Otto Mörike

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Otto Emil Mörike (born April 7, 1897 in Dürrwangen ; † July 9, 1978 in Schorndorf ) was a Protestant pastor in the Evangelical Church in Württemberg and resistance fighter in the Third Reich . Together with his wife Gertrud, he was awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations for his courage in rescuing Jews .

Life

Otto Mörike was a son of pastor Hermann Mörike (1859–1927). After his return from the First World War , he studied Protestant theology at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen and became a pastor in Oppelsbohm in 1925 and in Kirchheim unter Teck on September 4, 1935 .

At first, the couple welcomed the new regime of the Nazis because of the apparent social achievements and the idea of ​​the national community . A little later, however, the Mörike couple joined the Confessing Church on the grounds that Adolf Hitler wanted to take the place of God.

Due to his now determined opposition to the Nazis and various clashes with the new rulers, for example on the occasion of a sympathy rally for the country bishop Theophil Wurm , who was under house arrest and for which he received a state reprimand, his license to teach religion was withdrawn. The specific reason for this was the Reichstag election on March 29, 1936. In his closing prayer on election day, he asked

that God should not withdraw the discipline of his spirit from the leader .

Then the Minister of Education Christian Mergenthaler withdrew him on October 8, 1936

because of this unheard of derailment, the right to give religious instruction in all schools in the country .

When voting on the connection of Austria to the German Reich in April 1938, instead of the ballot paper, he threw in a detailed declaration in which he and his wife Adolf Hitler refused to consent to the connection. Otto Mörike named the as reasons for this

Fight against the church and the Christian faith as well as the dissolution of justice and morality .

His wife Gertrud justified her refusal by saying that the

National Socialism as a worldview [...] was enough to curse and perpetuate our people .

He was then badly mistreated by a crowd instigated by the SA. He was also sentenced to ten months in prison and was banned from speaking and staying in the Kirchheim dean's office.

In 1939 he took over the communities of Weissach and Flacht in the Leonberg district. He hid persecuted Jews in his parsonage and organized hiding places for them in other places. He also organized relief operations for pastors persecuted by the Nazis.

After the war, Otto Mörike was transferred to Stuttgart-Weilimdorf and in 1953 appointed dean of the Weinsberg church district . After his retirement in 1959, he became involved in the peace movement and was chairman of the Action Reconciliation in Württemberg.

The Mörike couple was awarded the Yad Vashem medal in 1971 for their services to saving Jews from the Nazi terror . In 1975 they were honored with the planting of a tree in the avenue of the righteous and the acceptance among the "righteous among the nations".

Since November 2006 the path through the former parish garden and past the former rectory in Stuttgart-Weilimdorf, where the Mörike family lived at the time, has been officially referred to as “Gertrud-and-Otto-Mörike-Weg”. This is apparently the first public name in this country in which Gertrud Mörike is also mentioned.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fritz Grünzweig (contemporary witness): To praise his fame: Experiences and knowledge from long service , pp. 40-41, SCM R. Brockhaus, Witten 1988, 2nd edition 1989, ISBN 978-3-417-24098-6 .
personal data
SURNAME Mörike, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Lutheran pastor and resistance fighter in the Third Reich
DATE OF BIRTH April 7, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Dürrwangen
DATE OF DEATH July 9, 1978
Place of death Schorndorf