Hermann Bahlburg

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Hermann Bahlburg (born July 21, 1892 in Jesteburg , † February 19, 1962 in Buchholz ) was a Protestant missionary of the Hermannsburg Mission , a Low German philologist and writer .

Life

Hermann Bahlburg grew up in Jesteburg, Harburg district. He learned the blacksmith's trade and then received theological training in the mission seminar in Hermannsburg (district of Celle, Lower Saxony), which was interrupted by his participation in the First World War. He completed his studies in 1921 and became a missionary at the Hermannsburg missionary institution founded by Ludwig Harms in 1849 . Bahlburg initially worked as a people's missionary in the “home mission” that he founded for the Hermannsburg Mission, together with other graduates of the mission seminar in Northern Germany. The use of Low German was an important “component of his service”, which was primarily aimed at the rural population in northern Germany; he “activated and renewed a badly neglected legacy of L. Harms. After the First World War, this led to a second awakening as part of the home mission , which (s) leads to the longed-for Gallamission ”(H. Kröger).

In 1927 he went with a group of missionaries to Ethiopia in order to set up a missionary work in the Galla area, actually Oromo , in the west of the country , based on a "base or headquarters" (J. Launhardt) in the capital Addis Ababa . Ludwig Harms had sent missionaries in 1853 and 1857 with the task of proselytizing the Oromo. But they did not reach their goal. When the Hermannsburg Mission finally lost its mission field in India in 1926 (ultimately an effect of the First World War and the defeat of the German Empire), Bahlburg suggested that the idea of ​​the Oromo mission be taken up again. In the same year he was entrusted with the management of the company and reached the capital of Ethiopia with three other missionaries.

When they arrived in Addis Ababa, the missionaries managed to obtain domestic passports and later also to lease a plot of land in Aira, District Ghimbi, today province of Oromia, approx. 500 km west of the capital, where missionary Dietrich Waßmann and others started their first domestic Set up the mission station. Bahlburg stayed in the capital because only from here could the work in the country be supported. In Addis Ababa he founded a German ev.-luth. Church congregation whose successor is today's German-language Evangelical Congregation in Ethiopia (Kreuzkirche Addis Ababa). Ecumenical cooperation with Ethiopian Orthodox Christians and orphan care was also started there. The latter is continued by today's state-owned Ketchene Children's Home.

Since the Italo-Ethiopian War (1935–1936) and during the subsequent occupation of large parts of Ethiopia as a colony with the claim to be the Impero Africa Orientale Italiana (AOI), the missionaries in the capital Addis Ababa were only able to work to a limited extent and inland temporarily do not work at all - mostly because of the German foreign exchange export restrictions and the war and rule there.

During the Second World War in 1941, after the occupation of Ethiopia by British troops and liberation by Ethiopian patriots, thousands of Italians and the group of Germans (around 65) were interned. The men were brought to what was then still British East Africa (Kenya, Uganda) and held there in internment camps , sometimes until 1948, while the families were "repatriated" to Germany in 1943 (repatriation campaign led by the International Committee of the Red Cross ICRC ). The latter happened in exchange with members of the German war opponents who were encountered in the German sphere of influence during the war. In the seven years of internment as a civil prisoner of the British colonial power in East Africa, Bahlburg built on his experiences in the home mission, namely that he had been able to reach the rural population in his mother tongue, Low German, in the preaching. He began with extensive studies of the Low German language and was active as a writer and as a pastor for the German-speaking group.

Not until 1948 was he able to return to Germany and work for the mission again for a short time. He resigned from the mission because of an "authority conflict" initiated by the management of the Hermannsburg Mission Institute at the time, which led to a ban on preaching for him without prior proceedings. From 1950 Bahlburg lived in Handeloh , Harburg district, as a Low German linguist and writer.

Hermann Bahlburg was posthumously "fully rehabilitated" in 2007 by the mission committee of the Evangelical Lutheran Missionswerk ELM in Lower Saxony (successor to the Hermannsburg missionary institution). On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane-Yesus EECMY in January 2009, his family was awarded a medal for Bahlburg's missionary service in general and for the "special commitment to the rescue of Ethiopians" after the assassination attempt on the Italian viceroy Rodolfo Graziani , executed by two Eritreans on February 19, 1937. In 2018 this rescue of up to 200 people was also recognized by the 'Ethiopian Association of Patriots' EAP by awarding the youngest son honorary membership in its place.

