Karl Mützelfeldt

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Karl Mützelfeldt

Karl Theodor Heinrich Mützelfeldt (born April 30, 1881 in Hermannsburg , † November 30, 1955 in Adelaide ) was a German Lutheran pastor and educator , as well as the author of several publications on religious education . He is considered to be one of the first pastors who wanted to make the Evangelical Church responsible for its members of Jewish origin .

He was the head of the entire Kaiserswerth school system . Due to his German national sentiment, the beginning of the Nazi racial policy (→ Aryan paragraph ) caused him to experience severe losses . His children had a Jewish grandfather on their mother's side and were therefore no longer regarded as Germans by the authorities with insufficient Aryan evidence . He made the unsuccessful attempt to establish a church office in Germany to look after Christian "non-Aryans" . The family emigrated to Australia together in 1934.

Live and act

Childhood and school

Karl Mützelfeldt was born in the newly built, second mission house of the Hermannsburg Mission . His father Carl (senior) was a mission inspector there. The mission director Theodor Harms was Karl's godfather . The parents came from Lauenburg . The family of mother Maria geb. Lehmitz ran a Christian toddler school in her house and belonged to the group of “awakened” that Ludwig Harms had founded during his time in Lauenburg. After the family moved to the Weser Uplands in 1883 , Karl Mützelfeldt grew up in Preußisch Oldendorf and Rabber , Wittlage district . His father had been appointed pastor of the newly founded Trinity congregation of the Hanoverian Evangelical Lutheran Free Church . After attending the local village school, Mützelfeldt left his family early and was in the house of the superintendent and later church councilor Dr. Schmidt housed in Elberfeld in order to attend the grammar school there from 1893 . In 1898 he moved to the Ratsgymnasium Osnabrück , where he graduated from high school in 1901.

Study and training

Karl Mützelfeldt (left) as a member of the Rostock Wingolf in 1904

He began studying theology and philosophy in Göttingen and moved to Rostock University in the summer semester of 1903 , which he left again in August 1905. In Rostock he was mainly influenced by Wilhelm Walther . During his studies he became active in the Göttingen Wingolf in 1901 and in the Rostock Wingolf in 1903 . In 1906 he attended the Bethel Theological School, newly founded by Pastor von Bodelschwingh , and the seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Prussia in the 1906/07 winter semester. There in Breslau Mützelfeldt passed his first theological exam as a candidate for the Evangelical-Lutheran Free Church in Hanover. However, he did not enter the church preparatory service, but became an educator at a private school at the Evangelical Pedagogy in Bad Godesberg . While attending lectures in Bonn at the same time , he passed the examination as a gymnastics and swimming instructor. In 1906 Mützelfeldt passed the state teacher training examination in the subjects of religion, philosophy and Hebrew. In the winter semester of 1908/1909, he re-enrolled at Rostock University, but gave up his rights on April 27, 1909.

Act

Karl Mützelfeldt was appointed senior teacher for religion by the Godesberg pedagogy in 1906. There he met his colleague and later “fatherly friend Professor D. Dr. Dennert ”, whose newly founded Keplerbund he immediately joined. Mützelfeldt also took over the overall editing of the third edition of the People's Universal Lexicon published by Dennert and also contributed with articles on theology and philosophy. In October 1913 he was teacher at the Municipal Oberlyzeum in Dusseldorf-Oberkassel . His activity there was interrupted by the First World War. From the beginning to the end of the war he was used on the Western Front. The awards EK II and EK I, he returned as an officer in the occupied Rhineland back. At Easter 1923 Mützelfeldt was appointed head of the Bethel School. However, he could not take up the position because the occupation authorities did not approve the departure. In October 1923 he took the position of director of the senior school of the Diakonissenanstalt Kaiserswerth and resigned from the public service.

Emigration to Australia

Since his wife Gertrud, geb. Hertzfeld, who had Jewish ancestors, was forced to leave Germany with his family after the National Socialists came to power. In his need he turned to various Lutheran churches in North and South America, South Africa and Australia. The United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia (one of the predecessor churches of the Lutheran Church of Australia ) then offered him a position as a lecturer at Immanuel Seminary in Adelaide . Shortly before emigrating, Mützelfeldt had himself ordained in May 1934 , as he was also supposed to train pastors in Australia. At the seminary in Adelaide he then taught the subjects Biblical History, Old Testament , Philosophy , Apologetics and Catechetics . He also organized Lutheran immigration aid for persecuted Jews and Christians of Jewish origin from Europe.

Publications (selection)

  • All kinds of abuse of natural science , A. "Kosmos" publications, Godesberg near Bonn, natural science. Verl., Dept. of the Kepler Union, 1909
  • Evangelical leadership and high school: A wake-up call to d. German Protestant Christianity. Wichern-Verlag 1925
  • with Luise Fliedner: The Kaiserswerth seminars - memories from nine decades of Kaiserswerth teacher training. Kaiserswerth 1928
  • with Friedrich Fliedner and Adelheid Caspar: Evangelical religious book for higher schools. Velhagen & Klasing 1930
  • Our religious instruction in the new state , Kaiserswerth 1933

As editor

  • with Magdalene von Tiling : School and Gospel. Journal for Education and Teaching , Stuttgart 1926 ff.

literature

  • L. Fliedner, Diakonisse (ed.): In memory of Pastor Karl Mützelfeldt , print: Fritz Riehl, Mülheim (Ruhr) 1955.
  • Gury Schneider-Ludorff, Magdalene von Tiling. Order theology and gender relations . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001.
  • Volker Stolle: “You take everything from Christian non-Aryans”, the Protestant pedagogue Karl Mützelfeldt in view of the Nazi racial policy . (Münster Judaic Studies Vol. 22, published by the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum in Münster) LIT-Verlag 2007. ISBN 978-3-8258-0901-0 .
  • Gunther Schendel: The Hermannsburg Missionary Institution and National Socialism . LIT-Verlag, Münster 2009, ISBN 978-3-8258-0627-9 .
  • Richard J. Hauser: The Pathfinders. A History of Australian Lutheran Schooling 1919–1999 . Lutheran Education Australia, North Adelaide 2012, pp. 51–70.
  • Hartmut Ludwig, Eberhard Röhm . Baptized Evangelical - persecuted as "Jews" . Calver Verlag Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-7668-4299-2 , pp. 250-251.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.lutherisch-in-heidelberg.de/e7/e126/?id=144815
  2. ↑ http://www.lthh-oberursel.de/5publikationen.html
  3. ↑ History of the Hanoverian Evangelical Lutheran Free Church. Published by the Pastors' Convention, Celle 1924
  4. ^ Matriculation (1) from Karl Mützelfeldt in the Rostock matriculation portal
  5. ^ List of members of Wingolf, Berlin 1937, p. 159.
  6. ^ Matriculation (2) by Karl Mützelfeldt in the Rostock matriculation portal
  7. ↑ Volker Stolle: One takes everything from Christian non-Aries , Münsteraner Judaistische Studien Vol. 22, LIT-Verlag 2007. ISBN 978-3-8258-0901-0 , p. 14.
personal data
SURNAME Mützelfeldt, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mützelfeldt, Karl Theodor Heinrich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Lutheran pastor and educator, as well as author of several publications on religious education
DATE OF BIRTH April 30, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Hermannsburg
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 1955
Place of death Adelaide