Max Diestel

Karl Julius Max Diestel (born November 7, 1872 in Tübingen , † November 2, 1949 in Stuttgart - Degerloch ) was a German Protestant pastor who temporarily worked as a pastor abroad in England and as superintendent and general superintendent in Berlin . He was deputy chairman of the German branch of the World Federation and a member of the Confessing Church . He was a friend of Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze and a supporter of Dietrich Bonhoeffer .

Live and act

Childhood and youth

Little is known about Diestel's growing up and his school days in Tübingen. His father was the Old Testament scholar Ludwig Diestel , who was born in Königsberg , and his mother Emilie Diestel (née Delius) came from Versmold . His sister Meta Diestel , who was five years younger than him , later became a royal chamber singer.

Studies, military service and training

Diestel spent the first semesters of his theology studies in Tübingen, then he studied theology at the universities in Berlin and Bonn and passed his exams in Koblenz .

Diestel performed active military service in peacetime for one year from October 1, 1894 to September 30, 1895.

From Easter 1896 to August 1897 he attended the Soest seminary .

First parish office and superintendent

After his ordination , Diestel was from August 1897 to October 1903 a seaman's pastor in the Tees District and pastor of the German Evangelical Congregation in Middlesbrough, northern England . The Royal Consistory in Coblenz was responsible for him at this time .

From December 13, 1903 to 1909 he was pastor in Dettingen in the Hohenzollernsche Lands and from March 9, 1909 to 1914, fourth pastor in Wilmersdorf (Berlin).

From December 9, 1914 to July 31, 1925 he held the office of Superintendent of Hohenzollern and was also the parish priest in Sigmaringen . During this time Diestel wrote two popular missionary works: 1920 The Modern Marriage Ideal and Christianity and 1925 Evangelical and Catholic in the anthology You and Your Church .

Pastor and superintendent in Berlin

Vicarage Tietzenweg 130

From August 2, 1925 to 1948, Diestel was superintendent of the Kölln-Land I parish and pastor of the Paulus community in Berlin-Lichterfelde . He and his family lived in the rectory at Dahlemer Str. 87 (from 1937: Tietzenweg 130). His family included his wife Elisabeth (Else), b. Fues (1884–1945), with whom he was married since April 18, 1906, and five children: Eberhard (born 1914), Else (born 1915), Hilde (born 1916), Renate (born 1921) and Gudrun (born 1929).

In 1927 Diestel was commissioned by the general superintendent Otto Dibelius from the Kurmark to set up an ecumenical youth work. In 1931 he became deputy chairman and in 1935 executive chairman of the German Association of the World Association for Church Friendship (WFK).

At the height of the conflict with the German-Christian church regiment in Berlin in 1933/1934, Diestel found himself exposed to the imposition or danger of suspension several times: In July 1933 he was temporarily suspended illegally; in January 1934 a suspension was pronounced but not implemented; Threatened in May 1934, but not carried out.

Promotion of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Diestel met 19-year-old Dietrich Bonhoeffer in 1925 when he was preaching. He held him in high esteem and did his best to further his advancement. The Bonhoeffer biographer Ferdinand Schlingensiepen even called him the "discoverer of Bonhoeffer" and described his impulses several times. On Diestel's 70th birthday in 1942, Bonhoeffer wrote to him: "I am aware that I owe you the decisive impetus in my external professional and personal life."

Initial defense of National Socialism to the outside world

In a letter of January 25, 1934, Diestel, the American Frederick W. Roman, who had replied to his writing about the German labor service , tried to explain National Socialism as a "movement of a completely new kind". He did this in a diction that trivialized the facts of domestic persecution and harmonization mentioned by Roman in a previous letter . Every movement of a completely new kind - wrote Diestel - would have to show "some erratic juvenile features" in the first year of its effectiveness. There is talk of "mistakes"; and Diestel suggested to his correspondent not to evaluate National Socialism according to the "phenomena of revolution", which would undoubtedly bring with it "hardship", but should not be taken for the whole.

