Karl Friedrich Stellbrink

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Karl Friedrich Stellbrink

Karl Friedrich Stellbrink (born October 28, 1894 in Münster , † November 10, 1943 in Hamburg ) was an Evangelical Lutheran pastor in Lübeck. Shortly after the Allied air raid on Sept. March 1943 in Lübeck, in which 320 people were killed, over 700 injured, 16,000 people were homeless and large parts of the old town were destroyed, Stellbrink expressed himself from the pulpit critical of the policies of the National Socialists. A few days later he was arrested by the Gestapo and shortly afterwards sentenced to death in a trial before the People's Court with three Catholic clergymen. On November 10th, the four were executed in Hamburg. They are considered the Lübeck martyrs .

Youth and education

Karl Friedrich Stellbrink was the second child of the Chief Customs Secretary Karl Stellbrink and his wife Helene Kirchhoff. From 1904 he attended the humanistic high school Leopoldinum in Detmold , then he moved to Spandau and left school in 1913 after graduating from secondary school. After unsuccessful application to the Art Academy in Düsseldorf because he had not yet reached the required age, he turned to theology. In 1913 he entered the diaspora seminar of the Prussian regional church in Soest , which prepared specifically for service abroad.

The First World War delayed his training. In February 1915 he was drafted as a soldier and came to the Western Front, where he was so badly wounded on January 14, 1916 that his left hand was damaged.

On October 1, 1917, Stellbrink was released from military service in Berlin as "50% war disabled ". Here he did social work for the church and a child rescue organization, headed a men's and youth club and prepared for his school leaving examination. He passed his Abitur on March 31, 1919; a year later he passed the final exam at the Soest seminary . For almost a year he came to Barkhausen in the synodal district of Minden as vicar . On March 5, 1921, he married the teacher Hildegard Dieckmeyer. Shortly thereafter, he was in Witten for the ministry overseas ordained .

stay abroad

On April 20, 1921 he embarked with his wife from Hamburg for Brazil, arrived in Rio Grande do Sul , continued on to Porto Alegre and was assigned as a pastor in Arriva de Padre near Pelatos. There he began his ministry as a pastor of German settlers on June 1, 1921 and moved a few years later to the Montalverne parish near Santa Cruz. The family stayed in Brazil for eight years; their four children were born there.

Stellbrink was already a member of several ethnic organizations, including the Pan-German Association .

Parish offices in Germany

Luther Church in Lübeck

In the summer of 1929, after a vacation at home, he decided not to return to Brazil but to apply for a pastor's position in Germany. After an exam (which was necessary for him as a non-full theologian) he became a pastor in Steinsdorf near Weida in Thuringia in 1930 . Some parishioners complained in writing about Stellbrink's “imperious nature” and his “politicizing speeches”. Stellbrink openly sided with the NSDAP and the German Christians and, according to Hansjörg Buss, represented a "völkisch-racist worldview".

In 1930 Stellbrink joined the NSDAP and then the strongly ethnic-influenced Bund für Deutsche Kirche , which is characterized as an "Evangelical brotherhood with a strong national character". In a biographical article it says: "Nationally minded <sic!> And socio-politically committed, S [tellbrink] had great sympathy for Hitler and the NSDAP after his return from Brazil".

In the spring of 1934 he successfully applied to succeed senior pastor Wilhelm Mildenstein for the pastor's position in the first district of the Lutheran Church of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lübeck and took up his post in June 1934. During this time, the Luther Church was considered a stronghold of German Christians in Lübeck, such as the pastor and NSDAP Senator Ulrich Burgstaller , whom Stellbrink did not join. As an individualist, he distinguished himself from the German Christians and from the Confessing Church.

