Stephanie Mackensen von Astfeld

Stephanie Mackensen von Astfeld (born February 4, 1894 in Berlin ; † February 1, 1985 ) was a member of the Evangelical Confessing Church , which actively defended itself against state influence in church matters during the period of the 'Third Reich' .

Life

Stephanie Mackensen von Astfeld was born in Berlin and grew up in Düsseldorf . Her father, Ludwig von Renvers, was the first Catholic to be appointed governor of the Rhine Province after the Kulturkampf . Even as a child, Stephanie noticed the clashes between the Prussian state and the Catholics.

Time of the First World War

By marrying the Prussian Protestant civil servant Ferdinand Mackensen von Astfeld , she came into closer contact with the Evangelical Church . While her husband was fighting in World War I , she began to read the Bible herself for the first time and came to the evangelical faith "through Romans ".

Time of the Second World War

After the war, Ferdinand von Mackensen was initially an administrative officer in various smaller towns. In 1933 the family (now with three children) came to Stettin . Ferdinand was appointed Vice President of the Province of Pomerania and thus held the second highest government office there.

Stephanie von Mackensen joined the NSDAP in 1932 . Youth and social work had been her field of activity for years and the program of this party from 1920 seemed to offer the solution to the burning problems: the NSDAP presented itself as a party that gave the impoverished workers new hope, addressed the youth and pretended to to be able to bridge the class barriers. The national conservative orientation fit well with the views of a Prussian civil servant's daughter and wife. Accordingly, Stephanie also joined the loyal German Christians and was elected to the Pomeranian Synod for this group .

In the course of events from 1933 onwards, she began to doubt whether the goals of the NSDAP could really be reconciled with her conception of Christianity . The party program of the NSDAP had specified such a compatibility under Section 24. Stephanie got to know the Confessing Church and soon became a member of the Brotherhood of the Confessing Church in Pomerania. As its managing director, she was involved in political and theological discussions and decisions, organized, among other things, illegal collections and supported Dietrich Bonhoeffer's illegal seminary in Finkenwalde .

Together with her husband's uncle, Field Marshal August von Mackensen , she helped Albrecht Schönherr to a pastor's position. She was in contact with outstanding members of the Confessing Church such as Ruth von Kleist-Retzow (grandmother Maria von Wedemeyer , Bonhoeffer's fiancé) and Reinold von Thadden-Trieglaff , the chairman of the Pomeranian Brotherhood Council.

At the Confessing Synod in Barmen in May 1934, Stephanie von Mackensen was the only female delegate involved in the deliberation and adoption of the Barmen Theological Declaration . She took part in other Confessional Synods and stood up above all for the concerns of the laity in the Confessing Church.

In 1938 there was a conflict with the NSDAP. Stephanie, still a party member, had complained in a letter to the Pomeranian Gauleiter Franz Schwede-Coburg about his public denigration of the church. The latter then initiated party court proceedings with the aim of expelling her and her husband (who had been a member of the NSDAP since April 1, 1933) from the party. When this did not succeed, he arranged for Ferdinand von Mackensen to be dismissed and forced to retire from his state office.

Time after World War II

After the war, Stephanie first worked for a few years in the preacher's seminary of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia in Brackwede , then for many years as a volunteer chairwoman of the German-Evangelical Women's Association in Düsseldorf and in telephone counseling in Neuss and Düsseldorf.

Web links

• Project presentation of a master's thesis on Stephanie Mackensen von Astfeld at the University of Cologne (PDF)