Jochen Klepper

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Memorial stone in Jochen-Klepper-Park at Gurlittstrasse on Sembritzkystrasse in Berlin-Südende
Commemorative plaque on the house at Oehlertring 7 in Berlin-Steglitz
Memorial plaque on the house at Rathausstrasse 28, in Berlin-Mariendorf
Memorial plaque on Teutonenstrasse 23 in Berlin-Nikolassee
Stolperstein , Teutonenstraße 23, in Berlin-Nikolassee
Grave of the Klepper family

Joachim Georg Wilhelm Klepper (born March 22, 1903 in Beuthen an der Oder , Freystadt district , Province of Silesia , † December 11, 1942 in Berlin ) was a German theologian who worked as a journalist and writer . He is one of the most important poets of sacred songs of the 20th century. During the Nazi era, Klepper was ostracized and harassed because of his “non-Aryan” wife, and ultimately committed suicide.

Life

Childhood and studies

Jochen Klepper was the third child and first son of the Protestant pastor Georg Klepper and his wife Hedwig, née Weidlich. He was baptized with Jordan water on April 26, 1903 by his father and received the baptismal message: “Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine. ”He had two older sisters Margot and Hildegard and two younger brothers Erhard and Wilhelm.

Klepper attended the Evangelical Humanist High School in the district town of Glogau and stayed with his French teacher Erich Fromm, who became a fatherly and embracing friend. From summer 1922 he studied Protestant theology in Erlangen and from summer 1923 in Breslau . Here he was shaped by the New Testament scholar Ernst Lohmeyer , the dogmatist Erich Schaeder and the religious philosopher Rudolf Hermann . Hermann introduced him to Martin Luther , he was his role model in preaching and became his fatherly friend. Because of his unstable health - Klepper suffered from headaches and insomnia - Klepper decided not to become a pastor. Student Aid sent him to Bad Saarow for a cure in 1925, to the house of the German Christian Student Association , which was run by the Protestant pastor Hermann Schlingensiepen .

Work as a journalist, radio author and writer

From 1927, after leaving the university without a degree, Klepper wrote columnist articles and offered them to newspapers and magazines first under the pseudonym Georg Wilhelm and later under his own name. These included an obituary for Rainer Maria Rilke and an article on Baruch de Spinoza . In 1927 he began to work as a journalist for the Evangelical Press Association for Silesia (EPS) in Breslau under the direction of Kurt Ihlenfeld . He mainly wrote literary, biographical and church history articles for the church weekly newspaper Our Church , which at that time had a circulation of 42,000 copies. In June 1927 his first contribution, about August Hermann Francke , was broadcast in the “Schlesische Funkstunde”. As a religious socialist he joined the Social Democratic Party , in whose newspaper Vorwärts he published several articles, essays and reports on the life of children in 1932 from 1928 .

His wife Johanna supported him in realizing his goal of working as a freelance writer . Klepper wrote - co-inspired by his wife - a fashion novel entitled Die Grosse Directrice , which, however, could never be published because he could not find a publisher for it. However, he did successful press work and tried to create a high-quality radio program. On September 21, 1931 Klepper moved to Berlin ; The family moved in March 1932 and settled in the villa suburb of Südende.

Since September 21, 1932, Jochen Klepper kept a diary; from February 1933 he often overwritten the entries with the slogans of the Moravian Brethren . The abridged diary was published in 1957 by his sister Hildegard under the title Under the Shadow of Your Wing , in more than 20 editions over 100,000 copies were printed.

Klepper's first published novel, The Barge of the Happy People , which describes life on and on the Oder, was written in autumn 1932. It was accepted by the third publisher, the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt , in January 1933 and was launched in June 1933. He is considered a demanding local poetry, Klepper wrote a natural and humane novella without moral claim. For Klepper it was also a processing of his childhood and adolescence, which he had spent on the Oder. By 2010, more than 120,000 copies had been printed in multiple editions. In 1949 it was filmed somewhat idiosyncratically by DEFA in the Soviet zone of occupation, was released in cinemas in 1950 under the title of the same name and was an audience success with more than 4 million viewers.