Change and opposition to the NSDAP

In 1934 Stellbrink resigned from his party positions; Presumably anti-church tendencies in party and state as well as constant conflicts between Hitler Youth and Protestant Youth prompted him to take this step. His foster brother was expelled from the Hitler Youth because he attended the service instead of the Hitler Youth service that took place at the same time. His children left the Hitler Youth. Stellbrink helped a neighboring Jewish family and became a critic of the regime. After several warnings from the Secret State Police, Stellbrink was expelled from the NSDAP in 1937 for criticism that was harmful to the party; he had already resigned from the Bund für Deutsche Kirche before that. From 1937 he was monitored by the Gestapo.

His negative attitude towards the war, in which a foster son of Stellbrink died in 1940, intensified his opposition to the regime. He firmly refused the so-called euthanasia , of which he had been aware since the summer of 1941. From 1941 he was in friendly contact with the Roman Catholic chaplain Johannes Prassek , with whom he exchanged sermons by Clemens August Graf von Galen and information from bugged “ enemy channels ”, which he passed on to others. Stellbrink did not join the Confessing Church , however, remained isolated in the regional church and instead sought contact with the Roman Catholic clergy of the Sacred Heart Church .

After the heavy bombing raid on Lübeck on Palm Sunday night from March 28th to March 29th, 1942, Stellbrink is said to have said in his sermon at the confirmation service on Palm Sunday immediately afterwards that God spoke with a powerful language and “You will learn to pray again . ”This was presented in a Gestapo report and spread“ like wildfire ”in the city that Stellbrink interpreted the attack as“ God's judgment ”, which“ excited the population to the utmost ”.

A representative of the Gestapo visited the church council. This ordered disciplinary proceedings and relieved Stellbrink of his office. On April 8th, Stellbrink was arrested during an interview with the Gestapo and taken to the Lauerhof prison. The pensions were canceled, the family was isolated, and the church did not help.

Trial and death

Hamburg, Holstenglacis remand prison, Holstenglacis 3: stumbling blocks for the Lübeck martyrs executed in the Hamburg remand prison, Holstenglacis

In room 40 of the Lübeck regional court in the castle monastery in the Große Burgstrasse, 20 Lübeck Christians were heard by the second senate of the Berlin People's Court on 22nd – 24th. Charged in 1943. The trial and judgment against Stellbrink was carried out on the morning of June 23, 1943. The written death sentence comprised several pages and was signed by the Vice President of the People's Court Wilhelm Crohne as chairman and the District Court Director Preussner. Together with the Roman Catholic chaplains of the Lübeck Herz-Jesu congregation Eduard Müller , Johannes Prassek and Hermann Lange , who together with Stellbrink made a protest letter from Bishop Theophil Wurm to Reich Interior Minister Frick on July 19, 1940 and the so-called Galen Sermon public he in June 1943 by the people's Court for " undermining military morale ", "treasonable aiding the enemy" and because of " offenses against the law on broadcasting " and "offenses against the treachery law accused", on June 23 sentenced to death on 10 November 1943, the four martyrs from 18 : 20 h at intervals of three minutes and in the order Müller, Prassek, long, Stellbrink in Hamburg Remand prison on Holstenglacis by executioner Friedrich Hehr with the guillotine executed .

Historical evaluation

Rehabilitation by church and state

After 1945, the church leadership granted the Stellbrinks family a pension and thus posthumously revoked Stellbrink's dismissal from the service of the regional church. On the second anniversary of the execution of the Lübeck martyrs , Senior Pautke, the leading clergyman of the Lübeck regional church, joined in the interpretation of the death of the four Lübeck clergy Prassek, Lange, Müller and Stellbrink as martyrdom, which was particularly supported by the Roman Catholic Church. This award was not without controversy. From the circles of the Confessing Church was u. a. objected that Stellbrink had "insulted the Old Testament with blatant words [...]" and lost his life "not in the fight for the gospel", but "in the political fight against the Third Reich". These objections, in turn, provoked opposition. In 1959, the Lübeck Council of Churches decided to have an "annual commemoration" of all four executed. With the death sentence, Stellbrink lost all salary and pension entitlements under the law of the time. On June 18, 1945 the widow von Stellbrink was awarded the care of a pastor who had died in office by the newly formed church council. In 1993, the then Lübeck Bishop Karl Ludwig Kohlwage, together with the lawyer and former State Minister of Justice Heiko Hoffmann, obtained the formal overturning of Stellbrink's death sentence on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the execution.

