Hermann Albert Hesse

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Hermann Albert Hesse (born April 22, 1877 in Weener , † July 26, 1957 in Velbert ) was a German pastor and Evangelical Reformed theologian .

Live and act

Hesse studied Protestant theology in Erlangen, Berlin, Greifswald and Tübingen and was awarded a Lic. Theol in 1901 with Adolf Schlatter . PhD. In 1902 he was in Meiderich ordained and moved in 1909 to the St. Pauli Church in Bremen . Since 1916 pastor in Elberfeld , in 1929 he took over the management of the Reformed Preachers' Seminary there . In the spring of 1933, as a member of a tripartite committee (with the Hanoverian regional bishop August Marahrens and Hermann Kapler , President of the Evangelical Upper Church Council of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union and the Church Committee of the German Evangelical Church Federation ) , Hesse drafted a new constitution. This was intended to anticipate the interventions of the National Socialist German Christians , but it met their wishes for an imperial church led by an imperial bishop. The committee of three proposed Pastor Friedrich Bodelschwingh for the office of Reich Bishop, but he could not prevail.

From 1918 onwards, Hesse was the editor of the Reformed Church newspaper and in 1921 he became the moderator of the Reformed League . From 1934 to 1946 he was the moderator of the Reformed League. From 1934 he took on leading positions in the Confessing Church and became a member of the Reich Brotherhood Council and, after 1945, the Brother Council of the EKD . In 1937 he was one of those who signed the declaration of the 96 Protestant church leaders against Alfred Rosenberg because of his writing Protestant Rome Pilgrims . On June 8, 1943, he and his son Helmut Hesse were arrested and transferred to the Dachau concentration camp on November 13, where his son died.

During the time of his five-month imprisonment in Dachau, Pastor Hesse was retired by the church leadership, combined with "best wishes for a blessed old age". After the end of the war, the dismissal was recognized as unlawful, but a reinstatement in a pastor - Hesse was 68 years old at the end of the war - did not take place.

After his release, Hesse initially returned to his hometown. Later he moved to Velbert. His grave is in the cemetery of the Dutch Reformed community in Wuppertal-Elberfeld .

Hesse was awarded an honorary theological doctorate by the University of Bonn in 1925 .

Works

  • Christianity free of dogmas or spiritual validity of the Bible? , Elberfeld 1922.
  • Divine and human concerns. Reflections on our father , Elberfeld 1923.
  • Why do we adhere to the Heidelberg Catechism? , Elberfeld 1925.
  • Sermon on Galatians 3: 25-27 , Barmen mark 1937.
  • The Jewish question in the proclamation today (series of publications of the Confessing Church, 3) , Stuttgart 1948.

literature

  • Hermann-Peter Eberlein (Ed.): Album ministrorum of the Reformed Community of Elberfeld. Preachers and pastors since 1552, Bonn 2003 (SVRKG 163), pp. 190f.
  • Hermann-Peter Eberlein: Hermann Albert Hesse. In: Thomas Martin Schneider , Joachim Conrad , Stefan Flesch (Eds.): Between Confession and Ideology. 100 life pictures of Rhenish Protestantism in the 20th century. Leipzig 2018, pp. 62–65.
  • Karl Halaski : Hesse, Hermann Albert. In: RGG , 3rd ed., Vol. 3, col. 290.
  • Theodor Langenbruch: Hermann Albert Hesse. Reformed theologian and leading man of the Confessing Church. In: Wuppertaler Biographien, 17. Wuppertal 1993, pp. 84-103.
  • Ulrike Schrader : Confession and betrayal . Meeting place Old Synagogue , Wuppertal 2009 ISBN 978-3-940199-04-1 .
  • Hans-Georg Ulrichs : Hermann Albert Hesse (1934-1946): denominational and militant In: Hans-Georg Ulrichs (Hrsg.): The moderator. Thanks for Peter Bukowski. Foedus, Wuppertal 2015, pp. 44–50.
  • Herwart Vorländer: Church fight in Elberfeld 1933–1945. A critical contribution to research into the church struggle in Germany. V&R , Göttingen 1968, passim.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b c Ulrike Schrader: Confession and betrayal . Meeting place Old Synagoge, Wuppertal 2009 ISBN 978-3-940199-04-1 , p. 13.
  2. ↑ Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze (Ed.): Ecumenical Yearbook 1936–1937 . Max Niehans, Zurich 1939, pp. 240–247.
personal data
SURNAME Hesse, Hermann Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German reformed theologian
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Weener
DATE OF DEATH July 26, 1957
Place of death Velbert