Kurt Reuber

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Reuber's self-portrait with the title "I, in fortress Stalingrad". Charcoal drawing from 5./6. January 1943.

Kurt Reuber (born May 26, 1906 in Kassel ; † January 20, 1944 or April 21, 1944 in the Jelabuga prisoner-of-war camp ) was a German doctor, Protestant pastor and visual artist who became known through the Stalingrad Madonna .

biography

Memorial stone for Kurt Reuber in the cemetery on Langeoog Island

Kurt Reuber grew up in a parental home marked by pietistic piety. From 1913 he attended the community school , from 1917 the upper secondary school in Kassel . He is a graduate of the Kassel Wesertor grammar school .

Study of theology

After graduating from high school in 1926, he studied theology in Bethel , Tübingen and Marburg . At this time he also attended medical lectures and took painting lessons. An early encounter with Albert Schweitzer and a friendship that grew out of it were groundbreaking for his life, through which he was always accompanied by painting. After studying theology, he worked as a vicariate in 1930 for one year in Zella - Loshausen (Schwalm) in Hessen and from 1931 to 1932 in Marburg. Here he made contact with the Willingshausen painters' colony and made his first oil paintings. In 1932 Reuber attended the seminary in Hofgeismar .

In 1933 Kurt Reuber completed his second theological examination and was at Friedrich Heiler in Marburg with a thesis on Mysticism in the Heiligungsfrömmigkeit the community movement to a doctor of theology doctorate .

Study of human medicine

On April 1 of the same year he became pastor in Wichmannshausen in the Eschwege district (today: Werra-Meißner district ) and at the same time began studying medicine at the University of Göttingen . Here he received his doctorate in 1938 with a thesis on the subject of the ethics of the healing state in the regulations of the Hessian medical system from 1564 to 1830 as a doctor of medicine . In 1933 he was accepted into the Michael Brotherhood .

Troop doctor

In October 1939 Reuber was drafted into the Wehrmacht and from November 1942 took part in the Battle of Stalingrad as a troop doctor . He operated twelve hours a day. He returned from home leave two days before the boiler was closed.

captivity

In January 1943 he was captured by the Soviets and taken to POW Camp for Officers No. 97 in Jelabuga (now in Tatarstan ). There he took care of his fellow prisoners.

Death in captivity

On January 20, 1944 or on 21 April 1944 Kurt Reuber died in Yelabuga to typhus . He was buried in a solitary grave in the Jelabuga prison camp. On February 17, 1946, the pastor and poet Arno Pötzsch held the funeral service in the village church in Wichmannshausen .

Stalingrad Madonna

Stalingrad Madonna by Kurt Reuber, 1942 in the Stalingrad pocket

For Christmas 1942, when the Red Army had already enclosed Stalingrad for more than four weeks and the encircled soldiers were fighting for their survival against the cold and hunger, Reuber drew the Stalingrad Madonna, who later became famous, with coal for his comrades on the back of a Russian map . In a bunker in Stalingrad, his comrades prayed in front of this picture of their mother and child at Christmas 1942. The Stalingrad Madonna, his self-portrait and around 150 other portraits were brought to Germany by his commanding officer on the last machine from the Stalingrad pocket. On the initiative of Federal President Karl Carstens , the original of the Madonna of Stalingrad was handed over to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin on August 26, 1983 , where it can be seen in a small niche today. As a sign of reconciliation, there is also an icon- shaped Madonna and Child , donated by the church in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad).

Prisoner Madonna

For Christmas 1943, a second Madonna by Kurt Reuber was created in the Jelabuga prisoner-of-war camp, which was intended for the camp newspaper and reflected the fears and low hopes of the camp detention. This picture, later called the “Prison Madonna”, was brought in in 1946 by a released soldier of the Reuber family.

Copies of the Stalingrad Madonna in memory

Reproduction of the Stalingrad Madonna as a wooden sculpture in the Marienkapelle in Niedergailbach, consecrated as a peace chapel

Copies of the Madonna are now on display in numerous churches in Germany (e.g. St. Martin's Church in Wichmannshausen, where Reuber was a pastor) and some churches in Europe (including the Coventry Cathedral, which was bombed by the German Air Force ) as a symbol of reconciliation .

literature

  • Erich Wiegand: Kurt Reuber. Pastor, doctor and painter. Monographia Hassiae, Volume 21. Verlag Evangelischer Medienverband, Kassel 1998, ISBN 3-89477-951-9 -
  • Ute Tolkmitt (= daughter of Kurt Reuber), Kurt Reuber , in: The Stalingrad Madonna. The work of Kurt Reuber as a document of reconciliation , ed. v. Martin Kruse , Lutherisches Verlagshaus, Hanover, 1996, ISBN 3-7859-0643-9 .
  • Andreas Mettenleiter : Testimonials, memories, diaries and letters from German-speaking doctors. Supplements and supplements III (I – Z). In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 22, 2003, pp. 269-305, here: p. 287.

Web links

Commons : Kurt Reuber  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Mark-Christian von Busse: The soldiers were moved and were silent . In: Hessische / Niedersächsische Allgemeine . 23rd December 2017.
  2. ^ WK: Madonna of Stalingrad. Information sheet of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, approx. 2013.
  3. ^ WK: Madonna of Stalingrad. Information sheet of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, approx. 2013.
  4. ↑ Information board in the "Chapel for Peace" in Meersburg with a copy of the Stalingrad Madonna
  5. ^ Friends of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church e. V. (Ed.): The Madonna of Stalingrad , leaflet Berlin 7/2016.
  6. ↑ Jelabuga war cemetery at volksbund.de
  7. ↑ Kurt Reuber at the Jelabugo war cemetery
  8. ^ WK: Madonna of Stalingrad. Information sheet of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, approx. 2013.
  9. ^ WK: Madonna of Stalingrad. Information sheet of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, approx. 2013.
  10. ↑ Reproduction of the "Prisoner Madonna"
  11. ↑ The Madonna of Stalingrad - Drawn by War, on mirror-online
  12. ↑ Internet presence of the parish Wichmannshausen
personal data
SURNAME Reuber, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor, pastor and painter, creator of the Stalingrad Madonna
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH kassel
DATE OF DEATH January 20, 1944 or April 21, 1944
Place of death Jelabuga prisoner of war camp