Hermann Klemm

Hermann Klemm (born June 5, 1904 in Zwickau , † June 10, 1983 in Meißen ) was a German theologian and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Hermann Klemm was born on June 5, 1904, the oldest of eight children in Zwickau, where the parents owned a bakery. After attending community school and high school, he studied theology and philosophy at the universities of Leipzig and Tübingen until 1927. Until 1929 he worked as a teacher at the Mission Seminar in Leipzig . On May 20, 1929, the Saxon communities Burkhardswalde and Weesenstein were transferred to him. In the same year he married Hanna Heck; they had four children together.

On March 1, 1933, he received the academic degree of Doctor of Theology from the University of Tübingen . In the same year he joined the Pastors' Emergency League and the Confessing Church of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Church of Saxony. He rejected National Socialism since his high school days. Klemm, who was under surveillance by the Gestapo , became a member of the State Brotherhood of the Confessing Church in 1935 .

When the Confessing Church distanced itself from the " German Christians " in a pulpit denunciation of March 31, 1935 , Klemm combined the denunciation in the church in Burkhardswalde with the intercession for the pastors imprisoned in the concentration camp. As a result, Klemm was arrested with about 20 other pastors for “not following state orders”. From April 20 to June 4, 1935 he was a prisoner in the Sachsenburg concentration camp .

Through the intervention of friends, including church officials from England, the pastors were released. However, one day after his release, Klemm was banned from any further office by the superintendent Pirna, which had been brought into line. Three days later the district leadership of the NSDAP Pirna reaffirmed this ban. Thereupon the German-Christian regional church office in Dresden also ordered the dismissal from office with a 40 percent loss of salary due to violation of official duties on July 30, 1935 in formal criminal proceedings. Nonetheless, Klemm continued to invite people to Bible studies, Sunday sermons, classes and discussions.

On November 10, 1937 and March 3, 1938, the local group leader of the NSDAP in Burkhardswalde was appointed financial representative for Burkhardswalde and Weesenstein, and the church councils' powers over church funds were withdrawn because the community, under the leadership of Pastor Klemm, rebelled against the German Christian system would have. When the Nazis appeared in the Burkhardswald church with their flag, most of the visitors left the building spontaneously and the service was continued - as often later - outdoors in the parsonage, to which the pastor's wife later invited people out on the street.

In November 1939, Klemm was reported to the Reich Propaganda Ministry by the NSDAP's propaganda director for a public complaint against the war-related cancellation of the traditional autumn day of penance . As a result, the German-Christian church leadership opened a new official criminal proceedings that should be concluded after the end of the war. He was sent to war in February 1940 to 1945 in order to take away his activities in the state brotherhood council, community and Ephorie Pirna.

After being wounded in May 1945, he took over the administration of the pastoral office at the " Eleven Thousand Virgins Church " in Breslau / Silesia until August 19 . After a dramatic walk, he got to the rectory to the family and parish in Burkhardswalde. Shortly thereafter, he was temporarily appointed superintendent of the Pirna church district from November 1945 to February 1947 , until Superintendent Franke took office.

On February 27, 1951, the church government appointed him to Meißen as superintendent . At the age of 69, he retired on April 1, 1973.

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With the book "The Path of an Evangelist", Klemm set a monument to the Swiss theologian and missionary Elias Schrenk . Due to his experiences from the church struggle 1933-1945, he worked on the book "Fighters Against Will" (memories of the regional bishop of Saxony Dr. Hugo Hahn ). His work "In the service of the Confessing Church - The life of the Saxon pastor Karl Fischer 1896-1941" was published posthumously.

Fonts (selection)

• Elias Schrenk, The Way of an Evangelist , TVG, R. Brockhaus Verlag Wuppertal, 1961.
• In the service of the Confessing Church, The life of the Saxon pastor Karl Fischer 1896-1941 , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlag Göttingen, 1986.
• Reluctant fighters. Memories from the church struggle 1933-1945 , arr. and ed. v. Georg Prater, 1969.
• with Paul Liebe: Meissen, the cathedral and its history , Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1969.