Heino Falcke

This article deals with the theologian, for the astronomer see Heino Falcke (astronomer)

Heino Falcke (2010)

Heino Falcke (born May 12, 1929 in Riesenburg , West Prussia ) is a Protestant theologian , since 1994 provost retired. He was one of the important thinkers and admonishers of the Protestant churches in the GDR .

Life and political initiatives

After studying Protestant theology in Berlin, Göttingen and Basel (there also for some time as a student assistant to Karl Barth ), he received his doctorate in 1958 and his habilitation in 1961 at the theological faculty of the University of Rostock . From 1963 to 1973 Falcke was director of the Gnadau seminary of the Evangelical Church of the Union . From 1973 to 1994 he was provost of the Erfurt Provost Parish of the Evangelical Church of the Church Province of Saxony . From 1974 to 1987 he was chairman of the Committee for Church and Society of the Federation of Evangelical Churches in the GDR , and since 1975 a member of the committee of the same name at the World Council of Churches in Geneva . On the VI. In 1983 WCC assembly in Vancouver , he proposed the preparation of a peace council . In 1988/89 he was deputy chairman of the Ecumenical Assembly for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation in the GDR .

The topics on which he primarily worked were Christian existence in the socialist state, securing peace and preserving the environment.

In January 1997 he was one of the first to sign the “Erfurt Declaration”, which called for a change of politics and government in Germany under the motto “Stand up for a different policy”. The initiative campaigned for the coalition of CDU and FDP under Chancellor Helmut Kohl to be voted out and replaced by an alliance of the SPD, the Greens and the PDS.

Falcke was also the first to sign on October 31, 2008 (alongside Frank Crüsemann , Ulrich Duchrow , Christian Felber , Kuno Füssel , Detlef Hensche , Siegfried Katterle, Arne Manzeschke, Silke Niemeyer, Franz Segbers , Ton Veerkamp and Karl Georg Zinn ) with the appeal for peace with the capital? An appeal against the adjustment of the Evangelical Church to the power of the economy in appearance.

The lecture "Christ liberates - therefore church for others" from 1972

Falcke's main lecture "Christ liberates - therefore church for others" caused a stir at the Synod of the Evangelical Churches in the GDR (BEK) from June 30 to July 4, 1972 in Dresden. The speech represented a contradiction against any state appropriation and a plea for political freedom and social maturity. Falcke spoke of the "hope of an improved socialism" and cited three areas in which the church has a political share in the responsibility for improving socialism: First is The GDR is an industrial state that produces bondage, which the Church must help overcome. Second, the ideology and socialist practice in the GDR would have to be examined to see whether they made freedom of the individual possible. And thirdly, the freedom of the individual and the maturity of the citizen should be demanded and practiced in the church.

The SED tried with all its might to prevent the lecture. Falcke's lecture also met with rejection from numerous representatives of the GDR churches, and due to additional state pressure, the lecture was not adopted as an official synodal paper. In a polemical campaign, the speech was then defamed in the state and Christian press in the GDR, while the SED was committed to combating its spread. Nevertheless, or precisely because of the way in which the SED proceeded against the publication, the freedom speech was also widespread in the GDR, and older church leaders such as former Bishop Johannes Jänicke and the former bishop Günter Jacob agreed with Falcke. Through his lecture, Falcke became a prominent critic of the SED regime, which the Stasi in the OV “Milan” monitored him as “hostile-negative” .

Honors

He received an honorary doctorate from

• 1984: Evangelical theological faculty at the University of Bern .
• 2012: Philosophical Faculty of the University of Siegen .

In 2018, Falcke was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class.

Fonts (selection)

• Keep up with God. Speeches and essays by a theologian in the GDR from twenty years , Wichern-Verlag Berlin
• Where is the freedom? Being a Christian in times of transition , Kreuz-Verlag, Freiburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7831-3408-7 .
• Meddling. Essays, speeches and lectures from 40 years , edited by Veronika Albrecht-Birkner a . Heinz-Günther Stobbe, Evangelical Publishing House, Leipzig 2014.

literature

• Erhard Eppler : Heino Falcke - an uncomfortable theologian , in: zeitzeichen. Evangelical Commentaries on Religion and Society , Vol. 10 (5/2009), pp. 20–22.
• Ehrhart Neubert : History of the opposition in the GDR 1949–1989 . Federal Agency for Civic Education, Series Volume 346, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-89331-294-3 .
• Ehrhart Neubert: Better Socialism . In: History of the Opposition in the GDR 1949–1989 , Berlin 1998 (2), pp. 248–257.
• Ehrhart Neubert:  Falcke, Heino . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Heino Falcke in the catalog of the German National Library
• MDR Figaro "Christ set free"
• Kulturradio from rbb "United and yet not one. Protestants in East and West"

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Erfurt declaration. In: glasnost.de. January 9, 1997, accessed August 5, 2014 . 
2. ↑ after Ulrich Duchrow, Franz Segbers: Peace with Capital? (PDF) In: humane-wirtschaft.de. Retrieved August 11, 2014 . 
3. ↑ Christ liberated - therefore church for others , main lecture at the Synod of the Evangelical Churches in the GDR in Dresden on June 30, 1972 (PDF; 193 kB)
4. ^ Theologian Heino Falcke honored with the Federal Cross of Merit. MDR Thuringia, May 9, 2018, accessed on November 14, 2018 .