Oskar Epha

Oskar Epha (born November 2, 1901 in Kiel ; † September 11, 1982 there ) was a German lawyer and from 1954 to 1964 President of the State Church Office in Kiel.

Life

Oskar Epha attended high school in Kiel and studied law at the Universities of Kiel and the University of Tübingen . In 1923 he passed his first state examination in law and became a trainee lawyer in Preetz , Kiel and Altona . In 1926 he received his doctorate as Dr. jur. at the University of Tübingen.

After his second legal exam, Epha joined the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Schleswig-Holstein as a legal assistant in the regional church office under President Traugott von Heintze . In 1929 he became consistorial assessor and in 1933 consistorial advisor. In 1933 he joined the NSDAP ; he had already become a member of the SA cavalry squadron.

Also in 1933 Epha became acting manager and director of the state association for internal mission Schleswig-Holstein with seat in Rickling , which he brought in 1934 into the state association for internal mission , which he founded together with Adolf Stahl . During his term of office, the Kuhlen concentration camp , an early (“wild”) concentration camp in Kuhlen near Rickling, existed from July 18, 1933 to October 27, 1933. Most of the prisoners were communists and social democrats . In 1936 he became the full-time director of the State Association for Internal Mission.

In the Second World War he did military service in the Navy . At the instigation of the British military government , he was dismissed as director of the regional association in 1945, but was able to return to the regional church office in 1947. In 1948 he became senior consistorial councilor and permanent representative of the president. When President Herbert Bührke died in early 1954 , Epha was appointed his successor by the church leadership. During his term of office, the State Church Treaty of the State of Schleswig-Holstein was concluded with the Evangelical State Churches in Schleswig-Holstein of April 23, 1957, and the State Church was given a new legal system in 1958 , which replaced the constitution of 1922. There were no significant changes for the regional church office. The president continued to be a voting member of the church leadership, even if overall functions of church leadership and church administration were more clearly separated.

When he retired in 1964, he was honored with the Crown Cross of the Diakonie in gold and the Great Federal Cross of Merit. Erich Grauheding from Speyer was appointed as his successor .

He was an honorary doctor of the Theological Faculty of the University of Kiel.

Works

• The right of advance sales under the Reich Settlement Act. Tübingen, Univ., Diss., 1926.
• The State Association for Inner Mission in Schleswig-Holstein during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich: Festschrift to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the State Association on Sept. 30, 1975. [Rickling (Holstein)]: State Association for Inner Mission in Schleswig-Holstein 1975

literature

• Ernst Klee: The SA of Jesus Christ - The Church under Hitler's spell. Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-596-24409-9 , pp. 61-66
• Rainer Bookhagen: The Protestant child care and the inner mission in the time of National Socialism, Vol. 2: 1937 to 1945: Retreat into the area of ​​the church. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-525-55730-2 , p. 977 (biographical information)
• Hannelore Braun, Gertraud Grünzinger: Personal Lexicon on German Protestantism 1919–1949. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; 2006, ISBN 978-3-525-55761-7 , p. 71
• Stephan Linck: New beginnings? How the Evangelical Church deals with the Nazi past and its relationship to Judaism. The regional churches in northern Elbe. Kiel 2013, ISBN 978-3-87503-167-6 , esp.p. 66

Web links

• History of the regional church office 1924-1976 , church archive of the northern church

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Linck (Lit.), p. 66
2. ↑ Linck (Lit.), p. 66
3. ↑ Bookhagen (lit.)
4. ↑ Braun / Grünzinger (lit.)