Quaker office

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Sign for the Quaker office at the entrance of the Planckstrasse 20 building in Berlin
Facade of the listed building in Planckstrasse 20 in Berlin

As Quäkerbüro a property in is Berlin referred to the German annual meeting of Quakers heard.

history

The Quaker office began after the First World War in Dorotheenstrasse as a foundation by British and North American Quakers with the aim of coordinating their joint work to alleviate the need. This work went down in history as the so-called Quaker feeding .

In November 1925, the then so-called “International Office” moved to Prinz-Louis-Ferdinand-Str. 5, today Planckstraße 20. The premises are still there today, in the immediate vicinity of the S-Bahn and U-Bahn station Friedrichstraße , the (today) Humboldt University and the government district. The rooms are located on the ground floor of the side wing of the listed building and today include a prayer room, the library and an office.

The office was initially headed by an “International Secretariat”, which consisted of an American, a British and a German Quaker. The first employees were Thomas Kelly and Richard Cary. The so-called Richard Cary Lecture , which is an integral part and highlight of the annual meeting, was named after the latter .

With the ebb of misery and the rise of National Socialism , work shifted towards emigration aid . The Quaker office became the point of contact for those who could not expect help from any other institution. From here z. B. participated in the so-called “ Kindertransport ”. Outstanding personalities of this time were u. a. Corder and Gwen Catchpool (UK Annual Meeting) and Gilbert MacMaster (USA).

When the USA entered the war, the last foreign Quaker left the office in the summer of 1941. Olga Halle and Martha Röhn continued to run the office until July 1942. During the war, devotional meetings, business meetings, and group evenings continued to take place. Emil Fuchs also worked in the rooms during this time .

In 1947 the German annual meeting decided to put the premises back into operation. The premises were renovated to remove the damage caused by the impact of the bombs. The first writer after the war were Willy Wohlrabe and Gerhard Schwersensky, Managing clerk was Margarethe Lachmund . It was used as the office of the German annual assembly until 1969, until the German annual assembly was split up at the urging of the GDR government.

In the period from 1962 to 1972, the rooms were also used by representatives of the American Friends Service Committee to mediate between East and West. However, these activities were no longer as intense as they had been before the war. From 1960 the number of visitors decreased steadily, so that finally only two or three participants were present.

Later, for cost reasons, individual rooms were sublet, for example to the Institute for Comparative State-Church Research .

After the reunification of the two German annual meetings in 1990, the office was used again as an office. Today, after the purchase, the property is the property of the German Annual Meeting. From June to August 2007 the premises were completely renovated and z. Some of them have been restored to their original floor plan. The office now has modern sanitary facilities, a kitchen and offices. The Sunday devotions are now regularly and actively attended by, in some cases, international guests. The prayer rooms are designed for up to 30 people - a number that is seldom reached in regular devotions.

See also

literature

  • Claus Bernet : 300 Years of Anglo-American Relations in Berlin: The Quaker Presence from the 17th Century to the Present. In: Yearbook for Berlin-Brandenburg Church History. 67, 2009, pp. 113-132.

Web links

Commons : Official residence of the Royal Theater (Berlin)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

proof

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b See also: “Quakers from Politics, Science and Art: A Biographical Lexicon”, Claus Bernet, ISBN 9783883094694

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '15 "  N , 13 ° 23' 24.2"  E