Karl Immanuel Always

Karl Immanuel Immer (born May 1, 1888 in Manslagt , East Frisia , † June 6, 1944 in Bad Meinberg ) was a German Reformed theologian . Always was one of the founding members of the Confessing Church .

Life

Karl Immer, son of the Manslagt pastor Carl Eduard Immer, studied Protestant theology in Basel , Halle , Tübingen and Marburg . After the vicariate in Rekum , he was a pastor in Rysum, East Frisia, between 1914 and 1925 . During this time he took part in the First World War as a field preacher and was awarded the Iron Cross. In 1925 he was appointed director of the Neukirchener Erziehungsverein , but in 1927 he went to Barmen-Gemarke as a pastor , where in 1933 he became the Coetus Reformed preacher, one of the forerunners of the Confessing Church. He initiated the first free Reformed Synod in January 1934 and the first Confessional Synod in May , both of which took place in the Gemarker Church. Always campaigned for the dissemination of the Barmen Theological Declaration adopted there and also acted as the editor of the other synodal reports.

Against the suppression of church news by the National Socialists , he wrote the Coetus letters , which were copied in the attic of his pastorate at Klingelholl and distributed throughout Germany , in order to encourage Christians to resist National Socialism based on their creed . The weekly newspaper Unter dem Wort , which was banned by the National Socialists in 1936, was also initiated by him. In 1937 he was arrested for his work for the illegal pastoral training of the Confessing Church, transported to a Berlin prison and suffered a severe stroke while in custody , from which he recovered poorly. A second stroke followed in April 1944. On June 6, 1944, Karl Immer died in his sleep of a third stroke during the cure in Bad Meinberg.

Karl Immer is one of the most famous spokesmen for the Confessing Church. The future Federal President Johannes Rau , who attended confirmation classes with Karl Immer, called Karl Immer his "second father". Johannes Rau wrote the preface for the book Do something brave for God's sake (1989).

Seven children were born from her marriage to Annette Tabea Smidt, a pastor's daughter. Immer's eldest son, who was also called Karl Immer , was President of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland from 1971 to 1981 . Karl Immers eldest daughter, Leni Immer , also extensively paid tribute to her father's life in her 1994 book Meine Jugend im Kirchenkampf (Quell-Verlag Stuttgart).

Karl Immer is buried in the cemetery on Hugostraße in Wuppertal-Barmen. In the cemetery there is a separate burial ground for the pastors of the Gemarke community.

Honors

A house in Mönchengladbach-Bettrath has been named after Immer since 1984 , the Karl Immer event house.

A training center of the Neukirchener Erziehungsverein is named after Immer. This site was the motherhouse of the Neukirchen deaconess until 1984

In his home church, Wichlinghausen , the street on the north side of the Erlöserkirche has been called Karl-Immer-Straße since 1988

literature

Robert Steiner: Always, Karl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 158 f. ( Digitized version ).
Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz : Always, Karl. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 1268-1269. ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
Bertold Klappert , Günther van Norden (ed.): “For God's sake do something brave!” Karl Always in the church fight. Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1989, ISBN 3-7887-1301-1
Leni Immer : My youth in the church struggle . Preface by Johannes Rau. Quell-Verlag, Stuttgart, 1994, ISBN 3-7918-1714-0
Ulrike Schrader : Confession and betrayal: A city guide to the Wuppertal church history in the time of National Socialism. Supporting association for the meeting place Old Synagogue Wuppertal, Wuppertal, 2nd edition, 2014, ISBN 978-3-940199-09-6 .

Web links

Literature by and about Karl Immanuel Immer in the catalog of the German National Library
Jürgen Hoogstraat: Karl Immer. (pdf, 81 kB) In: Biographical Lexicon for Ostfriesland Online . March 28, 2011 .; accessed on December 26, 2018
Karl Always. In: evangelischer- Resistance.de. Retrieved December 26, 2018

Footnotes

^ Grave of Carl Eduard Immer (08/28/1848– 05/28/1914), Manslagt cemetery. Upstalsboom-Gesellschaft, accessed December 26, 2018 .
^ Leni Immer: My youth in the church struggle . Stuttgart 1994, p. 144 .
^ Karl Immer event house. PSG Pflege-Servicegesellschaft Mönchengladbach, accessed on December 26, 2018 . Karl Immer house. Community Association Ev. Parishes of Mönchengladbach, accessed on December 26, 2018 .

personal data
SURNAME	Always, Karl Immanuel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Always, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German reformed theologian
DATE OF BIRTH	May 1, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH	Manslagt
DATE OF DEATH	June 6, 1944
Place of death	Bad Meinberg

[1] Grave of Carl Eduard Immer (08/28/1848– 05/28/1914), Manslagt cemetery. Upstalsboom-Gesellschaft, accessed December 26, 2018 .

[2] Leni Immer: My youth in the church struggle . Stuttgart 1994, p. 144 .

[3] Karl Immer event house. PSG Pflege-Servicegesellschaft Mönchengladbach, accessed on December 26, 2018 . Karl Immer house. Community Association Ev. Parishes of Mönchengladbach, accessed on December 26, 2018 .