In the declarations that Diestel made about National Socialism, it appeared reduced to the “thought” that after years or centuries of foreign control, foreign infiltration and lack of identity, the “people” finally “turned from the outside inwards, from the emphasis on Outward appearances, of money, of validity in front of the people, with the turning inward “had to accomplish. The “people” had to learn “to live out of the community, out of the fateful bond with people of the same origin, the same work, the same soil, the same ethnicity”. In this respect, what happened was not the arbitrary act of some extreme partisans, "but it was a historical necessity , the effect of which will actually only be able to be properly assessed in a few years".

The rejection of the Weimar Republic expressed in Diestel's letter was not only aimed at the political system, but also had anti-modern features. Reference is made to the "abundance of filth" that governed public life and the "abundance of partiality" that would have governed public administration. For other areas of society, too, Diestel said that he had to record slumps in the “business, tax and legal morals” that had previously been in force. In addition, he saw an extreme individualism and subjectivism “spreading out” “in all areas”, and he illustrated both developments in a longer passage using examples from art and science.

Elke Heinsen characterized Diestel's attitude as follows:

“His reply to the American Frederick W. Roman suggests that there were other objectives of National Socialist policy to which he intended to give greater priority: the 'activity' against the influence of Bolshevism and the 'turn' in the erosion of one is modernizing society . "

Critical position in the church dispute

In the early summer of 1934, Diestel addressed the members of the Lichterfeld congregations in a brochure with the title “About what we are about in the church dispute” about the various positions in the disputes between the two groups “German Christians” and “Gospel and Church” in to make it clear to the community bodies and to show the consequences of a reorganization of the church according to the structural principles of the Nazi state.

Diestel published this brochure, which was declared as a “handout for parishioners”, at the height of the dispute: internally between the two factions in the Lichterfelde parish council, externally between the “Gospel and Church” faction and the higher church authorities. The decisive reason and subject was the direct intervention of the provost Otto Eckert , who had meanwhile moved up to become the deputy bishop of Berlin , who past Diestel had occupied the chairmanship of the parish church council with the DC and NSDAP member Pastor Heinrich Koch.

Diestel explained on the basis of the “ Führer principle ” as a structural principle essential for the German-Christian reorganization that it is by no means arbitrary or a pure “question of expediency” what one adheres to in the organizational structure of the Protestant Church. The task of preaching the gospel , which is incumbent only on the church, must “exclusively” guide the action .

However, since the Evangelical Church, according to its confessions, is a religious community in which the general priesthood applies as a principle, the “law and external order” of the church should be based on this. A church authority structured along the lines of the state model with an authoritative leader at the top and organs in the countries, provinces and communities that are strictly bound by instructions cannot be brought into harmony with the message of the Gospel and the principles of the creeds . Because:

“In the Protestant Church, the general priesthood applies, that is: every member of the congregation stands directly before God - no priest stands in between. And this includes a general responsibility: everyone stands for their community and church before people - no bishop and no pastor can relieve them of responsibility. That is why everyone must be able to participate in exercising this responsibility. This should be done in the service of love and in the freedom of witness to faith. The New Testament never speaks of the church leadership as an authority like the state government. "

Mediation between the Free Churches and the Confessing Church

After the invitation of Vice-President Christiansen from the DEK Secretariat of the Reich Bishop to the Association of Evangelical Free Churches (VEF) to participate in the DEK Constitutional Committee on May 11, 1934, the Methodist pastor Bernhard Keip turned to Diestel on June 5, 1934, whom he from the cooperation in the working committee of the German Federation for Friendship Work of the Churches (VFK) knew, with the question, "whether the internal situation of the DEK is now such that responding to these efforts is really beneficial to God's work at the time".

Diestel, who was of the opinion that the leadership of the Confessional Synod on the question of the position on the Free Churches "by no means takes a less generous position than the Reich Church Government", passed the Keip letter on June 8, 1934 to President Karl Koch in Bad Oeynhausen with the request to comment on this in the name of the DEK Confession Synod.