On November 15, 1932, Klepper found a job at the radio, the Funk-Hour Berlin . His superior there was the writer and film director Harald Braun , who was kind to him. Nevertheless, he had to resign from the Social Democratic Party in October 1932. With the seizure of power by the Nazis in March 1933 began phasing of broadcasting. Since Klepper was a member of the SPD and had a Jewish wife, he was dismissed from the radio in mid-1933. He now lived on the proceeds of his novel at the DVA. In July 1933 he got a part-time position at Ullstein Verlag in the editorial office of the radio magazine at Kochstrasse 23 in Kreuzberg. This job was beyond his possibilities, but he saw himself guided by God and was grateful for it. On September 3, 1935, he was fired because he was “burdened by Jews”.

On February 24, 1934, he was accepted into the Reichsschrifttumskammer . Since his wife and their two daughters were Jewish as defined by the Nuremberg Race Laws , the family came under increasing pressure. Jochen Klepper saw in the growing hostility towards Jews an outrage against God. He followed current events and also the path of the Protestant Church between adaptation and the Confessing Church with great sympathy and concern. He lived much more consciously, considering the word of God; something of this became visible in his diary entries, which had been preceded by biblical words from the slogans of the Moravians since autumn 1933. In October 1934 he visited his dying father in Beuthen on the Oder.

At the suggestion of his friend, the poet Reinhold Schneider , he wrote for the White Papers ; his first article appeared there in December 1935.

Since September 1933, after a visit to the City Palace in Potsdam and at the suggestion of the editor Wilhelm Emanuel Süskind , he has been researching and writing in secret on his new novel The Father . In it he not only worked on his own father-son conflict based on the conflict between the Prussian soldier king Friedrich Wilhelm I and his son Friedrich II the Great, but also designed in the image of a king who asks about God in everything and who is the "first Servant in the State "understands, the counter-image to the leadership cult of National Socialism . The novel was published in bookstores in February 1937 and, despite its size of two thick volumes, each costing 9.60 marks, quickly became a bestseller, especially in Prussian-minded circles; it became compulsory reading for officers of the armed forces. 65,000 copies were already sold during Klepper's lifetime, which contributed significantly to his survival; another 35,000 by the end of the war and since then over 200,000 copies of this work have been printed. On the other hand, shortly after the novel was published on March 25, 1937, he was expelled from the Reichsschrifttumskammer , which resulted in a ban on the profession and unemployment. Klepper considered fleeing abroad, but could not bring himself to do it. With a special permit he was able to publish the volume of poetry Kyrie in 1938 .

Private life

On April 26, 1929, he met the Jewish widow Johanna Stein (née Gerstel) from Nuremberg, whose family owned the Gerstel fashion stores. Klepper was one of the sub-tenants in Stein's apartment at Eichendorffstrasse 51 in Breslau, and a gradually and slowly growing relationship developed. On March 28, 1931, the 28-year-old married the educated and cultured woman 13 years his senior, whose first husband Felix Stein had died in 1925. She brought her daughters Brigitte (* 1920) and Renate (* 1922) into the marriage. Klepper's family disapproved of marriage to a Jewish woman.

Jochen Klepper cultivated numerous friendships, but suffered from having no biological children and was often melancholy. On December 18, 1938, Johanna Klepper was baptized by Pastor Kurzreiter in the Martin Luther Memorial Church , Berlin-Mariendorf . The Klepper couple were then married in church. Because of the Germania plans, the family was forced to move out of their old house, today Oehlertring 7 in Südende, which they had only moved into in 1935. From May 20, 1939, the family lived in Berlin-Nikolassee in the house they had built at Teutonenstrasse 23. Shortly before the outbreak of war, his older step-daughter Brigitte had been able to travel to England via Sweden .

On November 25, 1940, Klepper was drafted into the Wehrmacht and was a soldier from December 5, 1940 to October 8, 1941. He was used in Poland and the Balkans and finally took part in the staff of a supply unit of the 76th Infantry Division , Army Group South , from Romania through Bessarabia in the attack on the Soviet Union . Because of his “non-Aryan marriage” he was dismissed from the Wehrmacht in October 1941 as “unworthy of defense”.

