Rudolf Weckerling

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Rudolf Weckerling (born May 3, 1911 in Wiesbaden-Biebrich ; † January 31, 2014 in Berlin ) was a German Protestant pastor who belonged to the Confessing Church during the Nazi era . After the Second World War, he became involved in peace work (including the campaign against atomic death ), ecumenism and Judeo-Christian dialogue .

Life

Weckerling studied from 1929 Protestant theology in Heidelberg , Rostock , Berlin and Marburg . In September 1933, shortly after his first theological exam , he was able to go to London on a one-year scholarship, where he met Dietrich Bonhoeffer and George Kennedy Allen Bell . In 1934 he became a member of the Confessing Church as vicar . After his ordination as a pastor, he served in parishes in Hesse , Pomerania and Brandenburg . Because of an intercession service for the imprisoned Martin Niemöller , he was imprisoned for the first time and then suffered several expulsions and Gestapo detention . In 1941 he was called up for military service in the Wehrmacht.

After the liberation from National Socialism he was first pastor in Berlin-Spandau and then in 1953 student pastor in Berlin. At first he was responsible for both the Humboldt University in East Berlin and the Technical University of Berlin in West Berlin, from 1954 his office was limited to the TU. Until the construction of the Wall in 1961, he held on to a whole Berlin student community that held joint events for its members.

Weckerling took part in the campaign against atomic death . In this context he spoke, among other things, as a student pastor at the closing rally of a silent march in April 1958. In the same year he traveled to Prague to a meeting of the Christian Peace Conference . In 1959, with the help of Heinz Galinski , he organized a German student group to visit Israel. In 1961 he was one of the founding members of the working group Jews and Christians at the German Evangelical Church Congress .

In 1962 he went to Monrovia ( Liberia ) as "Fraternal Secretary" on behalf of the World Christian Student Union . From 1964 to 1970 he worked as a parish priest in the German-speaking Protestant community in Beirut . This area of ​​responsibility also included looking after the communities in Syria, Iraq, Kuwait and Cyprus. From 1971 he worked at the Ecumenical Missionary Institute of Berlin. From 1976 to 1981 he was a pastor in the Genezareth parish in Berlin-Neukölln .

In 2005, Weckerling founded a foundation with a donation of 100,000 DM in memory of his (deceased) Ms. Helga, who was also involved in peace work, which supports the work of Action Reconciliation . As a lecturer and as a contemporary witness in discussions with the younger generation, he passed on his experiences from the Nazi dictatorship and on overcoming enmity between peoples. He translated ecumenical texts and those on Christian-Jewish dialogue from English into German. In addition to his own publications on these topics, he worked as an editor .

On January 9, 2009, he wrote a letter to former Soviet prisoners of war that was published in Russian.

Works

  • Is there a Christian pacifism ? In: Rudolf Weckerling u. a. (Ed.): Ways of Peace. Gertrud Kurz on her 70th birthday. Zollikon-Zürich 1960, pp. 97–104 (also in: The signs of the times . Volume 15, 1961, pp. 208–212)
  • The Protestant Church between East and West. Evangelical publishing house, Zollikon-Zurich 1946.
  • Ingrid Ehrler, Constanze Kraft (ed.): Vom Kuss Gottes: Sixty sermons from seven decades. Schkeuditz 2012.

As a songwriter

  • "With Maria greet the gentlemen"

As translator

As editor

  • Elisabeth Rotten : Idea and love. In: Crossed hatred. From the adventure of peace. Reports and self-presentations. Heinrich Grüber on his 70th birthday. 2nd Edition. Wichern, Berlin 1961, pp. 78-84; again in: Swiss teacher newspaper. (Supplement: Berner Schulblatt), Volume 107, Issue 6, 1962, pp. 177-179; here (1961), p. 78f.
  • with Wolfgang See (Ed.): Women in the Church Struggle : Examples from the Confessing Church Berlin-Brandenburg 1933 to 1945. Wichern, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-88981-006-3 .
  • with Günter Brakelmann a. a. (Ed.): Beyond Zero? Being a Christian in western Germany. Bishop D. Kurt Scharf on his 70th birthday on October 21, 1972. Kreuz-Verlag, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-7831-0390-8 .
  • Le Chaim : A trip to Israel. Young Germans report. Vogt, Berlin 1962, DNB 450766977 .

literature

  • For Rudolf Weckerling, vicar of the Confessing Church in Germany, pastor in the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg, on his 90th birthday on May 3, 2001.
  • "A deacon". Memorial essay for Provost Heinrich Grüber. 1985.
  • Freyja Eberding, Ute Gniewoss, Tilmann Hachfeld, Thomas Dietrich Lehmann, Christian Staffa (eds.): On the way - 100 years of Rudolf Weckerling. Festschrift. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-89246-056-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pastor of the Confessing Church died at the age of 102
  2. ↑ Original sounds from the speech, recorded by the RIAS, can be found at Sylvia Conradt: Page no longer available , search in web archives: “Church is always political.” Pastor Rudolf Weckerling. Broadcast in the series Gott und die Welt des Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg , Kulturradio, first broadcast on October 26, 2008, broadcast again on May 15, 2011. Brief content and broadcast dates (PDF; 190 kB), RBB press service@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.kulturradio.de
  3. ↑ asf-ev.de Helga Weckerlin Foundation at ASF /
  4. ↑ tagesspiegel.de
  5. ↑ a b christen-und-juden.de
  6. ↑ kontakte-kontakty.de ( Memento of the original from April 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kontakte-kontakty.de
  7. ^ Carsten Nicolaisen :  Niemöller, Martin. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 6, Bautz, Herzberg 1993, ISBN 3-88309-044-1 , Sp. 735-748.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  8. ↑ jcrelations.net
  9. ↑ archiv.ub.uni-marburg.de
  10. ↑ oerbb.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.oerbb.de  
  11. ^ Günter Wirth: Testimony from the other Germany . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 4, 1999, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 64–70 ( luise-berlin.de ).
personal data
SURNAME Weckerling, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant pastor, Christian resistance fighter, theologian
DATE OF BIRTH May 3, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiesbaden-Biebrich
DATE OF DEATH January 31, 2014
Place of death Berlin