Karl-Heinz Becker (pastor)

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Karl-Heinz Becker (born October 18, 1900 in Insterburg ; † June 30, 1968 in Neustadt an der Aisch ) was a German Protestant pastor, member of the Confessing Church and critic of National Socialism.

Life

After the father's death in 1910, the mother and her three sons moved to Munich to live with their grandfather, law professor Karl von Gareis . Here he attended high school with his two brothers and was involved in the Bavarian Wehrkraftverein , a preliminary organization of the German scout movement . Shortly before the end of the First World War , he was drafted into the military and took part in fighting in East Prussia (1919) and the Ruhr (1920).

He then began studying law and economics in Munich and Kiel . From 1922 he switched to theology in Erlangen, Berlin and Marburg. During his studies he was co-founder of the Association of German New Scouts along with other people from the Wehrkraftverein .

His theological career began for Becker in 1925 as a vicar in various places in southern Germany. In Ezelheim ( Scheinfeld district ) near Neustadt an der Aisch, he was given his first pastor's post in 1930. In Central Franconia in particular , he came into contact with National Socialism , which he dealt with critically and whose racial policy he strictly rejected. His appeal at the time to the Bavarian pastors 'association to distance itself from the National Socialist Evangelical Pastors' Association (NSEP) was not taken into account.

From 1940 he took part in the Second World War as a war pastor with the rank of major , with assignments in France, Belgium, Hungary, the Ukraine and in southern Russia. In particular, he processed his experiences in Southeastern Europe in theological studies, which brought him a high treason trial in 1944. The end of the war ended this process prematurely.

After two months in American captivity, he took up his position as pastor in Ezelheim again. In 1949 he moved to Solnhofen in Central Franconia , in 1956 to Oberammergau in Upper Bavaria and in 1959 to Stübach , not far from Neustadt an der Aisch. Here he retired in 1965. A few years later, on June 30, 1968, Becker died in Neustadt an der Aisch, where he was buried in the Old Cemetery and a memorial plaque is dedicated to him.

In the Journal for Bavarian Church History (ZBKG), Karl-Heinz Becker and his friend Walter Höchstädter are posthumously highlighted and honored for their personal commitment:

"A fourth, numerically very small group of individual committed lay people and theologians such as Karl-Heinz Becker, Karl Steinbauer or Walter Höchstädter courageously took a position of protest, also against the prohibition of their church leadership to express themselves unauthorized."

Publications

  • The Reformers and the “Kingdom of Christ in Münster” 1535 (= Confessing Church, series of publications, published by Christian Stoll). Christian Kaiser Verlag , Munich 1939

Translations

  • Gustaf Törnvall: Spiritual and secular regiment with Luther. Studies on Luther's worldview and understanding of society . Translated from Swedish by Karl-Heinz Becker. Christian Kaiser Verlag, Munich 1947

literature

  • Friedrich Wilhelm Kantzenbach : The individual and the whole. Two studies on the church struggle . In: Journal for Bavarian Church History 47, 1978, pp. 106–228.
  • Wolfgang Huber : “To be evangelical must actually mean free”. Pastor Karl-Heinz Becker's confrontation with Hitler and National Socialism . In Zeitschrift für Bavarian Church History 74, 2005, pp. 181–199
  • Axel Töllner: A question of race? The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria, the Aryan Paragraph and the Bavarian pastor families with Jewish ancestors in the ›Third Reich‹ (= denomination and society, vol. 36), W. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart 2007, p. 84 ff.
  • Berndt Hamm : National Church normality and exposed positions in the attitude of Bavarian Lutherans to National Socialism . In: Scope of action and memory: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria and National Socialism , edited by Berndt Hamm, Harry Oelke, Gury Schneider-Ludorff, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011, pp. 71 ff., ISBN 978-3 -525-55768-6 .
  • Dagmar Pöpping : War Pastor on the Eastern Front. Evangelical and Catholic Wehrmacht chaplaincy in the war of extermination 1941–1945 . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017, p. 249 f. ISBN 978-3-525-55788-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dagmar Pöpping: War pastor on the Eastern Front. Evangelical and Catholic Wehrmacht Pastoral Care in the War of Extermination 1941–1945 , Göttingen 2017, p. 250.
  2. ^ Wolfgang Mück: Nazi stronghold in Middle Franconia: The völkisch awakening in Neustadt an der Aisch 1922–1933. Verlag Philipp Schmidt, 2016 (= Streiflichter from home history. Special volume 4); ISBN 978-3-87707-990-4 , p. 158 f.
  3. ↑ Journal for Bavarian Church History, Volume 79, self-published by the association, 2010, p. 255.
personal data
SURNAME Becker, Karl-Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant pastor
DATE OF BIRTH October 18, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Insterburg
DATE OF DEATH June 30, 1968
Place of death Neustadt an der Aisch