Karl Kleinschmidt

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Friedrich Wilhelm Karl Heinrich Kleinschmidt (born April 26, 1902 in Hanover ; † August 13, 1978 in Schwerin ) was a German Evangelical Lutheran pastor , member of the GDR People's Chamber and a publicist .

Life

Karl Kleinschmidt was the son of a high school teacher . After receiving his university entrance qualification , he studied Protestant theology at the universities of Jena and Munich from 1921 to 1924 . Then he was taken over as vicar in the service of the Thuringian Protestant Church . He became a priest ordained and held that post from 1927 to 1933 in Weissbach and in Eisenberg made.

Kleinschmidt joined the Association of Religious Socialists in Germany in 1926 in Weißbach / Thuringia and he became a leading member in Thuringia together with Emil Fuchs and Erich Hertzsch . He was Emil Fuchs' successor as state chairman of the Association of Religious Socialists in Thuringia from 1930 to 1933. In 1927 he became a member of the SPD . He was removed from office in 1931 by the national-conservative Thuringian regional church council and arrested by the Gestapo in 1933. After his release from the Thuringian regional church, he worked briefly as a stage painter and announcer in the Berlin cabaret " Die Katakombe " under Werner Finck .

The Mecklenburg church leadership took him back into the pastoral service and in 1935 offered him a position as cathedral preacher in Schwerin. In March 1939 Kleinschmidt and Pastor Aurel von Jüchen protested in a letter against the exclusion of baptized Jews from the church. He only escaped renewed church disciplinary proceedings because he was drafted into the armed forces in 1939 . As a sergeant major , he was taken prisoner by the US .

After his dismissal he resumed his office as cathedral preacher, which he held until he retired in 1968. Immediately after the liberation from National Socialism , he became a member of a ruling chamber of the Synod , which examined the involvement of clergy in the structures of the Nazi state and sanctioned it with disciplinary penalties. He was one of the co-founders of the Kulturbund in Mecklenburg, of which he was vice-president from 1947 to 1949. During these years, the Kulturbund initiated the development of the Baltic Sea resort of Ahrenshoop into a health resort for cultural workers. Kleinschmidt also became head of the information department of the Mecklenburg state government . In 1946 he joined the SED . In 1947 he was one of the founders of the VVN . In 1949 he took part in the World Peace Congress in Paris . After his return, he and others founded a committee of fighters for peace, from which the GDR Peace Council emerged . From 1949 to 1954 he was a member of the People's Chamber of the GDR.

Kleinschmidt wrote articles for the Berliner Zeitung from 1954 , a. a. until 1956, together with the writer Stefan Heym, the column Frankly said . In it he criticized existing grievances such as the incompetence and lack of closeness to the citizens of the bureaucracy in the GDR. He repeatedly campaigned for political prisoners. Between 1956 and 1960, the State Security set up an "operational process in the chapel". A whole group of informers was assigned to him and their reports filled four volumes at that time. In 1955 he was one of the editors of the magazine Glaube und Gewissen, together with Günter Wirth . In this, according to his critics, he made himself an apologist for state arbitrariness . When the Association of Protestant Pastors in the GDR was founded in 1958 , it was one of its co-founders and board members. In 1959 he became the chief editor of the Evangelical Pastor's Gazette . Through his friendship with the BK pastor Walter Feurich he was made an honorary member of the Church Brotherhood of Saxony . Kleinschmidt was a member of the Christian Peace Conference and was a member of its GDR regional committee from 1961 to 1973. In 1968 he had connections to a subversive group around Robert Havemann , Wolf Biermann and Stefan Heym. In March 1968 he organized a cellar service at which Biermann appeared.

After Kleinschmidt's death, a street in Schwerin was named after him. In April 2009 this street was to be renamed Aurel-von-Jüchen-Straße at the request of the CDU and FDP parliamentary groups . The parliamentary group Die Linke and members of the family protested and the motion was withdrawn. The estate of Karl Kleinschmidt is located in the Central and Regional Library Berlin , Department of Early special collections.

Kleinschmidt was the father of Sebastian Kleinschmidt (* 1948), father-in-law of Vera Lengsfeld and grandfather of Philipp Lengsfeld .

