Ludwig Steil

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Ludwig Steil (2nd from left) during a free time in Kleve of the church college of the Confessing Church in Elberfeld

Ludwig Steil (born October 29, 1900 in Lüttringhausen , Rhine Province ; † January 17, 1945 in the Dachau concentration camp ) was a Protestant pastor and martyr of the Confessing Church .

Life

After studying Protestant theology in Bonn, Münster, Tübingen, Berlin and Utrecht, Steil passed his first theological exam in Koblenz in 1924. In 1925/26 he was vicar in the seminary in Wittenberg and after his second theological exam in 1926 he was study inspector at the seminary in Preetz (Holstein), where he met his first wife Elisabeth, née Egen.

During his student days, Steil was involved in the " German Christian Student Association ". In 1927 he was assistant preacher in Lüttringhausen, in 1928/29 he was a parish administrator in Barmen-Gemarke and since 1929 parish priest in Holsterhausen . In 1931 his wife died a few months after their daughter was stillborn. Steil married the vicar of the same age Auguste "Gusti" Ederhof in 1933, one of the first theologians of the Westphalian provincial church, who often represented her husband in his congregation during his business trips on behalf of the Confessing Church and later took over the pastoral services during his stay in prison.

The dispute with the " German Christians ", who had founded a local group in Holsterhausen in August 1932, made him known nationwide through his opposition engagement. In September 1933 he joined the Pastor Martin Niemoller co-founded in 1933 Pastors at. Together with Hans Ehrenberg (1883–1958), Steil formulated a confession in Bochum in 1933 that was signed by over 100 Westphalian pastors. As one of the most important Westphalian personalities of the Confessing Church, Steil worked not only in the Herne church district , but also at the level of the Westphalian provincial church. When the Westphalian “Confession Synod” met in Dortmund on March 16, 1934, Steil gave the introductory lecture. From 1934 to 1936 he was a member of the Westphalian Brother Council in the Confession Synods in Barmen , Berlin-Dahlem , Augsburg and Bad Oeynhausen . Under President Karl Koch (1876–1951) he was part of the spiritual leadership of the Westphalian Confessing Church.

As early as 1934, Steil had to suffer from repression and intimidation measures due to his rejection of National Socialism and the ideological position of Alfred Rosenberg . He was summoned at least 15 times by police summons to police headquarters or to the Gestapo . In 1938 alone there were five proceedings against Steil at the special court in Dortmund, charged with “insidious attacks on the state and the party”. He was monitored and his sermons spied on. From July 10 to 16, 1944, he held a "series of lectures for contested people" for the parish in Herne. Following one of these lectures on the subject of “Does God remain silent in war?” He was arrested by the Gestapo on September 11, 1944 and taken to the Dortmund stone guard . In October he was transferred to the police prison in Herne, since the stone guard was badly damaged by bombing, and on December 5, 1944, he was deported to the Dachau concentration camp, which he reached on December 23, 1944, exhausted and ill after a three-week ordeal. Nevertheless, he gave the Christmas sermon in the reception barracks. In the camp he fell ill with typhoid and pneumonia in early January . The pastor died on January 17, 1945 in a sick barrack in the Dachau concentration camp.

Appreciation

In 2016, A Pastor in Resistance was an exhibition on Ludwig Steil in the VHS foyer in the Herne cultural center , Willi-Pohlmann-Platz, which was shown outside of Herne as a traveling exhibition after the end of April 2016.

The Evangelical Church in Germany commemorates Ludwig Steil with a day of remembrance in the Evangelical Name Calendar on January 18th.

In Bochum , Herne , Bielefeld and Lüttringhausen streets and squares are named after Ludwig Steil. Various institutions were named after him, among others

Fonts

  • A completed life , Schriften-Missions-Verlag 1947
  • The high priestly prayer , Schriften-Missions-Verlag 1954

literature

  • Gusti Steil: Ludwig Steil . 1954
  • Gusti Steil: Ludwig Steil. A Westphalian pastor in the church fight , new ed. and provided with an appendix by the presbytery of the parish Holsterhausen, 1990
  • Traugott Jähnichen :  Steep, Ludwig. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 10, Bautz, Herzberg 1995, ISBN 3-88309-062-X , Sp. 1279-1281.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Traugott Jähnichen: Ludwig Steil. The Martyr of the Confessing Church in the Ruhr Area (1900–1945) , in: Christians an der Ruhr , 1, ed. A. Pothmann and R. Haas, 1998, pp. 221-232
  • Traugott Jähnichen: Ludwig Steil , in: "Your end looks at ..." Protestant martyrs of the 20th century . Ed. H. Schultze and A. Kurschat, 2006, p. 444f.
  • Christopher Spehr: Bible and Confession in the Time of the Third Reich , in: Together on the way. 100 years of the Evangelical Church Community of Holsterhausen 1904–2004. 2004, pp. 19-30
  • Christopher Spehr: Ludwig Steil 1900 - 1945. Based on a portrait of Gusti Steil. Introduction by Chr. Spehr. Series: Theology. Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2015 ISBN 3788729554

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Martin Tochtrop: Unique documents about Ludwig Steil . In: WAZ of March 29, 2016. Retrieved January 21, 2020
  2. ↑ a b c City of Herne: The hour of confession . Biography. Accessed January 21, 2020
  3. ↑ Online at geschichte-bk-sh.de
  4. ↑ Traugott Jähnichen: History. Ludwig Steil . In: Evangelische Kirchengemeinde Lüttringhausen, May 19, 2015. Accessed January 21, 2020
  5. ↑ Evangelical church community Wanne-Eickel district Holsterhausen: Ludwig Steil (1900-1945) - fighters of the Confessing Church . Exhibition flyer. Accessed January 21, 2020
  6. ↑ Evangelical Church of Westphalia: Traveling exhibition about Ludwig Steil as a guest in Dortmund , September 14, 2017. Retrieved on January 21, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Steep, Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant pastor and martyr
DATE OF BIRTH October 29, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Luettringhausen
DATE OF DEATH January 17, 1945
Place of death Dachau concentration camp