“In Karl-Friedrich Stellbrink, the church leadership honors a pastor who, bound by the word of God and guided by his conscience, recognized and criticized the injustice of a total regime more and more clearly. He went through the grave suffering of a witness to evangelical truth who had to give his life for the truth he had known.

The four Lübeck martyrs stand for the Church of Jesus Christ, which is not allowed to flounder and not to serve injustice. "

- Excerpt from: The Lübeck Martyrs - a statement by the church leadership of the North Elbian Ev.-Luth. Church, on June 24, 1993, Bishop Karl Ludwig Kohlwage.

The common fate of Stellbrink and his three Roman Catholic counterparts is important for ecumenical relations between the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches .

At the beatification of the three Catholic clergymen of the four Lübeck martyrs on June 25, 2011 in Lübeck, Cardinal Walter Kasper also explicitly remembered the Protestant Stellbrink in his sermon. The Evangelical Church in Germany commemorates Stellbrink with a day of remembrance in the Evangelical Name Calendar on November 10th. The Roman Catholic Church lists Karl Friedrich Stellbrink as a martyr in its German Martyrology of the 20th Century .

critic

According to Hansjörg Buss, Stellbrink adhered to the ideas of a “backward-looking, exaggerated nationalism” and a “religiously based and racially defined national community”. Stellbrink was undoubtedly hostile to democracy. Contemporaries he was considered "difficult", as a "truth fanatic", sometimes also "perceived as unpleasant personality". Since the 1960s, the commemoration of her death has been accompanied by a critical examination of the biographies of the four clergymen. Stellbrink's “broken biography” is often referred to, mostly in connection with the “interpretation scheme of the purified”. The historian Hansjörg Buss takes the view that "a historically well-founded and critical discussion with Pastor Stellbrink did not take place".

Memorials

Memorial plaque in the ramparts at the Hamburg remand prison

Since 1945, each year on November 10th, the former fellow prisoners and later lay people and clergy of the two communities met. Streets in Hamburg, Lübeck and other places are named after Stellbrink; they remind of his persecution by the National Socialist terrorist judiciary .

estate

Stellbrink's estate was handed over by the family to the archive of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck in April 2015 .