In response to his mediation efforts (based on an interim "theological opinion" from Hans Asmussen ), Diestel received a letter from Karl Koch dated June 19, 1934 with the tenor: "We do not want the Free Churches to be included in the DEK, and we believe that every issue, which should arise here and there between members of the Free Churches and members of the denominational community, would have to find an arbitration in a dignified and fraternal way by members of both camps. "He asked Diestel to" humble Mr. Preacher Keip in this sense ".

Diestel did not want to mediate in disputes, but asked the President "after hearing the Brotherhood Council" for an official statement to Preacher Keip on the possibilities of cooperation with the Free Churches. That was not possible at the time - neither the friendly cooperation nor the direct response that Diestel had in mind. Today there is between the Protestant regional churches in Germany and z. B. the Methodist (since 1987) pulpit and sacrament fellowship .

Diestel's role in the Kölln-Land I church district

Diestel headed the most politically resistant church district in Berlin in the south-west of the city: Kölln-Land I. Here, in the stronghold of the wealthy and educated bourgeoisie, was the strongest concentration of confessional and emergency pastors.

Diestel, who after the separation of the brother councils from Brandenburg and Berlin in December 1935, belonged to the Berlin Brother Council of the Confessing Church , courageously filled vacant pastoral positions with BK members and promoted the training of students by BK lecturers - also against state demands and against instructions the church leadership. He supported the continued BK youth work in Lichterfelde despite the ban.

Otto Dibelius said of him at the funeral service in 1949:

“He sat on the fraternal council of our city as a respected member whose wise and superior advice was gladly heard. And everyone was grateful to him that in his church district - the largest that there was in Berlin - much was possible under his protective hand that had long since become impossible in other parts of the Berlin church. "

And the historian Manfred Gailus assessed him as follows in his habilitation thesis published in 2001:

“Not to be underestimated ... the fact that the parishes grouped together in the Kölln-Land I parish were led by the experienced, level-headed, church-politically very skilful BK superintendent Diestel during the entire Nazi period. He was able - like no other superintendent in the city, except perhaps Martin Albertz in Spandau - to secure greater freedom for the pastors and parishes of his district against access by the DC-controlled church leaders. "

Help for the “non-Aryan” Christians threatened with deportation

After the Nuremberg Laws came into force in 1935, the situation of Christians, who were considered “ Jews ” under the law , became extremely acute: people who had adhered to the Christian Church for generations were now considered Jews. The official offices of the Protestant regional churches denied almost any help to the members persecuted as "Jews", although a large number of the "non-Aryan" Christian Germans were Protestants .

For this reason, Heinrich Grüber , Superintendent Martin Albertz , Superintendent Max Diestel, the Heidelberg pastor Hermann Maas , Pastor Paul Gerhard Braune from Lobetal and the lawyer Friedrich Justus Perels from the Brotherhood of the Confessing Church met in the new Lichterfeld parish hall of Martin Luther in the late summer of 1936 -Community at Hortensienstrasse 18 to advise on help for “non-Aryan” Christians threatened with deportation. The participants agreed that, thanks to his good contacts with foreign offices, Grüber was particularly well suited to setting up an organization to promote the emigration of Germans persecuted as Jews, later known as the “ Grüber Office ”.

Charges for violating the Collections Act

In addition to the trial against employees of the banned examination office of the Confessing Church in Berlin-Brandenburg in December 1941, the Public Prosecutor's Office at the regional court also brought proceedings against leading Berlin and Brandenburg pastors for violating the Collection Act, i.e. terminating separate (i.e. illegal) BKs -Collects. Although the highest judicial authority did not receive the indictment until the spring of 1945, the relevant preparations, including intensive interrogations of those affected, went back to 1943. Even though the preliminary investigation and the very late bringing of charges ultimately dragged on for a period of two years (1943–1945) and finally fizzled out because of the end of the war and the end of the Nazi tyranny, the victims of the Nazi justice system remained throughout the entire section, the well-founded fear of an uncertain outcome of their legal prosecution and further political consequences.

