Philipp Popp

Philipp Popp (born March 23, 1893 in Bežanija near Zemun , Kingdom of Hungary , Austria-Hungary , † June 29, 1945 in Zagreb ) was the first and only bishop of the Evangelical Church in Yugoslavia , which existed from 1931 to 1941.

Life and works

Philipp Popp was born on March 23, 1893 in Bežanija near Zemun. There he attended the German elementary school and then the grammar school in Zagreb. He came from a humble background; his father had worked his way up from a day laborer to a farmer . Popp studied theology , philosophy and law in Breslau , Berlin and Zagreb , where he also received his doctorate in philosophy. In 1917 Popp became parish priest in Zagreb, and a year later he was elected pastor . In 1931 the Synod elected him bishop of the Evangelical Church in Yugoslavia .

The leitmotif of this first and only bishop of the German Evangelical Church in Yugoslavia was to continue building up this small minority and diaspora church . For this reason Popp always sought proximity to the rulers . Popp was, among other things, personal advisor to Alexander during the time of the royal dictatorship . On April 3, 1940, he was appointed a member of the Yugoslav Senate .

In the interwar period , Popp developed his ecclesiastical ideas about the future of the German Evangelical Church in Yugoslavia. He envisaged close cooperation with the German Evangelical Church (DEK) . On February 21, 1934, Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller signed the friendship treaty on behalf of the DEK and Popp for the Evangelical Church in Yugoslavia , from which the German contracting party in particular hoped to have a lasting influence on the Evangelical Church in Yugoslavia. On the side of the German minority in Yugoslavia, Popp expected generous, material help for his church. In return, the Berlin Ecclesiastical Foreign Office under Bishop Theodor Heckel was given extensive say in matters of the German Evangelical Church in Yugoslavia.

For his "service to the Germans" Popp was together with the leader of the Sudeten Germans , Konrad Henlein , at the University of Breslau in a ceremony the dignity of the honorary doctorate awarded.

Philipp Popp was one of the most influential leaders of the German minority. He was one of the five deputy presidents of the League of Germans for the League of Nations and International Understanding . In 1937 he signed the Manifestos against Racial Discrimination at the Second World Conference on Faith and Order in Oxford. With this position he stood in opposition to the national-radical part of the ethnic group and was attacked publicly. After Austria was annexed to the German Reich in 1938, 100 Jews from Austria received asylum in the parish in Zagreb.

Immediately after the defeat of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the German Wehrmacht in April 1941 , Ante Pavelić , Popp von dem Poglavnik of the fascist regime in Croatia , obtained an increase in state subsidies for his church. The Independent State of Croatia paid the bishop's salary as well as the salaries of the employees of the episcopate.

The DC circuit of the German Evangelical Church in the Independent State of Croatia with the German Evangelical Church should by a new church constitution done that should be adopted on 18 April 1943rd In this constitution, the original grassroots democratic constitution (“All right is rooted in the parish”) should be removed. For this, the ethnic and national character of the Church should be more be emphasized, including the introduction of the leadership principle and approval of the election of the country's curator by the community leaders of Croatia Branimir Altgayer and the exclusion of non-Germans under the Church's motto: "Mi iu crkvi Zelimo since ostanemo Nemci. "( German :" We want to remain Germans in the Church too. ")

However, this new constitution was no longer adopted because of the war events that caused the regional church to shrink considerably.

Popp was shot dead on June 29, 1945 at the age of 52 for collaborating with the fascist Ustaša regime .

literature

• Festival book of the Evangelical Church Community AB in Zagreb for the inauguration of their pastor Dr. Philipp Popp as Bishop of the German Evangelical Christian Church AB in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Edited by the Presbytery. Zagreb [Agram]: publ. D. ev. parish AB 1931.
• Vladimir Geiger: Nestanak Folksdojcera . Zagreb 1997.
• Matthias Merkle: Shepherd and Martyr: Life picture d. Regional Bishop d. German Evang. Regional Church in Yugoslavia D. Dr. Philipp Popp; March 23, 1893 - June 29, 1945. Heilbronn-Böckingen: [self-published] 1973.
• Matthias Merkle: D. Dr. Philipp Popp - life and work . Heilbronn-Frankenbach 1995.
• Georg Wild: The German Evangelical Church in Yugoslavia 1918–1941 . Munich 1980.
• Mads Ole Balling: From Reval to Bucharest - Statistical-Biographical Handbook of the Parliamentarians of the German Minorities in East Central and Southeastern Europe 1919-1945, Volume 2, 2nd edition. Copenhagen 1991, ISBN 87-983829-1-8 , p. 541.

swell

• Files from the Evangelical Central Archive in Berlin

Web links

• Helmut Staudt: Popp, Philipp . In: Kulturportal West-Ost