Herbert Preisker

Herbert Preisker (born July 23, 1888 in Deutsch-Rasselwitz , † December 24, 1952 in Halle (Saale) ) was a German theologian and university professor .

Live and act

Preisker attended the elementary school in Deutsch-Rasselwitz and the grammar school in Leobschütz / OS . From 1908 to 1912 he studied Protestant theology in Halle (Saale) , Berlin and Breslau . He then took up his parish vicariate in Dittmannsdorf Kr. Waldenburg. He was in the subject New Testament doctorate . In 1914 he passed his second theological examination in Breslau . In September 1914 he was in Breslau ordained . In 1915 he acquired the title of licentiate in theology with his thesis on "The Ethics of the Gospels and the Jewish Apocalyptic " .

In 1915 he took over the second parish in Tarnowitz / OS ( Gleiwitz parish ). In 1919 he took over a pastorate in Breslau. In 1924 he completed his habilitation with a thesis on " Marriage in Early Christianity " in the New Testament subject. In addition, he took on a teaching position as a private lecturer at the Wroclaw Faculty of Theology. In 1929 he became professor of religious studies at the Pedagogical Academy in Breslau. There he was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1930 .

In 1932 he temporarily went to the Pedagogical Academy in Halle (Saale) . Although he was appointed adjunct professor for the New Testament at the University of Breslau in 1934, he went to the University of Teacher Training in Frankfurt (Oder) until 1935. In the summer semester of 1935, he became a "German Christian" who was anti-Nazi and anti-Jewish Theology consultant Eugen Mattiat in the Reich Ministry of Science pressed into the Göttingen faculty. At the university he received the chair of the New Testament. In April 1936 he was appointed full professor for the New Testament and general history of religion and dean of the Ev. Theological faculty in Wroclaw. In June 1936, the Swedish theologian Anton Fridrichsen suggested that the Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum in Halle should be further processed, which was positively received by Preisker. In 1937 his application for membership in the NSDAP failed because theologians had been considered "undesirable" since 1937.

In 1939 he declared his collaboration with the Institute for Research and Elimination of the Jewish Influence on German Church Life . In September of the same year he was appointed theological consistorial councilor in the Breslau consistory due to his German-Christian attitude . During the Second World War , Preisker also worked as a Wehrmacht chaplain and parish priest at the Wehrkreiskommando Breslau VIII.

After the end of the war, he was used by the Polish administrative offices to clean up and reorganize the holdings of the humanities seminars at the University of Wroclaw. In October 1945 he left Breslau in a hurry, making his way to Jena via Halle (Saale) . In January 1946 he asked the German public education administration in the Soviet zone of occupation to be employed as a full professor in Thuringia . In the winter of 1945/46 he became a lecturer in the Jena Faculty of Philosophy for general religious studies. In 1947 he received his certificate of appointment as full professor for New Testament theology and general history of religion at the theological faculty of the Jena Friedrich Schiller University . From 1950 to 1952 he worked there as dean.

From September 1952 he was appointed professor and chair holder for the New Testament and Hellenistic - Roman religious history at the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg . But after a short time he died after a serious illness. In January 1953, a commemorative event took place in the auditorium of the University of Halle, at which Gerhard Delling gave the commemorative speech, who had also worked with him in Grundmann's Entjudungsinstitut .

Services

Preisker has not only worked in his subject of the New Testament, but has also addressed current questions and issues relating to church history . His collaboration in the theological dictionary on the New Testament published by Gerhard Kittel should be emphasized . The merit of his work lies in the fact that he also goes against the opinion of well-known theologians such as B. Adolf von Harnack worked out the determining influence of the Jewish tradition on the early Christian ethics. He also showed that "first Christianity (has) made a contribution to the history of the concept of marriage , which means progress and which may make the claim to outstanding individuality". He came to the conclusion that Christianity did not develop its own conception of marriage, but rather combined the views from late Judaism and the Hellenistic-Roman realm and thus changed ethical perception.

