Ina Gschlössl

Ina Gschlössl (* December 13, 1898 as Nikolaine Maria Elisabeth Gschlössl in Cologne ; † January 20, 1989 in Neusäß ) was a Protestant theologian and champion for the admission of women to the Protestant pastoral office.

Life

Gschlössl initially studied to be a teacher in history and religion. However, since she wanted to become a pastor, although the Protestant pastoral office was still reserved for men, she was one of the first women to study theology. From May 1924 she studied at the Philipps University in Marburg with Heinrich Hermelink , Rudolf Bultmann and Paul Tillich, among others . Ina Gschlössl was the initiator and co-founder of the Association of Protestant Theologians in 1925, which still exists today as the Convention of Protestant Theologians in the Federal Republic of Germany . However, since this association did not defend the rights of women emphatically enough after a while, she founded the Association of Protestant Theologians in Cologne with six other theologians - including Annemarie Rübens , Aenne Schümer (married Traub) and Elisabeth von Aschoff (married Bizer) who later became known as the “Four Cologne Vicars”. The association fought to open up the parish ministry to women and that men and women should have equal rights in the Evangelical Church. Literally, the association demanded the full "man-equal parish for women", that is, with all tasks and competencies, from the sermon to the baptism, the wedding ceremony to the funeral.

Gschlössl passed her faculty examination on February 21, 1907 in Marburg. From 1927, the “Vicar Women Act” of the Old Prussian Union allowed women to become vicars . However, women were expressly excluded from the functions of the male pastoral office, such as church services, the administration of the sacraments and other official acts to be performed by the pastor. In the magazine Die Christian Welt , Ina Gschlössl and Annemarie Rübens criticized this law as “backward, inorganic and illogical”: “Working under such conditions is a daily misery and torture and in the long run it has to kill even the greatest professional joy and willingness to work! On closer inspection, nothing remains of the 'office of vicar', which the church authorities believe to have determined, but occasional representation and constant detailed work and assistant work under the direction of the responsible theologian. "

In 1927 Gschlössl began her vicariate in Cologne with Georg Fritze . However, under pressure from church leaders, she had to break off her teaching vicariate and was transferred to the vocational school in November 1927. On September 30th she was released by the National Socialists. The reason given by the mayor of Cologne, Günter Riesen , was that the teacher Gschlössl had on “31. July 1933 made unseemly remarks in a religious lesson about the Chancellor and other statesmen and talked about the Jewish question in a way that lacks any understanding of the national standpoint ”. The reason for the termination was also that Gschlössl had explicitly spoken out against the racial discrimination of the National Socialists in a publication from 1932. Because of the dismissal, Gschlössl was not allowed to take the second ecclesiastical exam that is required for the parish profession. It was not until January 1938 that Gschlössl, who was involved in the Confessing Church , found another job in the church as a welfare worker for the Inner Mission in the Cologne Synod. Here she was responsible, among other things, for guardianship, protective supervision and guardianship as well as the care of prisoners, including the death row inmates, in the Klingelpütz prison .

After the end of the Second World War , Gschlössl took over the management of religious education at vocational schools in Cologne. Ina Gschlössl died on January 20, 1989 in Neusäß near Augsburg. In 2005, at the request of the Evangelical Congregation Cologne, the path that leads from Schildergasse past the AntoniterCity pavilion past the Antoniterkirche Cologne to Antoniterstraße was renamed “Ina-Gschlössl-Weg”.

literature

• Ina Gschlössl: [untitled]. In: Leopold Klotz (ed.): Church and the third empire. Questions and demands of German theologians , Vol. II. Gotha 1932, SS 55–61.
• Ilse Härter: She did not shy away from political and church leaders. Ina Gschlössl turns 90 . In: Junge Kirche 49 (1988), pp. 606–609.
• Susi Hausammann / Nicole Kuropka / Heike Scherer: Women in Dark Times: Fate and Work of Women in the Church between 1933 and 1945 (= series of publications by the Association for Rhenish Church History, No. 118), Cologne 1996.
• Dagmar Henze: Ina Gschlössl. Portrait of a militant theologian of the first generation . In: Dorothee Sölle (ed.): Arguing for justice. Theology in everyday life in a threatened world . Gütersloh 1994, pp. 123-136.
• Dagmar Herbrecht: The courageous women of the church struggle in a Protestant male society . In: Manfred Gailus / Hartmut Lehmann (ed.): National Protestant Mentalities in Germany (1870-1970). Contours, lines of development and upheavals in a worldview. Göttingen 2005, pp. 343-360.
• "Therefore dare, sisters ..." On the history of Protestant theologians in Germany . Ed. From the women's research project on the history of the theologians in Göttingen. Neukirchen-Vluyn 1994.
• Günther van Norden / Klaus Schmidt (ed.): You swam against the current. Resistance and persecution of Rhenish Protestants in the Third Reich . Cologne (Greven Verlag) 2006.
• Leonore Siegele-Wenschkewitz / Carsten Nicolaisen (ed.): Theological faculties in National Socialism . (AKZG B 18). Göttingen 1993.
• Anselm Weyer: Ina Gschlössl. The dream of the parish office . Cologne 2010 ISBN 978-3-942186-02-5 .

Web links

• Maria Al-Mana: Before and after 1945: The situation of female pastors is not only bad in Cologne. Small study using the example of Ina Gschlössl . (PDF; 64 kB)
• Short biography and other documents on the website Resistance !? Evangelical Christians under National Socialism

Individual evidence

1. ↑ online at theologinnenkonvent.de