Jürgen Wolter (Pastor)

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Jürgen Rudolph Paul Wolter (born March 14, 1938 in Erfurt ; † November 26, 2013 in Eisenach ) was a German Protestant theologian , rector of the Evangelical Lutheran Deaconess House Eisenach and chairman of the Eastern Conference of German Deaconess Houses Kaiserwerther Coinage . His book “Do n't you know the wonderful Rhön yet?” And the “ Kaltensundheim Youth Choir ” ensured greater public awareness of the border region in the south-west of the GDR in the 1970s .

Family origin

Jürgen Wolter was the son of the goldsmith and engraver Bruno Wolter (1902–1978) and his wife Magdalena, b. Fandrey (1910–1989), descendant of the musician Kurt Kremer. His father grew up as the youngest of ten siblings, some of them much older, in Stralsund , where the parents who were active in the Catholic-Apostolic congregation ran a skinning business. After Bruno Wolter had completed an apprenticeship in the Stralsund goldsmith's shop in Stabenow, the technically and artistically gifted man worked part-time for the Coburger Tageblatt during his traveling years in the mid- twenties and acted as an eloquent and well-spoken youth leader for the Coburg local group of the German National Handyman Association .

Around 1930 Bruno Wolter settled in Erfurt and there married one of the four daughters of the city treasurer Paul Fandrey (1885–1977) - a Catholic-Apostolic Prussian official who, as a result of the First World War, followed in 1920 with his family von Graudenz ( Grudziądz, West Prussia ) Erfurt had moved. Two children emerged from her marriage to Magdalena Wolter, who was trained at the Chriester company and was actually intended for international business in Spain . Jürgen Wolter had sister Anita, who was five years older than him.

childhood and education

Wolter got his second and third first name after his grandfather and uncle on his mother's side. Jürgen Wolter's childhood was shaped by the Second World War and the alienation from his father as a result of his war deployment in Berlin , for which he, who was deaf from birth, had reported for a clerk's office. From 1950 the family lived in an apartment with a goldsmith's workshop at Arnstädtstraße 5, which the parents ran together.

School education and studies were shaped by the turmoil of the Cold War and the increasingly negative attitude of the state towards the churches: Jürgen Wolter was enrolled in the high school "Zur Himmelspforte" (since 1951 Heinrich-Mann-Oberschule) , from which he started in 1953 due to his Membership in the Junge Gemeinde was temporarily expelled. The Abitur at a state institution was excluded, which is why he left his parents' home early to attend the church proseminar in Dahme from 1954 . In 1956 he switched to the church college in Hermannswerder , where he passed the church high school diploma in 1959. These years shaped Wolter with regard to his humanistic and musical education. After he had been inspired by church music in Dahme Volker Ochs , Ekkehard Tietze, who had been appointed church musician to the Friedenskirche in 1957 , shaped him in Potsdam . In 1959 Wolter began studying theology at the Berlin-Zehlendorf University of Applied Sciences . His companions included the pastor and later Minister of Culture of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Oswald Wutzke , the pastor Friedemann Steiger and the pastor at the Berlin Zionskirche, Hans Simon. Due to the construction of the Wall in 1961, Wolter continued his studies at the Sprachenkonvikt in East Berlin and two years later he passed the exam at the University of Jena . Wolter decided not to turn his back on the GDR.

Church service

At the age of 25, Wolter started a shortened vicariate in Kaltensundheim ( Rhön ) in 1963 due to the shortage of pastors , which he took over as a pastor. On December 6, 1964, he was ordained in the Georgenkirche in Eisenach . His pastoral work included up to three other places in the border area of ​​the Thuringian Rhön. Versatile, he redeveloped the interior of the fortified church in a considerable amount of his own work in consultation with the monument authorities , which he restored to its original simplicity. Then he rebuilt the rectory from the 18th century and designed and implemented the small community center that still exists today in place of the parish barn. Almost all interior fittings designed, built and painted in-house as a result of the shortage economy fell victim to the renovation after 1990.

At the end of the 1960s he founded the “Kaltensundheim Youth Choir”, with whom he undertook several concert tours through the GDR, which made the choir and the Thuringian Rhön better known. The future mezzo-soprano Annette Markert is a personality of the choir .

In 1973, in collaboration with August Leimbach, the book “Don't you know the glorious Rhön yet?” Was published; the second edition was printed in 1976 and the third edition in 1981. In 1976 Wolter was appointed pastor of the superintendent in Dermbach . On the day of his 40th birthday Wolter had to hold a Bible study on John 3, 1-16 at the invitation of the Deaconess House Eisenach, on the basis of which he was appointed as Rector of the Deaconess House Foundation.

