Joachim Karl Johann Dubbels

Joachim Karl Johann Dubbels (born December 13, 1876 in Dornbusch ( Drochtersen / Hanover Province ), † May 19, 1942 in Hamburg ) was a German Evangelical Lutheran theologian.

Life

Dubbels was born as the son of the organist and main teacher in Hamburg-Altengamme Jacob Dubbels and his wife Agnes. He studied Protestant theology at the University of Halle-Wittenberg and the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel . On March 13, 1900, he passed the first and on March 25, 1902 the second theological exam in Hamburg, where he was ordained on December 9, 1903 for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg state .

After a short activity for the Inner Mission Association , Dubbels became assistant preacher at St. Thomas Church in Hamburg-Rothenburgsort .

On June 21, 1904 he was elected pastor at the St. Gertrud Church in Hamburg-Hohenfelde and was introduced to this office on September 20, 1904 by Georg Behrmann (1846–1911), senior of the Hamburg Ministry of Spiritual Affairs . Dubbels gave his inaugural sermon on Isaiah 45:11. Dubbels gained the fame of a great preacher there, whose services were very well attended. Franz Tügel , the Hamburg bishop from 1934 to 1945, describes Dubbels as a human and theologically independent and deeply rooted personality - a judgment that transcends considerable political and theological differences. From 1917 to 1918 he worked as a military chaplain .

On February 17, 1929 he was elected senior pastor at St. Catherine's Church in Hamburg, and on April 9, 1929 , he was introduced to this office by his friend Heinz Beckmann (1877-1939), senior pastor at St. Nikolai's Church . Dubbels celebrated his 25th anniversary as a Hamburg pastor on September 20, 1929 and translated Dante's " Divine Comedy " into German. Dubbels was seen as liberal in church politics . Particular emphasis was placed on his quiet nature, which did not prevent him from taking a clear position against National Socialism during the Third Reich.

Karl Dubbels around 1940 as main pastor at St. Katharinen in Hamburg

As chief pastor, one of his duties was to examine young theologians. Dubbels' area of ​​expertise was the Old Testament, he dealt intensively with the Hebrew Bible. He also examined church history and had extensive knowledge of more remote areas of church history. However , he refused an offer as professor of church history at the University of Marburg , since he saw his task in Hamburg at St. Katharinen. He particularly emphasized the importance of the reformer Philipp Melanchthon as a "safeguard" against enthusiasm or spiritual tension in Lutheranism. As in the winter semester 1929/30, he gave lectures on the "History of Christian Piety" and lectures on Dante and, as a connoisseur of organ music, taught at the church music school.

From the beginning Dubbels turned against the synchronization of the Protestant churches in the National Socialist state. Even before 1933 - on December 2, 1931 - he was chairman of the committee of the Hamburg Ministry of Spiritual Affairs to draw up guidelines for pastors' political activities. In this capacity he was particularly opposed by Franz Tügel, the later (since 1934) German-Christian bishop of Hamburg, who himself had been a member of the NSDAP since 1931. On March 20, 1933, Dubbels ruled in the school committee of the church council about a new religious book to be introduced that its publication was not desirable, since "we would then get a textbook cleared of everything Jewish". Dubbels was a member of the state fraternal council of the Confessing Church in the Hamburg regional church , which he left again at the turn of the year 1935/36 due to the inner turmoil in the confessional community, and in March 1934 expressed solidarity with the regional bishop Simon Schöffel, who had been deposed in favor of Tügel . Together with Schöffel and the main pastor Theodor Knolle , Dubbels wrote an expert opinion against the incorporation of the Hamburg regional church into the imperial church carried out by Tügel in May 1934 . It said u. a .: "Furthermore, we no longer recognize the current church government of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg state as the spiritual direction of our regional church. In this emergency, we confidently submit to the Evangelical Lutheran Brotherhood in all matters that require spiritual authority Church in the Hamburg State "(quoted from the article by Rainer Hering mentioned below in the Biographical-Bibliographical Church Lexicon).

Dubbels had six children with his wife Luise Schölermann (1882–1958). In addition to pastoral care, the center of Karl Dubbels' work was the sermon, which is why he published very little. With his sermons, which were not written down but only prepared in his head, he gathered a large community of people around him. His aim was not just to pick something out of the sermon text, but to grasp and present it as a whole.

literature

• Chief Pastor Karl Dubbels in memory. Hamburg: Agency of the Rauhen Haus 1948
• Rainer Hering:  Dubbels, Joachim Karl Johann. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 16, Bautz, Herzberg 1999, ISBN 3-88309-079-4 , Sp. 398-405.
• Peter Stolt: Liberal Protestantism in Hamburg - in the mirror of the main church St. Katharinen. Hamburg: Verlag Verein für Hamburgische Geschichte 2006 (work on the church history of Hamburg 25) ISBN 3-935413-11-4
• Rainer Hering : Dubbels, Karl . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 7 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2020, ISBN 978-3-8353-3579-0 , p. 73 .

predecessor	Office	successor
Carl Gustav Curt Stage	Chief Pastor to St. Katharinen in Hamburg 1929 - 1942	Volkmar Herntrich