Johannes Hamel

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Johannes Hamel (born November 19, 1911 in Schöningen ; † August 1, 2002 in Wernigerode ) was a Protestant theologian and university professor during the two German dictatorships.

Live and act

Johannes Hamel's father was a senior teacher in Erfurt . He passed his Abitur in 1930. He then studied theology in Tübingen , Königsberg and Halle until 1935 . After that he was an adjunct at the now illegal church college ( church foreign seminar ) in Ilsenburg until 1938 . His teachers were Julius Schniewind , Hans Joachim Iwand , Karl Heim , Adolf Schlatter , Karl Barth and Hermann Schlingensiepen . From 1935 to 1938 he was also the travel secretary of the German Christian Student Association .

In the Confessing Church

During National Socialism, Johannes Hamel was a radical opponent of his loyal DEK -oriented regional church and was therefore not given a job. In 1938, in continuation of his involvement in Ilsenburg, he became director of studies at the Confessing Church in Halle. In the same year he married the theologian Renate Schomerus. In 1938 he was ordained as assistant preacher of the Confessing Church by Pastor Wolfgang Staemmler . Because he helped Jewish community members, he was forced to work in the Leunawerke in 1941 . A little later he was called up for service in the Wehrmacht . In the Soviet Union he was shot in the lung, in Italy he was taken prisoner of war.

Theologian in the GDR

In 1946 he became a student pastor at the University of Halle. When the SED leadership stepped up its fight against church youth work in 1952/53, Hamel was arrested for boycotting on February 12, 1952 and imprisoned in the Roter Ochse zu Halle detention center. After violent - also international - protests against the imprisonment, Erich Mielke - shortly after June 17th - ordered the release on July 9th, which took place the next day. As a result of his imprisonment, which he compared with his imprisonment during the conflict in National Socialism, he developed a theology of closeness to the people in blackmail. So he said, "My interrogators were in God's hands as I was". One of his students writes: “For him the prison time was a spiritual gain. In the officers on watch and interrogation officers, he always saw first the people whom he had to meet humanly for Jesus' sake. And just after his imprisonment he once again spoke out very clearly in favor of remaining in the GDR. ”The GDR authorities also apply the gospel, because they too are under God's rule. The Marxists are also "servants of the Lord".

From 1955 to 1976 Hamel was a lecturer in practical theology and temporarily rector of the Catechetical College in Naumburg (Saale) . He accepted an invitation from the general superintendent of Kurmark Braun to give a lecture on confirmation at the Kurmark Church Congress in Potsdam in 1958 , taking into account the church-political fight against youth consecration in the GDR. While Braun dealt with the development of the "scientific worldview" and its influence on Christians and "their non-Christian fellow men" in his lecture, Hamel analyzed the pros and cons of church discipline in the fight against youth consecration under the aspect of Preservation of the unity of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD).

Based on his experiences in the church struggle at the time of National Socialism and in the early GDR, he developed a theology of resistance and for many years influenced the synodal declarations of the ecclesiastical province of Saxony and the Evangelical Church of the Union (EKU). He was one of the most eloquent opponents of the establishment of the Federation of Evangelical Churches in the GDR .

Last years of life

In 1976 Johannes Hamel moved to one of his daughters in Gangloffsömmern , where he worked as a preacher. At the same time he was a New Testament teacher at the Church Distance Learning (KFU) of the Evangelical Churches in the GDR, founded in 1960 . In 1985, he traveled from the GDR from and moved to Gräfelfing . After the reunification of Germany, he gave a few interviews and wrote short theological and biographical texts. Before the Enquete Commission “ Coming to terms with the history and consequences of the SED dictatorship” , he spoke of the fact that everyone needs forgiveness, both Christians and Marxists.

Honors

Publications (selection)

  • Be sober and watch. Sermons and lectures. Göttingen Sermon booklets 4 + 5, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1958.
  • Christ in the GDR (Unterwegs 2), Berlin 1957.
  • Christianity under Marxist rule (Unterwegs 7), Berlin 1959.
  • Theodor Fontane's contribution to theological ethics. In: Evangelische Theologie , Vol. 6 (1976), pp. 549-560.
  • (Together with Karl Barth) How to Serve God in a Marxist Land .
  • On the problem of the ordination act , in: Congregation - Office - Ordination, vote of the committee of the Evangelical Church of the Union, with the draft of a new ordination form , Gütersloh 1970.
  • Evangelical Christianity under the Marxist-Leninist dictatorship 1945–1989. Probation and Failure. In: Materials of the Enquete Commission “Working on the history and consequences of the SED dictatorship in Germany” , Volume VI / 1, published by the German Bundestag, Baden-Baden 1995, 39–47

literature

in order of appearance

  • Alexander Sperk: The MfS remand prison “Roter Ochse” Halle / Saale from 1950 to 1989. A documentation. Published by the Ministry of the Interior of Saxony-Anhalt, Magdeburg 1998.
  • Hagen Findeis: "What I suffer are the blows of the Father in Heaven, who loves me" Theologization of reality - life as a test: Johannes Hamel . In: ders .: The light of the gospel and the twilight of politics. Church careers in the GDR , Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt / New York 2002, ISBN 3-593-37008-5 , pp. 70–121.
  • Friedrich Winter : Johannes Hamel (1911–2002) . In: Hostels of Christianity. Yearbook for German Church History , vol. 31 (2007), pp. 127–142.
  • Axel Noack : Sharp analyst and important teacher of the church in the GDR . In: Glaube und Heimat from November 21, 2011.
  • Michael Hüttenhoff: Hamel, Johannes . In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon , Volume 36. Nordhausen 2015, ISBN 978-3-88309-920-0 , Sp. 514-523.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See excerpt from the detention report of June 15, 1953 of the Ministry for State Security. In: Sharp analyst and important teacher of the Church in the GDR , Faith and Home from November 21, 2011.
  2. ↑ See handwritten instruction to tear out the detention report of June 15, 1953 of the Ministry for State Security. In: Sharp analyst and important teacher of the Church in the GDR , Faith and Home from November 21, 2011.
  3. ↑ Johannes Killyen: Pastor was a danger to world peace . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , May 15, 2003.
  4. ^ Helmut Hartmann: Johannes Hamel . In: Andreas Thulin (ed.): Called to freedom. 60 years of ESG Halle . Evangelical student community, Halle 2005.
  5. ↑ Christianity under Marxist rule . Berlin 1959, p. 27, quoted from: Michael Hüttenhoff: Hamel, Johannes . In: BBKL , Volume 36, Col. 514-523, here p. 515.
  6. ↑ Neue Zeit ', June 13, 1958, p. 2
  7. ↑ Anhalt, Markus: Break the power of the churches. The participation of the state security in the enforcement of the youth consecration in the GDR, Göttingen 2016, p. 183 f .; ISBN 978-3-525-35121-5 Anhalt, Markus: Break the power of the churches. The participation of the state security in the enforcement of the youth consecration in the GDR , Göttingen 2016, p. 183 f .; ISBN 978-3-525-35121-5
  8. ↑ Johannes Hamel: Evangelical Christianity under the Marxist-Leninist dictatorship 1945-1989. Probation and Failure . In: Materials of the Enquete Commission “Working through the history and consequences of the SED dictatorship in Germany” , Volume VI / 1, published by the German Bundestag, Baden-Baden 1995, pp. 39–47.
personal data
SURNAME Hamel, Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theologian
DATE OF BIRTH November 19, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Schöningen
DATE OF DEATH August 1, 2002
Place of death Wernigerode