Works

  • Kurt Tucholsky . VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie, Leipzig 1961; again VEB Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1964
  • Don't be afraid of good morals. Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 1961, new work; again in 1962, 1969
  • The Deutschlandsender brings: 3. Thoughts at the time. 1961
  • Spring of friendship between peoples. Presidium of the National Council of the National Front of Democratic Germany , Berlin 1958
  • Don't be afraid of good morals. The new Berlin, Berlin 1957
  • Conversation booklet: Ulrich von Hutten. Reclam, Leipzig [1957]
  • Martin Luther: Reformatory writings. Reclam, Leipzig 1956
  • Friedrich Schiller . Congress, Berlin 1955, 1. – 20. Thousand
  • Ulrich von Hutten . Congress, Berlin 1955
  • Youth in danger. Congress, Berlin 1954, 2nd verb. Ed.
  • Martin Luther . Congress, Berlin 1953
  • Thomas Münzer . Congress, Berlin 1952 a. ö.
  • The church in the east zone. Ed. Party Executive Committee of the KPD, Frankfurt am Main [1949]
  • As a German at the World Peace Conference in Paris. Landesdruckerei Schwerin; State Printing Office Saxony, Dresden 1949
  • The sermon after the “Kristallnacht” . In: Heinrich Fink (Ed.): Stronger than fear. The six million who couldn't find a savior. Union, Berlin 1968, pp. 56-70
  • Gospel or New Faith? Railway, Schwerin 1937

Honors

literature

  • Bernd Kasten: A controversial personality. The Schwerin cathedral preacher Karl Kleinschmidt (1902-1978) . In: Mecklenburgia sacra (Yearbook for Mecklenburg Church History) 14 (2011), pp. 22–36.
  • Ehrhart Neubert:  Kleinschmidt, Karl . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Walter Bredendiek : The importance of progressive traditions for the commitment of Christians on the side of the working class . In: Secretariat of the main board of the CDU (ed.): Tradition and obligation - contribution and joint responsibility of the socialist citizen of Christian faith . 1974, pp. 79-90.
  • Walter Bredendiek: Warner, pioneer and trailblazer. For Karl Kleinschmidt's 70th birthday . In: Belief and Conscience - Protestant Monthly Publication (1972) No. 4, pp. 67-69.
  • Horst Gienke : Domes, villages, thorn paths. Life report of an old bishop . Historff Rostock 1996. p. 229 ff.
  • Friedrich-Martin Balzer, Christian Stappenbeck [ed.]: You have affirmed the right to revolution. Christians in the GDR. A contribution to 50 years of the “Darmstädter Wort” . (With contributions by Karl Kleinschmidt, Hanfried Müller and Gert Wendelborn). Bonn 1997.
  • Strange saint . In: Der Spiegel . No. 25 , 1948 ( online - June 19, 1948 ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Bernd Kasten: A controversial personality. The Schwerin cathedral preacher Karl Kleinschmidt (1902–1978). In: Mecklenburgia sacra (Yearbook for Mecklenburg Church History) 14 (2011), pp. 22–36.
  2. ↑ http://www.kuenstlerhaus-lukas.de/?Archiv
  3. ^ Stefan Heym: Obituary , Fischer Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1990, pp. 589-593.
  4. ^ Ulrich Peter: Aurel von Jüchen: (1902–1991); Möhrenbach-Schwerin-Vorkuta-Berlin; a pastor's life in the century of dictatorships. Schwerin: Stock & Stein 2006 ISBN 978-3-937447-28-5 , pp. 412f
  5. ↑ Documents in the citizen information system of the state capital Schwerin , accessed on June 14, 2010
  6. ↑ http://kalliope.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/de/eac?eac.id=132285703
  7. ↑ Vera Lengsfeld: From now on it went uphill: my way to freedom. Langen Müller 2002 ISBN 3784428576 , p. 63
  8. ↑ Review in Der Spiegel
  9. ^ New Germany , October 6, 1955, p. 3
  10. ↑ Berliner Zeitung , May 12, 1962, p. 2
personal data
SURNAME Kleinschmidt, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kleinschmidt, Friedrich Wilhelm Karl Heinrich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Evangelical Lutheran theologian, MdV
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH August 13, 1978
Place of death Schwerin