Siegfried Leffler

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Siegfried Leffler (* 21st November 1900 in Azendorf, today part of Kasendorf ; † 10. November 1983 in Hengersberg ) was a Protestant theologian and a chief representative of the radical Thuringia wing of the German Christians in the time of National Socialism .

Life

As a student, Leffler was a member of the German Guild . Together with Julius Leutheuser , he left the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria in 1927 and went to Thuringia, where they hoped to be more open to their national ideas. The two friends married two sisters and became pastors of two neighboring parishes in the rural Wieratal near Altenburg , Leffler in Niederwiera , Leutheuser in Flemmingen .

As early as 1928 they founded a National Socialist pastors and teachers group. Amateur play groups, "volkish literary studies", youth evenings, "German folk evenings" should serve the goal of bringing a broad nationalist-Christian movement into being. In February 1930 they were among the founders of the first local group of the NSDAP in the Wieratal, which instigated a battle in Langenleuba-Niederhain on May 24th . They first used the name German Christians in the church elections in November 1931 , and in July 1932 Leffler began to publish the magazine Briefe an Deutsche Christisten as well as his own publishing program. The program of this group, later known as the Thuringian Church Movement German Christians, was the creation of an interdenominational national church in the sense of National Socialism. In 1937 Leffler became Reichsleiter of this movement.

On June 1, 1933, he took a leave of absence from church service and became a senior councilor in the Thuringian Ministry of Education in Weimar . However, he immediately applied with success to continue to perform official acts.

Leffler was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of the Institute for Research into Jewish Influence on German Church Life in Eisenach , which was commissioned by the Protestant regional churches involved in the institute to “de-Judaize” the Bible , liturgy and piety, as well as theological training business. When it was founded in 1939, he became its head, while Walter Grundmann took over the "scientific management". A memorial in Eisenach today commemorates this ecclesiastical "wrong track", which the institute was founded .

After the end of the Second World War , Leffler was interned in the Ludwigsburg camp from 1945 to 1948 . He then returned to the service of the Bavarian Evangelical Church and, after pleading guilty, was initially vicar in Iggensbach in the Deggendorf district . In 1949 he became the first pastor of the newly founded Friedenskirche in Hengersberg and remained so until his retirement in 1970. A year later he was made an honorary citizen of the place.

Works

  • Nordlandfahrt. Bärenreiter-Verlag, Augsburg 1925.
  • (With Albrecht Meyen): The circle of ideas of the German Academic Guild. Bärenreiter-Verlag, Augsburg (-Aumühle) 1925.
  • Christ in the Third Reich of the Germans. Nature, way and goal of the church movement German Christians. Verlag Deutsche Christen, Weimar 1935.
  • Church, Christianity, Bolshevism. Verlag Deutsche Christen, Weimar 1936.
  • Universal Church or National Church? Verlag Deutsche Christen, Weimar 1937.
  • Our way. Verlag Deutsche Christen, Weimar 1938.
  • The stars should be above Germany! Verlag Deutsche Christen, Weimar 1939.

literature

  • Oliver Arnhold: “De-Judgment” - Church in the Abyss . Vol. I: The Thuringian Church Movement German Christians 1928–1939 ( ISBN 978-3-938435-00-7 ), Vol. II: The “Institute for Research and Elimination of the Jewish Influence on German Church Life” 1939–1945 ( ISBN 978-3-938435-01-4 ), Studies on Church and Israel, Volume 25/1 and Volume 25/2, Institute Church and Judaism at the Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin 2010.
  • Susanne Böhm: German Christians in the Thuringian Protestant Church (1927–1945). Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-374-02614-2 .
  • Ernst Koch : Thuringian Paths in the “Third Reich”. In: Thüringer Gratwanderungen (Herbergen der Christenheit, special volume 3), Leipzig 1998, pp. 80–93.
  • Kurt Meier : Cross and Swastika: The Protestant Church in the Third Reich. DTB, Munich 1992.
  • Carsten Nicolaisen : Leffler, Siegfried , in: RGG , 4th edition, vol. 5, col. 175.
  • Anja Rinnen: Church man and National Socialist: Siegfried Leffler's ideal amalgamation of the Church and the Third Reich. German Studien-Verlag, Weinheim 1995 (Forum on Education and Didactics of Religion; Vol. 9), zugl .: Duisburg, Univ., Diss., 1994 (under the title: "We wanted to become spiritual officers ..." ), ISBN 3- 89271-533-5 .
  • Leonore Siegele-Wenschkewitz (Ed.): Christian anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. Theological and church programs of German Christians. Arnoldshainer Texte, Volume 85, Haag + Herchen Verlag, ISBN 3-86137-187-1 .
  • Hans-Joachim Sonne: The political theology of the German Christians (Göttinger Theologische Arbeit 21). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1982, ISBN 3-525-87372-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rita Thalmann: Protestantisme et National-socialisme: les débuts des "Chrétiens allemands" . In: Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine 12, No. 4 (1954), October – December 1965, pp. 287–308, here p. 291.
  2. ↑ Ernst Koch: Thuringian Paths , p. 81
  3. ↑ Oliver Arnhold: "Entjudung" - Kirche im Abgrund, vol. 2. The "Institute for Research and Elimination of the Jewish Influence on German Church Life" 1939–1945 (Studies on Church and Israel 25/2), Berlin 2010, p 475-499.
  4. ^ Katja Schmidberger: Memorial in Eisenach as a place of learning and a place of repentance. In: Thüringische Landeszeitung , May 7, 2019 (accessed June 29, 2019).
  5. ↑ a b Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 361.
personal data
SURNAME Leffler, Siegfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German National Socialist theologian
DATE OF BIRTH November 21, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Azendorf
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 1983
Place of death Hengersberg