Hermann Diem

Hermann Diem (born February 2, 1900 in Stuttgart , † February 27, 1975 in Tübingen ) was a Protestant pastor and theologian . He represented in the era of National Socialism as a student and friend of Karl Barth the radical wing of the Confessing Church , the so-called "Dahlemiten". After 1945 he campaigned for a continuation of this tradition and initiated the church-theological working group , which co-authored and published the Darmstadt Word in 1947 . Since 1950 he was one of the staunch opponents of German rearmament and nuclear weapons .

Life

Hermann Diem grew up in a family of craftsmen in Stuttgart. He had a younger brother, Harald Diem (* 1913), who also became a pastor in 1938 and died on November 28, 1941 on the Eastern Front .

An early formative experience for Diem was the Ruhrkampf of 1920, which he later reported on.

In his theological training he dealt particularly with Sören Kierkegaard , about whom he published a book as early as 1928 and whose works he later edited.

In 1934 he became a pastor and received his first pastor's position in Ebersbach an der Fils (Württemberg), which he held until 1956. In addition, he wrote theological articles in the wake of Karl Barth, first in the journal "Zwischen den Zeiten" on dialectical theology , later in the journal " Theologische Leben heute " founded by Barth . In June 1934 he took part in the founding synod of the Confessing Church (BK) in Wuppertal - Barmen and then consistently represented the Barmen Theological Declaration adopted there in the church struggle .

At the 2nd Synod of Confessions in Berlin-Dahlem, the establishment of a separate church leadership of the BK was decided and any cooperation with government agencies and church leaderships of the German Christians was strictly rejected. Diem aggressively represented these resolutions in the Württemberger Church-Theological Society founded for this purpose, of which he became chairman in 1936. He wrote theological reports, which, among other things, highlighted the consistency of the Barmer Declaration with the Lutheran Confessions in order to invalidate confessional Lutheran reservations. He also relativized the Lutheran doctrine of the two kingdoms and interpreted it in the sense of Barth's doctrine of the kingship of Jesus Christ over all areas of life.

The Württemberg regional bishop Theophil Wurm , who did not convene a confessional synod, advocated cooperation with the “church committees” under Church Minister Hanns Kerrl . To this end, he recommended the pastors and religious teachers in 1937 to take an “oath of loyalty” to Adolf Hitler . Diem vehemently opposed this and publicly preached against it. He also strictly rejected thanksgiving services recommended by the church leadership for Hitler's "successes" in foreign policy. In 1938, the church leadership prescribed the priests to take the Hitler oath: Diem then wrote a declaration of refusal, which 50 members of his society signed together and read out during their services.

Together with friends - including the firm members Kurt Müller , Richard Gölz , Paul Schempp and their wives - Diem hid threatened Jews. Reliable pastor families and parishioners formed a conspiratorial network, moved the Jews disguised as "bomb refugees" to new houses at least every two weeks, communicated with each other at police checks with encrypted messages, helped their protégés to obtain false passports, provided them with provisions and helped them in which Switzerland to escape.

In 1941, Diem requested Bishop Wurm in a personal letter to publish a joint, clear “word on the Jewish question ” on the 3rd Advent , which Wurm refused. Diem was also a member of the “Lemppschen Kreis”, named after the Munich-based publisher and bookseller Albert Lempp , who declared its meetings as “Bible lessons” in order to illegally listen to Swiss radio and the BBC , lectures and letters of protest from Karl Barth (who, after his forced release in 1934 Kirchenkampf actively accompanied by Switzerland) to reproduce and disseminate in Germany.

In March 1943, following such a meeting, Diem wrote the “ Munich lay letter ” for the upcoming Easter festival . It was a draft for a public church protest against the persecution of the Jews, in which it said:

As Christians we can no longer bear the fact that the Church in Germany is silent about the persecution of the Jews ...

What drives us is first of all the simple commandment to love one's neighbor , as Jesus interpreted it in the parable of the good Samaritan, expressly repudiation of any restriction to the fellow believer, race or national. Every “non-Aryan”, whether a Jew or a Christian, is “fallen under the murderer” in Germany today, and we are asked whether we treat him like the priest and Levite or like the Samaritan. No “Jewish question” can release us from this decision. Rather, the church ... has to testify that the Jewish question is primarily an evangelical and not a political question.

[The church] has to resist in particular that 'Christian' anti-Semitism in the community itself, which excuses the action of the non-Christian world against the Jews, or the passivity of the church in this matter with the 'deserved' curse on Israel and the warning the apostle forgets us Gentiles: 'Do not be proud, but fear. Has God not spared the natural branches that he may not spare you either '( Rom. 11.20f  EU ).