In the comprehensive assessment of the facts listed, the state police came to the conclusion that the BK, through its separate, independent collecting activity, clearly violated the ordinance of the Collection Act, which has been in force since 1937, whereby the "organic inclusion of church collecting activities in the popular order [...] was breached in a decisive way ”. By financing their organizational work and paying illegally examined theologians from collection funds, the BK is guilty of abuse. In principle, giving up and collecting collections that were not prescribed by the official collection plan is already a criminal offense. Diestel as “intellectual head” would have a similar meaning to General Superintendent Otto Dibelius in the Brandenburg Brothers Council. The head of the church district in Lichterfeld had never made his attitude and decisions on the issue of collections dependent on the status of the negotiations that representatives of the Berliner BK were conducting with the Berlin consistory on this matter.

Post War Use and Retirement

On April 27, 1945, Max Diestel was seriously wounded at his parsonage by a shot in the head that a drunk Ukrainian soldier shot accidentally. His wife and a guest were killed. On December 4, 1945 he was appointed general superintendent for the American sector in Berlin . He was only able to exercise this office to a limited extent because of the consequences of the injury.

The Kölln-Land I church district, which Diestel had headed as superintendent for over 20 years, was dissolved on April 1, 1948: Parts of the church district such as Blankenfelde and Teltow were in the Soviet sector, while z. B. Lichterfelde belonged to the American sector of the city. The church structures of the ecclesiastical province of Mark Brandenburg of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union (APU) had to be reorganized in accordance with Berlin's four-power status .

After his retirement on October 1, 1948, Diestel moved to Stuttgart to experience retirement with family and friends. He died there on November 2, 1949 and was buried next to his wife in the cemetery belonging to the village church in Lichterfelde. In the memorial service, Bishop Otto Dibelius , family friend and companion of Max Diestel in the past few years, preached and, like him, involved in the church opposition.

Honors

• Honorary theological doctorate from the University of Tübingen (1947)

Publications

• The modern ideal of marriage and Christianity , Evang. Volksbund, Stuttgart 1920 ( online at pkgodzik.de ).
• Evangelical and Catholic. In: Paul Scheurlen (ed.): You and your church. A handout for the evangelical church people , Quell, Stuttgart 1925, pp. 36–48 ( online at pkgodzik.de ).
• The second general superintendent , Berlin [1931], as Hs. Dr.
• From the village church to the metropolitan community , in: The Evangelical Berlin. Church review for the capital of the Reich , No. 5, January 31, 1932, IX. Year, p. 38 f. (EZA Z 2816).
• What is our concern in the church dispute , Berlin 1934, as written by the manuscript ( online version ).

swell

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer : Register of letters to and from Max Diestel. In: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werkausgabe (DBW) 17, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 1999, p. 211 f. (Information on the edition of the work online at dietrich-bonhoeffer.net ).
• Otto Dibelius : Sermon for General Superintendent D. Max Diestel, who died on November 2, 1949, in the Johanniskirche in Berlin-Lichterfelde on November 29, 1949. In: Archive of the Paulus Congregation , obituaries.
• Evangelical Central Archive in Berlin (EZA): EZA 51 / DVb and 51 / DVc.
• State Church Archives Berlin-Brandenburg (LABB): Personal files Diestel. LABB / Tue 50-BW 15.