At the end of 1942, the youngest daughter's departure to a safe country failed, and her deportation was imminent. In addition, according to information provided personally by the Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick , Klepper had to assume that mixed marriages were to be divorced and that his wife was also threatened with deportation. The family took their own life together on the night of December 10-11, 1942, using sleeping pills and gas. The last entry in Klepper's diary reads:

“In the afternoon the negotiation at the security service. We are dying now - oh, that too stands by God - we are going to death together tonight. Over the last few hours stands the image of the blessing Christ who wrestles for us. Our life ends in the sight of it. "

That same night, Jochen Klepper contacted his neighbor Dr. phil. Hans Karbe turned and handed him manuscripts for safe keeping. Hans Karbe learned of the family's suicide the next day.

In memory of Jochen Klepper

The Klepper family was buried in the Nikolassee cemetery. The burial site is located in section JI-1/2.

The planned novel The Eternal House remained a fragment; The theme of the novel was supposed to be the Protestant rectory, as it was modeled by Martin Luther and his wife Katharina. Only the first chapter ("The Flight of Catherine von Bora ") has taken shape. In 2008 Thorsten Becker attempted to finish writing Das Ewige Haus - with a controversial result. Klepper's diary entries are of lasting importance, in which he provides a meticulously precise, oppressive “anatomy” of the National Socialist system. Klepper's diaries can be read complementary to Victor Klemperer's diaries.

The sonnet dedicated to him and his suicide by Reinhold Schneider could not appear until 1946. His spiritual songs in the Kyrie Collection (for example He wakes me up every morning or Who you hold the time in your hands ) were soon set to music by Johannes Petzold and Samuel Rothenberg , among others , and have found their way into the canon of evangelical hymn books to a large extent; he is the third most popular author there after Martin Luther and Paul Gerhardt . His feast day on December 11th is not included in the official evangelical name calendar . On December 11, 2014 , stumbling blocks for him and his family were laid in front of his former home, Berlin-Nikolassee , Teutonenstraße 23 . A church bell is dedicated to his memory in Dargun .

Works

The publisher and the year of first publication are given

As an author

Newspaper articles

  • The messenger Matthias Claudius. In: Evangelical Press Association for Silesia (ed.): Our Church. Evangelical parish gazette. Vol. 7, 1928, No. 9 and 10, reproduction and commentary in: Reiner Andreas Neuschäfer, Reinhard Görisch: Discoveries for Claudius reception by Jochen Klepper. On Klepper's 100th birthday (March 22, 2003). In: Annuals of the Claudius Society. Vol. 12, 2003, pp. 33-44.

Monographs

  • The merry people's boat. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart, Berlin 1933.
  • You rose as a star for us. Eckart, Berlin-Steglitz 1937.
  • The father. Novel of the Soldier King. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart, Berlin 1937 (published in 2 volumes).
  • Kyrie. Holy songs. Eckart, Berlin-Steglitz 1938 (Klepper recorded further poems in later editions: 1939 2 , 1941 3. Dutch: Het licht breekt door de wolken. Translated by Titia Lindeboom. EB boeken, Ruurlo 2001, ISBN 90-71156-65-6 ).
  • The soldier king and the silent ones in the country. Encounters between Friedrich Wilhelm I and August Hermann Francke, August Gotthold Francke, Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen, Nikolaus Ludwig Graf. v. Zinzendorf. Eckart, Berlin 1938.
  • The Christian novel. Eckart, Berlin-Steglitz 1940.
  • The Eternal House. History of Katharina von Bora and her possessions. Roman fragment. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart [1951].
  • Poems. Christian magazine publisher, Berlin 1947.
  • Aftermath. Stories, essays, poems. Eckart, Witten, Berlin 1960.
  • The end. Novella. Eckart, Witten, Berlin 1962.

Others

  • Hildegard Klepper (Ed.): Under the shadow of your wings . From the diaries of the years 1932–1942. German publishing house, Stuttgart 1956.
  • Hildegard Klepper (Ed.): Overcoming. Diaries and notes from the war. German publishing house, Stuttgart 1958.
  • Eva-Juliane Meschke (ed.): Letters to friends. Guest and stranger. Eckart, Witten, Berlin 1960.
  • Who you have time in your hands. Correspondence between Rudolf Hermann and Jochen Klepper 1925–1942 (=  contributions to Protestant theology. Vol. 113). Edited and commented by Heinrich Assel. Kaiser, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-459-01964-6 .
  • Ernst Günther Riemschneider (Ed.): Jochen Klepper. Correspondence 1925–1942. DVA Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-421-01638-0 , directory of correspondents

As editor

  • In tormentis pinxit. Letters and pictures of the soldier king. German publishing company, Stuttgart 1938.