From 1979 to 1991 Wolter was rector of the Diakonissenhaus Eisenach. It was introduced on January 14, 1979 by Regional Bishop Werner Leich . The results include a number of structural changes that have been painstakingly put in place, including the long-planned hospital bed elevator at the deaconess hospital, as well as the regulation of old-age provision for the deaconesses . In nursing, he placed particular emphasis on turning to people and as a prerequisite for this he campaigned for the community of employees in the Christian spirit.

From 1984 to 1990 he was chairman of the Eastern Conference of German Deaconess Houses of the Kaiserswerther Association , where he also represented the deaconess houses of the GDR on trips to the Federal Republic , Switzerland and Finland . A highlight of the time as rector was the visit to the deaconess house by the designated Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker and Hildegard Hamm-Brücher during the Luther year 1983 . Because of his deep faith, his humorous nature and storytelling, Wolter was valued, but he was also considered dogmatic. In his work as rector, he tried "not to put the function of 'operations manager' in the foreground, but above all to be a conversation partner and pastor for the staff and sisterhood."

Illness in the political turning point

The increasing economic instability of the GDR led Wolter to the acid test in the double function of manager and pastor . In addition, there were acts of sabotage in the ranks of employees , some of which were controlled by the state . He had given many people a chance who, for example, because of their application to leave the Federal Republic of Germany were disregarded or who no longer found any prospects. The mass exodus that began in the summer of 1989 ultimately had a significant impact on the operation of the deaconess hospital.

In December 1989, three days before Christmas, a cerebral haemorrhage stopped his activity. He was admitted to the district hospital for psychiatry and neurology in Mühlhausen , where he was not operated on for three weeks due to the emergency in the health system - the chief doctor and other employees had also fled in this 1000-bed establishment. He was in January 1990 with an army helicopter through personal initiatives NVA into the Jena University Clinic relocated where saved his chief physician Besel life. The short-term memory remained permanently damaged. In 1991 he resigned from the church service at the age of 53 , meanwhile appointed to the church council. On April 14, 1991, a festival service was held in the Nikolaikirche :

“Many greetings were received in writing from diaconal institutions. The participation of the former President of the German Diakonisches Werk , Theodor Schober , Stuttgart , as well as the former or current rectors of Minden, Hanover, Halle, Kassel, Dresden, Eisenberg, Weimar and other institutions in the greeting hour was also a great honor. "

The circumstances that led to his illness and subsequent non-treatment have not yet been fully clarified. As a tenor, Wolter was active in various choirs for many years, including the Bachchor Eisenach . In 2008 dementia was diagnosed and he died as a result. He was buried on December 6, 2013, the 49th anniversary of his ordination. Jürgen Wolter is buried next to one of his predecessors Hermann Scriba in the sister cemetery in Eisenach.

family

In July 1963 Jürgen Wolter married the nurse Brigitte BEGICH, granddaughter of the theologian Karl BEGICH . Her ancestors include the founder of the "Luther Church" in Chester (Illinois) HC Siegmund Buttermann (1819–1849) and the composer Hermann Pätzold . Jürgen Wolter met Brigitte Greich in 1960 during a stay in the preacher's seminary in Eisenach in the hall of the deaconess house, where she studied as a student and where both of them later returned. The marriage produced four children, including the historian and author Stefan Wolter (* 1967).