In relation to the state, the church has to testify to the salvation-historical significance of Israel and to resist every attempt to 'solve' the Jewish question for a self-made political gospel , i.e. to destroy Judaism , as an attempt to fight the God of the First Commandment.

In the name of God - not with political arguments ... - it has to warn the state against the fact that it is 'doing violence to strangers, widows and orphans' ( Jer 7,9  EU ), and to remind it of its task of a just Jurisprudence in an orderly and public legal process based on humane laws, ... of his legal protection for the oppressed, of the respect of certain 'basic rights' of his subjects and so on.

The church must confess that as the true Israel it is inextricably linked in guilt and promise to Judaism ... It must no longer try to bring itself to safety from the attack directed against Israel. Rather, she must testify that with Israel she and her Lord Jesus Christ himself are being fought.

This witness of the Church must take place publicly , be it in the sermon or in a special word of the episcopal pastoral and guardian office ...

Members of the Lempp circle brought this petition to Bishop Hans Meiser personally and read it to him. In the two-hour conversation, Meiser said after the shorthand of a messenger, Emil Höchstädter :

... he could not proceed directly. He regretted the terrible things that were happening in Poland and in the concentration camps . But if he did something officially, he would only be arrested and the Jews would not be helped, on the contrary, the persecution would then become even more severe. He, Meiser, is also responsible for a large regional church. If persecution broke out, misery and misfortune would strike thousands of families; Meiser also assured them that they, that is, the church leadership, were secretly doing a lot and had already helped a number of Jews, that they had hidden them or brought them to Switzerland or Sweden in some way .

Meiser then refused to sign the petition, which the authors wanted to distribute independently, and to forward it to the communities. He later justified this by claiming that the draft had been given to him anonymously. Meiser only passed the text on to Bishop Wurm; but even this one just put it aside. There is no trace of the text or the conversation in the Bavarian church archive.

Helmut Hesse , a graduate of the BK's illegal pastoral training, read parts of the petition publicly on June 6, 1943 at a confessional meeting called by his father Hermann Albert Hesse . As a result, father and son were arrested and interrogated for violating the “ Heimtückegesetz ”, whereby the Munich submission to the Gestapo became known. This then put Meiser under pressure to name the author. This referred to his confessional secret ; His pastoral care children wrote the scripture out of deep conscience. Helmut Hesse died in November 1943 in the Dachau concentration camp . Despite his opposition attitude known to the authorities, Diem was not arrested and survived the end of the war.

After 1945 he was one of the staunch opponents of the church restoration, which Bishop Wurm, now acting as "spokesman for the BK", helped to promote. In order to continue the BK traditions of Barmen and Dahlem in the post-war period, Diem founded a "Church Theological Working Group" (KTA) in Bad Boll in October 1946 with around 80 friends, including the Swiss Markus Barth and the French George Casalis Churches affiliated with the BK, pastors and university theologians from all over Germany joined. Diem held the chair together with Paul Schempp.

On August 7, 1947, Diem belonged to a group of seven theologians who finally revised the Darmstadt Word written by Karl Barth and Hans Joachim Iwand and signed it as a representative of the Brotherhood of the Evangelical Church in Germany . It became a milestone for the minority in German Protestantism who were engaged in peace politics and radical democracy , who represented a Reformation theology of the Word of God and, from the failure of Christians in the “Third Reich”, concluded an all-German democratic socialism as a political order in accordance with the Gospel.

From the beginning Diem was one of the uncompromising opponents of German rearmament in the West and East. He was the first West German representative to sign a declaration of the KTA published on January 30 and 31, 1950, on the maintenance of peace, which stated:

It is not in our power to choose war or peace . But everyone is asked whether they consider war to be a solution to the global conflict. Whatever the outcome, a war would not solve the controversial problems. Annihilation and sacrifice of unimaginable proportions will also rob the victor of any gain in a future war. But whoever expects this war to break out sooner or later is already working towards it.

Yesterday the solution to the vital question of our people was sought in a war. This is how it came to today's situation. We cannot go this way again tomorrow. That is why we ask the governments and members of our people, whether they are party-political, professional, trade union, church-bound or not: Do what is possible and required for Germans today to prevent war: Refuse any request or permission to rearm Germany from. Resists any open or secret preparation for it. Renounce all soldierhood today. Refuses military service in any form.

