard Jacobi

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Gerhard Justus Eduard Jacobi

Gerhard Justus Eduard Jacobi (born November 25, 1891 in Bremen ; † July 12, 1971 in Oldenburg ) was a Lutheran theologian , leading member of the Confessing Church and bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oldenburg .

Live and act

Memorial plaque on the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church , Breitscheidplatz , Berlin-Charlottenburg

Gerhard Jacobi was the son of the late province Saxon General Superintendent born Justus Julius August Jacobi. He attended the Domgymnasium in Magdeburg and after graduating from high school in 1911 he studied Protestant theology in Halle , Tübingen , Berlin and again in Halle. Since 1911 he was a member of the Hallenser and later of the Tübingen Wingolf . He did military service in World War I and was in British captivity from 1918 to 1919. Here he gave his first sermons.

After completing the second theological exam, Jacobi was ordained in Magdeburg Cathedral on January 8, 1921 . For half a year he was assistant preacher at the Pauluskirche in Halle an der Saale , before he became the managing clergyman of the prison society for the province of Saxony and Anhalt , of the youth court aid there and of the provincial society for psychopathic children in the summer of 1921 .

From 1923 to 1927 Gerhard Jacobi officiated again as pastor at the Pauluskirche in Halle, then until 1930 as cathedral preacher in Magdeburg.

On April 1, 1930 Jacobi became pastor at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin-Charlottenburg and from 1932 worked for the church reform magazine “ Neuwerk ”. Together with Hermann Sasse he founded the Theological Working Group for Church and Office . The Young Reformation Movement was founded in 1933 from this " Jacobi Circle ", which mainly consisted of younger Berlin and Brandenburg pastors . The “ Jacobi Circle ” itself became the most important Berlin bearer of internal church resistance against Nazi ideology . So in the outrage over the Aryan paragraph from this group on September 11, 1933, the Pastors' Emergency League came into being . At the free Protestant church convention in the Kurmark , which took place in May 1934, he opened the afternoon session as head of the Berlin Pastors' Emergency League with a lecture on the subject of “One year of church struggle”. In 1935 Jacobi played a key role in entrusting Dietrich Bonhoeffer with setting up a seminary for the Confessing Church.

Jacobi, who was a member of the Reich Brotherhood Council, chairman of the Brandenburg and Berlin Brotherhood Council and from 1933 to 1939 the President of the Confessing Church in Berlin, experienced multiple reprisals and arrests. Relatives of the German Christians brought disciplinary measures and impeachment proceedings against him, whereby Jacobi was additionally endangered because of his Jewish ancestors: the father of his mother was Jewish in the National Socialist understanding, so that Jacobi as "non-Aryan" and in the parlance of the Nuremberg Laws as a " Jewish mixed race second Degree ”was true. He was called a pastor for Jews and was attacked by Nazi thugs at night in 1934. After he disregarded a ban on resignation as a pastor, he was indicted in an express court together with other men of the Confessing Church on June 2, 1937, but thanks to the defense by his representative, lawyer Hans Koch , after the one-day hearing - as was the defendant Hermann Ehlers - acquitted.

From 1939 to 1940 Jacobi had to take part in the attack on Poland and the subsequent occupation of the country , but returned to the parish office for health reasons. In 1945 he became superintendent of the church district Berlin-Charlottenburg and from January 1, 1946 general superintendent of Berlin (West). Here he devoted himself particularly to refugee pastoral care and church reconstruction. From 1949 to 1951 and from 1967 to 1971 he was chairman of the board of trustees of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church Foundation in Berlin.

On March 3, 1954, the Oldenburg Regional Synod elected him Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oldenburg to succeed Wilhelm Stählin . He held this office until 1967. During his term of office, the Lower Saxony State Treaty was drawn up with the five Lower Saxony regional churches of Braunschweig , Hanover , Northwest Germany , Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe , as well as the establishment of the Evangelical Academy Oldenburg and the initiative for the community days in the Oldenburg Weser-Ems-Halle.

In October 1958, he turned down the candidacy to succeed Federal President Theodor Heuss on the grounds that he “wanted to remain a man of the Church”. In 1966 he was one of the initiators of the regular ecumenical consultations between the Oldenburg regional church and the Catholic Episcopal Office of Vechta . In 1967 Jacobi finally retired and handed over the office of bishop to his successor, Hans-Heinrich Harms .

Gerhard Jacobi had been married to Annemarie Freiin von der Recke von der Horst since 1920 and had two children.

He received an honorary theological doctorate from Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis ( Evangelical Synod of North America ) in 1936 and from Heidelberg University in 1951 . He was also awarded the Wichern Medal, the Great Federal Cross of Merit (1954) and the Great Cross of Merit with Star (1956).

Works (selection)

  • The doctrine of the Church in the Lutheran Confessions and the Church in Berlin-Brandenburg , Berlin [o. J.]
  • Youth care, youth movement - and what now? Sermon and lecture of the Halle Youth Week 1922 , Halle, 1922
  • What are psychopaths and how can you help them? , Halle, 1922
  • Judicial assistance for adults , Halle, 1925
  • The kingdom of God in contradiction to Christianity today , Kassel, 1928
  • Diary of a city pastor. Letters to a friend , Berlin, 1929 (published anonymously)
  • Keep us, Lord, by your word! Evangelical devotions for every day , Berlin 1932
  • My brothers in office. Pastoral care for pastors , Essen [1940]
  • The religious situation and the church , Berlin 1946
  • Boredom, leisure and humor and their pastoral-theological significance , Berlin, 1952
  • The Christian and his fatherland , Stuttgart, 1956
  • with Adolf Arndt , Friedrich Heer , Joseph Rovan and Ernst Wolf : Christian faith and political decision. A series of lectures by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Sozialdemokratischer Akademiker München , Munich 1957.
  • Trust! , Oldenburg, 1961
  • Faith obliges. Sermons , Oldenburg, 1966
  • Our Father Sermons , Stuttgart, 1968

As editor

  • Otto Dibelius . Life and work in the Evangelical Church in Germany , Berlin 1960.

literature

Web links

Commons : Gerhard Jacobi  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Invitation from May 2nd, 1934 to the free Protestant church conference in the Kurmark on Friday, May 11th, 1934" printed in Oranienburg
  2. ↑ Oehme, Werner: Märtyrer der Evangelischen Christenheit 1933-1945 , Berlin, 1979, p. 242; DNB 850776171
predecessor Office successor
Otto Dibelius
( for all of Berlin )		 General superintendent for Berlin I (i.e. West)
1946 - 1954 		Immanuel Pack
personal data
SURNAME Jacobi, Gerhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jacobi, Gerhard Justus Eduard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Lutheran theologian
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH July 12, 1971
Place of death Oldenburg