Karl Heinrich Schäfer

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Karl Heinrich Schäfer around 1940
Memorial plaque of the martyrs of the Nazi era in the crypt of the Saint Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin-Mitte

Karl Heinrich Schäfer (or Karlheinrich , born July 27, 1871 in Wetter , † January 29, 1945 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp ) was a German historian and archivist .

Life

After graduating from high school in 1891, Schäfer studied Protestant theology in Greifswald , Erlangen and Marburg and passed the first theological exam in 1895. After his stay in the Cathedral Candidate Foundation in Berlin , he passed his parish exam in Kassel in 1898 . In 1899 the senior teacher examination followed, from 1900 he was an unskilled worker at the historical archive of the city of Cologne and in 1902 was awarded a doctorate in Tübingen with a thesis on medieval church history. phil. PhD .

On December 8th, he converted to Catholicism in the Twelve Apostles Church in Cologne , which led to the loss of his position in the Cologne City Archives. From 1903 he was an employee of the Roman Institute of the Görres Society .

He did his military service during the First World War , first as a medical soldier with the German Red Cross , then as a Landsturmmann and finally as a teaching officer. After the end of the war he worked as a temporary librarian in Wolfenbüttel in 1919 , completed his habilitation at the Technical University of Braunschweig and was also a lecturer in cultural history there .

In 1921 he was appointed as Reich Archives Councilor at the newly founded Reich Archives in Potsdam. In 1928 he became the first chairman of the history association Katholische Mark and diocesan history association in the diocese of Berlin.

In 1934 he was given permanent retirement after being denounced . After another denunciation by a domestic worker because of hearing English radio station he was from the 14 October 1942 the Gestapo arrested and the special court III Berlin on 27 January 1943, two years prison sentenced. On March 8, 1943, the archive rating and the pension were withdrawn. After serving the sentence in Luckau , the Gestapo prevented a release. From January 7, 1945 he was in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp , where he died on January 29.

Along with him, his Luxembourg wife Barbara Schäfer was sentenced to a prison term of 18 months for "listening to enemy radio stations". In April 1944 she was physically worn down from the Cottbus women's penal institution, but was released, strengthened by her faith. Recognized as a victim of fascism as early as 1947 , she only received an honorary pension from 1965 in the GDR before she died impoverished in Potsdam on November 20, 1976.

The couple's estate is in the Diocesan Archives in Berlin and in the archives of the Catholic Provost Parish of St. Peter and Paul in Potsdam.

The Catholic Church has Dr. Karl Heinrich Schäfer was accepted into the German martyrology of the 20th century as a witness of faith .

Fonts

  • Parish church and monastery in the German Middle Ages , 1903.
  • The founders of canons in the German Middle Ages , 1907.
  • Märkisches education system before the Reformation . Berlin 1928.

literature

  • Helmut Holzapfel / Bernhard Stasiewski: memorial for Karl-Heinrich Schäfer , Würzburg 1946.
  • Helmut Moll , (Ed. On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference), Witnesses for Christ. The German Martyrology of the 20th Century , Paderborn a. a. 1999, 7th revised and updated edition 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , Volume I, pages 175-178.
  • Permanent exhibition of the Cottbus prison memorial, 2013

Web links

Commons : Karl Heinrich Schäfer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files


personal data
SURNAME Shepherd, Karl Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Shepherd, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German church historian and archivist
DATE OF BIRTH July 27, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Weather
DATE OF DEATH January 29, 1945
Place of death Sachsenhausen concentration camp