Klaus Luhmer

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Klaus Luhmer SJ (born September 28, 1916 in Pulheim near Cologne as Nikolaus Luhmer ; † March 1, 2011 in Tokyo , Japan ), was a German Jesuit and educator. He witnessed the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima .

Life

Jesus Kaichotaba Monastery,
2 Chome Nagatsuka-nishi (2014)

Klaus Luhmer attended the Beethoven-Gymnasium Bonn up to the Abitur and in 1935 he joined the Jesuit order . Already two months before the conclusion of his novitiate , he was sent to Japan as a missionary together with Helmut Erlinghagen in February 1937 and there took the “First Vows” on April 27, 1937 in the chapel of the Sophia University in Tokyo . After studying the Japanese language and scholastic philosophy in Hiroshima, graduating in the summer of 1941, he was assigned to the Noboricho Parish in Hiroshima for the two-year interstiz . In September 1943 he began a four-year theology course in Tokyo in preparation for ordination. After the regular bombing of Tokyo began in November 1944, the students moved to the novitiate house in Nagatsuka, about five kilometers north of Hiroshima, which was completed in 1938 in early 1945.

After Luhmer was ordained a priest on July 1, 1945 together with Helmut Erlinghagen from Bishop Fukahori Satoshi after studying theology for barely two instead of four years, he witnessed the atomic bombing of August 6, 1945 in Nagatsuka . “There I saw in the south, it seemed to me that a light yellow, bright red-violet ball appeared directly behind the next hill, which was brighter than the sun,” recalls Luhmer. He called this day the "low point of existence". He survived the attack and helped tend the wounded and burn the dead. On the afternoon of August 6th, he went to town with a search party, including Helmut Erlinghagen , to save the Jesuits who lived near the Catholic parish church near the city center. They found the four: Hugo Lassalle , Wilhelm Kleinsorge , Hubert Cieslik and Hubert Schiffer living in Asano Park ( Shukkei Garden ), albeit with injuries of varying severity, and were able to bring them to safety in the novitiate, where they were first treated by Pedro Arrupe were. On August 18 and 24, he wrote down his experiences in Japanese in the form of a diary. The records were exhibited at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum after his death .

Klaus Luhmer stayed in Japan. From 1953 to 1987 he was Professor of Education and also long-time Chancellor of Sophia University in Tokyo (from 1957 to 1965 and from 1987 to 1992). In 1960 he succeeded in winning the federal government and German industry to sponsor a new science and technology faculty at the university. Since the mid-1960s he has been very committed to the student exchange with the University of Cologne , which was justified by contractual agreements after a delegation of Cologne students visited with the support of the Archdiocese.

Luhmer was President of the Montessori Society in Japan from 1978 to 2007 . As a pastor of the German-speaking Catholic community in Tokyo, he was particularly involved in the social field. He takes special care of outcast children and destitute seniors. He was also instrumental in shaping the partnership between the Archdioceses of Cologne and Tokyo . He was an advisor to the Japanese-German Society in Tokyo, and was also a member of the advisory board of the German Society for Natural History and Ethnology of East Asia (OAG).

honors and awards

In addition to many other honors, including the Middle Order of the Rising Sun on Ribbon (1985), he received the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany on December 19, 1995 . He was an honorary member of the AV Edo-Rhenania to Tokyo , which is friends with the Cartell Association of Catholic German Student Associations . Cardinal Joachim Meisner honored Luhmer with the Maternus plaque.

literature

  • Father Klaus Luhmer SJ. From Cologne to Tokyo. Memoirs of a Missionary to Japan, 1916–2009 . Edited and revised by Father Franz-Josef Mohr SJ, JP Bachem Verlag , Cologne 2009

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Klaus Luhmer, former Chancellor of Sophia University , obituary dated March 1, 2011, accessed on August 14, 2020
  2. ^ "The low point of existence" , taz report - August 6, 2003
  3. ↑ The World Peace Church (Hiroshima) is located here today
  4. ↑ Diary left by Father Klaus Luhmer, A-bomb survivor of Hiroshima, to be exhibited at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum , news from July 16, 2011, accessed on August 10, 2020
  5. ↑ a b 70 years ago Fr. Klaus Luhmer SJ went on a mission . In: Church newspaper for the Archdiocese of Cologne , July 7, 2007.
  6. ↑ 100 years of Sophia University Tokyo , special issue of the magazine Weltweit. The magazine of the Jesuit mission 2013 digitized , p. 10
  7. ↑ According to the files of the University of Cologne (International Office / Reminder user: G-Michel-Hürth). Karl-Heinz Meid, who later became chairman of the DJ Society in Cologne for many years, was a participant himself.
  8. ↑ Obituary of the Edo-Rhenania ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.edo-rhenania.net
  9. ↑ 70 years of missionary in Japan . In: worldwide. The magazine of the Jesuit mission, ISSN  1860-1057 , vol. 2007, issue 2 (Pentecost), p. 27.
  10. ↑ "Japanese-German Society" , Japanese-German Society, May 2007
  11. ^ “German Society for Natural History and Ethnology of East Asia OAG” ( Memento of the original from December 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , German Society for Nature and Ethnology of East Asia OAG, March 7, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oag.jp
  12. ↑ Office of the Federal President
personal data
SURNAME Luhmer, Klaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Luhmer, Nikolaus (real name); Luhmer SJ, Klaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Roman Catholic religious, university professor and pedagogue
DATE OF BIRTH September 28, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Pulheim
DATE OF DEATH March 1, 2011
Place of death Tokyo , Japan