In the same year Diem received a teaching position for religious education and practical theology at the theological faculty of the University of Tübingen . In 1957 he became a full professor and member of the Chamber for Public Responsibility of the EKD. 1964/65 he was rector of the university. He remained a university professor until his death. His son Martin Diem (1939–2014) was a doctor of law and an administrative judge in Sigmaringen .

In February 1958 he was one of the 44 university professors who passed a call to the trade unions to organize a political strike against the nuclear armament of the Federal Republic.

Works

• Philosophy and Christianity with Sören Kierkegaard , Munich 1929
• To examine the 4th Barmer thesis in the Lutheran confessional writings (first 1936), in: Hermann Diem, Sine vi sed verbo , Munich 1965, TB vol. 25, pp. 73-89
• Soeren Kierkegaard. Spy in the service of God. S. Fischer, Frankfurt 1957
• How little did we help! In Heinrich Fink , ed .: Stronger than fear. The six million who couldn't find a savior. Union, Berlin 1968, pp. 132-140
• The socialist in Karl Barth. Controversy over a new attempt to understand him. In: Evangelical Commentaries 5, 1972, pp. 292–296
• Yes or no. Fifty years of theology in church and state. Kreuz Verlag, Stuttgart, 1st edition 1974, ISBN 3-7831-0429-7
• The battle against the Ruhr in 1920. Interpretations and perceptions by Martin Niemöller, Hermann Diem and Ernst Troeltsch. In: Kirche im Revier 1, 1997, pp. 4-14
• The same gospel
• The Church between Russia and America
• Dogmatics Volume 2: The Visibility of the Church. Your way between historicism and existentialism.
• Education through preaching.
• Church and denazification. Memorandum of the Church-Theological Working Group.
• Theology as Church Science.
• Restoration or a new beginning in the Evangelical Church?
• Theology in the church.
• Studies on the anthropology of the child.
• Why text sermon?

editor

• Sören Kierkegaard: The sickness to death. Fear and trembling. The repetition. The concept of fear. Complete edition of the works in four separate volumes. Published by Hermann Diem and Walter Rest. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3423133848 .
• Sören Kierkegaard: Practicing Christianity · Two short ethical-religious treatises · The book Adler or The Concept of the Chosen One. Edited by Hermann Diem and Walter Rest with the participation of Niels Thulstrup and the Copenhagen Kierkegaard Society, ISBN 3-423-13385-6 .

literature

• Renate Brandt: Hermann Diem (1900–1975) and Harald Diem (1913–1941) , in: Rainer Smiling and Jörg Thierfelder (eds.): We could not withdraw. Thirty portraits on the Church and National Socialism in Württemberg. Stuttgart 1998, pp. 481-504.
• Klaus Scholder (Ed.): Trust the Word. Commemorative speeches for Hermann Diem. Christian Kaiser, Munich 1976.
• Andreas Flitner (Ed.): German intellectual life and National Socialism. A series of lectures by the University of Tübingen. Epilogue Hermann Diem, Tübingen 1965.
• Martin Honecker, Lothar Steiger (eds.): On the way to scriptural proclamation. Hermann Diem on his 65th birthday. Christian Kaiser, Munich 1965. (Contributions to Protestant theology 39)

Web links

• Literature by and about Hermann Diem in the catalog of the German National Library
• Short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center

Single receipts

1. ↑ List of employees from "Between the Times"
2. ↑ Collaborator at "Theological Existence Today"
3. ↑ Marcus Zecha: Hermann Diem. Uncompromising champion for a living church. In: ders .: Courageous Christians in the Nazi state. Göppingen 2002, ISBN 3-933844-39-8 .
4. ↑ Document VEJ 11/15. In: Document VEJ 11/22 In: Lisa Hauff (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection), Volume 11: German Reich and Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, April 1943–1945 . Berlin / Boston 2020, ISBN 978-3-11-036499-6 , pp. 136-138.
5. ↑ Wolfgang Gerlach: When the witnesses were silent. Confessing Church and the Jews. 2nd edition 1993, p. 369 ff.
6. ^ Siegfried Hermle, Evangelical Church and Judaism - Stations after 1945, p. 278.
7. ↑ Anneliese Feurich, Ernst Woit : Christian commitment to peace and pacifism in the intellectual struggles of our time (Dresden Study Group Security Policy DSS 2001)
8. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ Reinhard Scheerer : Ex oriente pax. A history of the Christian Peace Conference (CFK) , Volume I, BoD Norderstedt 2019, p. 57