Ludwig Scourge

Ludwig Geißel (born August 25, 1916 in Alzey , Rheinhessen , † November 20, 2000 in Stuttgart ) was Vice President of the Diaconal Work of the EKD and co-founder of the “ Bread for the World ” campaign and the “ Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe ”. He is the father of Volker Geißel .

Life

Youth and World War

Ludwig Geißel was born in Alzey as the oldest of five children. After graduating from high school, he joined the Reichswehr . His first station was Jüterbog , where he served in the secret army news school. As part of the armament of the Wehrmacht , the young soldiers learned that they were the "future leadership cadre" of the Reichswehr that was being established. From 1938 to 1945 he served in the news relay for the Führer headquarters . From the beginning of the attack on Poland he was stationed in Zossen - Wünsdorf , where the 601 intelligence regiment was located.

Work for the Diakonisches Werk and ransom the prisoners

In 1945 he was dismissed from the Wehrmacht with the rank of captain . He initially planned to study at the University of Hamburg , but then became head of a Hamburg refugee camp. In this function, after a short period of time, he worked for the social services department of the Hamburg Senate and in 1947 joined the aid organization of the Evangelical Church in Germany. In 1949 he was involved in founding the West-East Sponsorship Association. In the 1949 federal election he campaigned in Lauenburg / Elbe for the CDU , of which he was a member. It was there that he met Herbert Wehner , who later became Minister for Internal German Relations . In 1950 he became head of the Hamburg branch office of the relief organization, whose activities in disaster relief began in 1953. In 1955 he took over the emergency aid department as managing director in the central office in Stuttgart . After merging with the Central Committee for the Inner Mission to the Diaconal Work of the Evangelical Church in Germany, based in Stuttgart, in 1957, he was appointed its director. His area of responsibility included finances, emergency aid and administration. In 1972 he was appointed Vice President of the Diakonisches Werk der EKD. After retiring in 1982, he still worked as a management consultant.

As a representative of the Diakonie, Ludwig Geißel was involved in various relief actions, mostly carried out in an ecumenical network, such as looking after refugees from the popular uprising in Hungary in 1956 and in the “ India hunger” campaign supported by “Bread for the World” the children's airlift from Nigeria to Gabon for the victims of the Biafra War in 1968 and earthquake relief in Turkey , Greece , Iran and Italy . In addition, he is one of the fathers of the “ Bread for the World ” campaign, which he helped shape from the very beginning and at times also led.

From June 9, 1958, Ludwig Geißel worked as "the representative of the West German regional churches in the government of the GDR " in the economic transfer to support the regional churches in the east. Around 40 percent of the budget of the Protestant churches in the GDR was taken over by the West German regional churches, and Scourge played a role in this transfer. The Berlin evangelical bishop Kurt Scharf campaigned with the GDR authorities for arrested church employees, but was soon no longer accepted as a conversation partner by the authorities. He commissioned his colleague, lawyer Reymar von Wedel , to take on this task. He worked with the West Berlin lawyer Jürgen Stange and the East Berlin lawyer Wolfgang Vogel . When the prisoners were released for the first time on Christmas 1962 , the demand was soon raised that the state should take care of these things. The then Federal Minister for Internal German Relations, Erich Mende (FDP), was now officially responsible. In this context, Geißel took on various tasks in 1964 when the federal government bought political prisoners free ; Manfred Stolpe was one of his discussion and negotiation partners on the GDR side . As early as 1964, DM 37 million was paid, mostly in the form of goods; the payments were kept secret and only the head of the Federal Audit Office was personally informed.

Since 1962 Ludwig Geißel was also a member of the board of the Evangelical Central Agency for Development Aid in Bonn. He also held positions in the Lutheran World Federation and in the World Council of Churches , both in Geneva.

Activities in retirement

In his retirement, Ludwig Geißel continued to be involved in diakonia, especially in the health sector. So he directed z. B. 1984-1990 as Board Chairman in Diakonissenmutterhaus of Olga sisters in Stuttgart fundamental structural changes, which in 1985 for the conversion of the corresponding Karl Olga Hospital in a GmbH including a non-diaconal (majority) shareholder (the Sana Clinics & Co. GmbH KGaA based in Munich ) led to the deaconess mother house and in 1987 to the establishment of Karl-Olga-Altenpflege GmbH as the sole daughter of the deaconess mother house. At times he was also chairman of the supervisory board of Karl-Olga-Krankenhaus GmbH.

Works

Heinrich-Hermann Ulrich / Ludwig Geißel (ed.): Diakonie in the areas of tension of the present. Challenge and answer. Festschrift for Theodor Schober's 60th birthday, Stuttgart: Quell 1978
Ludwig Geißel: negotiator of humanity. Memories. With an accompanying word by Manfred Stolpe , Quell, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-7918-1984-4 .

literature

Theodor Schober (Ed.): Stewardship as a test of the Christian faith. Grace and obligation. Dedicated to Ludwig Geißel on the occasion of his 65th birthday, Stuttgart: Vlg. Der Diakonie 1981 (= manuals for testimony and service of the church 5)
Wolfgang Brinkschulte, Hans Jörgen Gerlach , Thomas Heise: Independent buyers. The co-earners in the west. Frankfurt a. M.-Berlin: Ullstein 1993
Rudolf Mahler (Ed.): "God sends his goodness and faithfulness". The path of the deaconess mother house of the Olga sisters from 1976 to 2001. Stuttgart: Deaconess mother house of the Olga sisters in Stuttgart 2003
Reymar von Wedel: As a lawyer between East and West. Processes - prisoners - actions. With a foreword by Jürgen Schmude . Verlag am Park, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89793-102-8 .

Web links

Literature by and about Ludwig Geißel in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

^ Obituary on the Diakonisches Werk website , November 21, 2000, version archived by Archive.org
↑ Ludwig Geißel: Negotiators of humanity. Memories. With an accompanying word by Manfred Stolpe , Quell, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-7918-1984-4 , p. 19.
↑ Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 27 f.
↑ Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 29.
↑ Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 41.
↑ Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 79.
↑ Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 111.
↑ Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 276.
↑ Anke Silomon: expectations and reality of the "special community": the East-West dialogue of the German Protestant churches; 1969-1991. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 978-3-525-55747-1 , p. 29.
↑ Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 328.
↑ Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 330.
↑ Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 234.

personal data
SURNAME	Scourge, Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German Vice President of the Diaconal Work of the EKD
DATE OF BIRTH	August 25, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH	Alzey
DATE OF DEATH	November 20, 2000
Place of death	Stuttgart

[1] Obituary on the Diakonisches Werk website , November 21, 2000, version archived by Archive.org

[2] Ludwig Geißel: Negotiators of humanity. Memories. With an accompanying word by Manfred Stolpe , Quell, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-7918-1984-4 , p. 19.

[3] Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 27 f.

[4] Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 29.

[5] Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 41.

[6] Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 79.

[7] Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 111.

[8] Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 276.

[9] Anke Silomon: expectations and reality of the "special community": the East-West dialogue of the German Protestant churches; 1969-1991. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 978-3-525-55747-1 , p. 29.

[10] Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 328.

[11] Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 330.

[12] Ludwig Geißel, negotiator, p. 234.