Preisker was interested in cultural history throughout his life . A notable chapter of his activity is the publications during the Nazi era ; since 1933 he belonged to the "Faith Movement German Christians" in Silesia . Preisker was a supporter of the völkisch- nationalist worldview. He published in Werner Petersmann 's theological and religious pedagogical series Construction in Positive Christianity . His approval of the National Socialist state is shown in the text The Unity of the New Testament Message as the Basis of the Evangelical Preaching in the Present (1936). At the Eisenach "Institute for Research and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life" (founded in 1939) Preisker worked in a managerial position, so u. a. on the “People's Testament”, in which all “ Jewish-Christian influences” were erased.

Not only Preisker's publications were influenced by the National Socialist worldview. In his actions, Preisker also actively followed the idea of ​​the racially determined inferiority and hostility of Judaism. Preisker gave in to pressure from other professors and students and, as dean, pushed pastor Ulrich Altmann (ordained in 1913) out of the theological examination office. Altmann's grandmother was considered by the theology professor Preisker, despite being baptized as a Protestant, as a Jew according to the National Socialist definition, and Altmann was therefore considered a "second degree Jewish hybrid" . The theological faculty members cannot be expected to test with non-Aryans.

Works

• The Ethics of the Gospels and Jewish Apocalyptic. (Partial print of the Breslau theological dissertation), Breslau 1915
• Christianity and Marriage in the First Three Centuries. A study of the cultural history of the ancient world. Theological habilitation thesis, Berlin 1927
• The early Christian message of God's love in the light of comparative religious history, Giessen 1930
• Spirit and life. The Telos ethos of early Christianity, Gütersloh 1933
• German Christianity. The New Testament Gospels in the old German Heliand, Langensalza 1934
• The unity of the New Testament message as the basis of the evangelical preaching in the present, Gnadenfrei 1936
• The ethos of work in the New Testament, Gnadenfrei 1936
• Contemporary New Testament history, Berlin 1937
• Goethe as his contemporaries see him, Berlin 1942
• Martin Dibelius in memory, in: FF 24, 1948, 15 f.
• The ethos of early Christianity. 2nd, improved and enlarged edition of: Geist und Leben. The Telos ethos of early Christianity (1933), Gütersloh 1949
• Hans Windisch, The Catholic Letters. Third, heavily revised edition by Herbert Preisker (HNT vol. 15), Tübingen 1951

literature

• Gerhard Delling : Herbert Preisker in memoriam . In: Theologische Literaturzeitung 78/1953, Col. 181
• Gerhard Delling: Telos - Dynamis - Agape. On Herbert Preisker's work on the New Testament . In: Scientific journal of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg II (1952/53), 513-518
• Dietrich Meyer : The fate of the Breslau and Königsberg Protestant theology professors after the end of the war . In: Contributions to East German Church History. Episode 1, Düsseldorf 1996, pp. 88-112
• Ulrich Hutter-Wolandt: Early Christian Ethics and New Testament Contemporary History. Life and work of the New Testament scholar Herbert Preisker . In: Yearbook for Silesian Church History 82/2003, pp. 55–104
• Ulrich Hutter-Wolandt: Between Science and Adaptation. The Wroclaw Evangelical Theological Faculty under its dean Herbert Preisker from 1936–1945 . In: Yearbook for Silesian Church History 83/2004
• Ulrich Hutter-Wolandt:  PREISKER, Herbert William Karl. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 24, Bautz, Nordhausen 2005, ISBN 3-88309-247-9 , Sp. 1174-1183.
• Ulrich Hutter-Wolandt: Balancing act between science and adaptation. The Breslau Ev. Theological faculty under its dean Herbert Preisker from 1936 to 1945 . In: Roland Deines , Volker Leppin , Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr (ed.): Walter Grundmann. A New Testament scholar in the Third Reich . Leipzig 2007, pp. 275-317

Web links

• Literature by and about Herbert Preisker in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Helmut Heiber, Universität unterm Hakenkreuz, Vol. 2, 1994, p. 362f.
2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from August 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
3. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 472.
4. ↑ Hans Prolingheuer, We went astray, Cologne 1987
5. ^ Ulrich Hutter-Wolandt:  PREISKER, Herbert William Karl. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 24, Bautz, Nordhausen 2005, ISBN 3-88309-247-9 , Sp. 1174-1183.
6. ^ Dietrich Meyer : The Protestant theological faculty in Breslau in the years from 1933-1935 . In: Peter Maser (Hrsg.): The church struggle in the German East and in the German-speaking churches of Eastern Europe . Göttingen 1992, 98-135