Bahlburg's merit is the “commitment of an entire generation to the missionary idea” of people in Germany in the 1920s through the home mission he initiated and supported by the Hermannsburg Missionary Agency. He consequently accepted the assignment to go to Ethiopia as the leader of a group in order to begin with an “external” missionary work. From this later, albeit not until after the war, what is called 'German Hermannsburg Mission' GHM will grow. The revival, especially from Aira - even when the missionaries were gone during the war - together with evangelical missionary work from other European countries and from North America, as one of the roots of a new evangelical church overseas, the Mekane-Yesus-Church with 2018 9.3 million members are viewed.

After the war in Germany - in memory of 'his' home mission in the 1920s - Bahlburg returned in his predominant literature ( Pladdüüdsch Häimaodbladd / Norddüüdsche Häimaod ) to preach his faith in Low German. However, his attempt to develop a script that was bound to the sound of Low German and its immanent sound rules met with no response. Instead of the spelling in Low German, which has always been borrowed from High German since Johannes Bugenhagen (1485–1558) and Fritz Reuter (1810–1874) - and which is still mostly left to the respective scribe according to local dialect - he wanted to offer a proper spelling. As it turns out today, this seems to be crucial for the survival of a regional language . For the post-war decades, Heinrich Kröger's words still applied: Hermann Bahlburg “remained an individual for the long term”.

Works

  • Departure home to Gallaland. Beginnings of the Hermannsburg Gallamission , no year (self-published by the author. Hermannsburg 1949).
  • Pladdüüdscher Spraokwieser in Haidjer-Pladd, Plattdeutscher Sprachweiser in Haidjer-Platt . Self-published by the author. Hermannsburg 1949.
  • From January 1951 to May 1955 publication of the monthly published Pladdüüdsch Häimaodbladd (Plattdeutsches Heimatblatt) with continuation from June 1956 to November 1961 as Norddüüdsche Häimaod (North German homeland). Self-published by the editor and author. Handeloh, Harburg district.

literature

  • Gustav Arén: Envoys of the Gospel in Ethiopia - In the Steps of the Evangelical Pioneers 1898-1936 (= Studia Missionalia Uppsalie, ISSN  0585-5373 , Vol. 32). Evangeliska Fosterlands-Stiftelsen (EFS), Uppsala 1999, ISBN 91-526-2655-5 .
  • Cord Heinrich Bahlburg: Missionary Hermann Bahlburg (1892–1962) - a home attendant from Jesteburg - life picture in: Lüllau Thelstorf Wiedenhof, Eine Dorfgeschichte. Editorial management: Hans-H. Wolfes. Heidenau 2009, p. 329.
  • Ernst Bauerochse: The work in Ethiopia . In: Ernst-August Lüdemann (ed.): Vision community worldwide. 150 years of the Hermannsburg Mission and Evangelical Lutheran. Missionary work in Lower Saxony . Hermannsburg 2000, ISBN 3-87546-120-7 , pp. 585-683.
  • Ernst Bauerochse: Your destination was Oromoland. The beginnings of the Hermannsburg Mission in Ethiopia . Münster 2006, ISBN 3-8258-9567-X .
  • Georg Gremels / ELM (ed.): The way of a healing memory. Hermann Bahlburg 1892–1962. Between missionary service and the prohibition of preaching . Hermannsburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-937301-50-1 .
  • Heinrich Kröger: Plattdüütsch in de Kark in three centuries , Vol. 2, Hermannsburg 2001, ISBN 3-87546-153-3 , pp. 211-213.
  • Johannes Launhardt: Evangelicals in Addis Ababa (1919–1991) . Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-7791-4 .
  • Ernst-August Lüdemann: Ludwig Harms - and the further awakening . Contribution No. 6 in: Regardless of the person: What remains and what is past with Pastor Louis Harms; Sermons, essays, presentations on Louis Harms . Ed .: Rainer Allmann, Hartwig F. Harms, Jobst Reller. Hermannsburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-937301-64-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ H. Kröger, 2002, p. 213.
  2. ↑ J. Launhardt 2004, p. 90.
  3. ↑ E. Bauerochse 2000, pp. 585f.
  4. ↑ Evangelical German language community in Ethiopia. Retrieved May 3, 2020 .
  5. ↑ G. Gremels 2008, p. 62.
  6. ↑ CH Bahlburg 2009, p. 329.
  7. ↑ H. Bahlburg 1949: Plattdeutscher Sprachweiser.
  8. ↑ Overview of the status of language maintenance in Low German: https://www.uni-muenster.de/Germanistik/cfn/Plattinfos/Sprachpflege.html ; on the question of survival cf. also https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventions/rms/090000168007c089
  9. ↑ H. Kröger, 2002, p. 213.
personal data
SURNAME Bahlburg, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Protestant missionary of the Hermannsburg Mission
DATE OF BIRTH July 21, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Jesteburg
DATE OF DEATH 19th February 1962
Place of death Buchholz in the north heath