Karl Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Krafft

Karl Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Krafft (born November 25, 1814 in Cologne , † March 11, 1898 in Elberfeld ) was a German Protestant pastor and church historian .

Life

Karl Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Krafft at a young age

He was the first son of pastor Johann Gottlob Krafft († 1830) and his wife Sophie, b. Strauss († 1815). After his mother's untimely death, his father, who was an avid revivalist , took over the upbringing. His half-brother became Wilhelm Ludwig . After her father's death, his second wife Louise continued the upbringing. From 1824 he received his high school education at the Progymnasium of the so-called Carmeliter Collegium in Cologne.

When he began studying theology in Erlangen in 1832, he was accepted into the house of his paternal uncle, Prof. Christian Krafft , whose lectures particularly impressed him. As a result of a student riot, he had to leave Erlangen. From 1834 he studied in Berlin, where his maternal uncle Friedrich Strauss was the university rector. His lectures, as well as those of August Neander , Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg and Henrich Steffens , particularly attracted him here. He fell ill on a vacation trip to Prague. He then went to Bonn in 1835, where Karl Immanuel Nitzsch and Karl Heinrich Sack were his teachers. A small inheritance made it possible for him to study philology, which, however, seemed to him dull.

In 1837 and 1838 he took the theological exams and was then briefly a religion teacher at the Bonn grammar school. From 1839 he worked as a pastor in various parishes, first in Flamersheim , from 1842 to 1845 in Hückeswagen , from 1845 to 1856 in Düsseldorf and finally until his retirement in 1885 in Elberfeld.

Karl Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Krafft

Krafft was particularly involved in the Inner Mission in Düsseldorf . B. at the Düsseldorf rescue facility and at the Kaiserswerther Diakonissenhaus . He was also a member of the board of the Rhenish Mission . In the revolution of 1848/49 he worked passionately for the rights of the Prussian king.

Officially initiated, but also on his own initiative, he began to work through the church history of his homeland during his time in Elberfeld. On June 13, 1863, together with the grammar school director Karl Wilhelm Bouterwek (1809–1868), he founded the Bergisches Geschichtsverein , which still exists today and which soon afterwards published its journal for the Bergisches Geschichtsverein (ZBGV). He published both here and in the weekly newspaper of his community.

His great merit consists in an initial appraisal of the history of the Rhenish Reformation.

Marriage and children

In 1854 he married Pauline Hermann († 1892), a pastor's daughter from Duisburg, with whom he had nine children:

• Sophie (* 1859) ∞ a grave (her great-grandson was Wilhelm Becker (1903–1973), most recently director of studies at the Protestant Academy Haus Ortlohn in Iserlohn)
• Hermann (1861-1934); became pastor in Barmen
• Karl (1862-1942); became a pastor

Works

• The learned school in Düsseldorf in the sixteenth century under the rectorate of Johann Monheim . In: Program of the Realschule zu Düsseldorf . Düsseldorf 1853, pp. 3-32.
• Notes by the Swiss reformer Heinrich Bullinger about his studies in Emmerich and Cologne (1516-1522) and his correspondence with friends in Cologne, Archbishop Hermann von Wied ec. A contribution to the history of churches, schools and scholars in Lower Rhine-Westphalia . Elberfeld 1870.
• (with Wilhelm Crecelius ) Messages about Alexander Hegius and his students, as well as other scholars at the same time, from the works of Johannes Butzbach, prior of the Benedictine monastery on the Laacher See . In: Journal of the Bergisches Geschichtsverein 7 (1871), pp. 213–288.
• The decisions of the City Council of Cologne in relation to the two Protestant martyrs Peter Fliesteden and Adolf Clarenbach from their capture until their execution (1527–1529) . In: Journal of the Bergisches Geschichtsverein 10 (1874), 176-254
• Contributions to the history of humanism in the Lower Rhine and Westphalia . In: Journal of the Bergisches Geschichtsverein 11 (1876), pp. 1-68; together with Wilhelm Crecelius
• Letters and documents from the time of the Reformation in the 16th century along with communications about Cologne scholars and studies in the 15th and 16th centuries ; Elberfeld 1876; together with Wilhelm Ludwig Krafft. Digitized edition
• The foundation of the Bergisches Provincial Synod on July 21, 1589 at Neviges near Elberfeld . Evang. Ges. In Komm, Elberfeld 1889. Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf
• The story of the two martyrs of the Protestant Church Adolf Clarenbach and Peter Fliesteden , executed in Cologne on the Rhine, September 28, 1529; Narrated from simultaneous municipal and sovereign documents and from pamphlets found again . Evang. Ges., Elberfeld 1886. Digitized edition
• Memories of the businessman Daniel Hermann zu Elberfeld . Elberfelder Erziehungs-Ver., Erlberfeld 1887 Digitized edition
• Contributions to the chronicle of the Reformed community of Elberfeld . Elberfeld 1900.

literature

• Hermann-Peter Eberlein: Carl Krafft. Collector - theologian - historian - contemporary. In: Hermann-Peter Eberlein (Ed.): 444 years of the Evangelical Church in Elberfeld. Lectures on the occasion of the opening of the historical library in the Elberfeld church district in summer 1996 (= series of publications by the Association for Rhenish Church History. Vol. 127). Cologne 1998, pp. 79–126 (with bibliography).
• Hermann-Peter Eberlein (Ed.): Album ministrorum of the Reformed Community of Elberfeld. Preachers and pastors since 1552 (= series of publications of the Association for Rhenish Church History. Vol. 163). Bonn 2003, pp. 127-133.
• Wolfgang E. Heinrichs :  Krafft, Karl Johann Friedrich Wilhelm. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 4, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-038-7 , Sp. 584-586.
• Otto Schell :  Krafft, Karl . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 51, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, p. 357 f.

Web links

Wikisource: Carl Krafft  - Sources and full texts