Klepper's poems in church hymn books

In many current hymn books, settings of Klepper's poems have been included as songs. So there is it in the praise of God , in celebrations and praises , in the main part of the Evangelical hymn book as well as in the regional parts of Württemberg (W) and Austria (Austria).

title Evangelical hymn book Praise to god Celebrate and praise
The Night Has Gone (from Kyrie; December 18, 1937) 016 220 190
You child, at this sacred time (from Kyrie; December 20, 1937) [00] 050 [00]254 214
Who you have time in your hands (from Kyrie; October 20, 1937) 064 257 235
God Father You Have Your Name (1940) 208
Rejoice in Lords Allewege (February 29, 1940) 239
God dwells in a light (from Kyrie; July 10, 1938) 379 429
Yes, I will carry you (from Kyrie; June 19, 1938) 380 Ö887 Trier841O
trier 		435
He wakes me up every morning (from Kyrie; April 12, 1938) 452 454
The day was already shining (July 5, 1939); Transmission of the medieval hymn "Iam lucis orto sidere" 453
The day is near its height (from Kyrie; June 4, 1938) 457 466
I am lying, sir, in your hat (from Kyrie; May 7, 1938) [00]486 [00] 099
Now the heart broke away from everything (August 29, 1940) 532 509 396
Don't look at what you are (from "Kyrie") W539W.
Every night that threatens me (1940) Ö629O

literature

  • Martin Rößler: You shouldn't complain: praise: Jochen Klepper - life and songs. Calwer Verlag, Stuttgart 2017 (Calwer Hefte), ISBN 978-3-7668-4430-9 .
  • Markus Baum: Jochen Klepper. Neufeld , Schwarzenfeld 2011, ISBN 978-3-86256-014-1 .
  • Lothar Bluhm : The Diary for the Third Reich. Evidence of inner emigration from Jochen Klepper to Ernst Jünger (=  studies on modern literature , 20). Bouvier, Bonn 1991, ISBN 3-416-02294-7 (also dissertation, University of Bonn 1990).
  • Lothar Bluhm: Jochen Klepper in the tension between literature and documentation. In: ders .: Encounters. Studies on the literature of classical modernism. University of Oulu, Oulu 2002, ISBN 951-42-6805-9 , pp. 181-203.
  • Wolfgang Böllmann: "If I had met you ..." Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Jochen Klepper in conversation. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-374-02259-6 .
  • Reinhard Deichgräber : The day is not far off. Reflections on songs by Jochen Klepper. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-525-60406-8 .
  • Jürgen Henkys : Singing and Sung Faith. Hymnological contributions in a new series. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-525-57202-6 , with five essays on Jochen Klepper on pp. 234-298 ( digitized version ).
  • Ilse Jonas : Jochen Klepper. Poet and witness. A picture of life. Evangelical Publishing House , Berlin (GDR) 1966, DNB 574145427 .
  • Oliver Kohler: We will be like the dreaming. Jochen Klepper - A search for clues. Neukirchener Verlagshaus, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2003, ISBN 3-7975-0054-8 .
  • Hans Möhler: Jochen Klepper: A life on the border. Luther, Bielefeld 2004, ISBN 3-7858-0483-0 .
  • Helmut Reske: In his word my luck: Jochen Klepper's wrestling with the Bible in his diaries. Sowing, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2008, ISBN 3-7615-5636-5 .
  • Waldtraut-Ingeborg Sauer-Geppert:  Klepper, Jochen. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 47 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Harald Seubert : “Even those who cried at night”. Jochen Klepper (1903–1942). A visualization. Media Kern, Wesel 2014, ISBN 978-3-8429-1305-9 .
  • Holger Sonntag: “The Night Will Soon Be Ending”: Jochen Klepper: A Luther Hymn Writer in Dark Times. In: Logia: A Journal of Lutheran Theology. Vol. 18, 2009, No. 2, pp. 31-40.
  • Rita Thalmann : Jochen Klepper. A life between idylls and catastrophes. Chr. Kaiser, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-459-01110-6 .
  • Martin Johannes Wecht: Jochen Klepper - a Christian writer in the Jewish fate (= studies on the Silesian and Upper Lusatian church history. Vol. 3). Archive of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, Düsseldorf, Görlitz 1998, ISBN 3-930250-11-X (also dissertation, University of Heidelberg 1996).
  • Rudolf Wentorf (Ed.): You shouldn't complain, praise: Jochen Klepper in memoriam. December 10, 1967. Brunnen, Gießen 1967, DNB 457697911 .
  • Herbert Günther: Revolving stage of the time. , Hamburg 1957, pp. 254-257.