literature

  • Else Pelke: The Lübeck Christian Trial 1943. Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, Mainz 1961.
  • Brigitte Templin and Ingaburgh Klatt: " Erase my eyes ..." - the life and violent death of the four Lübeck clergy during the Nazi era. Reprint: Publisher Burgkloster zu Lübeck / Office for Culture of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Lübeck 1994
  • Rolf Saltzwedel : The Luther community in Lübeck during the time of National Socialism. In: Der Wagen 1995/96 (1995), pp. 119-138.
  • Peter Voswinckel : Complete after 61 years. Farewell letters from the four Lübeck martyrs in a historical context. In: Zeitschrift des Verein für Lübeckische Geschichte und Altertumskunde 85 (2005), pp. 279–330.
  • Heiko Hoffmann , Karl Ludwig Kohlwage : Karl Friedrich Stellbrink. In: Isabella Spolovnjak-Pridat, Helmut Siepenkort (Ed.): Ecumenism in Resistance. The Lübeck Christian Trial in 1943. 3rd edition. Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 2006, pp. 11-19.
  • Harald Schultze , Andreas Kurschat (Ed.): "Your end looks at ..." Protestant martyrs of the 20th century. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2006, pp. 27, 36, 74f., 446–448; 2nd edition, 2008, pp. 478-480.
  • Hansjörg Buss: A Martyr of the Evangelical Church. Notes on pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink from Lübeck. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 55 (2007), H. 7/8, pp. 624–644.
  • Franz Mecklenfeld, Petra Kallies, Regina Pabst (eds.): Because they were friends of God. Documentation of the Lübeck martyrs' commemoration from 2003 to 2008. Roman Catholic Church, Deanery Lübeck and Evangelical Lutheran Church District Lübeck, 2009.
  • Martin Thoemmes : Karl Friedrich Stellbrink. In: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck. Volume 11, Wachholtz Verlag Neumünster 2000, ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , pp. 350-352; updated version in: New Lübeck CVs. Published on behalf of the Association for Lübeck History and Archeology by Alken Bruns, Neumünster 2009, ISBN 978-3-529-01338-6 , pp. 569-572.
  • Wolf-Dieter Hauschild : Martyrs in the Protestant Church. In: Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 120 (2009), pp. 323–339.
  • Peter Voswinckel: Astray of National Protestantism and the Reversal of Pastor Karl-Friedrich Stellbrink (1894-1943). New perspectives in church historiography through ecumenical perspectives. In: Der Wagen 2010, ISBN 978-3-87302-113-6 , pp. 43–71.
  • Peter Voswinckel: Guided Paths. The Lübeck martyrs in words and pictures. Butzon & Bercker, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-7666-1391-2 .
  • Peter Voswinckel: Documents on the subject of Lübeck Martyrs 1941–1945, on behalf of the Cultural Office of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, funded by the non-profit Sparkassenstiftung zu Lübeck, compiled by Peter Voswinckel. (Without publisher), Lübeck June 2011.
  • Martin Thoemmes: "Never say three, always say four". The memory of the Lübeck martyrs from 1943 until today. Ansgar, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-932379-93-2 .
  • Ann-Helena Schlüter : `` Free as the birds: The heroes of Lübeck - A story against forgetting '' , SCM Hänssler (23 August 2018), ISBN 978-3-7751-5865-7 .

Movie

  • Resisting in the Spirit of Christ - The Lübeck Martyrs. Documentary by Jürgen Hobrecht, Copyright Polis Film, Berlin 2011.

