Karl Hasselmann (theologian)

Karl Hasselmann (born February 22, 1898 in Brokdorf , † May 27, 1975 in Hamburg ) was an Evangelical Lutheran clergyman and provost.

education

Hasselmann came from a family in which several ancestors were pastors. His father Nikolaus Emil Zacharias Hasselmann (born August 22, 1863 in Krummendiek ; † December 21, 1951 in Altona ) was also a pastor, most recently in Kirchbarkau . His mother was Minna Dorothea, née Johannsen (* 1867 in Brokdorf; † 1940). After attending the Itzehoe grammar school and today's Humboldt grammar school in Kiel , he graduated from high school in 1915. He then volunteered in the army during the First World War . In 1920 he began studying New Languages ​​at the University of Kiel. In the same year he changed the subject and attended universities in Kiel, Tübingen and Berlin until 1923, where he studied theology. He then completed a year-long vicariate. In October 1924 he was ordained as a pastor.

First employment

At the time, there was a shortage of new hires in the regional church. Bishop Adolf Mordhorst therefore helped Hasselmann to get a job as a travel pastor to bridge the waiting time. Hasselmann worked for the evangelization association in Flensburg. In the spring of 1925 Hasselmann was chosen as pastor in Oldenswort . It was introduced there at the end of March. In the autumn of 1926 he submitted an application for a pastor's position in a large city. In November 1926 he received the new second pastorate of the Altona Luther Church in Bahrenfeld . By the summer of 1933 it was also effective far beyond Bahrenfeld. In Bahrenfeld he established a group of lay people who, based on the Bible, dealt with the increasingly problematic current situation. Hasselmann coined the amateur circuit, during the church struggle to a pillar of the confessional community developed.

In 1929 Hasselmann co-founded the Schleswig-Holstein “ Brotherhood of Young Theologians ”. He positioned himself against liberal currents in the church, was considered to be a believer in Christ and turned towards the world and had sympathy for the Christian Social People's Service . In June 1933 the members of the brotherhood considered organizing themselves in the form of a German-Christian and a Young Reformation group. Since Hasselmann was seen as a balancing personality, he was treated as a potential leader of both groups.

Act as editor

The Hasselmanns took over the task that mainly occupied him at the beginning of the 1930s at the end of 1930. Senior Pastor Simon Schöffel appointed him and the regional bishop Heinrich Rendtorff to the editors of the Niederdeutsche Kirchenzeitung . Rendtorff saw the church in decline and in a decisive battle. Hasselmann agreed with these historical theological interpretations. He also supported Rendtorff's efforts to bring churches in Mecklenburg, Hanover, Hamburg, and Schleswig-Holstein closer together based on common ground in history and ethnicity. Hasselmann himself concentrated programmatically on a popular proclamation. He attached great importance to extensive pastoral discussions and criticism, and in particular to the fact that the church should take on a guardianship. It should act “against what is no longer the church, against heresy”, the theologian said in 1931.

Hasselmann's criticism of 1931 was initially directed against the godless movement ( Tannenbergbund ). A little later he began to repeatedly address how the church should position itself in relation to the National Socialists. He wrote reviews, event reports, and notes as a writer, suggesting that politics invaded the churches. In 1932 he ruled that the Church could not accept that the National Socialists glorified race and blood.

After the Altona Blood Sunday , the Altona pastors came together for an emergency service. Together they decided to publish a fundamental message from the Church regarding the crises in politics, the state and parties. They set up a five-person working committee, headed by Hans Asmussen , including Hasselmann. On January 11, 1933, the “Word and Confession of the Altona Pastors in the Need and Confusion of Public Life”, or Altona Confession for short, was published . The theologians wrote that the extreme political parties pursued ideologies that had developed into political denominations and thus replaced existing religions. They used Hasselmann's newspaper for distribution, press coverage and further explanations.

