Paul Richter (pastor)

Paul Richter (* July 21, 1894 in Kaitz (today a district of Dresden ), † August 13, 1942 in Dachau ) was a Protestant pastor and actively resisted National Socialism . He died in the Dachau concentration camp and is considered a Christian martyr .

family

Paul Richter was the oldest of three children of a self-employed wheelwright and his wife. His parents' house was very Christian and had close ties to the Protestant Church. In October 1921 Paul Richter married the cantor's daughter Johanna Hentsch. After the marriage he lived with his wife in Bärenstein in the Eastern Ore Mountains . Paul Richter had a reliable supporter in his wife for the community work and his pastoral work in Bärenstein and later in Wilsdruff and Sachsdorf . But also in his convinced stance against National Socialist ideology and in the time of persecution, she was a ready-to-use companion. The couple had their last meeting after Paul Richter's imprisonment in the spring of 1942 at a secret meeting in the hospital in Plauen , when the pastor was already being transported to the Dachau concentration camp.

School, study

Paul Richter attended the village school in his hometown, then switched to the community school and passed his Abitur at the Wettiner Gymnasium in Dresden. In 1914 he began studying Protestant theology with the aim of becoming a Protestant pastor. He began at the University of Kiel , continued his studies at the University of Münster , then at the universities in Erlangen and Leipzig . In 1917 he had to interrupt his studies due to the First World War and serve as a medical soldier until 1919 . In the winter of 1919/20 he passed his first theology exam - without having previously resumed his university studies in Leipzig.

Stations of his church service

From June 1920 to September 1921 Paul Richter worked as a deaconry vicar in Bad Elster . In December 1920 he was a pastor at the Church of Holy Trinity in Bad Elster ordained . From October 1921 to 1928 he held the first parish in Bärenstein (Eastern Ore Mountains) . At Easter 1928 Richter began his ministry as pastor at the St. Nicolaikirche in Wilsdruff .

Preacher, pastor and confessor

The focus of the proclamation, of the pastoral care - especially the personal - action of Paul Richter was the clear orientation towards and the clear confession to Christ. That the word and the cross of Christ were at the center of his personal life and his service to the community, he showed in his Christian commitment in everyday life, in his constant striving for justice and through his deep understanding of those in distress and his turn to people in poverty and need . Through human affection, through words, consolation and prayer, but also through direct practical help and material support, he provided immediate assistance to people in need. His conviction and attitude are symbolized by an oak cross made by himself above the entrance to the cemetery chapel in Wilsdruff.

Persecution and detention

The National Socialist ideology contradicted the strictly Christian thinking and acting of Paul Richter. After the NSDAP came to power, he did not adapt to the new secular masters. In this respect, he also opposed the appropriation and submission of the church by National Socialism (see: German Christians , Reich Church ). From the beginning he belonged to the Pastors' Emergency League and the Confessing Church . He stood against the racial madness and the Führer principle , which had gained a foothold not only in the state and society, but also in the Evangelical Church (see: German Evangelical Church , Reichsbischof ). With reference to the Bible , he openly opposed National Socialist instructions from government agencies and "state church" statements by the church leadership. Pastor Paul Richter very quickly came into the focus of the local NSDAP and Gestapo as well as the regime-related forces in the church leadership, who saw their power and their credibility in the population at risk. At first he was banned from preaching . In March 1934 he was suspended from his pastoral office for six months and his salary was reduced by half. In March 1939, attempts were made to intimidate him by imposing a fine of 200 Reichsmarks. In October 1941 he was first interrogated by the Gestapo in Dresden and finally arrested on November 10, 1941. After a funeral talk with the widow of a soldier who killed himself at the front, he had been denounced to the Gestapo for " undermining military strength ". At the beginning Pastor Richter was imprisoned in the police prison in Leipzig. In March 1942 he was ordered to be transferred to the Dachau concentration camp. As he suffered severe renal colic on the prisoner transport from Dresden to Dachau as a result of the harsh conditions of detention and transport, he was temporarily taken to a hospital in Plauen / Vogtland. In the Dachau concentration camp, Paul Richter was housed as a political prisoner in the pastors' block in a room together with around twenty Protestant and around a hundred Catholic clergy (including Hermann Scheipers and Alois Andritzki ). He was deployed in the “Plantage” work detail. He was unable to cope with this hard physical work in unfavorable weather conditions, inadequate clothing and completely inadequate nutrition. Finally he was taken to the infirmary completely exhausted, where he died on August 13, 1942 at the age of 48. The camp administration stated that the cause of death was cardiac and circulatory failure in intestinal catarrh.

Commemorations and honors

• After the death of Paul Richter, the Dachau concentration camp administration sent the family a tin vessel, which is said to contain the ashes of his remains. The burial took place in the family grave in the cemetery of the church Leubnitz-Neuostra .
• The memorial service for their deceased pastor planned by the Protestant parish of Wilsdruff for 23 August 1942 was banned by the National Socialists.
• The Catholic priest Hermann Scheipers (1913–2016), who was housed in the Dachau concentration camp with Paul Richter and other Protestant and Catholic clergymen and, after his release from concentration camp imprisonment, from 1952 to 1960 as a chaplain or pastor in Wilsdruff the Catholic parish there was active, contributed as one of the last living concentration camp clergy in his book Gratwanderungen and in his lectures about his experiences as a priest under two anti-church state ideologies through information about his evangelical brother and fellow prisoner Paul Richter to his honorable memory.
• Paul Richter is listed in the Evangelical Calendar of Names of the Evangelical Church in Germany and in the Ecumenical Calendar of Saints as a Protestant martyr. The church feast day is the day of his death: August 13th .
• The tribe (local group) of the Christian Scouts of Germany (CPD) in Meißen is named after Paul Richter, tribe "Paul Richter" Meißen , in honor of him and his deeds and as a clear confession.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ heiligenlexikon.de