Settings

  • Reinhard Ellsel: God does not keep himself hidden: sermons to songs by Jochen Klepper. ERF, Wetzlar / Luther, Bielefeld 2001; ISBN 3-7858-0441-5 .
  • Siegfried Fietz : Comfort for every day. Ulmtal-Musikverlag, Greifenstein 1992, DNB 350747024 .
  • Oliver Kohler: His word wants to shine brightly: Jochen Klepper (1903–1943). ERF, Wetzlar 1989, DNB 891324690 .
  • Gerhard Schnitter : Yes, I want to carry you. The most beautiful songs by Jochen Klepper and his contemporaries. Hänssler, Holzgerlingen 2002, DNB 358785766 .
  • Chor Maranatha: Who you have time in your hands ; Music: Jochen Schwab, CD Himmelsfarben.
  • Choir Maranatha: comfort song in the evening; Music: Jochen Schwab; Youtube

Movies

Web links

Commons : Jochen Klepper  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Jochen Klepper  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Markus Baum: Jochen Klepper. Neufeld, Schwarzenfeld 2011, pp. 11–22: 1. Pastor's children.
  2. ↑ Markus Baum: Jochen Klepper. Neufeld, Schwarzenfeld 2011, pp. 23–39: 2. From mother nature.
  3. ↑ Markus Baum: Jochen Klepper. Neufeld, Schwarzenfeld 2011, pp. 41–59: 3. Broken line.
  4. ↑ Markus Baum: Jochen Klepper. Neufeld, Schwarzenfeld 2011, pp. 61–84: 4. Impossible connection
  5. ↑ Markus Baum: Jochen Klepper. Neufeld, Schwarzenfeld 2011, pp. 85–99: 5. Monument and Abgesang
  6. ↑ Markus Baum: Jochen Klepper. Neufeld, Schwarzenfeld 2011, pp. 101–123: 6. Schicksalsgemeinschaft
  7. ↑ Maria Theodora Baroness von dem Bottlenberg-Landsberg: Karl Ludwig Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. 1902-1945. A picture of life. Lukas, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-931836-94-0 , p. 134.
  8. ↑ Markus Baum: Jochen Klepper. Neufeld, Schwarzenfeld 2011, pp. 125–150: 7. Kings and tyrants
  9. ↑ Cf. Jochen Klepper: Overcoming. Diaries and records from the war. German publishing company, Stuttgart 1958.
  10. ↑ Jochen Klepper: Under the shadow of your wings . From the diaries of the years 1932–1942. Edited by Hildegard Klepper. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1956, p. 1133 (diary entry of December 10, 1942).
  11. ↑ Thorsten Becker: The Eternal House (= rororo. Vol. 25426). Rowohlt, Reinbek 2009, ISBN 978-3-498-00656-3 .
  12. ↑ Victor Klemperer: I want to bear witness to the last. Diaries 1933–1945. Structure, Berlin 1995.
  13. ↑ See memory of the dead III. in apocalypse. Sonnets by Reinhold Schneider ( Memento from July 11, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  14. ↑ Joachim Schäfer: Jochen Klepper in the Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints , last updated on November 22, 2015.
  15. ↑ Melody by Volker Gwinner (1970)
  16. ↑ without stanza 4; Melody by Samuel Rothenberg (1939)
  17. ^ Melody by Fritz Werner (1951)
  18. ↑ Melody by Christian Dostal (2008)
  19. ↑ Who you hold the time in your hands. Retrieved April 12, 2020 .
  20. ↑ The boat of happy people , entry in the Internet Movie Database .
personal data
SURNAME Klepper, Jochen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Joachim Georg Wilhelm Klepper (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist, writer and song poet
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Beuthen on the Oder , Freystadt i. Lower Silesian. , Province of Silesia
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1942
Place of death Berlin , Germany