Hans Thimme

Hans Thimme (born June 6, 1909 in Fallersleben , † April 1, 2006 in Münster ) was a German Protestant theologian . As President he was the spiritual director of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia in Bielefeld .

Live and act

Hans Thimme was born as the son of the pastor and later professor Wilhelm Thimme and Guste Capelle and attended grammar school in Soest , where he passed his Abitur at Easter 1927. He then studied theology at the universities of Munich , Berlin , Marburg and Münster (Westphalia) . In Münster he completed the first theological exam at Easter 1932 and the second theological exam at Easter 1934, where he obtained a licentiate in theology on March 1, 1933 .

Following the teaching vicariate in Derne , he went to the theological seminary in Princeton ( USA ) for a year .

Hans Thimme became assistant preacher in Rödgen on August 7, 1933 and presidential vicar in Oeynhausen on May 1, 1934 . His ordination to the ministerial office took place on October 21, 1934.

After five years as a parish priest in Spenge , Thimme had to do military service until 1945. As Ephorus of the seminary in Brackwede near Bielefeld (later Soest ), he resumed service in the church in 1947, and in 1949 he also became a part-time member of the church leadership of the Westphalian regional church. In 1957 he took up the post of senior church council in the state church office in Bielefeld and was theological vice-president there three years later.

In 1969 he was elected President of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia, succeeding Ernst Wilm , and thus became the leading clergyman of this regional church. He held this office until his retirement on June 30, 1977 and then handed it over to Heinrich Reiss .

Hans Thimme's theological thinking and church engagement was shaped by the time of the church struggle during the time of National Socialism . “I became a theologian in the church struggle,” he said later. As a companion of Karl Koch he took part in the Barmer Confessing Synod in 1934 . As President, he was particularly committed to a missionary church that takes its public relations mandate and its global responsibility seriously.

Thimme had been married to Gertrud Ruhfus, the daughter of a publisher's bookseller in Dortmund, since November 15, 1935.

Other offices

In 1955, Thimme assumed the chairmanship of the Missionary Services Working Group , which he held after his retirement. From 1954 to 1968 he headed a work area for the cooperation of men and women in church, family and society at the World Council of Churches , then its commission for interchurch aid, refugee and world service. In 1972 he became council chairman of the Evangelical Church of the Union (area west). From 1973 to 1979 he was a member of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and was temporarily chairman of the EKD Chamber for Church Development Service. As a retired man in 1977 he took over the chairmanship of the community organization of Protestant journalism .

He also belonged to the group of speakers for the ARD program Das Wort zum Sonntag .

Honors

The Evangelical Theological Faculty of the University of Münster awarded Hans Thimme an honorary doctorate on May 5, 1962. In 1977 he received the Great Federal Cross of Merit with a Star.

Fonts

• Christ's significance for Luther's faith, based on the Roman, Hebrew and Galatian commentaries from 1531 and the disputations , Bertelsheim, Gütersloh 1933, DNB 57667432X , (Dissertation, XI, 167 pages, 8).
• The Importance of Justification for Evangelical Instruction , 1957.
• Christian message and ministry in the world changed , 1957.
• Serving the Church. Sermons, lectures, articles , 1977.
• President D. Koch and the beginnings of the Confessing Church in Bad Oeynhausen . In: Contributions to the history of the church in the 19th and 20th centuries - Awakening Movement and Church Struggle (Contributions to local history of the cities of Löhne and Bad Oeynhausen, issue 12), Löhne 1987, pp. 104–122.
• The Westphalian brotherhood of auxiliary preachers and vicars in the church struggle 1933–1945 . In: Yearbook for Westphalian Church History 85 (1991), pp. 287–346.

literature

• Friedrich Wilhelm Bauks: The Protestant Pastors in Westphalia from the Reformation Period to 1945 (= Contributions to the Westphalian Church History, Volume 4), Bielefeld 1980
• Bernd Hey, Ingrun Osterfinke: "Three coachmen on one box". The holders of the church leadership positions in Protestant Westphalia (1815-1996) . Bielefeld 1996, with trombone, choir and baton: Wilhelm Ehmann (1904-1989) and the church music (= writings of the regional church archive of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia, regional church archive of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia Bielefeld , volume 5, Ingrun Osterfinke, Kerstin Stockhecke) , Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, 1999, ISBN 3-89534-302-1 .
• Hans Thimme , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 11/1976 of March 1, 1976, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Web links

• Hans Thimme in the Internet portal Westphalian history

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See speakers since 1954 .

predecessor	Office	successor
Ernst Wilm	President of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia 1969–1977	Heinrich Reiss