Otto Umfrid

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Otto Ludwig Umfrid (born May 2, 1857 in Nürtingen , † May 23, 1920 in Winnenden ) was a German Protestant theologian and pacifist .

Family and youth

Umfrid was born the son of a lawyer and his wife in 1857. Between 1875 and 1879 he studied Protestant theology at the Evangelical Monastery in Tübingen . He was a member of the Tübingen Lichtenstein student association . During his studies and as a young pastor, he experienced the poverty of small farmers and, during his time in Stuttgart, that of industrial workers.

Act

From 1882 to 1884 he was also repentant at the Evangelical Monastery of Tübingen. In 1884 he took over a parish in the Black Forest before 1890 parish priest in Stuttgart was. For twenty years Umfrid wrote Sunday sermons as the editor of the family paper “Grüß Gott”. He also published the magazine “ Peace of Nations ”.

In 1894 Otto Umfrid joined the German Peace Society (DFG). The DFG-Landesverein Württemberg was founded in 1899 on Umfrid's initiative . In 1900 Umfrid became deputy chairman of the DFG, whose main office was relocated to Stuttgart in the same year. He particularly tried to reach an understanding between Germany, its “ hereditary enemy ” France, England and Russia. This happened through numerous public appearances, for example at the World Peace Congress of 1904 and at German peace meetings. In doing so, he set himself in opposition to the official German foreign policy , which under Kaiser Wilhelm II relied on armament, including a German-British naval battle . He also turned against the social grievances among small farmers and industrial workers.

Due to his deteriorating eyesight, which eventually led to complete blindness, he had to retire in 1913. During the First World War , Umfrid exposed German war propaganda. He was then banned from writing. In 1917 he resigned from all offices and retired.

aims

Umfrid turned against armaments and war for theological reasons, because Christ preached peace. He considered it blasphemous to justify a war on nationalist grounds . In contrast, he aimed at a European confederation that was supposed to secure peace. The thought went back to the French pacifist Paul Henri Baron d'Estournelles de Constant , who feared that North America and Asia would outstrip Europe economically and politically. D'Estournelles de Constant therefore focused on concentrating European forces. Furthermore, since his student days, Umfrid influenced the pacifist ideas of the Swabian philosopher Karl Christian Planck . As early as 1852 Planck called for a world government in conjunction with an international community of states to secure world peace.

Umfrid took up these thoughts and developed them further. You have become the core of his pacifist pursuit. He criticized the cultivation of nationalist enemy images . Only a European confederation could guarantee lasting peace in the old world. In his 1913 publication Europa den Europeans, he published his idea, but attached great importance to the fact that the federation of European states could only be the preliminary stage of a “symbiosis of humanity”. His main goal was a globally cooperative family of states. In addition, Umfrid named Europeans elementary human rights in Europe and tried to transfer them to bilateral, international relations. He also turned against discriminatory racial theories, in which he saw a "blatant relapse into barbarism".

Reactions

Umfrid also came into conflict with his state church , the Württemberg state church , in which he was a pastor, because of his attitude . Umfrid found himself exposed to attacks from his colleagues, one of whom spat at him because of his “fellowship with Jews and fellow Jews”. After a lecture in Münsingen in 1897, a colleague described him as an “ agitatoric peace-maker ”. Superiors also warned him to give up his ideas. The Stuttgart city ​​dean criticized his " agitational activity for the so-called peace movement ". Umfrid received an official reprimand from his church. Umfrid opposed this: " If the church does not reflect on its task, there must be a renewal of religion that [...] builds the kingdom of God outside the shadow of the church ".

The National Socialists later drove Otto Umfrid's son, Hermann Umfrid , pastor in the Franconian town of Niederstetten , to suicide. He had already turned against their pogroms at the beginning of the Nazi regime .

Honors

After the publication of his work Europe for the Europeans in 1913, Berta von Suttner proposed him for the Nobel Peace Prize . His name was on a short list compiled by the Nobel Prize Committee with a total of six names. However, when the First World War broke out, the procedure for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize was broken off in 1914.

A street in Stuttgart is named after him. The Otto-Umfrid-Schule, which existed in Nürtingen until 2006 , merged with the existing Fritz-Ruoff-Schule, whose new building was given the name "Otto-Umfrid-Bau".

literature

Primary literature

  • Karl Planck. Whose works and work. Dedicated to his students and friends in memory of the Eternal One. Fues, Tübingen 1881.
  • Peace on Earth! Reflections on the Peace of Nations. Langguth, Esslingen am Neckar 1898.
  • Europe to Europeans. Political heresies. Langguth, Esslingen am Neckar 1913.
  • The Armenian atrocities and the peacemakers of the Orient . In: Eduard Bernstein u. a .: Armenia, Turkey and the obligations of Europe . Bremen 2005, pp. 57-74.
as editor
  • The Wehrverein, a danger to the German people: polemical and Irish . Langguth, Esslingen am Neckar 1914.

Secondary literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ziegler.
  2. ↑ Ziegler.
  3. ↑ Ziegler.
  4. ↑ Ziegler.
  5. ↑ Ziegler.
  6. ↑ Ziegler.
  7. ↑ Otto Umfrid , website of the Fritz-Ruoff-Schule, accessed on June 6, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Umfrid, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Umfrid, Otto Ludwig (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian and pacifist
DATE OF BIRTH May 2, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Nürtingen
DATE OF DEATH May 23, 1920
Place of death Winnenden