Hans Egon Petersen
Hans Egon Nicolai Petersen (born September 17, 1921 in Tingleff , † January 8, 1982 in Niebüll ) was an Evangelical Lutheran theologian. He was the first pastor of the Nordschleswigschen community , the free church of the German minority in Denmark , after the Second World War and provost of the provost of Südtondern / Schleswig-Holstein .
Life and work
Hans Egon Petersen grew up in Tønder . He came from a family that, as a professed Christian , held a leading position in the Friends of Breklum Mission . After attending the German Middle School in Tondern and graduating from the Danish Statsskole there, he studied theology and philosophy at the University of Copenhagen from 1940 to 1943 with the aim of becoming “Helsognspræst” in North Schleswig . H. To become pastor for both the Danish and the German part of the church. The occupation of Denmark by German troops on April 9, 1940 and the subsequent development opposed this professional goal. Petersen therefore decided after consultation with his mentor, Mission Director Martin Pörksen , Breklum , to continue his theology studies in Tübingen and Halle . There he joined the student community of the Confessing Church. Due to the war, he graduated from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in May 1944 with the theological emergency examination.
He then volunteered for service in the German Air Force , where he was taken as a paratrooper in November 1944 in the Battle of the Hürtgenwald in American captivity , from which he was released in autumn 1945. On his return to Denmark , he was sentenced to one year imprisonment (until April 1947) and to the loss of civil rights for five years for his participation in the war under retroactive laws.
Since the Danish side did not want to grant him an exit permit, it was not possible to continue his teaching vicariate in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Schleswig-Holstein . Nevertheless, on October 11, 1947, the North Schleswig community decided to appoint him as pastor of the Free Church. In Tingleff, instead of the second theological exam, he completed a colloquium on October 15, 1948 in the presence of the Bishop for Schleswig, Reinhard Wester, and was ordained two days later in a festive service by Bishop Wester in Bertelsen's inn and took up his post as the first post-war pastor of the North Schleswig family Community introduced. The festive church service as well as other church activities had to take place in the restaurant because the Danish national church of the North Schleswig community and the new pastor refused to use the local churches at the time. In 1949 this led to a famous cartoon in the satirical magazine "Æ Rummelpot" , which shows Petersen standing behind a bar in the inn performing a confirmation .
From 1948 to 1950, Hans Egon Petersen, who lived in Lügumkloster, was the sole pastor of the North Schleswig community and was responsible for supplying the entire rural area of North Schleswig. During this time he was responsible for the fundamental reconstruction of the church work of the Free Church as well as the work to normalize the relationship with the Danish national church. Petersen's appointment was not least due to the fact that the Schleswig-Holstein regional church wanted to set a clear sign of turning away from National Socialism by electing a representative of the Confessing Church . This clear distancing and the work of the new pastor ultimately led to an acceptance of the work of the North Schleswig community and its pastors. Likewise, after the experiences of the Nazi era, Bishop Wester insisted on a strict separation of church and politics and commissioned the new pastor to implement this emphatically in his work. Petersen stayed in the Lügumkloster until 1956. Then the parish was divided and he took over the newly established Buhrkall parish .
In 1960 the church leadership of the Schleswig-Holstein regional church appointed Hans Egon Petersen as provost of Südtondern and pastor in Leck / Schleswig . At that time, the South Tondern provost comprised 36 parishes. Petersen's tenure as provost was marked by the reconstruction and expansion of activities as well as the building of churches. He has therefore entered the annals of the Southern Tondern provost as a building provost. His particular interest was also the work of reconciliation between the villages of Putten / Netherlands and Ladelund where in 1944 by the arbitrariness of the Nazis in a concentration camp of Neuengamme concentration camp were brought 107 residents from putting their lives that as a collective retaliation for an attack by Resistance fighters had been deported to a Wehrmacht car. When the German Wehrmacht commander in chief of the Netherlands, General Friedrich Christiansen, who was responsible for the deportation order and the burning down of the village of Putten , was publicly honored in his hometown of Wyk auf Föhr in 1963 , Propst Petersen followed on October 2, 1964, the 20th anniversary of the Putten raid a conversation with the Schleswig-Holstein bishop Reinhard Wester and a representative of the Schleswig-Holstein state government together with the Ladelunder pastor, Harald Richter, in protest against this honor and the maintenance of the honorary citizenship of Christiansen to Putten, where the two were met by the mayor of Putten, Freiherr von Ufford , were received in public and together with this a wreath was laid at the memorial in memory of the victims. In 1972, Hans Egon Petersen retired as provost for health reasons and took over the German pastoral office of the Danish national church in Sønderborg until 1979 . The last station in his professional life was the sales agency in Aventoft / Südtondern, which he held until his death.
Günter Weitling wrote in his 2007 book: “German Church Life in North Schleswig since the 1920 Referendum” about Provost Hans Egon Petersen: “On the occasion of the death of HE Petersen, who was only 60 years old in 1982, the first pastor of the NG after the end of the war, who also Had been provost of the Schleswig-Holstein regional church in Leck and pastor of the Danish national church for the German part of the community in Sønderborg, there was talk of "pastors without borders" in northern Schleswig-Holstein . As such he was valued between Denmark and the German border region. As early as 1973 the Danish daily Sønderjyden had characterized HE Petersen in an interview as the “pastor in two cultures”, “who speaks fluent German and Danish without an accent, but is also influenced in other ways by the fact that he grew up and is in the border area Lived life. His nature, train of thought and his insight into problems show more of an international, modern train of thought than of a navel-looking antiquated minority mentality ”. Provost HE Petersen was the first pastor of this class after the Second World War ... "
literature
- Nekrolog , in: Deutscher Volkskalender für Nordschleswig 1983, Aabenraa
- Günter Weitling: German church life in North Schleswig since the referendum in 1920. Edited by the Bund Deutscher Nordschleswiger and archive / historical research center of the German ethnic group, Aabenraa 2007, ISBN 978-87-991948-0-3 .
- Ingrid Riese and Peter Jessen Sönnichsen: In the course of time - 75 years of the North Schleswig community , Tingleff 1998, ISBN 87-986795-0-3 .
- Harald Richter: We did the natural thing - a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp with us in Ladelund, graves in the cemetery and experiences for which we are grateful . in: Detlef Garbe (Ed.): The forgotten concentration camps? Memorials for the victims of Nazi terror in the Federal Republic . Lamuv, Bornheim-Merten 1983, pp. 121-143, ISBN 3-921521-84-X .
- Friedrich Jessen: Church in the border region , writings of the local history study group for North Schleswig, issue 27, Aabenraa 1973
- Uwe Pörksen, Breklehem, Husum Verlag, Husum 2016, ISBN 978-3-89876-847-4
- Jørn Tranekjær Andresen, Blod og Jord - Soldaterskæbner fra det dansk-tyske grænseland 1938-48, Turbine, Aarhus 2018, ISBN 978-87-406-2059-7
Web links
See also
- Sometimes we are afraid, say Renate's parents ... The child was born sick / "If no help comes" - report by the Hamburger Abendblatt about Hans Egon Petersen ( Memento from July 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
swell
- Archives of the North Schleswig community
- Archives of the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church
- German Folk Calendar North Schleswig
- Yearbook North Schleswig
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Petersen, Hans Egon |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Petersen, Hans Egon Nicolai |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German theologian, pastor and provost |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 17, 1921 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Tingleff |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 8, 1982 |
| Place of death | Niebüll |