Web links

Commons : Karl Friedrich Stellbrink  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brigitte Templin and Ingaburgh Klatt: " Erase my eyes ..." - Life and violent death of the four Lübeck clergy during the National Socialist era. Reprint: Publisher Burgkloster zu Lübeck / Office for Culture of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Lübeck 1994
  2. ↑ Brigitte Templin and Ingaburgh Klatt: " Erase my eyes ..." - Life and violent death of the four Lübeck clergy during the National Socialist era. Reprint: Publisher Burgkloster zu Lübeck / Office for Culture of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Lübeck 1994. pp. 28–29.
  3. ↑ Hansjörg Buss: A Martyr of the Evangelical Church… P. 626–628.
  4. ↑ Hansjörg Buss: A Martyr of the Evangelical Church ... p. 627.
  5. ↑ Else Pelke: The Lübecker Christians Trial 1943. Mainz 1961, p. 187.
  6. ↑ Brigitte Templin and Ingaburgh Klatt: " Erase my eyes ..." - Life and violent death of the four Lübeck clergy during the National Socialist era. Reprint: Publisher Burgkloster zu Lübeck / Office for Culture of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Lübeck 1994
  7. ↑ Harald Schultze, Andreas Kurschat (ed.): "Your end looks at ...". P. 447.
  8. ↑ Brigitte Templin and Ingaburgh Klatt: " Erase my eyes ..." - Life and violent death of the four Lübeck clergy during the National Socialist era. Reprint: Editor Burgkloster zu Lübeck / Office for Culture of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Lübeck 1994. pp. 30–31.
  9. ↑ Hansjörg Buss: A Martyr of the Protestant Church… P. 628–637
  10. ↑ Brigitte Templin and Ingaburgh Klatt: " Erase my eyes ..." - Life and violent death of the four Lübeck clergy during the National Socialist era. Reprint: Publisher Burgkloster zu Lübeck / Office for Culture of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Lübeck 1994. p. 32.
  11. ↑ Harald Schultze, Andreas Kurschat (ed.): "Your end looks at ...". P. 447; Hansjörg Buss: A Martyr of the Evangelical Church ... p. 634.
  12. ↑ The exact wording of this sermon has not been handed down; this representation follows the daughter's memory written down in 1946, see Else Pelke (lit.), p. 176
  13. ^ Peter Voswinckel: Guided Paths. The Lübeck martyrs in words and pictures. Butzon & Bercker / St. Ansgar Verlag, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-7666-1391-2 , pp. 118, 207.
  14. ↑ Brigitte Templin and Ingaburgh Klatt: " Erase my eyes ..." - Life and violent death of the four Lübeck clergy during the National Socialist era. Reprint: Publisher Burgkloster zu Lübeck / Office for Culture of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Lübeck 1994. p. 32.
  15. ↑ Brigitte Templin and Ingaburgh Klatt: " Erase my eyes ..." - Life and violent death of the four Lübeck clergy during the National Socialist era. Reprint: Publisher Burgkloster zu Lübeck / Office for Culture of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Lübeck 1994, pp. 55–65.
  16. ↑ Kurt Nowak : Resistance, Approval, Acceptance. The behavior of the population towards "euthanasia". In: Norbert Frei (Hrsg.): Medicine and health policy in the Nazi era (= series of quarterly issues for contemporary history, special issue). R. Oldenbourg, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-486-64534-X , pp. 235-251; here: p. 246.
  17. ↑ VGH, June 23, 1943 - 2 H 64/43 in: OpinioIuris - The free legal library .
  18. ↑ Ecumenical resistance ended under the guillotine on www.evangelisch.de
  19. ↑ Brigitte Templin and Ingaburgh Klatt: " Erase my eyes ..." - Life and violent death of the four Lübeck clergy during the National Socialist era. Reprint: Publisher Burgkloster zu Lübeck / Office for Culture of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Lübeck 1994, p. 74.
  20. ↑ Hansjörg Buss: A Martyr of the Evangelical Church ... p. 640.
  21. ↑ Brigitte Templin and Ingaburgh Klatt: " Erase my eyes ..." - Life and violent death of the four Lübeck clergy during the National Socialist era. Reprint: Publisher Burgkloster zu Lübeck / Office for Culture of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Lübeck 1994
  22. ↑ Brigitte Templin and Ingaburgh Klatt: " Erase my eyes ..." - Life and violent death of the four Lübeck clergy during the National Socialist era. Reprint: Editor Burgkloster zu Lübeck / Office for Culture of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Lübeck 1994, pp. 76–79.
  23. ^ Thousands at the beatification of Nazi resistance members in Lübeck. ( Memento from July 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) In: Lübecker Nachrichten online from June 25, 2011
  24. ↑ Thousands at the beatification of the martyrs. ( Memento from June 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) In: NDR.de, June 25, 2011
  25. ^ Karl Friedrich Stellbrink in the Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints
  26. ↑ Archbishopric Cologne (Ed.): Ecumenism of Martyrs - Witnesses of Faith from the German Martyrology of the 20th Century.
  27. ↑ Hansjörg Buss: A Martyr of the Evangelical Church… p. 636.
  28. ↑ Hansjörg Buss: A Martyr of the Evangelical Church ... p. 637.
  29. ↑ Else Pelke: The Lübeck Christian Trial.
  30. ↑ Hansjörg Buss: A Martyr of the Evangelical Church ... p. 643.
  31. ↑ Brigitte Templin and Ingaburgh Klatt: " Erase my eyes ..." - Life and violent death of the four Lübeck clergy during the National Socialist era. Reprint: Editor Burgkloster zu Lübeck / Office for Culture of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Lübeck 1994, p. 76.
  32. ↑ Martin Thoemmes: Pastor Stellbrink's estate has arrived in Lübeck. in Lübeckische Blätter 180 (2015), issue 8 , p. 137
personal data
SURNAME Stellbrink, Karl Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Evangelical Lutheran theologian
DATE OF BIRTH October 28, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Muenster
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 1943
Place of death Hamburg