Siegfried Knak

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Siegfried Knak (born May 12, 1875 in Zedlitz , Thuringia , † May 22, 1955 in Berlin ) was a German Protestant theologian , missiologist and university professor .

life and work

Growing up in Berlin as the pastor's son and grandson of the revival preacher Gustav Knak , he studied theology at the universities of Berlin and Halle after graduating from high school in Berlin and Halle . In 1901 Knak took over a parish in Ribbekardt in Pomerania. During the First World War he worked as a field preacher between 1915 and 1918. From 1910 to 1921 he was home inspector and then until 1949 director of the Berlin Mission . Shaped by the theology of Gustav Warneck , his main concern was to “plant the gospel” in African and Asian cultures. Under the guiding principle of the people's church , he shaped mission theology between the world wars. He was also an active participant in the World Mission Conferences (1928 in Jerusalem , 1938 in Tambaram near Madras in India ). He tried to get Arthur Otto Rudolf Wegner, who had been forced to retire from the University of Halle and a member of the Confessing Church there, a post as a university professor in Madras, while he was a successful guest intern at the seminar of the Berlin Mission in 1938 and was also teaching English there.

In 1936, Knak joined the “Brother Council” of the Confessing Church and was its mission representative. He was also a member of the fraternal council of the working group of missionary and diaconal associations founded in 1934 by Friedrich von Bodelschwingh the Younger . In 1935 he was elected to the Interim Committee of the International Mission Council. On the occasion of the silver wedding anniversary of his mission inspector Walter Braun and his wife Erna on July 10, 1943 in the prayer room of the mission house , he gave the address and characterized in the introduction the present as a "time full of unrest, destruction, deprivation, full of uncertain future Biblical verse, One carries the other burden, so you will fulfill the law of Christ . He was deputy chairman of the German Evangelical Mission Council for a few years from 1945. From 1946 Knak was a representative of the Berlin-Brandenburg Provincial Church in the church leadership of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union .

From 1950 he worked as a professor at the Church University in Berlin , as a lecturer at the University in Halle and in the seminar of the Berlin Mission and in the Burckhardthaus .

In 1924 he was awarded an honorary theological doctorate from the University of Halle .

Works (selection)

  • The Church as a power that unites people. Magdeburg 1919.
  • Secularism and mission. 1929.
  • Faith and Ethnicity. In: German Abroad and Protestant Church. 1932 yearbook.
  • Mission and National Movement. 1933.
  • The Evangelical Mission in South Africa and Mission and Church in the Third Reich. In: Julius Richter (ed.): The book of the German world mission in words and pictures. Nuremberg 1939, pp. 75-81 and pp. 254-258.
  • The Church and the Secular Powers. In: Martin Schlunk (ed.): The miracle of the church among the peoples of the earth. Report on the World Mission Conference in Tambaram / South India 1938. Berlin 1939, pp. 149–159.
  • On the importance of nationality for missionary work. In: African Studies. Festschrift Diederich Westermann. Berlin 1955, pp. 164-173.

literature

  • Karl Hartenstein: On the 75th birthday of Siegfried Knak. In: NMZ 1950, p. 82.
  • Harald Kruska: Siegfried Knak in memoria. In: Theol.Lit.Ztg. 1955, No. 9, Col. 569f.
  • Walter Freytag: Siegfried Knak. In: Evang.Miss.Zeitschrift, 12th year NF, no. 1, pp. 118f.
  • M. Bauer: Bibliography Siegfried Knak. In: Theol.Lit.Ztg. 1955, No. 9, Col. 571f.
  • G. Brennecke: Knak, Siegfried (1875-1955). In: RGG 3 (31959), col. 1679.
  • Horst Bürkle:  Knak, Siegfried. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 150 f. ( Digitalisat )., (1980), p. 150f.
  • Knak, Siegfried. In: DBE 5 (1997), p. 612.
  • Karl Rennstich:  Siegfried Knak. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 4, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-038-7 , Sp. 1092-1097.  ( Article / beginning of article in the Internet archive ) (1992), Sp. 112-115.
  • Hans Luther: Knak, Siegfried. In: Lexicon for Theology and Church. Vol. 6, 31997, Col. 154.
  • Frieder Ludwig: Knak, Siegfried. In: RGG 4 (42001), Sp. 1461f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ clergy at associations and institutions of the outer and inner mission and the same as far as they work full-time in the Mark Brandenburg . In: Parish manach for the ecclesiastical province of Mark Brandenburg . Published by the Evangelical Consistory of the Mark Brandenburg, Berlin 1927, Section VII; DNB 014051877
  2. ↑ Schlunk, Martin (ed.): The miracle church among the peoples of the earth. Report on the World Mission Conference in Tambaram (South India) 1938 , Stuttgart / Basel 1939, [staff member Gerhard Brennecke (cand. Theol., Halle an der Saale), Siegfried Knak and others]
  3. ↑ personnel file Arthur Otto Rudolf Wegner in the archives of the Berlin Mission, signature BMW bmw 1/4369 ; Result: Wegner
  4. ↑ Walther, M./Breuung, L .: Biographical Handbook of the Emigration of German-Speaking Legal Scholars after 1933 , Berlin / Boston / Massachusetts 2012, p. 583; ISBN 3-11-025857-9
  5. ^ Fieber, Hans-Joachim: Resistance in Berlin against the Nazi regime 1933 to 1945 , Vol. 4, p. 164 [Knak]; ISBN 978-3-89626-904-1
  6. ^ Address to the silver wedding anniversary of the Braun couple on July 10, 1943 in Berlin by the director of the mission, Knak; in: Archive of the Berliner Missionswerk; Signature: BMW 1/2938
  7. ↑ Handbook of the German Protestant Churches 1918 to 1949 , books.google.de, accessed on May 25, 2015.
  8. ↑ Halbrock, Christian: Evangelical Pastors of the Church Berlin-Brandenburg 1945-1961 , Berlin 2004, p. 128; ISBN 978-3-936872-18-7
  9. ↑ Siegfried Knak: Biography at Kulturportal-west-ost.eu, accessed on May 25, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Knak, Siegfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian, missiologist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH May 12, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH Zedlitz , Thuringia
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1955
Place of death Berlin