After the seizure of power and due to the pressure of the church leaders against the confession of the pastors, the alliance of the Altona clergy broke up in February / March 1933. Because of the Potsdam Day , Hasselmann finally sought proximity to the local NSDAP . He was openly adaptable and assured internally that he had already been a National Socialist for several years, but never joined the NSDAP.

Hasselmann initially kept a negative distance from the "Faith Movement German Christians " (DC), which was emerging at the same time and wanted to revolutionize the Protestant Church in the National Socialist sense (native German Tatchristism , suppression of Jewish Christianity and the Old Testament , creation of a unified imperial church ). In the lay community of his community he gave lectures in which he emphasized the indispensability of the Old Testament and contrasted the attitude of the Church to Judaism from political anti-Semitism ; as editor, he solicited contributions from Dietrich Bonhoeffer , among others, on the same subjects , which still took fundamental opposing positions to German-Christian ideas. In his editor's reports on the church political disputes, Hasselmann primarily criticized the DC's claim to exclusivity. Only when it merged to form an imperial church did his goals coincide with those of the DC.

Provost of Flensburg

After massive pressure from the German Christians and from politics, Hasselmann's time as editor of the Niederdeutsche Kirchenzeitung ended on July 15, 1933. Contrary to the positions he had previously represented, he became a member of the DC, probably in July 1933. In October 1933 the regional church committee appointed him provost of Flensburg , where he was introduced to the office at the end of November 1933. In the same month, the district administration of the DC made him DC head of the provost office. In both offices Hasselmann followed the direction given by the church superiors by working with the National Socialists.

Hasselmann became a member of the SA during the first few days in Flensburg . In the first few weeks he initiated a close cooperation with the city officials and those of the district and the organization. After the SA leadership issued an order on July 1 about the "cultural organization of services" during the Sunday service, Hasselmann resigned from the SA in protest that same month.

In contrast to the DC, the pastors' emergency association was created , which later developed into the confessional community and the Confessing Church (BK). He was joined by many well-educated theologians, especially in the Flensburg Provost. Hasselmann saw this as remote from the people, reactionary and dividing the church and wanted to distance himself from the community. In terms of content, he never dealt with the BK. However, he repeatedly prevented members of the BK from being transferred for political reasons.

In November 1934 the regional bishop resigned from the DC. Hasselmann followed his example and took on the episcopal mandate to set up a "regional church front". This was supposed to unite the opponents of DC and BK, whose groups would then dissolve themselves. Hasselmann pursued this task with zeal, but had to stop his efforts a few weeks later without success. After that he did not take any prominent positions in the national politics of the church, with one exception:

In November 1936 he intervened with the church superiors against a lecture by the party speaker Wilhelm Börger , who had described the church as "branches of the Jewish synagogue". He also wrote a “word to the congregations of the Provost of Flensburg”, which he agreed with their pastors. This action brought him to the side of Wilhelm Halfmann and in terms of content close to the BK.

Hasselmann concentrated in the following period on creating understanding for members of the BK in the provost office of Flensburg, whom he openly supported in filling offices from 1941.

Hasselmann thus adopted changing attitudes during the Nazi era. Friends and critics alike accused him of this for life, but also forgave him for it.

After the end of the war

After the end of the war, members of the BK worked to rebuild the church. Hasselmann worked on this permanently from the start. In May 1945 he belonged to a working group in Schleswig and in August 1945 (as a representative for Hans Asmussen ) to the provisional church leadership, which confirmed him as provost.

Due to the increasing number of inhabitants in the Hamburg area and the resulting new parishes, Bishop Wilhelm Halfmann asked Hasselmann to move to Blankenese - Pinneberg . It was introduced here on December 28, 1952. On September 2, 1962, Hasselmann became provost of the newly created provincial provost of Südholstein. Even after his retirement in 1968 he held this office until 1970. His successor as provost was the provost of Altona Adolf Ruppelt .

family

Hasselmann married Margarethe Blöcker (born December 13, 1901) on March 20, 1925, whose father worked as a farmer and mill leaseholder. The couple had three daughters and three sons. All three sons: Karl-Behrnd (* 1933), Niels (* 1936) and Friedrich Franz (* 1941 † 2019) became pastors.