Fonts

  • Jürgen Wolter: Don't you know the wonderful Rhön yet? , Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin, 1st edition 1973.
  • Ders: German Democratic Republic , in: Presidium of the Kaiserswerther General Conference (ed.): Report from the 34th session of the Kaiserswerth General Conference from May 30, 1989 to June 4, 1989 in Magdeburg / GDR, 1989 pp. 99-102.
  • That. (Ed.): Jubilee sheets of the Ev.-luth. Deaconess Mother House for Thuringia , Eisenach 1990.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the official gazette of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany the wrong date of death 16 November is printed. Official Journal of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany , 6th year, January 15, 2014, p. 20.
  2. ↑ His father, Eduard Wolter (1852-1931) came from the East Prussian forest colony of Kleinelxnopönen ( Labiau district ) ( Polessk ) near the Curonian Spit , from where he first moved to Gützkow and from there in 1899 to Greifswald . Second wife he married the milliner Pauline Grugel with which he in 1904 after Stralsund moved into Frankenstraße. The CDU politician Harry Wolter (Dresden) was a cousin of Jügen Wolter.
  3. ↑ Between 1926 and 1928 Bruno Wolter published a series of nationalistic contributions on home and work life. See for example “Without diligence - no price”. For the Reichswerbewoche of the Bund der Kaufmannsjugend in the DHV from September 28th to October 8th 1926 ( Coburger Tageblatt ).
  4. ↑ Cf. Stefan Wolter: Erfurt Leben in der Blumenstadt, Erfurt 2000.
  5. ↑ Ibid., P. 95 f. with illustration.
  6. ↑ Ibid., P. 56 (Interview with Jürgen Wolter.)
  7. ^ Memorial concert for Ekkehard Tietze Potsdamer Latest News June 12, 2014 (Klaus Büstrin).
  8. ^ Oratorio Choir Potsdam City
  9. ↑ Stefan Wolter, Asche auf Haupt !, 2012, p. 148. Hans Simon was married to the cousin of Jürgen Wolter's future wife Brigitte geb. Speak . Simon's brother-in-law Pastor Henning Hintzsche was also a fellow student of Wolter.
  10. ↑ Thüringer Pfarrerbuch, Vol. 10 , pp. 45 and 118.
  11. ↑ To this he testified in a letter to the chamber singer Peter Schreier : “In the last few years we have undertaken a bigger tour every year: to Eisenach, Erfurt, the Harz, Thuringian Forest, Potsdam and Brandenburg. We sing old masters and phrases to new songs. According to the judgment of the cantors who heard us, we not only sing with enthusiasm, but also quite well. Since I am going to another task of the church, we want to give a final concert here. Since a young lady is now studying singing at the University of Music, we also have some instrumentalists from the University here. ”Letter to Peter Schreier on April 27, 1978.
  12. ↑ Annette Markert
  13. ↑ Another singer influenced by the choir is the founder of the "Jacobs Singers" (Weimar) deacon Dirk Marschall. Cf. "The Jacob Singers are more than a choir. Weimar's oldest gospel choir celebrates its 20th anniversary this weekend at its summer concert in the Jakobskirche." ( Thüringer Allgemeine , July 14, 2017)
  14. ^ Letter dated February 23, 1978.
  15. ↑ Cf. Glaube und Heimat , January 21, 1979. This also mentions the youth choir, which met again before it was dissolved.
  16. ↑ Stefan Wolter, The Christian Hospital and His Legal Predecessors, 20006, p. 280 ff.
  17. ^ Gerhard Hasse: The Deaconess Hospital in Eisenach. Basics of its development from the perspective of medical progress, in: Reinhold Brunner (ed.): Eisenach-Jahrbuch 1992, Marburg 1992. pp. 54–61.
  18. ↑ Thüringer Tageblatt , April 21, 1991.
  19. ↑ The 50th birthday in March 1988 was celebrated with dignity "with all the experts from the hospital and the motherhouse, the council of the district, etc. (...) At 7 o'clock a choir sang in our stairwell. At 7.30 am there was prayer in the motherhouse (…) From 9 am it was possible to congratulate. The (motherhouse) kitchen has set up a wonderful buffet. (...) At 7.30 p.m. there was another hour of reflection in the motherhouse. There was music and a speech motet to Elijah. ”Self-testimony, quote. According to Stefan Wolter: Alone behind the horizon. The "Prince of Prora", 2005, p. 329.
  20. ↑ Between July and December 1989, 19 employees, including four sisters and two student nurses, left the house. See the sister's letter of the deaconess mother house of January 15, 1990 (Superior Brigitte Baller).
  21. ↑ Stefan Wolter, The Christian Hospital and Its Legal Predecessors, 2006, p. 311 f.
  22. ↑ Stefan Wolter, The Prince and the Proradies, 2009, p. 96 f.
  23. ↑ Evangelical Lutheran Diakonissenhaus Foundation (ed.): 125 Years of the Deaconess Mother House , 2016, p. 25.
  24. ↑ Chronicle of the Ecumenical Hainich Clinic, p. 135.
  25. ↑ Stefan Wolter, Der Prinz und das Proradies, 2009, p. 364, letter of January 4, 1990.
  26. ↑ Thüringer Tageblatt , April 17, 1991.
  27. ↑ Stefan Wolter: Confident and undaunted, in: Hallo Eisenach , March 17, 2014.

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personal data
SURNAME Wolter, Jürgen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wolter, Jürgen Rudolf Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian and pastor
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Erfurt
DATE OF DEATH November 26, 2013
Place of death Eisenach