literature

• Otto Dibelius: "General Superintendent Diestel 75 years old." In: The Church of November 2, 1947.
• Gudrun Diestel: The parsonage at Tietzenweg 130 (I). Troubled times. In: The Epistle of Paul. Messages from the Ev. Paulus-Kirchengemeinde Berlin-Lichterfelde , June 2019, pp. 8–9. ( Online version ).
• Manfred Gailus : Protestantism and National Socialism. Studies on the National Socialist penetration of the Protestant social milieu in Berlin. Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Berlin 2001 (with multiple mentions of Diestel, see register of persons, p. 728).
• Martina Gern: The parsonage at Tietzenweg 130 (II). Postwar childhood. In: The Epistle of Paul. Messages from the Ev. Paulus-Kirchengemeinde Berlin-Lichterfelde , June 2019, p. 10 ( online version ).
• Jochen Gruch (edit.): The Protestant Pastors in the Rhineland I. Bonn 2011, No. 2420.
• Elke Heinsen: Confession-bound word, office and functions. The Berlin superintendent Max Diestel in the church political disputes of 1933/34. Berlin 2005 (p. 9: “It reports on the first results of a research project that made Max Diestel's church political work between 1933 and 1945 the central subject of his research. Further studies are to follow, because so far there has been no biographical study of life and work Max Diestels. ")
• Hans-Rainer Sandvoss : "It is asked to monitor the services ...". Religious communities in Berlin between adaptation, self-assertion and resistance from 1933 to 1945. Lukas Verlag für Kunst- und Geistesgeschichte, Berlin 2014 (with multiple mentions of Diestel, see list of persons p. 553).
• Karl Zehrer: Evangelical Free Churches and the "Third Reich". Berlin Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 1986 (table of contents: online at d-nb.info ); therein u. a .: The attitude of the Confessing Church to the invitation of the DC church government to the churches of the VEF , p. 119 ff .:
  • Letter from Pastor Bernhard Keips to Superintendent Max Diestel (June 5, 1934), p. 119
  • Letter from Superintendent Max Diestel to President D. Karl Koch in Bad Oeynhausen (June 8, 1934), p. 121
  • Letter from Hans Asmussen to Superintendent Max Diestel (June 9, 1934), p. 121
  • Letter from Karl Barth to Hans Asmussen (June 12, 1934), p. 123
  • Letter from Karl Koch to Max Diestel (June 19, 1934), p. 123