literature

• Christian Dethleffsen: Pastoral existence in the final phase of the Weimar Republic. The “brotherhood of young theologians” in Schleswig-Holstein 1929–1933 , in: Klauspeter Reumann (Ed.): Church and National Socialism. Contributions to the history of the church struggle in the Protestant regional churches of Schleswig-Holstein , Neumünster: Karl Wachholtz 1988, pp. 49–70.
• Klauspeter Reumann: The Altona pastor and Flensburg provost Karl Hasselmann. Stations of ecclesiastical political change (1933 to 1945) , in: ders. (Ed.): Church and National Socialism. Contributions to the history of the church struggle in the Protestant regional churches of Schleswig-Holstein , Neumünster: Wachholtz 1988, pp. 85–131.
• Klauspeter Reumann: Hasselmann, Karl , in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 10. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994, pp. 157-161.
• Klauspeter Reumann: "... branches of the Jewish synagogue". On the creation of Wilhelm Halfmann's “The Church and the Jew” 1936 , in: Grenzfriedenshefte , no . 3, Flensburg, 2004, pp. 163–178; on Hasselmann especially pp. 167–170.

Web links

• Biogram Karl Hasselmann (online at geschichte-bk-sh.de)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Klauspeter Reumann: Hasselmann, Karl , in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 10. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994, p. 157.
2. ^ Klauspeter Reumann: Hasselmann, Karl , in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 10. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994, pp. 157-158.
3. ↑ Christian Dethleffsen: Pastoral existence in the final phase of the Weimar Republic. The “brotherhood of young theologians” in Schleswig-Holstein 1929–1933 , in: Klauspeter Reumann (Ed.): Church and National Socialism. Contributions to the history of the church struggle in the Protestant regional churches of Schleswig-Holstein , Neumünster: Karl Wachholtz 1988, pp. 49–70, esp. Pp. 51 ff.
4. ^ ^{A b c d} Klauspeter Reumann: Hasselmann, Karl , in: Biographisches Lexikon für Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 10. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994, p. 158.
5. ↑ ZDB -ID 551124-0
6. ^ Klauspeter Reumann: Hasselmann, Karl , in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 10. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994, pp. 158-159.
7. ↑ As editor of the Niederdeutsche Kirchenzeitung , Hasselmann tried in 1933 to get permission to reprint the article Die Kirche vor der Judenfrage (online at geschichte-bk-sh.de) by Dietrich Bonhoeffer , which appeared in the June issue of the magazine Der Vormarsch and then in the 1st July issue of the NKZ was reprinted (pp. 234–238). See: Klauspeter Reumann: The Altona Pastor and Flensburg Provost Karl Hasselmann. Stations of ecclesiastical political change (1933 to 1945) , in: ders. (Ed.): Church and National Socialism. Contributions to the history of the church struggle in the Protestant regional churches of Schleswig-Holstein , Neumünster: Wachholtz 1988, pp. 85–131, here p. 96.
8. ^ ^{A b c} Klauspeter Reumann: Hasselmann, Karl , in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 10. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994, p. 159.
9. ^ Klauspeter Reumann: Hasselmann, Karl , in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 10. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994, pp. 159-160.
10. ↑ KKA Fl. XI, Propstei, No. 400, Vol. 7, hectographed copies (online at geschichte-bk-sh.de) .
11. ^ Klauspeter Reumann: "... branches of the Jewish synagogue". On the creation of Wilhelm Halfmann's “The Church and the Jew” 1936 , in: Grenzfriedenshefte , no . 3, Flensburg, 2004, pp. 163–178; on Hasselmann especially pp. 167–170.
12. ↑ ^{a b} Klauspeter Reumann: Hasselmann, Karl , in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 10. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994, p. 160.
13. ^ Klauspeter Reumann: Hasselmann, Karl , in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 10. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994, p. 161.
14. ^ LK Schleswig-Holstein - Church leadership (inventory)