Konrad Kleinschmidt

Johann Konrad Kleinschmidt (born December 29, 1768 in Oberdorla ; † December 23, 1832 in Friedrichstal , Greenland ) was a German missionary of the Moravian Brethren .

Life

The son of Emanuel Kleinschmidt and his wife Maria, née Bomberg, moved with his parents to Neudietendorf in 1775 , where the family joined the Moravians on the recommendation of the Niederdorla doctor Sternbeck. In 1793 Konrad was sent to Greenland and was one of the most active missionaries in the Brethren there. In 1800 he married Anna Maria Hammeleff in Neu-Herrnhut , but she died in 1812. In 1813 Kleinschmidt married again on a trip to England, this time with the Dane Christina Petersen. Their son Samuel Kleinschmidt , the founder of the modern written language in Greenland, was born in Greenland in 1813 and, thanks to his parents, was able to grow up trilingual in German, Danish and Greenlandic.

Act

In August 1824 Konrad Kleinschmidt laid the foundation stone for the Friedrichstal (Danish: Frederiksdal ) missionary station in southwest Greenland (near Cape Farvel ), where he moved with two other employees. The community already had over 300 members in 1828. Today he is buried in the local cemetery.

Konrad Kleinschmidt's translation of the New Testament into Greenlandic (completed between 1821 and 1823) is famous, the third translation after Hans and Paul Egede . He also transmitted parts of the Old Testament.

literature

• Ove Bak: Johan Conrad Kleinschmidt . Ministeriet for Grønland, Copenhagen 1975
• Paul Karmrodt: Two bailiwick scientists in Greenland . In: Central Memorial Cities of the German Peasant War (Hrsg.): Mühlhäuser contributions . Booklet 11. Mühlhäuser Druckhaus, Mühlhausen / Thuringia 1988, p. 89-92 .
• Konrad Kleinschmidt . In: Carl Frederik Bricka (Ed.): Dansk biografisk Lexikon. Tillige omfattende Norge for Tidsrummet 1537-1814. 1st edition. tape 9 : Jyde – Køtschau . Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag, Copenhagen 1895, p. 218 (Danish, runeberg.org ).