Heinrich Matthias Sengelmann

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Heinrich Matthias Sengelmann, lithograph by Otto Speckter 1858
Hamburg-Moorfleet, Moorfleeter Kirchweg, Moorfleet cemetery. Grave of Heinrich Matthias Sengelmann

Heinrich Matthias Sengelmann (born May 25, 1821 in Hamburg ; † February 3, 1899 ) was a German Evangelical Lutheran pastor and founder of the Alsterdorfer Anstalten .

Life

Sengelmann was the only child of a cattle dealer and innkeeper who immigrated from Holstein in 1810 . After graduating in 1840, he studied theology at the University of Leipzig , but also heard oriental studies from Julius Fürst (1805–1873) and anthropology from the psychiatrist Johann Christian August Heinroth (1773–1843). Above all, however, he became friends with Friedrich August Gottreu Tholuck (1799–1877), who advised him to pursue an academic career in Old Testament theology. In 1843 Sengelmann received his doctorate with a thesis entitled: "The book of the seven wise masters, translated for the first time from Hebrew and Greek and provided with preliminary literary notes".

Back in Hamburg, Sengelmann worked as a tutor and preacher during his three-year candidate period and organized the first Hamburg youth association . On July 10, 1846, he took up his first pastorate in Moorfleet in the marshland between the Elbe and Bille . In December 1852 he was appointed deacon at St. Michaelis, the largest congregation in Hamburg at the time. He was released in October 1866 at his own request, also because he was now heavily committed to the "Alsterdorfer Anstalten" he had founded.

Sengelmann had already set up a work school in the pastorate in 1850 during his time in Moorfleet. He took in boys who could not go to school because they had to help their parents in the house and garden. In the pastorate they received lessons in the mornings and returned to their parents in the evenings. As more and more children asked for admission, a house of their own was purchased for them and “St. Nicolaistift "called. In 1860 Sengelmann bought a property with a house, barn and land in Alsterdorf, which the boys and girls custody facility moved into. From 1863 onwards, so-called “idiots” were also included, for whom a new building was built. Sengelmann then devoted himself to administrative and organizational tasks as an unpaid director, published a monthly magazine, “Der Bote aus dem Alsterthal”, and collected money on lecture tours. The institutions were continuously expanded. A girls' home was built in 1869 and expanded in 1874, a boarding school for poorly gifted children of higher classes in 1869, and a children's home for physically suffering children two years later.

Sengelmann became the most important lobbyist for church welfare for the mentally handicapped in the second half of the 19th century, which distinguished itself from the educational and medical directions. In 1874 he founded the interest group "Conference for Idioten-Heil-Pflege", the forerunner of today's Federal Association of Protestant Disability Aid , and headed it for twenty years. He promoted his cause on many trips at home and abroad. He laid down his principles on the treatment of "idiots" in the three-volume work "Idiotophilus" (1888), the first comprehensive work on "Idiotenfürsorge" in German.

Sengelmann was a member of the Hamburg Parliament from December 1874 to June 1875 . He was the first pastor to join parliament.

On the night of January 27, 1899, Sengelmann suffered a stroke, from the consequences of which he died on February 3. He was buried in the family grave site in Hamburg-Moorfleet , which has since been looked after by the Alsterdorf institutions.
At the time of his death, more than 600 mentally, physically and mentally handicapped children and adults and 140 employees were living in the institutions. According to him, which is Sengelmannstraße in Hamburg's Alsterdorf and the Heinrich Sengelmann hospital in Bargfeld-Stegen named.

Works

  • The book of the seven wise masters. Hall 1842.
  • Two sermons, held on Palm Sunday in the auditorium and on the first holy Easter holiday in St. Catharine's Church ...: With a foreword about the Hamburg Youth Association. Hamburg 1844.
  • Vespers bell. Fifty liturgies for evening services. Leipzig 1855.
  • Dr. Joseph Wolff. A wandering life. Hamburg 1863.
  • Evangelical memories. Hamburg 1864.
  • The Alsterdorfer Anstalten. A picture of life. Frankfurt am Main 1871.
  • Idiotophilus. 3 vols., North 1885.
  • The work on the foolish and foolish. Gotha 1891.
  • The institutions for idiots and epileptics in Germany and German-speaking Switzerland . North 1898.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Horst Schulz: The parish Moorfleet . In Lichtwark No. 34, December 1971. Ed. Lichtwark Committee, Bergedorf. (See now: Verlag HB-Werbung, Hamburg-Bergedorf. ISSN  1862-3549 )
  2. ^ Karl Hilscher: History of the care for the feeble-minded, the education system for the feeble-minded and the auxiliary school. Vienna 1930, p. 47
  3. ↑ Image of Pastor Sengelmann's grave at kirche moorfleet.de

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Matthias Sengelmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Sengelmann, Heinrich Matthias
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sengelmann, Heinrich; Sengelmann, Heinrich M .; Sengelmann, Heinrich M .; Sengelmann, HM; Sengelmann, H.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pastor, founder of the Alsterdorfer Anstalten
DATE OF BIRTH May 25, 1821
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH February 3, 1899