Heinrich Weidemann (theologian)

Heinrich (Heinz) Franz Friedrich August Weidemann (born March 1, 1895 in Hanover , † March 8, 1976 in Munich ) was a German theologian, secretary and regional bishop of the Bremen Evangelical Church .

biography

After graduating from high school, Heinrich Weidemann began studying theology in 1914, interrupted by military service. In Göttingen he received his doctorate in 1921 as Lic. Theol. and in 1925 Dr. phil. From 1922 to 1923 he was pastor coll. And from the end of 1923 inspector of the theological monastery in Göttingen. After serving as a parish in Bremke from 1925 to 1926, Weidemann was pastor at the Petridom in Bremen from April 11, 1926 until his suspension .

Weidemann joined the NSDAP in 1933 . During the time of National Socialism there were considerable disputes in the Bremen Evangelical Church.

In collaboration with the National Socialist Otto Heider , Senator and Mayor of Bremen, Heinrich Weidemann took over the leadership of the Bremen Evangelical Church as Gauleiter of the German Christians . The most important employee of Weidemann was the pastor, publicist and speaker Karl Refer (born 1883), who did not join the NSDAP but became a member of the German Christians and gave an anti-Jewish lecture at the 2nd Bremen church conference in 1936.

After the Reich Church Law came into force, Heinrich Weidemann was appointed secretary of the Bremen Evangelical Church . After the church assembly was dissolved, he was appointed regional bishop by the Reich Bishop in Bremen Cathedral in 1934 . Through this office he was appointed to the Bremen State Council.

Due to the arbitrary conduct of Weidemann's office, aimed at personal validity, considerable resistance arose against his person and even the Reich Church Minister Kerrl criticized him.

In the fall of 1935, Weidemann separated from the German Christians and founded his own movement, the Coming Church, and as the publisher of the magazine of the same name. There he disseminated his ideas of a “de-Jewified”, “nationalist” church.

Weidemann was briefly excluded as a member of the NSDAP in 1938 when he tried to name two churches in Bremen after Reich President Hindenburg and SA leader Horst Wessel .

In 1941 he was temporarily dismissed from his service due to several criminal proceedings, including fraud, coercion of officials and the prevention of church services, and he retired on January 25, 1944. In July / August he was psychiatrically assessed at the Charité with the result of a severe psychopathic disorder. In 1943 he was expelled from the NSDAP.

He was arrested in January 1944 and sentenced in October 1944 to two and a half years in prison and four years of loss of honor for perjury , incitement to perjury and attempted coercion . After Weidemann was divorced guilty, he had forced a secretary to perjure as part of his retrial. With effect from April 24, 1944, his clerical rights were revoked.

After the Second World War, Weidemann was classified as the main culprit in absentia by the Bremen court of justice and sentenced to four years in a labor camp. He had already moved to the Eastern Zone in 1945 and worked as SED mayor in Thuringia .

Heinrich Weidemann had a son and two daughters from his first marriage.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2003, p. 661.
2. ↑ Evening Post November 29, 1949: Ex-Bishop of Bremen now SED Mayor.

literature

• Herbert Schwarzwälder : Heinz Weidemann: trials and tribulations of a "brown regional bishop". In: Famous Bremer. List, Munich 1972, ISBN 3-471-78718-6 , pp. 245ff.
• Bremen pastors book. Volume 2. Hauschild, Bremen 1996, ISBN 3-929902-96-6 , p. 179.
• Reijo E. Heinonen: Adaptation and Identity. Theology and church politics of the Bremen German Christians 1933–1945. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1978, ISBN 3-525-55704-3 .
• Karl-Heinrich Melzer: The Spiritual Trust Council. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1991, ISBN 3-525-55717-5 .
• Theodor Spitta, Ursula Büttner, Angelika Voss-Louis: A new beginning on ruins: The diaries of Bremen's Mayor Theodor Spitta. Oldenbourg, 1992, ISBN 3-486-55938-9 .
• Hans-Walter Krumwiede: Church history of Lower Saxony. Volume 2. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1995.