Web links

• Literature by and about Max Diestel in the catalog of the German National Library .
• Family constellation and reference to an estate ( online at d-nb.info ).
• Vita and portrait of Max Diestel ( online version ).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Vita after: Holger Roggelin : Franz Hildebrandt. A Lutheran dissenter in the church struggle and in exile. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1999, p. 329.
   Eberhard Bethge : Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Theologian - Christian - Contemporary. A biography. Gütersloh 9th edition 2005 ( online at dietrich-bonhoeffer.net ).
2. ^ Elke Heinsen: Confession-bound word, office and functions. Berlin 2005, p. 13.
3. ^ Elke Heinsen: Confession-bound word, office and functions. Berlin 2005, p. 13; all times for Max Diestel according to the personnel file.
4. ↑ The Kölln-Land I parish was moved from Teltow to Lichterfelde in 1925 and dissolved in 1948. Location within the church province of Mark Brandenburg of the APU online at gov.genealogy.net
5. ^ Elke Heinsen: Confession-bound word, office and functions. Berlin 2005, p. 9.
6. ↑ Family constellation partly online at d-nb.info ; the other information according to the personal file.
7. ↑ Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werkausgabe (DBW) 9, p. 177.
8. ^ Working committee of the German WFK of March 6, 1931, EZA 51 / DVb
9. ↑ Working Committee of the German WFK of January 25, 1935, EZA 51 / DVc
10. ^ Elke Heinsen: Confession-bound word, office and functions. Berlin 2005, pp. 26 ff., 55 ff. And 68 ff.
11. ↑ Ferdinand Schlingensiepen: Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906–1945. A biography. CH Beck, Munich 4th edition 2006, p. 52 f. (on p. 53 there is also a photo showing “Superintendent Max Diestel with his family in the early thirties”); Register for mentions of Diestel: p. 425.
12. ↑ DBW 16, p. 366.
13. ^ "The Labor Service in Germany" - the contribution by Max Diestel . In: Elke Heinsen: Confession-bound word, office and functions. Berlin 2005, p. 100 ff.
14. ↑ Diestel quotes from Elke Heinsen: Confession-bound word ... , 2005, p. 105 ff.
15. ↑ It is all the more astonishing that Diestel belonged early to the working group “Doctor and Pastor” founded in Berlin in 1925 by Pastor Lic. Ernst Jahn (1893–1969) and others , who was open to modern psychoanalytic research. See: General Convention for Sick Care (Ed.): 40 Years of the Berlin Working Group Doctors and Pastors , Berlin: Evang. Consistory Berlin-Brandenburg 1965, p. 21; Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: "It is requested to monitor the church services ..." Berlin 2014, p. 281.
16. ↑ Cf. on this: Martin Fischer-Hübner: Is there still a salvation for our people? , Ratzeburg: Lauenburgischer Heimatverlag 1926 ( online version ).
17. ^ Elke Heinsen: Confession-bound word, office and functions. Berlin 2005, p. 112.
18. ↑ Quoted from Elke Heinsen: Confession-bound word, office and functions. Berlin 2005, p. 43.
19. ^ Biogram Nikolaus Christiansen
20. ↑ This and the other quotations in this matter from Karl Zehrer: Evangelical Free Churches and the “Third Reich” , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1986, pp. 118 ff.
21. ↑ On June 9, 1934, Hans Asmussen wrote (as a letter to Diestel?) A “theological report” on this matter: The Confessing Synod is hostile to all unionist endeavors, “which is why we must warn against the proposal of Vice-President Christiansen and the possibility of a theological discussion for example with the help of the Barmer articles ”. Karl Barth intervened in the matter in a letter dated June 12, 1934 and took the following view: “An expansion of our base to confessions of non-Reformation origin and thus also including such groups [like the ' Baptists , Methodists and the like']. in the 'Bund' will probably not come into question. "
22. ↑ https://www.emk.de/glaube/typisch-methodistische/
23. ↑ See the following: Manfred Gailus: Protestantism and National Socialism ... Cologne / Weimar / Berlin 2001, p. 133 ff .; Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: “It is asked to monitor the church services ...” Berlin 2014, p. 73 ff.
24. ↑ Carsten Nicolaisen , Ruth Pabst (arrangement): Handbook of the German Protestant Churches 1918 to 1949 ... , Volume 2, 2017, p. 105.
25. ↑ Gudrun Diestel: Das Pfarrhaus Tietzenweg 130 ... , 2019, p. 8.
26. ↑ Pastor Karl-Arnd Techel (1920–1997) and legal counsel Gerhard Clauder (1905–1996) reported on this in: Hans-Rainer Sandvoß: “It is asked to monitor the services…” Berlin 2014, p. 278 f. and 282.
27. ↑ Quoted from Elke Heinsen: Confession-bound word, office and functions. Berlin 2005, p. 18.
28. ↑ Martin Gailus: Protestantism and National Socialism ... Cologne / Weimar / Berlin 2001, p. 135.
29. ↑ “To take a look at the numerical dimensions of this endangered group, the following historical source should be referred to: In a meeting of Grübers in the so-called Judenreferat of the Secret State Police with the chief Gestapo officer Kurt Lischka , 35,000 - 40,000 'Protestant Jews' are spoken of , Grüber Max Diestel reported these figures on May 17, 1939. ”(Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: “ We ask you to monitor the church services ... ” Berlin 2014, p. 198.)
30. ^ History of the Martin Luther Congregation Berlin-Lichterfelde ( online at luthergemeinden.ekbp.de ); Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: “It is asked to monitor the services ...” Berlin 2014, p. 184 ff.
31. ↑ Hans-Rainer Sandvoß: "It is asked to monitor the church services ..." Berlin 2014, p. 217 ff.
32. ↑ Hans-Rainer Sandvoss: “It is asked to monitor the church services…” Berlin 2014, p. 216 ff., 219.
33. ↑ Gudrun Diestel: Das Pfarrhaus Tietzenweg 130… , 2019, p. 9. In a report for his family, Diestel later described the incident: In the last days of the war he guarded his parsonage and those who lived there. A drunk Ukrainian soldier shot him more accidentally. The shot came out through the throat behind the ear. He was saved by the sisters present. His wife and a guest of the house perished and were buried in the cemetery near the village church of Lichterfeld.
34. ↑ Date according to the personnel file. Elke Heinsen states: "in October 1946" ( confessional word ... , 2005, p. 17).
35. ↑ Elke Heinsen: Confessional Word ... , 2005, p. 17 f.
36. ^ Wording of the provisional doctoral certificate, sent with a cover letter from Helmut Thielicke , October 1947 ( online at geschichte-bk-sh.de ).
37. ↑ Biogram Scheurlen ( online at wkgo.de )
38. ↑ http://www.gruch.de/