Kurt Eckels

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Kurt Karl Gustav Eckels (born July 26, 1911 in Bramsche ; † December 8, 1990 in Celle ) was a German Evangelical Lutheran theologian and from 1964 superintendent of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hanover . In this position he worked for 12 years at the St. Nikolai Church in Rinteln , which is now part of the Hanover district.

Life

Kurt Eckels was born as the son of the lawyer , notary and acting mayor of the city of Bramsche, Erich Eckels , and his wife Grete, geb. Streckewald, born. He had two siblings: Gisela (* 1914) and Wilhelm Max (* January 13, 1917). His father died on January 13, 1918 at the age of 38. From 1920 Kurt Eckels attended the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Hanover , where he obtained his Abitur in 1930 . In 1925, his mother died at the age of 37.

From 1930 he studied Protestant theology in Tübingen , Berlin , Bonn and Göttingen ; In 1934 he passed his first exam and attended the Erichsburg seminary from October 1, 1934 to October 10, 1936 . He completed the 2nd theological exam on September 23, 1936. On 14 October 1936 he was in Henriettenstift in Hannover ordained .

Then Eckels was as from October 15, 1936 curate and vicar city in Neu-Ulm used on 15 October 1937 he was curate in Papenburg . One month later, on November 16, 1937, he got a permanent pastor's position there.

In 1942 Eckels joined the Wehrmacht and was deployed in an infantry unit on the Eastern Front. On April 10, 1945 he suffered a head injury in combat, and on April 14, 1945 he lost his left eye in combat. As part of the military retreat, he came to Denmark , where he received another deployment order despite the wound.

Kurt Eckels was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class, and he also had the Infantry Assault Badge in silver. Because of the loss of his eye, he was also awarded the Wound Badge in Silver.

In July 1945 criminal proceedings under Section 175 StGB (so-called "gay paragraph") were conducted against Eckels. The proceedings were heard before the Army Court in Copenhagen. Eckels was released from church service on August 1 and sentenced to eighteen months in prison on August 20, 1945. On August 31, 1945, he was transferred to the Wehrmacht field prison (Division III) in Putlos , where he was incarcerated until January 14, 1946.

His management was rated “very good” and his work behavior “exemplary” when he was transferred to the civil prison in Kiel on January 14, 1946 . On March 28, 1946, the Chief Public Prosecutor at the District Court of Kiel ordered Eckels to be released immediately after he had filed an application for parole with the British military administration on March 12 .

At the beginning of 1947, Eckels tried to get an annulment judgment from the district court in Verden . For this purpose, the Hanover-based attorney Max Streckewald, Eckels' uncle, applied for a retrial , which was initially rejected as inadmissible by the criminal chamber. Streckewald lodged a complaint against this decision, which was upheld by the Public Prosecutor's Office in Celle at the end of 1947. In the course of the proceedings, based on a medical opinion, the incapacity for guilt was determined at the time of the offenses due to the war injuries suffered.

Grave site in Celle-Neuenhäusen

Eckels was taken back into the church service after the verdict in Verden , his first post after rehabilitation he received as a commissioned pastor at the "Rotenburger Anstalten der Innere Mission" (today: Rotenburger Werke der Innere Mission eV ) in Rotenburg (Wümme) . Here he also met the daughter of the then Bremen superintendent Johannes Schulze , Elisabeth, who learned to be a nurse in the institutions.

From May 1, 1949 he was pastor in Wilhelmsburg - Reiherstieg .

On January 30, 1951, he married Elisabeth Schulze in the church of the Friederikenstift in Hanover , and on May 16, 1954, he took up his service in the St. Mary's Church in Osnabrück .

On May 16, 1964 he became superintendent of the Evangelical Lutheran church district Grafschaft Schaumburg and got a pastor's position at the St. Nikolai Church in Rinteln . He headed this community until his retirement on August 1, 1976. He moved with his wife to the family home in Celle . There he died after a long illness on December 8, 1990 and was buried in the Neuenhauser cemetery .

Posthumously known abuse case

In the summer of 2015, a man turned to the Hanover regional church and stated that he had been sexually assaulted by Superintendent Eckels in 1965 as a confirmand in Rinteln. The Hanoverian regional church declared that "for the first time since 1945 a leading theologian in the Hanoverian regional church was suspected of sexual abuse." The church district subsequently sent around 300 letters to men and women who were confirmed between 1965 and 1976 in Rinteln were. The recipients were asked to report if they had experienced something similar, as there was a suspicion that "the responsible clergyman had also sexually abused or attempted to abuse other persons under protection". There was no evidence of further victims. As a result, however, the church had no reason to doubt the allegations.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Archive information from the Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church of Hanover from March 5, 2018, personal file, recorded there under the signature LkAH B 07 No. 5105
  2. ↑ a b c d Lower Saxony State Archives, Stade location, information from February 21, 2018
  3. ↑ a b c Schleswig-Holstein State Archives, prisoner personnel files, archived there under the signature LASH Dept. 357.2 No. 15359, information from February 23, 2018
  4. ↑ a b c Church knew about condemnation, Schaumburger Nachrichten Online of November 30, 2016
  5. ^ The case file is in the Lower Saxony State Archives. However, the deadlines for safeguarding the interests of those affected (Section 5 (2) NArchG) will not expire until 2027. Therefore, further details of the procedure cannot be proven at present
  6. ^ Grave site on findagrave.com , accessed March 6, 2018
  7. ↑ a b Case of abuse discovered late in Rinteln , press release on the website of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover, May 20, 2016
  8. ↑ Regional church clarifies abuse 50 years ago, press release on the website of the Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church of Hanover, December 1, 2016, accessed on March 9, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Eckels, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Eckels, Kurt Karl Gustav (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Evangelical Lutheran theologian
DATE OF BIRTH July 26, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Bramsche
DATE OF DEATH December 8, 1990
Place of death Celle