Helmut Hesse (pastor)

Helmut Hesse (born May 11, 1916 in Bremen ; † November 24, 1943 in Dachau concentration camp ) was a German Protestant pastor . He was an opponent and was a victim of National Socialism .

Life

Helmut Hesse grew up in a pietistic family. Through the father Hermann Albert Hesse , pastor by profession, discussions arose in the family early on about the situation of the Confessing Church (BK) in the church struggle with the German Christians and in the Nazi state . This contributed to the fact that Hesse, like his three brothers, decided to take up his father's profession. In autumn 1935 he began studying Protestant theology. He passed his first exam in the spring of 1940 before the examination board of the Rhenish Confessing Church. After the vicariate he registered for the second exam in September 1941. A conflict arose because after the arrest of the Berlin Examination Commission of the Confessing Church, the one in the Rhineland had also stopped its work and referred its candidates to foreign regional churches. However, Helmut Hesse was only prepared to take his exam before the Confessing Church.

He wrote: “The Confessing Church must turn around before this wrong path and no longer allow its actions to be determined by human calculations of the danger, but by faith in God's Word.” Hesse shared this opinion with others. More than 700 young theologians refused to view the consistories as church leaders. The largest group of over 240 theologians came from the Rhine Province. The idea came from Berlin to collect these in a church working group in order to protect and advise them. For this purpose Pastor D. Hesse was won over, one of the few older BK pastors who wanted to hold on to “Barmen” and “Dahlem” equally .

D. Hesse was unable to attend the opening conference in January 1943 because the Gestapo forbade him to travel to Berlin. For this, Helmut read the lecture of his father, head of the seminary in Wuppertal - Elberfeld , in which all topics were listed on which there were differences. Hans Asmussen warned of the opposition “young brothers”: There would be a “permanent revolution” if one presumed to claim an “emergency right” against the superiors.

After lengthy and fruitless arguments with the Rhineland examination commission, Helmut Hesse finally asked the presbytery of the BK in Elberfeld to visit and ordain him . That happened; six days later the Rhenish Confessing Church removed him from the list of candidates on April 17, 1943. Helmut Hesse was excluded. In doing so, he was de facto surrendered to the Gestapo and at the same time deleted from the church's memory.

Hesse often preached on texts from the Old Testament . He compared the fate of the people of Israel to the Church. In a final address in a service held together with his father before his arrest, he declared: “As Christians we can no longer bear the fact that the church in Germany is silent about the persecution of the Jews ... Israel-directed attack to bring themselves to safety. Rather, she must testify that with Israel she and her Lord Jesus Christ himself are being fought. ... The church has to testify to the salvation-historical significance of Israel in relation to the state and to offer resistance [against] every attempt to destroy Judaism. " Parts of this address come from the Easter message of laypeople from Munich .

Arrest and concentration camp

Two days later, on June 8, 1943, Helmut Hesse and his father were arrested. Helmut Hesse was accused of having read out the names of those arrested during the service - including those of Martin Niemöller and Heinrich Grüber - he had also prayed for a reversal of anti-Christian powers, had fanatically advocated the Jews and was a "political agitator".

Helmut Hesse suffered from kidney failure , but he was refused hospitalization and medication. After five months of solitary confinement, in which he was emaciated to a skeleton, father and son were transferred to the Dachau concentration camp on November 13th . Helmut Hesse died there eleven days later on November 24, 1943 as the youngest victim of the Nazi regime among Protestant pastors.

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personal data
SURNAME	Hesse, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German Protestant pastor
DATE OF BIRTH	May 11, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bremen
DATE OF DEATH	November 24, 1943
Place of death	Dachau concentration camp